V'higadeta - Yom Kippur & Sukkos - Insights & stories

Insights, stories, and teachings from the treasure-trove of the maggid. “Ayekah! Where are you?” Rav Yaakov Galinsky, zt”l, tells the story of someone davening in shul on Yom Kippur, klapping Al Cheit. Someone says to him, “You can stop knocking now. There’s no one home”. Of course, that’s not how we want to come to Yom Kippur. The Shulchan Aruch tells us (Orach Chaim 100) that before the Yamim Nora’im it’s important to go through the tefillos we will be saying to make sure that we know what we’re about to say and what it means. It’s especially important to review the seventy confessions of the vidui so that we understand what we are confessing and internalize it. Rav Galinsky goes through each confession, one by one, and through his stories and lessons from the Torah and Chazal, he explains how each one applies to us. He reflects on a person’s character and nature and shows how to ensure forgiveness and a good, prosperous year: “You ask nothing else of a person, only that he say, ‘I sinned!’” (Midrash Shmuel 13). Besides his insightful explanations of the vidui, here you will find stories and lessons on the mitzvos of Yom Kippur itself, on the order of the service in the tefillah, on sefer Yonah and Ne’ilah, as well as derashos on Sukkos, the arba’ah minim, the simchas beis hasho’eivah, the ushpizin, Hoshana Rabbah, and Simchas Torah.  Rav Galinsky delivered thousands of derashos in the halls of yeshivos and batei midrash, and before huge audiences, both religious and nonreligious. He is responsible for bringing so many people closer to Hashem. Now, finally, his derashos are accessible in print to the English-speaking public. With his unique, penetrating style – with stories and parables, life lessons and maxims, pesukim, and ma’amarei Chazal – he topples the defensive walls we’ve built around ourselves. He shows us who we are, and who we could be, if we only allow it.