a tip in chinuch…courtesy of the kohen gadol on yom kippur

In the Yom Kippur service, the kohen brings his own sacrifice and confesses his sins, and only afterwards does he bring the Bnei Yisrael’s sacrifice and gain atonement for their sins. Why worry about himself before the entire nation? The Gemarra Yoma explains that since he is gaining atonement on behalf of everyone, he should be pure himself before he ensures everyone else will be pure. This is a major point in terms of chinuch; that before helping other ideally one should reach the requisite level of purity – then one will have success. For example the Chasam Sofer said, if a teacher has bad middos then what ends up happening is that the students do not learn what the teacher is teaching but only learn the bad middos. Let’s be pure! Amen.

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