Rabbi Zeitlin

One of the deepest reasons we celebrate the first two days of Sukkot as Chag (a “full” holiday complete with special davening, Kiddush before meals, and also with accompanying restrictions) outside of Israel is because without the energy boost provided by the Land itself, we need to augment our efforts to process גבורה/דין, Gevurah/Din, Power/Judgement, with the extra holiness of Chag.  If you’d like some background to this statement, please continue reading.

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Sukkot, just like Pesach and Shavuot, doubles down on “Chag” days outside of Israel (where, following the Torah mandate, these holidays only last a single day).

The most common reason given for this curious division between the Holy Land and communities in Galut, exile, is based on historical/technological limitations publicizing the exact date that New Moons were observed and announced, determining both Rosh Chodesh, the first day of each new (lunar) month and, subsequently, the proper date for each festival.  The common explanation goes that in order to cover possible doubts due to the extended time to get the word out to far-flung communities, our sages decreed two days of Yom Tov outside of Israel, where only one day was observed.  Even though we’ve based our calendar on precise mathematical calculations rather than lunar observation for millennia, eliminating all doubt as to which day “really is” Rosh Chodesh, we’ve still retained the two-day Chag status.

I was taught that when חז”ל, Chazal, (literally Chachamim Zichronam L‘Bracha, Wise Ones, may their memory be a blessing), our Talmudic sages who are considered the most authoritative experts in our tradition, give a reason for a decree, there are many other reasons, often deeper and more profound, which they kept to themselves.  Among the best known is that this is literally a fine, a punishment for neglecting the Mitzva, commandment, to live in the Land of Israel.  A little less harsh, but to the same point, is that it takes us twice as much time to process/create the “amount” of קדושה, Kedusha, holiness, outside of Israel than it does within.  In other words, the very essence of ארץ ישראל, Eretz Yisrael, provides “turbo-charged” energy for our spiritual efforts.

The seven days of Sukkot are associated with the seven Sefirot, each day, in turn, featuring and focusing on one of them.  The second day of Sukkot, therefore, is most strongly colored by גבורה/דין, Gevurah/Din, Strength/Justice, the inflexible structure-nature of reality, the mode in which every action, almost mechanically, generates a specific (and “logical”) consequence.  Gevurah is associated restriction, punishment, no-wiggle-room and is, as such, much more challenging to come to terms with.

In fact, we’re taught, allegorically, that God originally “intended” to create the universe using only strict logic and rules, but He “foresaw” that the world (especially that aspect which concerns us humans) would not be able to survive such a reality.  Therefore, he mixed in a strong measure of חסד, Chesed, love and forgiveness, flexibility and understanding, in order to allow the universe to persist, in spite of the non-stop damage we seem intent to inflict on reality.  (Although if the world were based solely on Chesed, with no restraints (i.e. no structure or organization at all), it would quickly descend into chaos (entropy in terms of physics)–While we tend to favor Chesed as “good”, Gevurah is absolutely necessary to provide structure for reality.)

Gevurah is very difficult for us.  It scares us (part of its value is its deterrence potential), confuses us and often seems “too hot to handle”.  Sukkot, coming on the heels of our optimized spiritual stature from Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur, empowers us to process and mold all seven Sefirot, maximizing them for the new year.  Chesed, pure energy, is by definition overpowering and we are able to harness the energy of Chag to process.  In Eretz Yisrael, everything we do is always augmented by the special holy energy of the Land.  This is, in general, sufficient, once Chesed has been processed, to handle Gevurah and the others.  Crippled, outside of Eretz Yisrael, we just lack the power for this challenge.  Thus, we’re granted that extra boost of Kedusha, holiness of a second day of Chag.

Although there are lots of details, the simple idea behind the Sukkah, the funny little huts we build shortly after Yom Kippur and occupy for a week, is to direct and focus the שפע הקודש, Shefa HaKodesh, the holy, divine flow of energy which animates, inspires and fills us each with love.

