Sunday, October 7, 2007

Post-Yamaim N'eoraim Tefillah for Kedushas Levi's yartzeit - My birthday!


Today is the Yartzeit of Rav Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev. It is also the yartzeit of the Chasam Sofer. And it is also Dixie Yid's birthday. On the 25th of Tishrei, I am now #%^@#-;^%">#%^% years old!

In honor of the yartzeit of the Kedushas Levi, I wanted to paraphrase a quick tefillah from the Berdichever that is nogeia to these days, which I heard from my rebbe.

"Ribbono Shel Olam, you used just 4 words in your Torah, "Yom Teruah Yihiyeh Lachem," "a day of blowing it shall be for you." In order to fulfill every possible meaning that those words have, every single congregation blows the shofar 100 times on each Rosh Hashana. And there are two days of Rosh Hashana so every congregation blows 200 Kolos on the shofar to fulfill those four words. Not only that, they blow them every year in every congregation in the world for thousands of years. So we Jewish people have blown the shofar millions upon millions of times to fulfill those four words in your Torah!"

And what do we say? All we ask is, apart from all of the other ways we daven for Moshiach, "Tekah b'shfar gadol l'cheirusainu!" "Blow the great shofar of our freedom!" We're only asking for *one* blowing of the shofar! And every Jew asks this 3 times every day. So among the whole Jewish people, over all the generations, we have asked for this one blowing of the Shofer millions upon millions of times. Hashem, you asked one time and we blew the shofer millions of times. And we are asking millions of times for just one blowing of the shofer, the blowing of the Shofar announcing that Moshiach is here. Please Hashem, when will you answer us!"

-Dixie Yid

(Picture courtesy of Jewishart.org)

2 comments:

A Talmid said...

Happy Birthday! Till 120 in good health.
I just read this about the Berdichiver last night in the bio in back of one of the editions of Kedushas Levi.

Alice said...

Happy birthday!