The first faint sliver of the new moon is about to become visible, and it is an auspicious ‘moonth’ that is upon us: the beginning of a focused journey into the Holy Days of Awe. The month during which this occurs is Elul, the month before Rosh Hashanah, and traditionally it is a time of sacred study and reflection. Each weekday, following morning services, we blow the shofar, in order to hear the ram's horn call to us, in its primal abrupt manner, “Wake Up!"
As many of you probably know, the word Elul is an acronym, (spelled alef-lamed-vav-lamed), standing for Ani L’dodi V’dodi Li, "I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine” from the text of the Song of Songs. Why would this month have that name, and why from that text? One answer is that, as we begin to sift this past year through our lens of self-critique, we want that sifting to occur within a loving, compassionate relationship, and not one that is punitive and scolding. The Song of Songs is a celebration of a loving, lusty relationship between grown-ups. It is characterized by a yearning to see the beloved’s face, and to feel the closeness that is possible as lovers, or, as the Rabbis understood it, between Gd and the Jewish people. Thus, while we are charged during Elul with relentless self-examination, it occurs within a relationship that is thoroughly grounded in compassion and a desire to return to a life that is unencumbered by callous and witless behavior.
I find that we are all accustomed, from a very young age, to begin new things in the fall: school, jobs, or merely that our outdoor chores shift from planting to harvest (and lots of garden cleanup!). How wonderful it is that we are given an opportunity, through the work that is available to us during the month of Elul, to ‘change the spark plugs’ in our spiritual and ethical selves. To arrive at the Rosh Hashanah services without doing some of this preparation can render that experience rather hollow and unconnected to our deeper selves.
So, each week until Rosh Hashanah, I’ll be sharing with you some thoughts and suggestions that will assist us in doing some of this inner shifting. And what is our work? Identifying and reconnecting to the standards by which we yearn to live; thoughtful consideration of how we have strayed from that path; and planting the seeds for our spiritual and behavioral renewal. This is the essence of the High Holiday season. When one genuinely grows, Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz teaches, one’s personal truth must surpass all one’s previous truths so that, by comparison, they are truths no longer. Teshuva (from the Hebrew word, to return) demands that we pursue our individual truth at all times. Our goal is to always aim for greater heights of awareness that must be manifested in our actions, and to be constantly struggling and striving to do and be better. It is not enough to just be.
I look forward to this journey that we’ll take together over the next 4 weeks, when the new moon of Tishrei will appear in the sky. On that first night of Rosh Hashanah, we’ll meet in the sanctuary, made holy by our presence and our commitment to our teshuva.
Blessings,
Rabbi Jan Salzman
Rabbijan@ohavizedek.org
As we prepare ourselves during this month of Elul for the work of the High Holidays, we turn our thoughts to a challenging question: how is it that we can ‘fix what got broke’ and not sink into the depths of despair at the way that we have conducted ourselves this past year? Let us approach this question from the wisdom of our mystical tradition, as that may hold some clues for how we can discern an answer.
In the Hebrew liturgy of the chaggim/High Holidays, the word that we use for wrong-doing is ‘chet’, which comes from the verb ‘to cleanse.’ Now, this is interesting, for it is not sin that we speak about, but rather cleaning up the mess we made by acting in a way that did not live up to our highest expectations. When I do something wrong, or, in the language of the High Holidays, when I do something that will have to be cleaned up later on, our Rabbis considered this question: do I irrevocably damage all of me? Is there a part of me that is is untouched by that ‘sin’? is there a pure part of me that cannot be damaged by my actions, and upon which I can begin to build the foundation for entering the new year, recharged and rebooted?
