High Holy Day Sermon, Yom Kippur 2011/5772
I would like to offer two stories today – one true and one that is merely filled with truth. The first comes from one of my favorite chassidic tales and relates the story of a father with a rather simple son. During the High Holy Days, he would pray in the synagogue of the Baal Shem Tov, but never would bring his boy with him to pray. Finally when the boy reached the age of Bar Mitzvah, his father took him to the synagogue for the first time, but only out of fear that the boy would out of sheer ignorance eat on the holy fast day. The boy had a flute that he would play while tending the flock. Without his father knowing, he took the flute to shul . All day long the boy sat in silence in the synagogue. During the musaf prayer, the boy whispered to his father, “Father, I want to play my flute.” Terrified, the father spoke sharply and quite harshly to his son and the boy relented. This happened again and again during the minchah service, and each time the f...