We continue to discuss a part of our morning prayers, in the section of Korbanot/ sacrifices entitled LeOlam/ Forever, a man should be God-fearing. Yesterday we discussed the first unit, where a person says to God, before he prays, “I am not appealing to you due to my righteousness..” The next paragraph is actually like a copy and paste from the prayer of Neila . On Yom Kippur, after the 30 days of Elul and the Aseret Yeme Teshuva, we get to the pinnacle of Yom Kippur Neila- the ultimate, ultimate, pinnacle of the entire work that we go through. The Gemara in Masechet Yoma (87B, in the tractate that discusses the service of Yom Kippur) asks the question, What is Neila? Anything that we know, we get from the Mishna or the Gemara, and in the Gemara there is an argument between Rav and Shemuel. Rav says that we add another prayer for Neila, which is what we do. But Shemuel, the great Amora , says that's not necessary, because the main point of Neila (and we actually insert this line into our prayers), is the following line- מָה אָֽנחנוּ מֶה חַיֵּֽינוּ מֶה חַסְדֵּֽנוּ, מַה צִּדְקוֹתֵֽינוּ, מַה יְּשׁוּעָתֵֽנוּ, מַה כֹּחֵֽנוּ מַה גְּבוּרָתֵֽנוּ, מַה נֹּאמַר לְפָנֶֽיך ָ ה׳ אלוקינו אלקי אבותינו What are we? What is our life? What is our kindness? What is our righteousness? What is our strength? What is our power? What can I say in front of you Hashem, our God and the God of our forefathers? הֲלֹא כָּל הַגִּבּוֹרִים כְּאַֽיִן לְפָנֶֽיךָ וְאַנְשֵׁי הַשֵּׁם כְּלֹא הָיוּ וַחֲכָמִים כִּבְלִי מַדָּע וּנְבוֹנִים כִּבְלִי הַשְׂכֵּל כִּי כל מַעֲשֵׂיהנו תֹּֽהוּ וִימֵי חַיֵּינו הֶֽבֶל לְפָנֶֽיךָ, All the strong men, like the nobody in front of you. And the man of shame?Like they never existed the name. Wisemen have no knowledge, Understanding people with no intellect. All our acts are really empty They may have the days of our life are just hot air in front of You As the pasuk in Kohelet says, וּמוֹתַר הָאָדָם מִן הַבְּ֒הֵמָה אָֽיִן כִּי הַכֹּל הָֽבֶל The advantage of the man over an animal is nothing, because everything is empty. Tomorrow we will put a happy spin on this, but for now let’s just focus on these few lines that, according to Shemuel, is the whole Neila. It’s the whole story. After 40 days we have to get to the point of saying, “ What are we, what is our life? What is our kindness? What are we really doing here? It's all just hot air. It's not lasting. It's empty. And there is no real advantage of man over animal ( except for our holy soul, but we will save that for tomorrow's class). The point of it is really humility. Again. Humility is the beginning and end of everything. It’s what bitachon is all about, because if you really realize that everything comes from Hashem, then you don't take credit for anything. Everything we have comes from Hashem, so don't stand there, beating your chest with pride. Our rabbis tell us (specifically the commentary Etz Yosef on the siddur) that the word Ma/What shows up in this portion seven times, because this was inspired by Shlomo Hamelech who says in Kohelet, Havel Havalim, Hakol Havel. Havel Havalim It’s all hot air. The first Havel is singular, so that’s 1, Havalim is 2 because it’s plural. Then he says Hakol Havel (1) and Havel (1) and Havalim (2) again, which is adds up to 7, and represents the seven units of life. Man lives for 70 years- seven units of life. But it’s all hot air . It doesn't last. As good as you are, it doesn't last. The only thing that's going to last is our neshama . Hevel means hot air; and it doesn't last. It looks like something for a moment; like when you blow hot air on a cold day. You see some air coming out of your mouth, but it’s just the droplets of water that go from a gas into liquid, and then back into a gas again and disappear. That's how fleeting life is. The only thing that really lasts is our neshama . So we come, in every prayer, saying that whatever we're asking for in this world is really temporary. Our goal is the next world (which we'll get to tomorrow). The main point is humility . What are we? What are we really ? What's our power. Where is it coming from? It's all coming from Hashem. This is really the job of the month of Elul- humility . In Mizmor Letodah, the Prayer of Thanks ( which we say every day, right after Baruch She’Amar ), we say the words Hu Assano VLo Anachnu/He made us and not ourselves. The word of the VLo can can be spelled either לו Lamed Vav, meaning Him or לא Lamed Alef , meaning Not It's actually both. It can written one way but read a different way. So it can mean that He made us, not ourselves (i.e we didn't make ourselves, although we might feel that way) And it also be read as He made us and we belong to Him . The rabbis say that it's a two-step process. First, you have to realize that He made us and we didn't make ourselves. And once we’ve done that, we belong to Him. And if you take those letters, לו Lamed Vav and לא Lamed Alef, it spells אלול Elul. The job of Elul is to realize Lo Anachnu/ It's not u s…. Every day saying we start our prayers with מה Ma / What seven times. What exactly are we? What's our strength? We can fall to our knees from a little virus. We can fall to our knees from a change in the economy. What are we? That's the humility that we need to start our prayers with every day, but the end goal of 40 days of Elul is to realize that. And we say it in Neila, to bring us a final kapara . Have a one wonderful day.