YOM KIPPUR אור זרוע לצדיק ולישרי לב שמחה

At the beginning of the holiest day of our year, our custom is to take out the Siphrei Torah and whilst these are being taken round the bimah, the Chazzan intones the verse from Tehillim אור זרוע לצדיק ולישרי לב שמחה and this is repeated by the whole congregation with great fervour. The only explanation that I have found for this custom is brought in the name of the Arizal and is very esoteric.

The heads of the community also state at the same time that with the agreement of ה' and the whole community אנו מתירים להתפלל עם העברינים, namely that we allow in to pray with us even people who have sinned grievously.

I would like to suggest an explanation for using the verse אור זרוע לצדיק ולישרי לב שמחה, A light is sown for the righteous one and the upright of heart have joy.

There is a Sefer written approximately 700 years ago by R’ Yitzchok of Vienna, one of the Rishonim, known as אור זרוע. He writes in his introduction that he named his sefer אור זרוע in commemoration of a dream that he had concerning R’ Akiva. The famous R’ Akiva’s name is spelt differently in the Gomora Bavli from the Gomora Yerushalmi. The Bavli spelling is עקיבא. The Yerushalmi spelling is עקיבה. His dream was that the name is encoded in the verse אור זרוע לצדיק ולישרי לב שמחה. By taking the last letters אור זרוע לצדיק ולישרי לב שמחה (ר'עקיבה) you will then find that the last letter of the verse is a ה and this will be the last letter of עקיבה spelt with a ה. To commemorate this dream he therefore called his sefer אור זרוע.

He comments, How praiseworthy are you R’ Akiva that Dovid Hamelech in his prophecy already referred to you in Tehillim. Furthermore, how praiseworthy are you that ה' showed Moshe Rabbenu that you would explain the tagim, the little crowns on top of letters in the Sefer Torah, to the amazement of Moshe Rabbenu.

Many of us are aware of the history of R’ Akiva who for the first 40 years of his life was an Am Haaretz to the extent that he himself stated later that he had hated the Talmedei Chochomim.

He then, with the backing of his wife, commenced learning Torah at the age of 40 and for the next 40 years he studied Torah under the leading Rabbis of the time. He became the leading Rabbi himself for a further 40 years and passed away at the age of 120. I say passed away, but as the Gomora tells us at the end of Brochos, he was tortured and finally killed by the Romans with the posek שמע ישראל on his lips. A צדיק who died על קידוש ה'. The highest imaginable level. However, it is not so well know that this took place just at the onset of Yom Kippur, Kol Nidrei night.

R’ Akiva was the prime example of a Jewish person who had started off as a grievous sinner and changed completely not only to become a Talmid Chochum but eventually the greatest Rabbinical leader of his generation.

I think that it is, therefore, very fitting that the verse אור זרוע לצדיק ולישרי לב שמחה is utilised at the opening of our tefillos and at the same time as we are מתיר to pray with the avayomim, those who have sinned grievously. Even they can improve just the same as R’ Akiva improved so dramatically.

It is also noteworthy mentioning the similarities between Moshe Rabbenu and R’ Akiva. Moshe Rabbenu came down on Yom Kippur for the third time after having brought down the second luchos having by then been in heaven for a total of 120 days.

Moshe Rabbenu himself lived exactly 120 years. Furthermore, his life was divided into three parts, the first one where he lived in the palace of Pharoh, which you could compare with the first 40 years of R’ Akiva’s life. Moshe Rabbenu then went to Midian and the famous burning bush. These were years of growing in לימוד and עבודת הבורא learning about and growing in stature in the service of Hashem.

His final 40 years were as the leader, the spiritual leader, of the whole of the Bnei Yisroel.

Finally, one other comparison, that is that we find a Gomora in חגיגה י''ב which says that four great Rabbi נכנסו לפרדס, they attempted to plumb the depths of the esoteric part of Torah. The Gomorra says that only R’ Akiva went through the process without any harm. The word פרדס adds up to 344. משה adds up to 345. This is to indicate to us that despite the fact that R’ Akiva was so great and that he could even expound on every letter and תג the crowns of each letter to the extent that this amazed Moshe Rabbenu, nevertheless, Moshe Rabbenu was that little bit higher even than R’ Akiva.

Moshe Rabbenu himself received the Torah from Hashem as Hashem told Aharon and Miriam פה אל פה אדבר בו ומראה ולא בחידות. That level was never reached by any person before or after.

ג' תשרי תשס''ט