After all the work constructing the Sukkah, putting up walls, flimsy as they may be, we learn that the only real significant part is the סכך, schach, that insubstantial roofing material of branches and sticks.  The scriptural source for this information is חַג הַסֻּכֹּת תַּעֲשֶׂה לְךָ שִׁבְעַת יָמִים בְּאָסְפְּךָ מִגָּרְנְךָ וּמִיִּקְבֶךָ, Chag HaSukkot Ta’ase L’Cha Shivat Yamim, B’Asp’cha MiGorncha U’MiYikbcha, Make for yourselves the Chag of Sukkot for seven days with what you gather from your granaries and your vineyards (Devarim 16:13).  This has been interpreted to mean with, more or less, waste products from our fields, i.e. detached (already harvested but discarded as not the actual food) branches and sticks.  The other requirement is that we’re forbidden to use anything that is מקבל טומאה, M’Kabel Tuma, that has the potential to become (ritually) impure.

The lesson from this is that we construct the lens that focuses the divine flow to ourselves and our world using, literally, the secondary output of our labor, but only if they remain pure of selfish or otherwise destructive motives.  Not only must our intentions be good, but we’re also mandated to make sure we don’t cause “collateral damage”, be it intended or unintended.

As with other Jewish Holy Days, we don’t don Tefillin, the black leather boxes with scriptural passages hand-written on parchment which we put on our foreheads and biceps for our morning prayers.  In many ways, the Tefillin serve the same purpose as the Sukkah, to focus and direct the Divine Flow.  The Tefillin, however, are aimed at the individual who is wearing them and directs the flow in a personalized configuration based on the Sefirot and other principles.  Most people are incapable of making their own Tefillin and rely on a סופר, a Sofer, a highly-trained scribe.  Although there’s no requirement to construct our own Sukkah, and most of us don’t manufacture it from scratch, many do erect their own.  Ironically, this object in which we often at least participate individually in making, is not individualized and customized in effect–everyone who enters any Sukkah immediately benefits from the Shefa that flows into it.

On Sukkot, we temporarily put aside Tefillin, made by someone else for our exclusive use (yes, they’re kosher for others as well, but are generally only worn by the owner) and exchange them for the Sukkah, which we (often) personally make but are for general use.

May we all bask in the generous Shefa, drawn into the world by the myriad Sukkot we build, each with a “lens” that’s the product of our purest thoughts and efforts.

The only rabbinic function I’ve ever really performed is teaching Torah, primarily to adults.  I’ve never wanted to be a pulpit rabbi and I certainly have never wanted to work in any organizational bureaucracy.  I don’t deny that these positions are very important, but I’ve never had either the skill set nor the interest, and certainly never the ambition t0 pursue them.  But teaching Torah is the only reason I ever chose and worked to become a rabbi.

Additionally, I’ve only rarely taught through established institutions (although I have been honored with the opportunity to teach in the Aleph rabbinic program where, over the years, I’ve been privileged to work with many exceptional people). I don’t have a particularly “academic” bent, and am not interested in historical theories nor comparative approaches.  Admittedly, I have a rather eccentric relationship with our rabbinic tradition and, over the years, have developed a growing certainty that our tradition provides us with an infinitely powerful, endlessly customizable (with a mandate, not a mere option, to customize) technology to enable and enhance our individual and communal relationships with God.  I don’t think I’m the first and I’m certainly not the only person operating with this insight and basic assumption (although I might be one of the first to use this language of technology), but this approach doesn’t fit well with most established Torah institutions.  While I wholly, lovingly and unconditionally accept the validity of Torah and Mitzvot as Judaism’s unique path, I find it unthinkable that the technology they mandate, i.e. the modes and manners of achieving the Mitzvot, not evolve along with the rest of humanity since humans are the ones charged/blessed with those Mitzvot.  The goal, of course, remains unchanged–uniting with The Creator. Regardless of topic, this is all I teach, with the “topics”, Tanach, Mishna, Gemara, Halacha, Chassidut, Mussar, Kabbalah and the like are all, probably co-equal depending on one’s personality, channels to approach Devekut, that complete immersion in and unity with God.

I work best in one-on-one tutorials and very small groups, so I often form very close bonds with my students.  Sharing Torah and working together to understand it creates close friendships that are much deeper than everyday co-worker relationships.

Over time, however, classes end.  Students move on.  Books are completed and subjects, at least at a certain level, covered. It’s bittersweet when the best of my students “graduate”–I hope they’ll go on to teach to their own future students, but I deeply miss them.  I guess I’ve succeeded as a teacher when I’ve worked myself out of the job.

