Don't Forget Step One (Derashah for Yom Kippur, 5776)

I'm not entirely sure I like this derashah enough to use it. Not for any reason I can pinpoint, except perhaps that it feels educational rather than inspirational. Thoughts?
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Orthoprax Disillusionment

The following comes from a blog written by a shul rabbi a few years ago:[1]

My first rabbinic position was as an assistant rabbi…. The rabbi [asked me] to daven Mussaf for the shul on the second day of Rosh ha-Shana. I was flattered… I went home, almost running the whole way, to tell my wife the good news… I immediately began practicing. I got tapes of various chazzanim and spent hours each day memorizing the tunes. I recorded myself so that I could hear how I sounded… My wife was enlisted to listen to Mussaf, over and over again. I had a friend in Yeshiva who was something of a Chazzan, and we spent time on the phone going over each tune I intended on using. In the end, I knew the entire Mussaf by heart, no small feat.

Finally, the day came and I would like to think that I acquitted myself well… I was, however, surprised at the comments by the congregation. Everyone I met complimented the davening, but I was startled to discover that although each congregant focused on something different—a particular tune or tefilah—they, almost uniformly, included a variation on, “and we got out so early” or “it was so quick.”

At the time I didn’t know if they were being polite – perhaps they didn’t really enjoy it and that was all they could come up with. Over time, however, I learned that my congregants weren’t sugarcoating their praise or trying to come up with at least one redeeming quality from my Mussaf. Rather, the most important factor for most everyone during the Yomim Noraim, almost uniformly, was to make sure they were home by noon.

The Community we don’t seek

I think there was a flaw in the derashah I gave on Rosh HaShanah, and I don’t mean the fact that it lasted more than 10 minutes, and we didn’t make it home by noon. I believe the vision I presented from Rav Yerucham Levovitz, Rav Chaim of Volozhin and Rav Moshe Cordovero[2] was incomplete, because I left the impression that so long as we create community and bear the burdens of others with them, we have succeeded as Jews.

That sort of community is important – but it is only a partial job description, because that sort of community can easily become corrupted into what that assistant rabbi experienced:

·         A culture of observance can become a culture of rote, of what Yeshayah[3] called מצות אנשים מלומדה, trained practice rather than inspired action, just because these behaviours have been the norm forever.

·         A community in which people join together for mitzvot can become a community of peer pressure, in which people do right only because deviating would carry a social price.

·         A community which refines and hones religious practice can become a community of rules and ritual, without spiritual depth.

Certainly, Jewish communities should not exile people who currently observe by rote, who are influenced by peer pressure, and who follow rules without seeing meaning in them. But when community becomes all about doing as the herd does, then we fail the promise of unity. To my mind, Torah is a set of blueprints vouchsafed to us for the sake of shaping souls who personally connect with Gd as Step One, and who communally carry forth that Image of Gd into this world as Step Two.

Kesuvos says: Gd Before Community

I base this on a controversial passage of gemara.[4]

לעולם ידור אדם בא"י אפי' בעיר שרובה עובדי כוכבים, ואל ידור בחו"ל ואפילו בעיר שרובה ישראל, שכל הדר בארץ ישראל דומה כמי שיש לו אלוק, וכל הדר בחוצה לארץ דומה כמי שאין לו אלוק...

Always, one should live in Israel, even in a city which is mostly idolatrous, rather than live outside of Israel even in a city which is mostly Jewish, for anyone who lives in Israel is as though he has a relationship with Gd, and anyone who lives outside of Israel is as though he has no relationship with Gd…

Let’s leave aside the most controversial part, the assertion that one can have a relationship with Gd only in Israel; that’s a good topic for another time. But look at the second-most-controversial part – that I must move to a place where I can connect with Gd, even if that means living in an עיר שרובה עובדי כוכבים, an idolatrous city!

When I taught this passage in a shiur several weeks ago, one of the participants challenged me. What about all the ways in which Judaism places such a powerful emphasis on living among good influences, and avoiding bad ones!

·         The Torah presents the dangers of living in Egypt with Avraham and Sarah, among the Philistines with Yitzchak and Rivkah, and near Shechem with Dinah. Yosef tells his brothers to live in Goshen, not among the Egyptians.

·         The gemara records rabbinic decrees meant to encourage Jews to live away from bad influences,[5] to avoid joint meals and drinking,[6] and so on.