A clue is found in the daily morning liturgy, which says: Elohi neshama shena-ta-ta-ti t’horah hi/“My G-d, the soul which You have given me is pure.” How can I say every morning that my soul is pure? The Kabbalah, which is the collection of our mystical texts, explains that there are 5 levels of the soul, and that they correspond to the different ‘worlds’ in which we live: the Nefesh (our bodies) Ruach (our emotions) Neshemah (our consciousness) Chayah (the source of living) and Yechidah (that part of our soul that is constantly in union with G-d). Only the first 3 are experienced by us; the other two exist on a more ethereal level, and it is these two upper realms that are unpolluted by how we conduct our daily lives, and from which we draw our strength and healing for doing t’shuvah/returning to our paths of righteousness.
When we think that we cannot do the deep work of t’shuva, we are denying our deep belief in the power of free will, and our responsibility to make the world a better place. Yes, the world is full of what we experience as evil, and, yes, we are deeply challenged to make substantial changes to how we act in the world. But it is exactly the message of the High Holidays that we are capable of such change, of cleansing, and that we will be forgiven our iniquities precisely because we go through the process of self-examination and the vow to do better in the year to come.
Since there is a part of me that cannot be polluted, I can proceed to examine my attitudes and behaviors without the sinking feeling that I have really blown it; the more ethereal components of my soul stay connected to the shefa/constant flow of pure energy, and, like a safety line, stabilizes me and supports me in my efforts of self-examination.
Finally, it is important to remember that we do all of this in joy. There is a story that is told about a Rabbi who comes upon a man who is praying during the Confessional part of the services with such enthusiasm and joy; he is dancing and singing, with tears running down his cheeks. After the services have ended, the Rabbi approaches the man, and asks how he could be so joyful in the face of the despair of self-examination. The man replies, “If I have to clean the dooryard of my beloved, my work is joyful, for what kind of beloved would accept the efforts of someone who is dour?”
May our efforts at teshuvah bring us in closer contact with our deeper selves, and a rich experience of these Days of Awe.
If you have any questions, or comments, please contact me.
Enjoy your week!
Blessings,
Rabbi Jan
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Greetings from the hot, humid north! At our home in Vermont, I look out over our pasture, with the cows grazing and trying to stay clear of the flies, and the tomatoes ripening on the vine, and I can’t help but also see the draining color from the green leaves on the trees. Yes, fall is on the way, and another cycle of the summer’s abundance is drawing to a close.
As we prepare ourselves during this month of Elul for the work of the High Holidays, I turn my thoughts to a challenging question: how is it that I can ‘fix what I broke’ and not sink into the depths of despair at the way that I have conducted myself this past year? I want to look at this question from our mystical tradition, as that may hold some clues for how we can discern an answer.
When I do something ‘wrong’, or, in the language of the High Holidays, when I commit a ‘sin’ (in Hebrew, this is the phrase “ale chet, which means, ‘to miss the mark with my bow and arrow’, and not in an absolute sense of evil) what part of me do I damage? Which part of me is untouched by that ‘sin’? is there a pure part of me that cannot be damaged by my actions?
A clue is found in the daily morning liturgy, which says: “My G-d, the soul which You have given me is pure.” How can I say every morning that my soul is pure? The Kabbalah explains that there are 5 levels of the soul, and that they correspond to the different ‘worlds’ in which we live: the Nefesh (our bodies) Ruach (our emotions) Neshemah (our consciousness) Chayah (the source of living) and Yechidah (that part of our soul that is constantly in union with G-d). Only the first 3 are experienced by us; the other two exist on a more ethereal level, and it is these two upper realms that are unpolluted by how we conduct our daily lives, and from which we draw our strength and healing for doing t’shuva/returning to our paths of righteousness.
When we think that we cannot do the deep work of t’shuva, we are denying our deep belief in the power of free will, and our responsibility to make the world a better place. Yes, the world is full of what we may call evil, and, yes, we are deeply challenged to make substantial changes to how we act in the world. But it is exactly the message of the High Holidays that we are capable of such change, and that we will be forgiven our iniquities precisely because we go through the process of self-examination and the vow to do better in the year to come.
