Neilah is the fifth and final prayer of Yom Kippur. On an ordinary day we pray three times – evening, morning and afternoon. On Shabbat, holidays and Rosh Chodesh, we have an additional fourth prayer, Musaf. Only on Yom Kippur is there a fifth prayer.
Neilah means “locking” and therefore indicates the closure of the Ten Days of Teshuvah. Having the gates of repentance figuratively locked in front of us is a poetically jarring image, one that is meant to existentially motivate us to intensify our prayers and petitions before it is too late.
Additionally, one of the Chassidic Rebbes shared a gentler understanding of the closing of the gates. It is as if God says to each individual: ‘Over these awesome ten days we have become so close, therefore, before they end, I want to grant you a private audience. So, please come in and close the gate behind you.’ In other words, the gate is being closed, but from this perspective, we are being ushered inside the gate, not locked outside! There is a subtle and paradoxical allusion to this teaching in the fact that the Torah ark is actually kept open throughout the entire prayer; another unique aspect of Neilah that does not happen at any other time.
This image of being on the “inside” actually symbolizes the very nature of Neilah. As discussed previously, we are taught that there are five levels of soul: nefesh, the “animal” soul; ruach, the emotional aspect; neshamah, the intellectual component; chayah, the bridge between the conscious and superconscious soul; and yechidah, the place where the human soul unites with its Divine origin.
Yechidah, the fifth and highest level of soul, is manifest in pure faith, as expressed through sincere devotion and the will to sacrifice all for God. Neilah, the fifth prayer of Yom Kippur, activates this most elevated aspect of the soul. It is the culminating and defining moment when we gather all our inner forces one last time to express the deepest longings of our being before our Creator.
Yom Kippur, which literally means the Day of Atonement, is mentioned explicitly for the first time in Leviticus. Throughout its description in the Torah the idea of atonement is repeated continually, ending with the words: “And it shall be an everlasting statute to you, to make atonement for the children of Israel for all their sins once a year” (Leviticus 16:34).
Along with a detailed description of the service of the High Priest in the Temple on this holy day, the Torah commands us to “afflict” our souls. The oral tradition explains that to “afflict” the soul means not eating or drinking, not bathing, not anointing the skin with oil, not wearing leather shoes and not engaging in marital relations. Abstaining from these five physical actions separates us from the needs of the body, and instead we concentrate solely on the soul and spiritual matters.
Though the actual day is not mentioned in the written Torah, it is explained in the oral tradition that Moses came down from Mt. Sinai with the second tablets containing the Ten Commandments on Yom Kippur. This calendrical conjunction of Torah and teshuvah symbolizes God’s forgiveness of the Jewish people after the terrible sin of the golden calf, which caused Moses to break the first tablets. Therefore, the first Yom Kippur in the desert, which preceded the laws given in Leviticus, was a day of great joy, forgiveness and atonement. This transformative and revelatory energy is thus impressed upon all subsequent Yom Kippurs.
Worshipping the golden calf represents the ultimate perversion of materiality, while “afflicting” the soul rectifies this misuse of the physical world. Although we do “afflict” our souls, Yom Kippur is ultimately a day of great joy; for what feels better than to receive forgiveness, atonement and the exhilarating chance to begin anew.
After a full day of fasting and praying, the soul, when able to muster its last strength at Neila, has the rare opportunity to experience the activation of the yechidah, the Godly essence of the soul. When the soul reaches this exalted spiritual level, it knows deep down that the heavenly gates to God and the source of the soul are never really locked. There is always a way to contact and connect to God, no matter when or where.