·         Rambam rules that a Jew who lives among people who are bad influences is required to move![7]

How, then, can the gemara tell me to go live among idolaters, in order to reside in a place where Gd is found?

And so I contend that before the Step Two that is Jewish Community, we need Step One: Personal relationships with Gd. This is how we avoid what that rabbi described, a world of Jews whose worship is rote.

Where do we find Gd?

As Rabbi Korobkin noted on Shabbos Shuvah, different people achieve Step One in different ways. To flesh that out:

·         Some people connect with Gd when hiking in the woods and appreciating our world;

·         Some people connect with Gd when learning Gd’s Torah;

·         Some people connect with Gd when walking where our ancestors walked, in Israel;

·         Some people connect with Gd when listening to music, or meditating and stripping away the noise buzzing around us;

·         Some people connect with Gd by channelling their own Image of Gd and putting it to work in helping other people;

·         Some people connect with Gd when engaged in activism and community leadership;

·         Some people connect with Gd when speaking directly to Gd of their experiences and dreams in davening.

Hopefully, all of us evolve and mature over the course of our lives, and find that even activities which were anti-spiritual in our youth can become meaningful and fulfilling later on. But each of us must be capable of finding something for Step One - and then using it to inform the community we construct in Step Two.

·         Then we can construct a community that remembers its connection with Gd and agrees to become responsible for each member, great and small, under the banner of ערבות, as part of the collective commitment we made to Gd when we crossed the Yarden.[8]

·         Then we can construct a community that testifies eternally to the contours of its covenant with Gd;[9] that will wear tefillin in 2015 matching tefillin unearthed from 2000 years earlier; that will live in far-flung, long-severed communities and yet read a sefer torah that remains eerily isometric; that will value their shared national connection with Gd beyond ties of geography, ethnicity and even ideology.

·         Then we can construct a community that is loyal to its relationship with Gd, and shapes its Torah observance in a way that is true to that relationship.[10]

Yom Kippur

Yom Kippur is a day of both Step One and Step Two.

Yom Kippur is a grand day for Step Two: Community with Others. The Jew dare not be a pious hermit on Yom Kippur. At Kol Nidrei, we rescind communal vows, welcoming even the ex-communicated back among us. We stand before Gd together.

But first, Yom Kippur establishes Step One: Community with Gd. We do not eat, we do not bathe, we do not wear makeup, husbands and wives are apart, it’s all about focusing on Gd. We recite viduy, privately specifying our mistakes from the past year. It is a personal conversation with Gd.

On Yom Kippur we recognize the importance of community – but we assert that there is no Jewish community without Gd at the centre of each individual life, and we create the external circumstances which will make a focus on Gd simpler.

Yizkor, and beyond

Yizkor, especially, blends these two steps:

·         We invoke the memory of those who created our Jewish world. Victims of the Shoah. Valiant founders and defenders of the State of Israel. Parents and other relatives. Yizkor is a time of profound community.

·         But at the same time, people recite their Kel Malei and ask Gd to remember as we do. Bereavement could be all about personal loss, and not a religious experience – but Yizkor makes it about Gd. Yizkor is a moment of locating Gd within grief.

When we put back the Torah after Yizkor, and begin Musaf, let us retain that blend of the two steps. Let us stand as a community of human beings, daven as a community, sing as a community. But let us also retain that Yom Kippur focus on the private union with Gd, even outside the Land of Israel, to ensure that our prayers and songs are not מצות אנשים מלומדה, but are centred on the Inspiration for it all.

Derrick Coleman

One last note, which might take the level of dialogue somewhat out of the rarefied spiritual atmosphere we associate with Yom Kippur, but which I hope you will find as meaningful as I do:

It can be hard to detach ourselves from the world around us, and experience a union with Gd. We are surrounded by neighbours and friends and relatives here. We get distracted, and pausing to re-focus is challenging. And perhaps we have a history of Yom Kippur davenings which did not reach those heights, telling us cynically that this day won’t be any different.

The other day, I saw a video[11] that really resonated with me on this point. It featured an American football player, Derrick Coleman. Coleman is deaf, and in the commercial, he talked about what it took for him to reach his goal of football success. Speaking over a montage of football scenes, Coleman said this:

They told me it couldn’t be done. That I was a lost cause. Kids were afraid to play with me. I was picked on… and picked last. Coaches didn’t know how to talk to me. They gave up on me, told me I should just quit. But I’ve been deaf since I was three – so I didn’t listen.

