Essence

In the inner battle between the G-dly soul and the selfish-animalistic soul every part of the G-dly soul has a counterpart.

Your G-dly soul has a will power, intelligence and emotion. Well, so does your animalistic soul.

You sit in the Shul on Shabbat morning, you meditate and try to awaken a feeling of love to Hashem, you succeed. On Saturday night you discover that your animal soul has it’s own set of emotions, you are left with two sets of emotions battling. To be victorious the G-dly soul must find a better tool.

You use your intellect. You certainly understand what the right lifestyle is. You understand that true and enduring meaning can only come from cleaving to the true and enduring G-d. Well, the animalistic soul has its own intelligence, with a long list of reasons for following the pleasures of the physical world.

So you fall back on your most powerful recourse, your will power. Nothing can overcome the will power, it has complete control over all area’s of the personality. Not surprisingly the animal soul has its own powerful will power.

So what do you do?

On Yom Kippur the essence of the soul is revealed. The animal soul can’t counter that. Thats not will, intelligence or emotion, its who you really are. You connecting to G-d not because you want to, or understand it to be the right thing, or it makes you feel good. You connect to Hashem because thats who you are. Anything other than Hashem is inconsistent with the essence of your soul and ultimately will not address your essence.

Now the essence of the soul doesn’t show up whenever you call it. It is not will power that can be awakened with a little bit of resolve. It has it’s own ideas of when it decides to reveal itself in your life.

It shows up on Yom Kippur.

No matter haw you feel, understand or want, on Yom Kippur you know where you truly belong.

Saver the feeling and hold onto it, it’s the most powerful thing in your life.

Then on Sukkos [- when the reveleation of the “smoke” of the “Kitoret” becomes the Sechach of the “Sukkah”] you take that feeling and make it part of your life.