It has been told that Shlomo Carlebach wrote his famed Krakover Niggun after riding an emotional roller coaster in one of the camps near Krakow. According to lore, as Carlebach stepped off of the bus he was hit with a deep wave of depression. While looking around at the survivors he was traveling with, he felt pain and sorrow for their past suffering and could not imagine what they were feeling having returned to such a horrible place. Just as soon as he felt the drop he hit the rise again. Suddenly, bursting through the doors of the bus were tens of children with Israeli flags, the grandchildren of the survivors, streaming onto the field at the entrance to the camp, filled with life and energy and happy to be off the bus. Carlebach, as is well known, claims to have never written a song in is life, rather to have served as a receiving vessel for songs that G-d decided to beam to him from up-high. It was at that moment, at the transition from sadness to happiness, that he "received" his masterpiece from the Heavens, the two part Krakover Niggun.
For those unfamiliar with the niggun (Yiddish for melody), it is compose of two seemingly unconnected parts. Though both in minor keys, the first is slow and ominous, a dirge mourning the loss of life in the camps and the pain embedded in the people who passed through them. Towards the end of the second round, the dirge breaks into a rollicking chorus reaching from low notes to high notes, sending the singers into the frenzy that was the children leaving the bus. It is the light at the end of the long tunnel that leads to Jerusalem, from slavery to freedom.
The Krakover niggun is one of the staples and highlights of Yom Kippur in Otniel. Right before beginning the intense prayers of the Mussaf repetition, Rav Benny Kalmason, one of the Roshei Yeshiva, leads the packed crowd of 500+ (in the mens section only) in the fabled melody. As the singing begins, I close my eyes and focus on the Yom HaDin, the day of judgment that I am facing. The slow chant sways me back and forth and instills in me a sense of awe for the position that I stand in. In the Courts of High, G-d is weighing my good deeds against my sins, measuring out my year, and deciding if I get another chance to prove myself, and with what means. Every single misstep is placed in front of him, and I would be a fool to think that the good outweighs the bad on the giant scale that, as we are taught from kindergarten, hangs among the angels and calculates our true yearly worth. Somberness fills the room and my soul. "If thou shall hold our inequities accountable, oh Lord, who shall live?," David writes in one of his "Songs of Ascents," and everybody in the room can feel the axe sharpened as the Satan reports on our every foul move.
And then...
Ecstasy. "This is the day that the Lord has made, we shall be happy and jubilant on it." The second part of the melody kicks in. True, it is the day of awe, the day of the world's judgment, the day when the future of everything we value hangs in the balance. But it is G-d's day to us; a day to stand in front of our maker and protest our cases, knowing that He is listening. "For he does not desire the death of the dead, rather a return from the [misled] path and life. Until his dying day He will wait for him. If he will return He will readily accept him," the Yom Kippur prayer reads. This is the holiest day of the year, and a day of love for the Jewish people amongst themselves as well as with their Lord. Like the Sabbath, it is a universal present that has been given to us, to stand in front of the Maker and pour out our hearts. The King has returned to his castle from the fields that are the month of Elul, but He is holding court with an open gate, beckoning for us to come forward. The capacity crowd on the yeshiva's floor comes to life, dancing around the long table in the middle of the room, extending to envelop the entire Beit Midrash (hall of study) in a chain of humanity. "As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I shall fear no evil for thou art with me." And I know that thou loves me as well. How can one not dance for joy at the thought of G-d's eternal love for us?
Yom Kippur progresses, managing to be both the longest and shortest day of the year. Twelve straight hours of prayer, with no break in the middle. An entire day of standing and praying with not a morsel of food or drop of water to refresh the soul. Just prayer, confession, and beseeching. Finally, the closing prayer of "Neilah," the locking of the gates, arrives. It is impossible not to feel the reverence of the moment. This is it, the "Hail Mary" of the Jewish people. The one last chance to repent and fix our misdoing from the past year and change our fate for the new one. The entire 24 hours have boiled down to this one moment where the body quakes from the lack of nourishment and trembles in fear of the future. If I only had one more hour, sixty more minutes to pray for my soul and for all of the world. But the day has gone by too fast, and I have only a fleeting moment. As the sun sets, bathing Otniel in the auburn red and deep violet of dusk, our last prayers are being offered. All that remains is to reaffirm the fact that "Our Father, our King, we have no king other than you. My lips curve into a smile and I laugh a laugh of contentment. "No matter what the outcome," I think to myself, "I have but one G-d and He loves me. I've given it my all, now all that I can hope for is the love of my Father on high."
I have no choice but to sing and believe that despite all of my sins, despite every moment non-compassion, despite every wrongdoing, He will give me His blessing for a successful year.
May we know love, and faith in the great unknown,
Yoni
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