By Rabbi Alberto Sermoneta
During the day of Yom Kippur we recite ten vidduim;
in each of the five prayers that we recite on this day, we recite two vidduim: one in the silent 'Amidah, one in the repetition aloud.
For what reason does this happen?
The answer is simple:
a child attending a certain class at school has to study a certain subject, and studies it with intensity and dedication.
Moving on to a higher grade school, they will study the same subject in greater depth, so much so that they will not remember having studied it at all, and so on, every time they move from one grade to the next, and each time it will seem as though they are studying something different.
It is told of Rabbi Sa'adià Gaon that he used to perform teshuvah every day, each time with loud crying and immense sorrow.
They asked him why he behaved this way and what grave transgressions he had committed to perform such a great teshuvah every day of his life.
To explain this he told of an unknown Jewish man who entered a Synagogue to pray; upon his entry, everyone looked at him with disinterest, but when they noticed that he knew how to pray in no small measure, they went to apologise to him.
Not only that, when they noticed that he knew matters of Torah, they went to apologise to him again; they noticed further that he debated Talmud with the Rabbis of the Temple and returned once more to apologise to him, until they noticed that he was a great scholar and master of important things – both hidden and revealed – and then the whole kehillah went to offer him the apologies of the entire Community because they had not given him the honour he deserved.
From this I learned, said Rabbi Sa'adià Gaon – that if to honour a man for his greatness we had to offer him apologies multiple times for having been disinterested in him, all the more so for the Holy One, Blessed Be He.
When at 'Arvit we say ashamnu – bagadnu – gazalnu etc. we reach a stage towards G-d and towards His unity; at Shachrith, the stages are completely different from the first, despite the way of arriving there being the same as at 'Arvit. The same applies to Musaf, Minchah up to the last viddui, that of Ne'ilah, and every time this happens, we realise that the dimension is indeed higher, but at the same time much is still lacking and so we return once more to confess.
This is why in every tefillah that we recite on Yom Kippur, there are two vidduim for each of the Tefillot.
Just as we recite the viddui differently from other ordinary days, so unlike what happens every other day of the year, on Yom Kippur we recite in every tefillah the Keter instead of Nakdishach.
Usually the formula Keter Ittenù lekhà is recited only in the Musaf tefillah, as it is the prayer that symbolises the festive day: Shabbat, Rosh Chodesh, Shalosh Regalim and Rosh Hashanah, to indicate that that day is different from the other days of the week or the year. The sacredness of those days is manifested by the change in the formula of the Kedushah, in which the description of the spiritual union between the heavenly beings – the malakhim – and the earthly beings – us Jews – is added.
Together, as described by the formula itself “Shoalim ze la ze ajè mekom kevodò” “they ask one another where the place of His Glory is”, the Angels and the Jews, gathered in a continuous and focused prayer, find themselves raising their praises to G-d.
This, during the day of Yom Kippur, cannot happen because the divine presence is in our midst and we pray to God together with the Heavenly Beings and the additional kedushah, which on other days is symbolised by the KETER of Musaf, on the day of Yom Kippur is symbolised always in every tefillah.