Kippur Contemplations I

For me, the most emotional time of the Kippur prayers is the Viduy of Minha during the repetition of the Amida.  The viduy, written by R' Yitzhak ben Yisrael, reads like a story of someone on trial in Hashem's court, finding himself in serious trouble and needs legal assistance from his own body parts.  He sequentially asks his head, face, forehead, mouth, lips, tongue, heart, soul, palms, and feet to help him in his time of need.  But instead of helping him, each one of his body parts answers that they cannot help him as a sin was committed with that body part: the head for light-headedness (for being too flippant), the mouth for speaking profanity, etc.  The person, down in the dumps, then says קָרָאתִי לַמְאַהֲבַי הֵמָּה רִמּוּנִי (I called for those whom I love, but they deceived me). In the end, seeing no recourse, the person is forced to admit to all his sins.

The verse cited - קָרָאתִי לַמְאַהֲבַי הֵמָּה רִמּוּנִי, while I sometimes want to apply it to various Israeli leaders over the years, can be used today in regard to US-Israeli relations. Israel constantly and consistently relies on the US for support, and calls upon it for help.  No doubt that the US helps Israel a lot, but when it matters most, when it comes to Israel's existence, they have deceived them.  Is the US the one Israel should be relying upon?  The answer is an emphatic NO.  For both political and religious reasons, in this Ikveta Dimshiha period, Israel should be relying on no one but our Father in Heaven.

See also CosmicX's post about this and how he connects it to last week's haftarah.