The tendency to wallow in guilt as we enter Yom Kippur is counter-productive.  The other extreme of sugar-coating our sins, hoping that re-labeling of them as “shortcomings”, “mistakes” and “errors” will spare us the discomfort of not always feeling great about ourselves, is equally counter-productive.  We approach one of life’s greatest opportunities (and even if it occurs yearly, how many of them will each of us, with a mature awareness, ever experience?  Fifty, sixty, even seventy days out of a lifetime is still pretty small change!) and turn our backs on it, seeking the familiar and/or comforting.

Yom Kippur presents the exciting opportunity to totally immerse ourselves in the known, our past acts and decisions, and to emerge into the unknown, the “brave new world” (literally, not as in the ironic book title) of a limitless future.  If we process our past deeds, we no longer need be held captive to those subconscious forces we cannot understand.  Instead, we can learn from them, release them and move forward, hopefully with new clues, new directions and new dedication.

None of us can control external forces, but we will have to, as the new year unfolds, engage with them.  We have the choice, but only if we’ve honestly confronted and worked with them, to avoid our past mistakes (knowing, of course, that we’ll have a slew of new ones as the year goes by).  If we understand the damage we’ve done, intentionally and inadvertently, to ourselves, to others and to the universe at large, we have a chance, at least, of not repeating it (which, it seems to me, is what the Rambam’s last stage of Tshuva describes, confronting the same situation and not falling into the same error).

Although I believe it’s become greatly inflated with sections and passages which might have been effective in various historical situations which are irrelevant now, the core of our traditional liturgy, the Machzor, does contain many effective thoughts and meditations, as well as other “technology” beyond most of our understanding (devised primarily by our great spiritual leaders and sages of Talmudic and Gaonic times) which directs our attempts to repair the past year’s damage to ourselves, others and the world. (For a sharp, often blunt, critique of the present state of traditional (orthodox) High Holiday prayers, listen to this lecture by Rabbi David Bar-Hayim (with apologies to those good friends who continue to travel to Uman each year)).  But the real work  often occurs only when we close our books and close our eyes and look inward.

Perhaps, however, the most potent, and often unseen obstacle, is the illusion that going through the motions, “reading each and every word”, beating our breasts with every Al Chayt….. (the formulaic litany of sins we recite multiple times throughout the service), thinking about our hunger which, this day, seems endless, will see us through.  We can even program our emotions to experience what we think, have read or, even worse, have been taught, is expected and emerge at the final Shofar blast feeling renewed and rededicated, but if we haven’t actually examined our past actions, confronted the pain, the horror and the damage they’ve caused ourselves and others, we’ve merely played the role of an actor with a script.

The cliché of physical training, “no pain no gain” is infinitely truer here.  We can always return to the gym tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, but this day of Yom Kippur presents a rare and precious opportunity to truly explore the bottom of our own personalities.  What we find most likely won’t be pretty and quite likely will be painful. And even worse, the temptation to wallow in it, to merely develop a self-loathing may be hard to resist.  We all have these inner shames, and we can either collect them intact or we can work our way through and then dispose of them.  The only chance we really have to emerge into a new future, one where we don’t, as a reflex-response, merely repeat the same stupid and banal evils, is if we allow ourselves to be honestly horrified by their consequences.  At each detail and at each level, we need to remind ourselves that just as we willingly did what we did, we can willingly choose otherwise next time.

Our tradition overuses the phrase יראת שמים, Yirat Sh’mayim, fear of heaven.  All too often it’s presented as fearing retribution from an unpleasant anthropomorphic deity. Rather, we can analyze it at a deeper level, understanding that יראה, Yirah, the word which is usually translated as fear is based on the root ראה, Re’ah, which means to see. שמים, Sh’mayim, which does refer to Heaven, is a composite word containing the words אש, Aish, fire, and מים, Mayim, water, the elemental opposites.  A more profound meaning, therefore, is seeing the reality of the polar opposites that are represented in each choice we make.

“רְאֵה נָתַתִּי לְפָנֶיךָ הַיּוֹם אֶת־הַחַיִּים וְאֶת־הַטּוֹב וְאֶת־הַמָּוֶת וְאֶת־הָרָע”  See that I place before you today the Life and the Good as well as the Death and the Evil (Devorim 30:16).  This is the real sense of יראה, Yirah, “fear” we want to achieve on Yom Kippur.  It’s not merely theoretical, as our self-exploration can all too painfully inform us.