For the record, Coleman was not drafted by any NFL team out of college. But then he signed as a free agent after the 2011 season. He became the first deaf NFL offensive player in 2012, and won Super Bowl 48 at the end of the 2013 season. As of the start of the current season, he has two more NFL touchdowns than I do.

Sometimes, all of us need to refuse to listen. Achieving community with Gd is hard – but even if we have yet to achieve it today, or ever, this Yom Kippur isn’t over. Coleman concludes by saying, “Now I’m here, with a lot of fans in the NFL cheering me on. And I can hear them all.” May we merit Coleman’s level of success in our Yom Kippur, and may HaShem hear us all.

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[1] https://theorthopraxrabbi.wordpress.com/2010/07/29/speed-reading/

[2] Saw this great additional material afterward: Ohel Moshe to Sefer Shemos, pp. 119-130 in the pdf - http://www.hebrewbooks.org/pagefeed/hebrewbooks_org_46192_119.pdf

[3] Yeshayah 29:13

[4] Kesuvos 110b

[5] Eruvin 62a re: גזירה שמא ילמוד ממעשיו

[6] Avodah Zarah 59b, for example

[7] Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Deios 6:1

[8] Sanhedrin 43b

[9] Rav Hai Gaon, cited in Raavad’s Tmim Deim 119

[10] See Rama Choshen Mishpat 25:1, and see Rav Kook’s Beer Eliyahu to Choshen Mishpat 25:7

[11] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzQFA2hxyRQ

Which Rock is your Gd? (Derashah: Haazinu 5769)

What an unbelievable day it's been. Long, long story... but the derashah is done.
This is actually a derashah for a Bar Mitzvah this Shabbos, but I'll omit the Bar Mitzvah-specific details here.


Chaim, walking in the woods, suddenly encountered a bear. He froze - and then he watched in amazement as the bear put on a yarmulke and began to daven.
Chaim thought to himself, “I’m saved, I’ve found the only Jewish bear in the world!” He began to bentch gomel, thanking Gd… and he finished the berachah just in time to hear the bear finish his own last words: “המוציא לחם מן הארץ.”


Our parshah and haftorah also present “last words” - the closing songs of Moshe Rabbeinu and Dovid haMelech.

Moshe and Dovid, although separated by some 500 years, lived very similar lives:
• They started out as shepherds, where they showed great מסירות נפש, great self-sacrifice, on behalf of their flocks.
• They were both very humble. When HaShem tried to appoint Moshe to lead the Jewish people, Moshe refused; when Shemuel came to annoint a son of Yishai, Dovid assumed it must be one of his brothers.
• Moshe and Dovid both led the Jews for forty tumultuous years.
• Both Moshe and Dovid were stopped just short of their goals, Moshe prevented from entering Israel, Dovid prevented from building the Beis haMikdash.
• And both present their final messages to the Jewish people in emotional, evocative verse.

But when it comes to those final words, Moshe and Dovid take strikingly different paths in describing the Gd who had led them all of their lives - Moshe gives Gd the title of צור, and Dovid adds the title of סלע.


Moshe sees Gd as a צור.

A צור is a rock; hence the description מעוז צור ישועתי, that Gd is the Rock of my salvation, and hundreds of similar usages in Tanach and in our davening.

A rock is inscrutable; as the pasuk says, מי יאמר אליו מה תעשה, who can tell Gd what to do? Like the eagle Moshe envisions hovering over its young, Gd is physically near, but inherently distant and unreachable.

Moshe refers to Gd as צור several times in our parshah, repeatedly in association with the Divine Names of קל and אלוקים - Names which connote power and justice, not warmth and mercy. The same is true elsewhere in Tanach.


Dovid also depicts Gd as a צור, but he adds a title which Moshe never uses: סלע.

Technically, סלע also means “rock,” but in a different way. As Malbim explains, the סלע is המקום שעליו תעמוד המצודה על שן סלע גבוה - סלע is the high boulder on which our fortress stands. Yes, Gd is a stern protector, but Gd also lifts me up, HaShem elevates me.

It is not accidental that where the name צור is associated with אלקים, Justice, the name סלע is associated repeatedly in Tanach with the four-letter Name of HaShem, the יקוק which represents Mercy.

Dovid names HaShem as a merciful, supportive Gd.


It is striking (so to speak) that Moshe was twice told to draw water from a stone, but the stone went by different names on the two occasions. In the first instance the stone was described as a צור; in the second instance the stone was described as a סלע.

