Yom Kippur: All about the Lip Service

Lip service has gotten a bad rap, but in the words of Hoshea (14:2), from the Haftarah for Shabbat Shuva, that's what it's all about. "Instead of bulls we will pay (the offering) of our lips."

In fact, lips used to be taken seriously. If a watchman had promised to pay for livestock he was watching that had been stolen, and thereafter, said he would not, the Gemorah in Baba Metziah avers that surely he still intends to pay; he just doesn't have the money handy at that given moment. 

The words of our mouth have a potency that's hard to comprehend; in Sanhedrin, a flagrant murderer being led to his death was encouraged to atone, the presumption being that his atonement was full-hearted and complete in every sense of the word. 

It is truly a blessing to live in a society when what we say actually matters, when the words we utter are so far-reaching that they shape lives in ways that are otherwise recognizable. 

I will end with a story, simple, yet poignant, shared to me by Rabbi Faivelzon, who taught under a wise scholar named Rabbi Moshe Shapira of blessed memory. It was erev Yom Kippur, as it is right now, a time very busy for people with communal roles, and probably everyone for that matter. A buchur in his yeshiva who was growing spiritually had gotten himself involved in a romantic relationship that threatened his spiritual growth, and return to religiosity. Rabbi Faivelzon, cowed by the prospect of the imposition, asked Rabbi Shapira if perhaps, at some point between Yom Kippur and Sukkot he could find some time to meet with the young man; Rabbi Shapira, not missing a beat, said today, would work just fine. Rabbi Faivelzon was non-plussed, the afternoon before Yom Kippur is not a time when a person, let alone a Torah luminary, has much time on his hands. Sensing his bewilderment and readiness, he responded, "After Yom Kippur is too late; he has to take kabalot upon himself." In other words, were he to not have used his power of speech, the offering of his lips to take upon himself those commitments, then, the time would have passed him by, and the person would have been judged based on last year's deeds, less befitting than the person he aspired to be. Rabbi Shapira sat with him for no fewer than 70 minutes, using his own lips to open the young man's heart to change, and a different him. 

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