But the liberation of being able to choose freely, with an honest sense of understanding the concept of consequences, next time, is truly a joyous, rare and precious gift.  For God’s sake, and our own, let’s not squander it this time around.

G’mar Chatima Tova, the best is ahead if we choose it.

I just finished reading a beautiful article by Rabbi Aryeh Ben David which talks about the challenge to merely contain all the brokenness, not even (yet) to try to fix anything.  I was immediately reminded of the closing sentence in “The Unnamable”, the final novel of Samuel Beckett’s monumental trilogy, which I have borrowed for the title to this article. Although I haven’t read Beckett’s novels in at least forty years, they were among my favorites when I was in college.  Unlike many of my friends at the time, I wasn’t attracted to Beckett because of the veneer of nihilism that, for many, was both the first and only impression they took from his work.  Rather, I was always impressed by his courage, “You must go on, I can’t go on, I’ll go on,”.  Even when life is reduced to crawling blindly in the mud, with no light ahead as either a goal or an aid, humanity, and each of us individually, always has the option to forge ahead, perhaps without hope, but with, maybe, the hope of eventually having a hope.

Traditionally, the emphasis on Rosh HaShana has been for each of us to confront our individual sins, both of commission and omission, grave and small, with an eye and intention to do better this coming year.  Indeed, we do recite the catalog of wrong-doing in the plural, “Our Father our King, we have sinned before you”, but in many ways this is merely a technicality to free us from the embarrassment of publicly mentioning our own personal sins.  In most traditional settings we might make a nod to the mess the world is in, but the emphasis is on ourselves, which might very well be the necessary first step, but it shouldn’t end there.  Of course, there’s also the tack taken in the most extreme of the liberal denominations which only focus on world problems (but too often a very limited, politically-motivated subset of those crises), ignoring our own individual shortcomings in the name of protecting people from ever feeling bad about themselves, but at best that’s just an equally limited and inadequate approach to our challenge and opportunity of the Yomim Noraim, “High Holy Days”, but better translated as Days of “Awe” or, as I prefer, “Days of Awareness of the Consequences of Our Every Action”.

Anyhow, Rabbi Ben David confronts the difficult challenge to “merely” accept the brokenness of the world (and I think he includes both “Olam Gadol“, the greater world, and “Olam Katan“, each of us as individual microcosms).  I don’t believe he proposes acceptance of problems as crises as an acceptable final step, but is pointing out that it’s necessary to just sit with the brokenness for a while, to feel its full impact, to try to see it in all its complexities, as a prelude to eventually developing a strategy to “go on” and work on these problems.

I’d like to propose a few tools we might employ for this difficult task.  It seems that at least one thing we need is a way to protect ourselves from being so overwhelmed as to become paralyzed and impotent.  Each of us, indeed, has more failings inside ourselves than we can, unaided, possibly face, and the crises that face our world baffle our greatest minds.

With the risk of sounding “pollyana-ish”, I believe that before a diet of unending problems, crises, disasters and disasters-in-waiting, we need to also take stock of our “assets”, of those good deeds we carried out in the past year, of the progress the world has made, even though those may be hard to see.  We talk about חשבון נפש, Cheshbon Nefesh, an accounting of the soul, and as a friend/colleague pointed out, that includes both how we’re “in the black” as well as how we’re “in the red”.  While we’re sitting with the problems, letting them percolate and process through our consciousnesses, even before we start to address possible solutions to propose and attempt, we need to see ourselves and our world as having true merit, of being worthy of going on.  Rebbe Nachman‘s well-known emphasis on combatting fear and depression is much more than “feel-good” Torah, it’s an astute observation of the consequences of indulging our guilt-feelings and allowing ourselves to wallow in paralysis of self-pity and helplessness.  Furthermore, we need to arm ourselves with the certainty that even though we can’t see how it will work out, that’s a product of our limited vision rather than a “fact” of ultimate reality (in other words, faith, Emunah, that whatever the crises, they’re not merely the result of arbitrary and random forces AND there is a way ahead).

Of course, our tradition teaches us that, ultimately, it’s only in the Hands of The Almighty. This should never, however, be mistranslated as calling for passiveness and defeatism. There’s the old joke of the Jew who prays everyday, “God, I only have one hundred dollars left.  Please send me the money I need to survive and support my family….. God, I only have ninety-nine dollars left….. ninety-eight…… twenty-five……. five….. four…. three…. two…. only one single dollar!”  When he dies he asks God why He ignored his pleas.  God replies, “I gave you one hundred dollars, and then nine-nine dollars, etc. with which you could have invested, bought tools and materials, or even just bought a single lottery ticket! I was waiting to bestow all this wealth on you, but you needed to use what you already had to invest in your own future!”

