by LEIBY BURNHAM | September 26, 2025 5:26 pm
It was hot, I was trapped, and it was getting hotter. I fidgeted uncomfortably in my seat
for a few minutes, and then I unbuckled myself and starting moving around my little
prison. Inevitably, as a normal seven-year-old, I soon found myself drawn to the
Forbidden Fruit.
I was stuck in a maroon station wagon that belonged to my neighbor. It was during the
few days between Yom Kippur and Sukkot when everyone is rushing hither and thither
trying to build a Succah, buy a lulav and esrog, and cook hundreds of holiday meals. My
parents had the additional challenge of doing all of the above while also managing a
whole brood of lil’ ones, and if I was any indicator, we were not an easy bunch! One of
my neighbors, who needed to run a few errands, offered to take me along. My parents
were only too happy to take him up on his offer. None of us realized that it would lead to
me being imprisoned in a maroon station wagon.
I tagged along with our friendly neighbor as he ran a few errands. We went to the
hardware store, the grocery store, and a few other stores, and then we came to the final
stop, a bank. My neighbor left me with these great parting words, “I’ll be right back. Stay
in your seat, and don’t touch anything!!!” To me, using the great deductive logic imbued
in me by my Creator, that sounded like, “If I’m not right back, you can get out of your
seat and touch everything!”
To be fair, I gave him a good twenty minutes (or at least that is what it felt like!). But as
the heat increased, my boredom increased, and my discomfort grew exponentially, I
began to focus on the latter half of my mandate. I began to touch everything. First I
tooted the horn, then I turned the wheel, but my mind kept wandering toward the gear
shifter…
Finally, I gave in and starting playing with that nifty handle, the ultimate Forbidden Fruit.
I somehow managed to take the car out of park, and put it into neutral. The car was
parked on a very slight incline, and it started to roll across the parking lot…
People rushed up to the car and tried to open the door, but it was locked. Then they
started screaming at me to press the brake, or to put the shifter back, but to me it sounded
something like, “PRESS THE SD;IO@HSV!!! PUSH BACK THE OU^FA;SJN!!!” At
first, I smiled and waved. Then, realizing that they were not friendlies, I quickly jumped
into the back seat, buckled myself in, and pretended like everything was the way it was
before I touched anything. The car however, didn’t play along. It kept rolling across the
parking lot picking up speed. It finally came to rest in the back quarter-panel of an
innocent pickup truck.
After that, things became a blur. I remember someone running into the store and fishing
out my neighbor. I remember him being very, very unhappy with me. I recall the owner
of the pickup truck being unhappy with the both of us, and using words that I didn’t
understand, but I don’t think they meant brake or shifter. A dark cloud of impending
doom settled uncomfortably on my shoulder as they exchanged insurance information.
My neighbor let me know that he could not believe I did something so foolish, and that
he would be make sure my parents would know how careless and reckless I had been,
and how much damage it caused. As we drove home the cloud thickened, every mile
taking me closer to the inevitable punishment.
I look back at that story, and I wish the current me was there to defend myself a few
decades ago. My defense would sound something like this;
“Mr. Neighbor-Man, is it true that you left the boy in the car, in the heat?”
“Yes”
“And is it true that you left him there for over twenty minutes?”
“Yes”
“Then what in the world did you expect of a seven year old-child trapped in a car? That
he would just sit there strapped in for twenty minutes without moving?”
“Umm…”
“Your honor, faced with no response but umm, I rest my case.”
This story is a classic Yom Kippur story. On Yom Kippur we review the mistakes and
sins we committed in the previous year, and do teshuva, repentance, for them. Teshuva
has three components. We start by honestly regretting the sin, recognizing the harm it
caused. Then we verbalize the sin by saying viduy, making that recognition real, taking it
from a cognitive idea to a spoken reality. The last, and perhaps most important, step, is
leaving the sin behind, walking away from it forever.
