Living Rav Avigdor
Rav Miller on Yom Kippur
The Best Day of the Year · Lecture 933
Section 1 of 17
one of the two most joyous days
The Gemara tells us the best day of the year. It says, לֹא הָיוּ יָמִים טוֹבִים לְיִשְׂרָאֵל כַּחֲמִשָּׁה עָשָׂר בְּאָב וּכְיוֹם הַכִּפּוּרִים — “There were no joyous days for Yisrael like Yom Kippur and the 15th of Av” (Taanis 4:8).
We shall omit Chamishah Asar B’Av for now, but Yom Kippur was one of the two most joyous days in the year.
And the Gemara describes that on Yom Kippur, the Jewish girls went out into the vineyards, and young men came to pick their brides. This took place on Yom Kippur!
Now, we understand that they came b’kedushah, with perfect purity of mind, like people come the week before Succos to choose esrogim.
They stand for hours picking a more beautiful esrog. That’s how these young men chose their wives — to serve Hashem.
Why was Yom Kippur chosen for that?
Because it was a happy day, a day when the mind was at its best.
And when the mind is at its best, that’s the best day, as we shall soon see.
This is one section of 17
The whole lecture runs to twenty-eight pages, every posuk and every Gemara he quoted found and printed where he said it — and every sentence of it joined to the tape, as these are.