There are things in life that, at a certain point, we simply decide are impossible.
Maybe I tried enough times. Maybe too much time has passed. Maybe I missed the opportunity. Maybe this is just who I am, and part of growing up is learning to accept it.
But what if Yom Kippur asks us to question some of those conclusions?
In this shiur, Rav Shlomo Katz and the women of Shirat David learn an extraordinary piece from Rav Adin Steinsaltz built around one of the deepest ideas in Chazal: teshuvah existed before the world was created. And if time, space, and all the normal rules of this world came afterward, then there is something about teshuvah that simply does not play by those rules.
We explore why our souls came down into this world in the first place, what it means to “raise the heavens,” and a vision of teshuvah that goes far beyond regretting our aveiros. What about the mitzvos we did that could have been so much more? The opportunities we were afraid to take? The years and moments we still look back on and wish had gone differently?
Rav Steinsaltz gives us a radically different way of entering Yom Kippur: not simply trying to clean up what went wrong, but discovering that through a connection to the Infinite, even the places we thought were finished can somehow be lifted.
Maybe Yom Kippur isn't the day to make peace with what is impossible.
Maybe it's the one day of the year to ask whether it was ever really impossible at all.
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Chapters
00:00 Opening Sponsorship & Yom Kippur
03:18 My Rav Steinsaltz Airport Story
05:35 Acceptance and the Primacy of Teshuvah
08:22 Hebrew, English & Opening Our Hearts
11:38 Why Did the Soul Descend to This World?
13:17 Raising the Heavens: The Soul's Purpose
19:41 Teshuvah Beyond Time and Space
22:02 Rav Steinsaltz on the Full Scope of Teshuvah
23:38 Can Teshuvah Change Your Past?
24:54 What Does It Mean to Raise the Heavens?
27:49 The Cloud Metaphor for Complete Forgiveness
29:19 When the Clouds Completely Disappear
31:01 Marriage and the Depth of True Forgiveness
39:19 Parenting and the Limits of Teshuvah
40:43 Repenting for the Opportunities We Missed
46:40 לפני השם תטהרו: Becoming Completely Pure
47:45 Why We Will Inevitably Sin Again
48:49 Finding Time for Yom Kippur as a Parent
50:11 Touching the Infinite
51:48 Shlomi Shabbat and אין עוד מלבדו
54:34 The אין עוד מלבדו Moment of Yom Kippur
55:40 Closing Blessing: Take This Torah With You