The first time, Moshe was told to hit the stone - this was a צור, a hard stone. The second time, though, Gd told him to talk to a סלע - because a סלע helps and assists. And when Moshe hit the סלע, treating it as a צור rather than speaking to it, he lost his chance to lead the Jewish people.


Why, though, does Moshe describe Gd in his last words as a harsh protector, where Dovid sees Gd as closer, more helpful?

Moshe does not lack for appreciation of Gd - indeed, even as Gd is about to take his life, Moshe performs צידוק הדין, acknowledging that Gd is just and fair!

And why does Dovid see Gd as a loving nurturer? Dovid the warrior, Dovid the fugitive, Dovid the besieged father, certainly knew his share of danger and trouble and strife, the times when Gd did not appear to be near!

Perhaps the difference is that Dovid had one relationship with Gd which Moshe never had: Dovid personally experienced Divine mechilah, Divine forgiveness. Moshe was never forgiven.

Moshe earned forgiveness for the Jews, as a nation, many times over - but never for himself.
• When Moshe refused the job of leading the Jews initially, Gd reacted harshly and revoked his כהונה.
• When Moshe grew angry at the nation, Gd removed some of his Torah knowledge.
• And when Moshe struck the סלע, Gd removed his leadership position.

Contrast that with Dovid; after Dovid’s incident with Batsheva, HaShem told him explicitly that he was forgiven. True, Dovid suffered punishment as well, but he was told, “ה' העביר חטאתך, HaShem has removed your sin.” Moshe never received such a message; for reasons that are not at all clear but that may relate to the unique relationship he had with Gd, Moshe was never forgiven.


Divine forgiveness is a transformative element in our relationship with Gd.

In Moshe’s experience Gd is a protective צור, punishing Egypt, splitting the sea, raining down bread from the heavens and levelling mountains to ease our travel, for whom we are obligated in את ה' אלקיך תירא and ואהבת את ה' אלקיך - we are obligated to have awe for Gd, and to love Gd.

But this is an incomplete presentation of the relationship promised by Judaism, by a Gd who also declares, “I love you back,” אהבתי אתכם אמר ה'.

Judaism promises:
• a universe in which Man, capital M, is cosmically important and cosmically potent,
• a universe in which our souls are חלק אלוק ממעל, carved from the Divine throne itself,
• a universe in which we are not merely an insignificant protectorate of a benevolent Gd but בנים אתם לה' אלקיכם, we are children of this Living Gd,
• a universe in which Gd is not only מלכנו, our King, but also אבינו, our Father.

This is beautifully illustrated by the reality of Divine forgiveness. A monarch does not forgive an insignificant or distant protectorate. Either their sins are beneath his notice, or their sins are a violation of his law and deserve punishment.
• Forgiveness is reserved for relationships, for people about whom you care, for whom you love.
• Forgiveness enables us to grow and not be bogged down in our past, it even turns our sins into merits, buoying us onward and upward.
• Forgiveness lights up the face of the Kohen Gadol when he emerges from the Beis haMikdash on Yom Kippur.

This is one reason why a crimson thread hangs in the Beis haMikdash on Yom Kippur, and it turns white when HaShem forgives us. It is important for us to see the forgiveness from Gd, to have that visualization, so that we will understand Dovid haMelech’s סלע, that Gd loves us and forgives us.

(Bar Mitzvah part here)

We are now coming to Succos, which we call זמן שמחתינו, the time of our joy. Unlike for other Yomim Tovim, the Torah says “You shall be happy” three times regarding Succos. A midrash explains that Succos earns these special mentions of joy because, among other things, we celebrate having been forgiven on Yom Kippur. This is the joy which Dovid expressed in the Haftorah, this is the joy of a relationship with Gd, this is the joy which we feel when we recognize that HaShem is more than our protective צור - HaShem is also our loving סלע.

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Notes:
1. Credit for the opening joke goes to Jack, here.

1. The Malbim's explanation of סלע is on the other version of our Haftorah, in Tehillim 18:3.

2. The midrash about Succos is in Psikta d'Rav Kahana.

3. Remarkably, the string in the Beit haMikdash was tied to a stone at one point - and the stone is identified (Rosh HaShanah 31b) as a סלע.