It’s important to see and accept the world and ourselves, for better or for worse, as it is. We do need to sit with these realities.  But we also need to know that we, and the world, do have merits “in the bank”, assets we will be called upon to “cash in” and employ, that even while we might, at first, protest, “I can’t go on”, we will “go on”.

As Rosh HaShanah quickly approaches, I hear many of my rabbinic friends and colleagues, as well as many lay-leaders, shift their panic, pressure and urgency into high gear.  After all, these are the Big Days, our very own Broadway Premieres!  Leading services, sounding the shofar or presenting sermons, for many this is our once-yearly time in the spotlight.  We so want to excel–we owe it to our congregations and to ourselves to break all the records with this year’s performance!

I also remember back to when my children were little.  Along with all of our friends, we’d start worrying how we were going to occupy and amuse our children during the seemingly interminably long services.  Not only did we want them to be happy, we wanted to avoid embarrassment and distraction of bored, unruly kids!  And throughout the services, no matter how engaging and inspiring they were, there was always a sense of dread, of impending disaster, “What if my kid becomes the next disturbance?”

Then there’s the emphasis on Tshuva, which is often badly translated with the single word, Repentance.  Yes, this is the ikkar, the root and theme of the season and, of course, we want to learn from past failures in order to do better in the future, but it’s so easy for this activity to degenerate into self-hate.

Performance anxiety, insecurity about our parenting skills (don’t we want to both be and to present ourselves as the IDEAL parents?) and self-loathing.  Not a great recipe.

It’s often hard to remember that not only Rosh HaShanah, but Yom Kippur, perhaps the most serious day of the Jewish year, are repeatedly referred to as חגים, Chaggim, Holidays.  Even though we don’t eat, drink or indulge in other pleasures on Yom Kippur, we’re still obligated to fulfill to the mitzva of Simchat Yom Tov, Enjoying the Good Day.

When I was younger, living in Jerusalem, I remember my profound sense of disdain for the Chilonim, the secular Jews, who, rather than spending these days in synagogue, would have parties, go to the beach and otherwise focus on having fun.  While I’m still vitally convinced that all Jews can potentially benefit from the rituals, liturgy and yes, even the restrictions of these days, I no longer can say that these people had it 100% wrong.  Maybe not even 50% wrong.  In the midst of their decidedly non-halachic observance of these holidays, they had retained and preserved an important essence that is all too often lost among the more piously-observant.

I remember Rabbi Twersi zt”l saying that the “hardest mitzva in the book” was Simchat Yom Tov.  Can anyone imagine 24 or 48 hours of not allowing ourselves to feel anger, anxiety, frustration?  And even if we can manage that, it only gets us all the way from negative territory to zero.

Let’s remember, even when we’re feeling the greatest pressure and anxiety, let our enjoyment rise to the top.

Chag Sameach

There are many styles and approaches to blowing the Shofar, the ram’s horn “trumpet” whose sound so characterizes Rosh HaShanah that the day is even referred to as Yom Teruah, the Day of Teruah, one of the required “cries”.  Some people strive for a strident sound, reminiscent of a call to battle.  Others try to emphasize the distinction between the Tekiah, a single, urgent, at times triumphant, call and the other two, Shevarim (literally “broken”, comprising three separate notes) and Teruah (comprising nine (or at least nine according to some interpretations) short blasts), both intended to point towards crying.  Some people emphasize the exact mathematical values of each note, Tekiah having nine, Shevarim having three notes each of three beat duration, Teruah having nine separate notes, each lasting one beat (technically, each Tekiah should last for at least the same amount of time as the blasts in-between, but further technical details, while important, are not the subject at this time), all pointing to the significance the number nine has in our tradition.  Some people aim for a strict, almost flat tone, others for an inspiring one, some for a high pitch, others for a low one.  There are authorities who insist on a single, continuous pitch while others don’t seem to care.  None of these are any more correct than the others.