The last component is where most people get stuck. We may be very sincere in regretting
what we’ve done wrong, we may verbalize it in the Yom Kippur service with a torn heart,
and we may even resolve never to do it again. But by the time November rolls around,
that resolve seems to melt away, and we find ourselves back in the same patterns that
have been so destructive in the past. We wonder where our Yom Kippur sincerity went.
The reality is that we are often doomed right from the start. Our sincerity isn’t the
problem, our resolutions are. Often, we resolve not to do something again, but we don’t
put the proper systems into place to prevent it from recurring. In those cases we are
bound to break. “What in the world did you expect, that just because on Yom Kippur you
said ‘I’m never going to this again, never ever ever!!!’ that it would just magically go
away?”
Yom Kippur is the time to look for the triggers that cause us to make mistakes and devise
strategies to eliminate them. Once the child is in the car for twenty minutes, it is too late,
disaster is a given. It is not the child’s fault, he was being a child, it’s the adults fault for
setting up a disaster. We need to make sure we don’t leave the child in the car. We need
to resolve to change our behaviors so that we are not setting ourselves up for failure!
If we know that we always get angry when we walk into a messy house, we need to plan
what we’re going to do before entering the house, to prepare ourselves mentally for what
we will see. If we spend most of our time in synagogue talking to our good friend seated
on our left, maybe we need to change the place we sit. If we always gossip with a certain
co-worker, maybe we need to have a discussion with them about our feelings towards
gossip. Waiting until he says, “I can’t believe it! Did you hear what Marcy did this
weekend?” is setting yourself up for failure.
If we are taking our children on a trip we need to make sure we have plenty of snacks,
drinks, and activities for them, because if we don’t, they will get bored and cranky, and
we are likely to get stressed and lose our temper. Proper planning and avoiding triggers
can go a long way in positively navigating this tricky planet.
This Yom Kippur, when we go over our mistakes, when we think about the pitfalls that
have plagued us for so long, let’s not only resolve not to make the mistakes again. Let’s
think about removing ourselves from the situations which cause those mistakes.
Doing so will help us truly rise above our sins, and reach the purity we dream of on this
purest of days.
Have an Introspective Yom Kippur!
Parsha Dvar Torah
The Dvar Torah this week comes from Rabbi Mordechai Kamenetzky’s wonderful piece
on Torah.org
Parshas Vayelech has Moshe handing the reign of power to his beloved disciple
Yehoshua, who now will grasp hold of the destiny of the Children of Israel. Moshe does
not leave him without first guiding him through the difficult mission of leadership. At the
end of Parshas Vayelech, (Deuteronomy 31:7), “Moshe summoned Yehoshua and said to
him before the eyes of all Israel, ‘Be strong and courageous and do not be broken before
them, for Hashem your G-d — it is he who goes before you.'”
The Torah does not specify what “strong and courageous” actually means. I conjured my
own visions of how to be strong and courageous when dealing with a “stiff-necked”
nation. It entailed exacting demands and rigid regulations. The Medrash, however, offers
a totally diametric explanation.
The Yalkut Shimoni, a compendium of Midrashim compiled in the Middle Ages,
discusses a verse in Hoshea. “Israel is but a beloved lad and in Egypt I had called them
my child.” It quotes the verse in Deuteronomy 31:7, and explains the words “strong and
courageous.” Moshe explained to Joshua, “this nation that I am giving you is still young
kids. They are still young lads. Do not be harsh with them. Even their Creator has called
them children, as it is written, (Hoshea 11:1) “Israel is but a beloved lad.”
Can the Midrash find no better words to translate the phrase telling Joshua to “be strong
and courageous” other than be patience and understanding? In which way does
forbearance show strength? How does courage translate as tolerance?
In the years of World War I, a young student who was fleeing the war-ravaged city
of Slabodka sought refuge in Tiktin, a village near Lomza, Poland. A prodigious
Torah scholar, he compensated for room and board by becoming a simple cheder
teacher. He gave his lecture in a small schoolhouse, but the townsfolk were quite
suspicious. There were no shouts from inside the one-room schoolhouse as it was
with other teachers; the boys seemed to be listening. Rumor had it that the young
man even let the children play outside for ten minutes each day in the middle of the
learning session.