4. One point I don't really address: Why wasn't Moshe given the same chance for forgiveness? Even if we can explain away the incident with the stone as consequence rather than punishment, as some mefarshim do, we must still explain the other circumstances. (See my notes in comment #4 to this post; I might have the beginning of an idea there.)

5. While giving this derashah on Shabbos, it occurred to me that it sounds very Christian. Interesting.

The End of Leadership: An Elul thought (Derashah, Shoftim 5768)

I am not thrilled with this derashah; I feel like the key idea (the Intimacy point expressed below) requires more thought and discussion. This is part of the oversimplification to which derashot are vulnerable, due to both their natural format and the timeframe afforded for developing them.

Last week, drawing on Parshat Reeh, I proclaimed the Torah’s support for big government. We talked about a pro-active Fed, regulation of lending, commerce and employment, government price-fixing and restraint of trade, all sanctioned by the Torah in the name of society’s health.

Today we’ll have to throw much of that out the window, though, because Parshat Shoftim argues that government is a necessary evil, that political and religious leadership are not a blessing but rather a reaction to human frailty.

Parshat Shoftim introduces us to four classes of leader - Shofet, Melech, Kohen, Navi - and all of them are what we call in Aramaic בדיעבד, “after the fact,” a necessity but not a happy one.


First, Shoftim introduces us to the role of Shofet, of Judge.

The judicial system is a cornerstone of Torah civilization, and is prescribed for all humanity. One of the seven Noachide laws requires all human beings to create laws and enforce them. Shoftim, judges, ruled over Jewish society after the death of Yehoshua’s generation, governing us for four centuries until the coronation of King Shaul.

The Shofet’s power is taken very seriously in the Torah: The judge must be honored; as our Torah says, “If the judge tells you that something is the law, even if he says right is left and left is right, you are required to listen.”

But the Torah seems to view judicial leadership as a sad reality rather than an ideal. As the Torah states it, “כי יהיה ריב בין אנשים, ונגשו אל המשפט ושפטום,” “When people fight, then go to the court for justice.” כי יפלא ממך דבר למשפט, when you are not capable of handling disputes, then go up the ladder of the courts until you reach the Supreme Court at the Beit haMikdash. We do have a hierarchy of courts - but the entire basis for the system is this: When you have a conflict, you need a judge. If there were no conflicts, there would be no need for judges.


The Torah then introduces us to another leader - the Melech, the king.

Society often needs strong government, leaders who will protect society’s least privileged members. Some of our kings were, indeed, sensitive to that responsibility. Pirkei Avot notes that even if our monarchs are corrupt, הוי מתפלל בשלומה של מלכות, we should pray for the welfare of the king, because if not for the monarchy, each person would swallow up the next.

The king, like the shofet, can expect full allegiance; one who is מורד במלכות, rebelling against the throne, earns capital punishment!

But the Torah appears ambivalent about this federal authority, too. The Torah does not provide us with a clear instruction, “Create a federal government.” Instead, ואמרת אשימה עלי מלך ככל הגויים אשר סביבותי, When you say, “We will place a king upon ourselves, like all of the nations around us,” then you can have a king. It’s a concession to our desire.


The third leader we meet is the Kohen, the priest responsible to coordinate operations in the Mishkan and Beit haMikdash.

Those Kohanim, as well as their first-cousins the Leviyyim, played a critical role in Jewish society, bringing offerings and overseeing and maintaining the Beit haMikdash. Some of them were our greatest religious figures; Aharon was a Kohen, Moshe was a Levi, and their descendants guided the nation.

Like the Shofet and the Melech, the Kohen’s domain is sacrosanct; no one may enter the kohen’s territory. Usurping the role of a kohen earns lashes, at least.

But the whole concept of Kehunah and Leviyyah was really a correction for a problem; at first, as Rashi explains, we were not supposed to have a Beit haMikdash at all, let alone a class of religious officials. HaShem wished to dwell among us, in our homes and in our lives, and we were going to relate to HaShem directly. It was only after we created the עגל, the Golden Calf, that HaShem declared ועשו לי מקדש, that we would need a central site for worship, with dedicated workers who would staff that central site.


And, finally, we meet the Navi, the prophet who conveys messages from HaShem to the nation.

I would think that if any leader would be ideal, it would be the Navi - he talks directly to HaShem, and conveys guidance to the nation. Yeshayah, Yirmiyah, Eliyahu, Elisha, neviim are the giants of Tanach, earning praise far surpassing that of all but the best of our kings. So, what could be better than having a navi?