Those of us who have been inspired to learn this art, have been forced by circumstance of leadership to learn this art or those, like me, who had the opportunity to play a brass instrument as a child, begin practicing daily, except Shabbat, beginning Rosh Chodesh Elul, exactly one month before Rosh HaShanah.  (Actually, our practice is a side-benefit as the real reason for this daily sounding (even though it can have the effect of lessening the impact we might experience hearing it for the very first time only on Rosh HaShanah itself), is to remind us to ramp up our tshuva (return/repentence/self-examination/course-correction) processes in preparation for the holy days.)

I noticed just today, less than a week before Rosh HaShanah, that my own aim this year, again no better nor more worthy than any other approach, has been to achieve the most beautiful sound I can.  One of my major tshuva goals this year, and we can (and should) have many (they really aren’t mutually-exclusive, but rather multi-approached) is, even in the moments of my greatest disappointments and pain (and we can be assured that each of us will experience moments like that in this coming year), to find the beauty, bittersweet as it may be.

My late painting teacher, Dr. Hisashi Ohta, at the time Living National Treasure of Japan in sumi-e (black ink on rice paper painting) and one of the two most spiritually inspiring people I’ve known (the other being Rabbi Shloime Twerski zt”l) filled me with the mantra, “Beauty is not always sweet”.  Our own tradition states it in another way, one we recite several times daily, מלא כל הארץ כבודו, M’lo Kol Ha’Aretz K’vodo, (God) fills the entire world with His Presence.

I try to remind myself and those who fulfill this mitzva listening to my shofar that both in moments where it’s easy to see the beauty shine through and also at the times of our greatest pain and despair, God is always right here.

As I approached and passed my sixtieth year, I found myself returning to some of my earliest passions, some of which had lain dormant for decades.  About five years ago I picked up my guitar as a serious endeavor, no longer just the five-minutes-before-candle-lighting it had become for many years, and even began recording and releasing my music publicly (visit my pages on cdbaby, soundcloud,  and youtube to listen).  For myself, at least, I’ve found a music which is a wordless spiritual exercise helping me explore God.

I also found myself looking at things from a mathematical/systems perspective, the field of study I first began college with but stopped pursuing shortly thereafter.  I’ve become sensitive to the patterns and underlying structures hinted at in Gemara and Halacha and more explicitly described in our less-talked-about (Kabbalah) traditions and I began to view Torah, from our human point of view, basically as a system Divinely-designed to enable us to fulfill our purpose in having been created, דבקות, Devekut, attaching ourselves to God.

Throughout the last number of years, I’ve also become increasingly aware of the ways our Jewish rituals and halachot no longer seemed to be working as intended.  As our people are shattering into almost mutually exclusive camps and denominations, traditional liturgy and practice have become either frozen (usually at some point in eighteenth century eastern Europe (and this has, sadly in my eyes, in the last thirty years, infected much of the Sephardi world as well)),  totally rejected or trivialized.  In any event, it seems to be working (defined as leading us, both individually and as a nation, to greater devekut) for only a tiny, and shrinking, number of people.  Perhaps considering halacha as a system (an infinitely-complex one, to be sure, but a system nonetheless) with a definite goal (devekut on both the individual and communal level) might help lead to an evolved halacha that works better (regardless of whether it is easier, more popular, more emotionally fulfilling or any other of the measures too often employed today).

Whether my current thoughts, future insights and analyses really will produce a “solution” is less important than the fact that they ask new questions.  If nothing else, asking questions (always considered more important in Jewish tradition than finding “answers”), in contrast to giving answers, is a positive spiritual exercise, reminding ourselves that we don’t, can’t “know it all”, that since only God is omniscient, our knowledge is, necessarily, at best imperfect (and that’s all right).

Anyhow, I’m not mentioning these details of my personal life’s trajectories in order to sell music downloads nor to present a “final report” on where my theological questions have touched, and I certainly hope my sharing doesn’t make anyone reading this feel awkward.  Rather, I’m trying to illustrate a very important principle as we begin a new year and initiate a new cycle of holy days.

It’s neither pretentious nor egotistical to find significance in our own stories.  In fact, an inescapable fact that derives from the concept of Hashgacha Pratit, the idea that God’s omniscience and omnipotence, as well as His dealing with His creation with intentionality, implies that every detail of every one of our lives is “part of the plan”. Every moment of our lives places us at the most optimal situation to learn, grow and approach even closer to devekut.  We’re given experiences in order to, among other things, learn!

