Flying Cars and Ne’ilah

Flying Cars and Ne’ilah

Rabbi Sam Cohon, Congregation Beit Simcha, Tucson, Yom Kippur 5784

And now, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is on the way.  I don’t know how many of you saw the news article this past summer.  It said that the Alef Flying Car has received pre-approval from the FAA, the Federal Aviation Administration.  It is now possible to preorder the Alef Flying Car on their website for delivery in… 2025? 2026? 2030, perhaps?  Who knows, exactly?

Apparently, this car can be driven on streets like a regular car, but if you encounter serious traffic, you can literally take off straight up and fly over it.  No one online seems to know why it is called the Alef car—well, we can guess; there aren’t a lot of Bet or Gimmel flying cars out there yet, now are there?—but if you wish to put in a pre-order for this fabulous new vehicle, you can do so and be part of what the website says is the “general queue” for only $150; if you insist on being in the “priority queue” it will set you back $1500.

Oh, Brave New World that has such inventions in it…  It’s almost as though there is something divine in the technology.  Soon, perhaps, or maybe not so soon, we will all be able to soar high in the sky in our very own Alef cars, rise above our congested city streets and be pilots of our own destiny.

I’m not convinced that this will occur as soon as the investors in the Alef Aeronautics company are, but I do hope to see it.  It sounds fantastic, at least right up until the first time two people in their Jetsons-style flying cars turn into each other and crash down to earth…

But as we approach Ne’ilah that vision of being able to fly upwards in our very own cars is quite attractive.  I mean, we have been praying and fasting and singing and beating our breasts for 23 hours or so now, seeking forgiveness for all we have done wrong and hoping to be better people going forward.  Our stomachs are empty, but if we have managed to do this well then perhaps our hearts are full, and we are achieving a level of spiritual elevation, reaching up towards the Shechinah, the divine presence, in the quest of a full teshuvah gemurah, a true repentance.  It’s a little like having our own personal vehicles to rise above our normal state and accomplish all that we have sought throughout these yamim nora’im, these High Holy Days.   

I have sometimes thought about Ne’ilah as a kind of flying experience, when you let all you have left in you out to God.  I always imagined Ne’ilah as a bird, a tzipor, rising in this late hour of the day towards the heavens, as we wish our prayers and our repentance to elevate our own souls towards God.  But why not a flying car?  Because God knows we need all the elevation we can get at this final hour of the Day of Atonement.

There is a famous story about the Ba’al Shem Tov, the founder of Chasidism.  One Yom Kippur, the Baal Shem Tov was praying together with his students, and he had a worrying sense that the prayers were not getting through, and the harsh Heavenly Decree against the Jewish people was not being overturned.  He felt as though the synagogue building itself was becoming crowded with the unanswered prayers of the congregation.  As Ne’ilah approached, and with it the final opportunity for the Jewish people to avert this harsh judgement, he and his students increased their fervor and passion in their prayers, but to no avail.

As the chazzan began the Ne’ilah service a simple shepherd boy wandered into shul to pray. But he could barely read the letters of the Aleph-Beit, let alone say all the words in the machzor. Feeling helpless, he opened the first page of his siddur and recited: aleph, beit, veit, gimmel, daled. He said to God in his heart: “This is all I can do. God, You know how the prayers should be pronounced. Please, arrange the letters in the proper way.”

Louder and louder, with more and more intensity he recited the letters. Hey, vav, zayin, chet… the people around him began to mutter, complaining he was disturbing their prayers. But the Baal Shem Tov immediately silenced them, and declared for everyone to hear that “because of this boy’s prayers the gates to heaven are wedged open for the last few minutes of Yom Kippur, allowing our prayers in.” So it was on that Yom Kippur, that the simple, genuine prayers of a young shepherd boy who couldn’t read, resounded powerfully within the Heavenly court, and saved the Jewish people. 

My friends, if you can or can’t read the Hebrew perfectly, whether or not you know the nigun, the nusach for Ne’ilah, if have the strength and health to stand or must sit, if you cannot fast or fasted completely, you can still receive the magical elevation intrinsic to Ne’ilah.  Put your minds and hearts and grumbling stomachs to one final task, now: to allow your souls to take flight in this beautiful service of Ne’ilah, the last effort before the Gates of Repentance metaphoric close for this Yom Kippur.

May your own prayers help you to fly high in this coming hour; and may you be sealed in the Book of Life, blessing and peace.