VBM The Yom Kippur Service By Rav Yair Kahn

I. In a Cloud I Shall Appear upon the Kaporet The Yom Kippur service is unique in many ways. One of its features is the special offering of the ketoret (incense), which was normally burnt on the golden altar, but on Yom Kippur was placed on a pan in the Holy of Holies. The Torah is explicit regarding the central role played by this ketoret as a factor that enables Aharon to enter the Holy of Holies: Speak to Aharon your brother, that he should not enter into the holy place within the partition at any time… rather in a cloud I shall appear upon kaporet. (16:2) The cloud in this pasuk is a reference to the ketoret, as it says: And he shall put the incense upon the fire before Hashem, that the cloud of the incense may cover the kaporet that is upon the testimony, so that he should not die. (16:13) Aharon’s entrance into the Kodesh Ha-Kodashim is contrasted with the catastrophic entry of Nadav and Avihu. In our shiur on Parashat Tazria, we suggested that Nadav and Avihu thought that man was capable of deserving a divine encounter through human efforts. They failed to realize that man can only achieve revelation by virtue of Hashem’s chesed, and they therefore entered the kodesh without being invited by Hashem. After that tragedy, Hashem tells Aharon that he can enter the Kodesh only through submission to Hashem’s will; man can never be deserving of an encounter with Hashem through human efforts alone.