The Navi, too, is protected; those who refuse to follow a navi are harshly punished. And regarding a Jew who pretends to be a navi, Gd says אנכי אדרוש מעמו, I will deal justice to him.

But our parshah describes the Navi as a בדיעבד institution as well. Moshe tells the Jews that HaShem had really wanted to speak to each of them individually. It was only after the Jews retreated from Sinai and said, “We cannot hear from Gd directly, the closeness is too much,” that Gd said, “Fine, I see this is what you need right now, so I will appoint intermediaries to communicate with you.”


So why do we need these leaders and their laws? If Gd didn’t want these functionaries, if Gd wanted us to be able to function without shofeit or kohen, then why did He create us this way?

One answer, I think, is that all of the problems which led us to need judge and king, kohen and navi, stemmed from one fundamental element of our design: Ever since Adam, we have been created as proud individuals, our souls and bodies separated from all others, with the strength of independence and all of the positives it brings. We recognize ourselves as islands, our primary interest is to look after our own well-being, and every relationship, every interaction, is judged based upon how it will affect our independent strength.

The downside of all of this independence is that it comes with an inability to handle immediacy, intimacy:
*Intimacy with other people: We need a shofeit because we have a natural selfishness which traumatizes our relationships; we need a melech because we cannot unite ourselves.
*And intimacy with Gd: We need a kohen because we aren’t ready to be close to Gd; we need a navi for the same reason.

Of course, we do seek community, and we do act selflessly at times, to fill our pragmatic needs - to provide comfort or protection or resources, or to fill some other psychological or practical gap. We seek HaShem, too, generally because of some need within ourselves. But these practical needs tend to be more utilitarian than idealistic.

We erect barriers against too close an intimacy with others, lest we make ourselves vulnerable to harm. Emotions are concealed, apologies are scarce, rights are fiercely protected, and only the power of the law and the lawsuit can wrestle concessions from our tight grasp.

We shy away from too intense a sharing of our with Gd, lest we become drawn into a religion which will eliminate our individuality. It’s the old phenomenon of vicarious Judaism - having the rabbi be the professional Jew, doing “all the right things,” so to speak, so that other people won’t have to.


Enter these leaders, as mediators - kings and judges to mediate our relationships with other people, priests and prophets to mediate our relationship with HaShem.

But these roles, I am convinced by our parshah and by the predictions of the neviim, are not meant to last forever. As the neviim themselves predict, there will come a day when we will all be neviim, כי מלאה הארץ דעה את ה', the earth will be filled with knowledge of HaShem. We will all be a nation of kohanim, and we will not need special kohanim. No longer will we seek physical gain at the expense of others, and so the שופט’s role will be reduced to handling misunderstandings. And our final king will be a mashiach who will lead us as a nation to reach this ultimate state.

Our task is to evolve, to understand that embracing other people does not eliminate our sovereignty as individuals, to accept that an intense embrace of HaShem does not mean the end of our personalities and identities, to render these leadership models obsolete. Through acts of generosity - political generosity, financial generosity, emotional generosity - we can draw closer to others, step by step, until we are one. And through acts of piety - davening, learning, observing the mitzvot - we can draw closer to HaShem.


There is one day during the year when we achieve this intimacy with our neighbors and with HaShem: Yom Kippur.

*We discard all distractions of food and physical pleasures, to spend the day focussing on Gd.
*Right at the outset we announce that we have come to pray as one, ignoring barriers for 25 hours until we embrace each other with the shofar blast in our ears and ה' הוא האלקים on our lips, at the close.

In this month of Elul, let’s set the stage for that evolution, apologizing to others for our wrongs and then apologizing to HaShem as well, breaking down barriers of self-consciousness as well as denial, and so come to HaShem and to society on Yom Kippur prepared not to rely on a king or judge, priest or prophet, but to commune with Man, and with HaShem, ourselves.

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Notes:
1. On the "Lo Tasur" protection for a Shofet, see the difference between Sanhedrin 89, which I cited here, and the Sifri to the same pasuk.

2. I adopted Rashi's view on the origin of the Mishkan/Beit haMikdash, as a make-up for the Golden Calf. However, even with Ramban's view that there was always to be a central site, the firstborn were originally to do that work, so that a greater cross-section of the nation would have been represented, and that changed with the Eigel.

3. I am going out on a limb with my description, at the end, of the messianic period as a time when intentional sin will be more or less eliminated. This is actually not clear at all.