As I do every year, as the heavenly gates are about to close and we are about to recite Neilah, I want to share with you a story, a remarkable story told of the great Chasidic master, Reb Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev.
One year, Reb Levi Yitzhak was the baal tefillah for Neilah, his Chassidim noticed that he was prolonging his prayers with incredibly sweet and beautiful melodies, some that they had never heard before.
But then, suddenly, Reb Levi Yitzhak stopped singing and began to rush through Neilah, barely using even the nusach of this special time. Before anyone could say a thing, Neilah had ended, maariv was recited, and everyone was abruptly sent home.
Afterward, when his Chassidim came to visit, they asked their rebbe what had happened, why was this Neilah so different than all the others?
Said Reb Levi Yitzhak that this year, as he was davening, he sensed it was the perfect moment to beseech God for all he had hoped in the coming year and to attain a level of religious inspiration he had never before achieved.
And that is where all of those beautiful niggunim had come from - the innermost depths of his soul as it rose towards heaven.
But right then, he noticed one older man in shul. A man whose faith was such that he would never leave shul early to go home and break his fast - even if the time had come.
Looking at that man, Reb Levi Yitzhak sensed that if he prolonged his Neilah anymore than he had, this man would die. And so despite all that he had hoped to achieve, despite the heights of inspiration and dreams of goodness and greatness that were almost within reach, Reb Levi Yitzhak pulled back and began to daven quickly.
Because, as he said, "my responsibility was to this one man, even if it meant losing so much, for myself, for all of you, and for all of our community."
And that's the story. And while it may have sounded somewhat fantastical in prior years - just another one of those legends that we question their accuracy, this year, it is so very real.
Because this year, all of us have pulled back, all of us have davened in ways we never imagined, trimmed and truncated tefillot we treasured, and even set aside tunes and nusach we adored.
This year, we were all Reb Levi Yitzhak - and we did this if only to keep one person safe, one more person healthy, one more person able to celebrate yet another year.
And because we have made these hard choices, I believe that our tefillot will go straight up to heaven, have crashed through the gates, and reached heights like never before.
Because to care about others, to care about our community, is to care about God's entire world - a world we pray will be lifted, in this new year מאשפות ירים אביון - as David HaMelech proclaimed and the Chatam Sofer foretold.
May the sincerity of this moment bring salvation to our people, repair this broken world and inspire us to draw closer to God, His Torah, and one another.
גמר חתימה טובה