Weekly Dvar Torah: A Yom Kippur Prayer Written in Scars

They were called Cantonists.

Jewish children—some frighteningly young—were torn away from their families under Czar Nicholas I and forcibly conscripted into the Russian army for twenty-five years.

The objective was to make them forget being Jews.

They were cut off from their parents, their homes, their communities, their Judaism, and everything familiar to them. They were pressured relentlessly to abandon their faith. Those who stubbornly tried to hold on to whatever scraps of Yiddishkeit they still remembered were punished and flogged mercilessly.

Twenty-five years.

When some of them finally emerged, they were broken men. Many had no families to return to. They barely knew where they had originally come from. They knew little about Judaism, because they had been kidnapped before they had been given the opportunity to learn.

But one thing they knew.

They were Jews.

Broken men settled together in isolated villages with other former Cantonists. It was in one such village that a Jew named Reb Mordechai found himself shortly before Yom Kippur.

The Cantonists had a Shul, and when they discovered that their visitor knew how to pray properly, they happily asked him to serve as their Chazan, to lead them in prayer.

But they had one condition.

“You can lead the Davening all Yom Kippur. But Ne’ilah belongs to us.”

The final prayer of Yom Kippur they would lead themselves.

And so the day passed.

Finally, Ne’ilah arrived.

The sun was beginning to set. The holiest day of the year was entering its final, holiest moments. The Holy Ark was opened.

One of the Cantonists walked forward to lead the prayer.

Suddenly, to Reb Mordechai’s horror, the man ripped the shirt from his back.

There he stood before the open Holy Ark, his battered back exposed.

It was completely covered with scars.

Reb Mordechai was shocked. He was about to run forward and stop him. How could a man stand half-undressed before the open Aron Kodesh—at Ne’ilah, no less?

And then the Cantonist began to cry.

“G-d Almighty! We are simple, ignorant Jews. We don’t know how to read. We don’t know how to pray. We don’t even know how to be proper Jews.

“We were kidnapped. We were conscripted for twenty-five years. We have nothing and nobody. We have no families. We have no children.

“We have only You.

“But one thing we do have.

“Look at our backs!

“Look at the scars! Look how we were whipped and beaten because we refused to give You up!

“And now we come to ask You for a good New Year.

“If we haven’t earned it, don’t do it for us.

“Do it for You!

“Sanctify Your holy Name. Give the Jewish people a good, sweet year—and send Moshiach, for Your sake!”

Reb Mordechai stood frozen.

Moments earlier he had been ready to stop this ignorant Jew from behaving improperly before the Aron Kodesh.

Now he understood.

He had just witnessed perhaps the purest Ne’ilah of his life.

What did that Cantonist understand about Yom Kippur?

Perhaps the answer can be found more than a century later, thousands of miles away, in Stalin’s Gulag in Siberia.

The legendary Chossid Reb Mendel Futerfas was imprisoned there for spreading Judaism behind the Iron Curtain.

One Yom Kippur he managed to sneak away from the forced labor. There was no Shul, no Machzor, no Tallis. Hiding from the guards, he began Davening from memory whatever he could remember.

He came to V’chol Ma’aminim—“And all believe…”

And suddenly he stopped himself.

All believe?

Communism had spent decades ripping Jews away from their faith. Millions of Jews knew almost nothing about Judaism anymore.

Could he really say that every Jew believes?

Suddenly someone entered.

Reb Mendel’s heart sank.

He had been discovered.

He continued Davening, trying to ignore the stranger. There was nothing else he could do. Perhaps in a few moments he would be dragged away. Perhaps this would be his final Yom Kippur.

But the man didn’t leave.

He just stood there.

Minutes passed. Reb Mendel continued to Daven.

Finally, when he finished, the stranger spoke.

“When I noticed you were missing from work, I remembered that today is Yom Kippur. I knew you must have gone somewhere to pray, so I came looking for you.

“I wanted to pray too.

“But I don’t know any prayers.

“There is only one prayer I remember. My mother taught it to me when I was a little boy.”

And he began:

Modeh Ani Lefanecha Melech Chai V’kayam…

“I have been standing here next to you all day,” he told Reb Mendel, “repeating Modeh Ani.”

Reb Mendel was stunned.

He had asked a question—and Hashem had sent him the answer.

V’chol Ma’aminim.

Yes. Every Jew believes.

Communism could take away his Siddur. It could take away his Jewish education. It could make him forget almost every word of Davening.

But it couldn’t take away the Modeh Ani his mother had planted in his soul.

And perhaps that is why, decades later, in 2023, Rabbi Itzik Gorelik stood in Kazan, Russia, on Yom Kippur, looking at a Shul filled with Jews who barely knew how to Daven.

Seventy years of Communism had done terrible damage. Many of these Jews could maybe repeat the words but hardly understood what they meant.

Yet they came.

They stood there waiting for the Shofar.

Rabbi Gorelik looked into their faces and thought about the Romans, the Inquisition, the Nazis, the Communists—all the forces throughout history that had tried, in one form or another, to tear Jews away from Hashem.

And after everything—

Here they were.

He saw the G-dly presence in their eyes.

Without saying a word, their souls were crying:

We are still here.

We are Jews.

And we want to be close to You.

Three scenes.

A scarred Cantonist standing before the Aron Kodesh.

A forgotten Modeh Ani whispered in a Siberian Gulag.

A Shul filled with Russian Jews who barely understand the words they are saying.

But really, they are all one story.

The story of the Jewish soul.

All year long that Neshama can be covered. Life gets busy. We become distracted. We make mistakes. We can create distance between ourselves and G-d.

But those things touch only the surface.

There is a place inside every Jew that sin cannot stain, Communism cannot erase, persecution cannot destroy, and two thousand years of Golus cannot extinguish.

That is the essence of the soul.

And on Yom Kippur, that essence comes out.

That is why Yom Kippur is not merely the day when Hashem forgives us for what we did wrong. It is the day when Hashem reveals who we really are.

The external layers fall away. We don’t eat. We don’t drink. For one day we step away from ordinary physical life.

And something deeper begins to shine.

The Jew beneath everything else.

The Cantonist may not know how to Daven—but his scars Daven for him.

The Siberian Jew may remember only one prayer—but his Modeh Ani contains his entire Neshama.

The Jews in Kazan may not understand the words—but their souls understand perfectly.

And then comes Ne’ilah.

Perhaps now we understand why those Cantonists insisted:

“Ne’ilah belongs to us.”