Not Holding On to the High Yizkor Shmini Atzeres
30 seconds.
That is the amount of time it would have taken for our national consciousness to have been plunged into the deepest state of mourning.
Flight 1073 was 14,000 feet from the ground, dropping at 33,000 feet a minute. Thirty more seconds is all it would have taken.
Can you imagine?
174 individuals. 174 funerals. Over a hundred shiva houses.
Can you imagine the headlines? Just under three years from October 7th, another calamity of epic proportions.
Thank G-d, the headlines we woke up to were exactly the opposite.
174 lives saved.
An endless stream of memes highlighting the heroism of a bunch of balding Israelis. I have been bursting with pride.
The videos of a plane full of Jews singing to G-d, v’ha’ikar lo l’fached, Am Yisrael chai – it gives me the chills.
Our enemies tried to destroy and demoralize us, and G-d came through with more drama than bunker bombers and exploding beepers.
My Hallel was different Wednesday morning.
Hodu LaShem – give thanks to Hashem. Yes! I will!
Zeh hayom asah Hashem, nagilah v’nism’cha bo – this is the day Hashem created; let us rejoice! Absolutely!
It was still different this morning. How could it not be? How could we not be bursting with pride, gratitude, and joy?
But lingering in the back of my mind is another question:
How long will this feeling last? How long will I hold onto this beautiful rush of emotions?
If the past is any indicator, not very long.
A year ago, we also had a euphoric Hallel. The last of the hostages were released. After two years of marching, wearing pins, praying endlessly—they were finally home. Remember that feeling?
It also dissipated.
On a smaller scale, I experience this every holiday season, and I imagine many of you do as well. The majesty of Rosh Hashanah. The purity of Yom Kippur. The joy of Sukkos. It feels so powerful, so real.
And then a week goes by. Maybe a month.
And somehow, we are back to normal.
I wonder if this is particularly difficult for our generation. Thanks to our phones and thanks to social media, we have become dopamine junkies. We are constantly looking for the next notification, the next video, the next headline, the next experience that will make us feel something. In 2004, the average American would look a screen for 2 and a half minutes. Today, the average is 40 seconds. We are dopamine junkies, always on the prowl for the next hit.
And then we bring that same expectation into our religious lives.
We want the inspiring Neilah. The incredible Hallel. The powerful sermon. The emotional song. We want a moment that gives us chills.
But a relationship, a real relationship, cannot survive on chills.
If you don’t believe me, ask the many people in this room who will be saying Yizkor.
A father could take his child to Disney World once a year, but if he ignores that child the other 364 days, there is no real relationship.
A wife could make an enormous fuss over every graduation, birthday and milestone, but if there is no conversation, no interest, no connection in between, something essential is missing.
Real relationships are built in the boring moments.
The phone call.
The ride to school.
Dinner together.
The little joke that nobody else understands.
Showing up again and again and again.
Ultimately, relationships are not sustained by their highs. They are sustained by a solid rhythm.
Perhaps when we are young and immature, we want an Instagram-worthy relationship full of sizzle and pop. But as we mature, we hopefully realize that the best and deepest relationships are formed out of consistency, out the routine of a regular, boring life.
Our relationship with G-d is no different.
Chazal tell us that at the end of Sukkos, G-d says, kasheh alai p’reidas’chem – your departure is difficult for Me. So Hashem gives us one more day: Atzeres, which means, stop. Atzor! Don’t leave yet. Stay with Me one more day.
Rav Hutner asks an obvious question. What does that accomplish? Instead of saying goodbye today, we say goodbye tomorrow. We have postponed the problem by twenty-four hours. Shkoyach. Seems fairly shortsighted for G-d, don’t you think?
Rav Hutner explains that this is where Simchas Torah comes in.
When the holiday season ends, we will not have a shofar. We will not have Neilah. We will not have a sukkah or a lulav and esrog.
But we will have the Torah.
Because Torah does not depend upon a spiritual high.
Torah and its Mitzvos create the rhythm of an ordinary Tuesday morning.
Simchas Torah is the counter-cultural holiday we desperately need. It comes at the end of this season to remind us to stop looking for the next spiritual hit. It reminds us that real, genuine spirituality, like real, genuine relationships, does not give us a high.
G-d is not asking us to somehow preserve the emotional intensity of this month forever. That would be impossible. It’s foolish!
On Simchas Torah, He is asking us to take our relationship home.
Don’t try to bottle Neilah.
Don’t try to recreate Wednesday morning’s Hallel.
Choose something that will not give you the chills in six months from now.
Five minutes of Torah every morning. One chapter of Nach. One halacha at dinner. One extra minyan a week. One Mitzvah we’ve been ignoring. One weekly phone call to someone who needs it. Incorporating a new behavior into home, into work. Even when it’s boring. Especially when it’s boring.
As we say our goodbyes to this beautiful season, let’s make sure we don’t leave until we have found that one thing, that one behavior, that one commitment, that one small rhythmic change.
Great lives and great relationships are rarely built in great moments. They are built through small things, done faithfully, again and again and again.