As limited beings, we have only a limited “tool box”.  One of those tools, available to each of us, is the story of our own lives and what we can learn from it to refine our future efforts and actions, both “practically” and “spiritually” (as if they are really different….). And we each have our own unique lessons we need to learn (one of the reasons why we each have unique lives).  One things I’ve learned from the recurrence of music and mathematics in my life is that this time around they produce much more profound (to me, at least) outcomes.  I’m beginning to find a way to combine intellectual complexity and exploration with ever-more emotional expression in my music.  And although most professional mathematicians have spent their entire careers realizing that mathematics provides tools to better understand both details and abstract patterns of our world, I’m only now beginning to see that.

In other words, if I look even a little closely I realize that I’m not merely cycling through interests and activities, going nowhere, but that I am, to whatever degree it might be, at a higher level this iteration than last time.  The application to our, the Jewish people, entering a new cycle should be obvious.  Rather than viewing ourselves going around and around in circles, we actually are, or at least have to potential to be, continuing our journey in life’s spiral, ever climbing, ever more closely approaching devekut.

Rather than sleeping through the admittedly long liturgy, listening numbly to melodies that seem clichéd from yearly repetition, racing through the litany of Vidui (formalized “confession”), we have the opportunity to observe how different our reading and singing and self-examination this year are from previous years’ efforts.  Performing the same rituals that we have over and over in the past, we can aim to reach even higher this time around.  We can grab a ride on this spiral.

It’s not really so complex when you think about it.  It’s also just called growing.

Ketiva v’Chatima Tova.

Lest we become unbalanced, weighted too far in the analytic and intellectual, remember that halacha has the potential to turn our everyday actions into living poetry.

The late Lubavitcher Rebbe, in his Sichos (Conversations) and other teachings, frequently identified two related pathologies, חוסר אמונה, Choser Emuna, inadequate faith, and חוסר בטחון, Choser Bitachon, inadequate trust, as leading to many of our problems, both as individuals in our own lives and communally, in the status of the Jewish People.

Within the vastness of the wheels within wheels within wheels, we always read the Torah portion, Ki Tavo, on a Shabbat shortly before Rosh HaShana which is much more than merely the New Year, but also the beginning of our intense yearly efforts to understand and evaluate where we fell short in the previous year and to strategize how to do better in the next.  This parsha builds up to horrific descriptions of what awaits us if we totally fail to sense and acknowledge God’s presence, culminating in banishment into exile which is the beginning of total self-alienation on the individual level.

Studying the Maharal’s (community leader, Torah giant, master Kabbalist of 17th century Prague) masterpiece, Netzach Yisrael, literally the Eternity of Israel, with a close friend and colleague, we just yesterday came upon a profound insight.  He teaches that just as the redemption from Egypt, the paradigm of all redemption, was eternal, so the entering into the Holy Land,  following the Exodus, was to have been both immediate and eternal. However, as told in the story of the spies whose report disheartened the Jewish People at that time, we lost the confidence that we were truly fit for The Land, breaking the continuity between Redemption and Final Resolution, so weakening our hold on the land, individually our sense of confidence and optimism, our sense of being comfortable in our own skins, that instead of then reaching the promised and intended complete rectification of all reality our history branched into the “short-circuit” of multiple exiles, eventually becoming a seemingly endless one, just as our own dis-ease of alienation and lack of direction with their consequences can seem hopeless and inescapable.

Doubting our ability to conquer the stereotypes of evil, both within ourselves and in our larger world, represented by the Seven Nations, we really doubt the ability of The Creator to bring His own plan to fruition.  We also express doubt, as it were, in God’s intelligence–He thinks we and the Land of Israel are a perfect fit while we’re not so sure.

On an historical basis, even contemporarily, whenever we lack the confidence that we really have a place in the Holy Land, the world is only too happy to accommodate our doubts.  In our own lives, when we lose faith and confidence in our goals and purpose, we fall into depression and despair.

The central imagery of Rosh HaShana is God as מלך, Melech, King.  Not as an autocratic tyrant, mind you, but as the ultimate wisdom, ultimate power of the universe.  The directive, this year as in every past year, is clear.  We “restore God to His Throne”, return the Shechina, the manifestation of The Infinite in our mundane daily lives, by rebuilding and restoring our own sense of faith and trust in a Power and Being who transcends us and our own limited abilities.