As the Gates Begin to Close – N’ilah 5774

Cantor Mary Rebecca Thomas

September 14, 2013

There is a propensity to love the service of n’ilah, these final moments of Yom Kippur prayer said as day turns to dusk. Here at Beth El, our “purple” service (hold up book) is most beloved throughout the year. Rabbi Alan Lew writes that people “throng” to his synagogue for n’ilah, even after praying all day long.

We Jews the world over are pulled to this service.

Personally, I am viscerally drawn to this hour, this service of n’ilah, (and it is not just because I’m eagerly anticipating the best night’s sleep I get all year awaiting me when I get home). While I am most profoundly moved by the words and music of this service, I have some continuing struggles with one of the central images of n’ilah. Each year at this time I work hard to peel away layers of my own discomfort, uncovering new understandings about the wisdom of our tradition as I do.

So, what is my problem with N’ilah? Isn’t the beautiful poetry and majestic music enough? My struggle is with the word n’ilah, itself, which means locking. Calling a service n’ilah instructs us that something is about to be closed off, something is about to be locked away. Each year I ask, what are we locking? And why does it need to be locked?

Tradition says that Sha’arei Hashamayim – the Gates of Heaven are open wide during the Days of Awe.

Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev taught that when Sha’arei Hashamayim are open during the Days of Repentance, it is not only so that our prayers might enter more readily, but also so that we might receive Heaven more freely. You see, he teaches, that when the Gates are wide open, bits of Heaven flow towards us here – there is a subtle, special energy that pervades our world these Ten Days. When the Gates begin to close, as they do now, they push back against those bits of Heaven seeping toward us. And this energy, otherwise relatively imperceptible, becomes concentrated as it rushes through the ever smaller space between the closing Gates.

I imagine this flow of glistening energy as water. I imagine the pressure on that Divine energy as the Gates close as a parent might hold their hand over the end of a garden hose to spray children playing in the yard, to see them squeal and delight in this playful affection. It is as if Avinu Malkeinu, our heavenly parent, is showering us with love as we stand in the Divine courtyard.

What might the consequences be of a Divine energy pouring toward us for Ten Days? Perhaps this flow of Heavenly energy is what gives us the strength to do the hard work of this season. Perhaps this is the potential energy for the year to come sustaining our hopes and dreams. Perhaps, we are the recipients of even more Divine love fueling our innermost longings. Perhaps what pours forth from Heaven at this hour is our spiritual sustenance for the year to come. Perhaps it is giving us the material with which to build our lives this year.

The word for material – for stuff – in Hebrew is “chomeir.” There is a beautiful liturgical poem that we do not recite here at Temple Beth El called “Ki Hinei Chachomeir”; it is found in our High Holy Day prayerbook on page 381 and it is sung like this: Sing first stanza.

This first verse can be translated: As clay in the hand of the potter, to be thickened or thinned at will, are we in You hand. Continue to sustain us with your gracious love. Recall Your Covenant, not our imperfections.

This text portrays a somewhat unusual theology for Judaism. It seems to suggest that we the chomeir – the material – can be shaped and altered at the will of our Creator. As Jews, we are a people of deed and not creed; it takes much more than belief to be Jewish, we must be active in our Jewishness. It is not enough, as some of our neighbors might say, to simply give ourselves over to God for molding and shaping. We must be our own molders and shapers.

Each stanza of Ki Hinei ChaChomeir ends with the same refrain – Recall Your Covenant, not our imperfections. This sentence is much more familiar. Remember Your promises to us God, Remember us despite any wrongdoings for which we now repent.

There is a mystical teaching about the nature of our Covenant with God. It explains that we are in partnership with God to sustain the world at every moment of every day. Should one of us cease to uphold our end of the bargain, the world would no longer be. We are inextricably bound to God and God is to us at each moment and every moment of our existence.

Is it so hard then to imagine that God might give us a gift during these days of Awe? It is a gift to share a festive meal (though today’s has yet to come) with friends and family; it is a gift to be guided to examine our character and our behavior; it is a gift to take the time to look backwards and forwards at what we have done and what we hope to accomplish with our lives. Could it then be that God also gives us a gift at this season of the year of just a little bit more palpable taste of what it means to be holy with the Gates of Heaven wide open, God’s loving warmth spreading forth to us?

I do not know the answers to these questions. I only know that for me, there is beauty in the longing to be near to our Creator and comfort in the imagining that our Creator longs for us as well.

We are drawn to N’ilah, we are drawn towards the last moments of the blending of Heaven and Earth, as Divine light pours forth from the Gates as they begin to close. Let us, Clay in the Hands of the Divine Creator, find warmth and comfort in that radiance as the Gates begin to close.