They decided to investigate. They interrupted his class one morning and were
shocked. The kanchik (whip) used by every cheder-Rebbe was lying on the floor
near the trash bin. Upon interrogating the children the parents learned that this
radical educator never used it.
Outraged, the townsfolk decided to call a meeting with their Rabbi to discuss the
gravity of the situation. Who knows what ideas a teacher who would not use the
kanchik was imbuing in our children? They worried.
The local Rabbi pointed to a picture of Rabbi Isaac Elchonon Spector, the leader of
Lithuanian Jewry. “Do you see that picture of the Kovno Tzadik?” He asked the
townsfolk. “One day thousands of homes across the world will have this young
man’s picture hanging on their walls.”
The elderly Rabbi was right. The young man became the leader of a generation,
teacher of thousands and dean of Yeshiva Torah Vodaath. It was the beginning of,
Rabbi Yaakov Kamenetzky’s career in education.
Moshe, the guide and architect of Jewish leadership, was empowering his disciple with a
message of guidance. The words “be strong and courageous” embodied leadership of love
and understanding. One can not talk of forbearance and patience without talking of
strength and courage. But more important: one can not show true strength and courage if
he is not patient and understanding.
Parsha Summary
The Parsha Summary this week was taken from Chabad.org
General Overview: This week’s reading, Vayelech, recounts the events of the final day
of Moses’ terrestrial life. Moses transferred leadership to Joshua and wrote a Torah scroll
which he handed over to the Levites. Moses commanded the Israelites to gather following
every Sabbatical year, and informed them of the suffering which will be their lot when
they will abandon the laws of the Torah.
Moses addressed the people, saying that he is 120 years of age on that day, and he is not
permitted to cross the Jordan River together with them. Instead, Joshua will lead them,
and Gd will go before them and destroy their enemies.
Moses continued his talk: Gd will vanquish the inhabitants of Canaan as He did the
Emorites and Bashanites. Moses enjoined the Israelites to be strong and not fear their
enemies.
Moses summoned Joshua and told him to be strong and courageous, for Gd will be going
before him and will not forsake him. Moses then wrote the entire Torah and gave it to the
Kohnaim (priests) and the Israelite elders.
Moses gives the commandment of Hakhel (assembly), whereby every seven years, during
the holiday of Sukkot which follows the Sabbatical year, all men, women, and children
assemble and the king publicly reads sections of the Torah.
Gd commanded Moses to enter the Tabernacle together with Joshua. Gd appeared to
them both and informed them that a time will come when the Israelites will abandon Gd
and stray after alien gods. At that time, Gd will hide His countenance from the nation,
and they will be subjected to much evils and troubles. Therefore, Gd says, “Write for
yourselves this song, and teach it to the Children of Israel. Place it into their mouths, in
order that this song will be for Me as a witness…” This ‘song’ is narrated in next week’s
Torah reading.
When Gd’s wrath will find the Israelites as a consequence of their evil actions, they will
claim that the misfortunes are befalling them because Gd has abandoned them. At that
time, the song which Moses and Joshua wrote will bear testimony that these events are in
fact punishment for their sinful behavior.
Moses took the freshly concluded Torah scroll and gave it to the Levites. He instructed
them to place it beside the Ark which contained the Tablets. Moses then gathered the
entire nation to hear the song, wherein he would call upon the heavens and earth to be
witnesses that the Israelites were forewarned regarding their fate.
Quote of the week: There is a vast difference between
praying and saying prayers. – Basil James Williams.
Random Fact of the Week: There are 293 different ways to make
change for a dollar.
Funny Line of the Week: I imagine if you knew Morse Code, tap
dancing would drive you crazy!
Have an Introspective Shabbos,
LB
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