Finally, it is important to remember that we do all of this in joy. There is a story that is told about a Rabbi who comes upon a man who is praying during the Confessional part of the services with such enthusiasm and joy; he is dancing and singing, with tears running down his cheeks. After the services have ended, the Rabbi approaches the man, and asks how he could be so joyful in the face of the despair of self-examination. The man replies, “If I have to clean the dooryard of my beloved, my work is joyful, for what kind of beloved would accept the efforts of someone who is dour?”
So, here are just a few thoughts for the coming week, to help you in your t’shuva work during this third week of Elul:
1) As you interact with people each day, be conscious of what your face projects and to what extent it is an expression of your inner self.
2) At least once during the day, try to feel a connection to your holiness, and let that shine out of your face.
3) Of the events of a day, how did the goodness in your shine through? How did something not quite work out the way you had hoped? What went wrong?
4) Begin to look at where, when, and with whom you have experienced forgiveness. When did you forgive someone? When were you forgiven by someone? Is there still some residue around those situations?
5) Clean out your closet. Give what you don’t need or want to someone who does.
Enjoy your week!
Blessings,
Reb Jan and Reb Ed
]]>Zohar on the Holidays of Tishrei
As we enter the final gate of the month of Elul, I look back upon the journey, not only of the past month, or even the past year, and not just of my life, or even just the journey of the Jewish people, but of a deeper journey. I notice, as others have before me, that the year pulses, marked by the rhythm of the holiday cycle, providing us an opportunity to voyage on what I like to call the psycho-spiritual journey of the calendar. We not only re-enact our personal stories through our engagement in Torah, T’filah/prayer and mitzvoth; we can also get a glimpse of a greater trajectory, that of the unfolding nature of the cosmic coming-into-Being.
Our sages discovered connections between Rosh Hashanah and the creation of the world. For example, Sukkot is explicitly associated in the Torah with the Exodus. And the sages calculate Yom Kippur as the very day on which God fully forgave His People Israel for the sin of the Golden Calf. In the text of the Zohar (our foundational mystical texts) the sages read the holidays from Rosh Hashanah through Sukkot as not only rooted in the Jewish storyline, but also as telling a story themselves, one of the great cosmic drama at the heart of Jewish life as they understood it. For the Zohar, this drama is the struggle of good against evil, of health against sickness and of love against alienation and oppression. In the eyes of the sages, the holy Jewish story, from the Five Books to the details of Jewish law today, is all about this great cosmic drama. They understood that, by keeping the commandments and live Jewish lives, we help God ensure that goodness, health and love overcome their opposites.
Rabbi Shaiya Rothberg, of the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem (and who was one of my favorite teachers during my studies), writes: While the Zohar expresses this cosmic drama in many forms, the paramount symbol or metaphor is that of two lovers. In the spirit of Jewish mysticism, both of these lovers are understood as aspects of God: the Holy One and the Matronita (Lady) or Shechinah. Goodness, health and love are symbolized by the holy union of the lovers. Evil, sickness and alienation are symbolized by the lovers being torn apart (think of the Song of Songs). The lovers are brought together or torn apart by our actions here in this world. Since the Shechinah is the immanent aspect of God, She is tied to our world.
How can we understand this intimacy in today’s world that seems so harsh and unkind? By giving ourselves the personal responsibility for repairing the tears in our personal worlds (and isn’t interesting that you can read that word in two ways: tears that are cried and tears that rip!), we can imagine that we’re also repairing the rifts on that cosmic level (which the mystics emphasize vibrate with the effects of our behavior). In this sense, we ourselves are central players in the Zohar's cosmic drama.
Interestingly, the complete cycle of this work is not finished until Sukkot, when on Sukkot and the Eighth Day (Shmini Atseret/Simchat Torah), we are commanded to be joyous; at that point, comes the embrace of the two lovers so that, at the very end of the holiday cycle of Tishrei, we taste the complete redemption: a world of goodness, health and love – the world that God set out to create from the very beginning.
May our journey from this moment onward be filled with the deep soul-work of introspection, both of our personal selves and the soul of our people, Israel, and may we come to the joy of Simchat Torah with song and dance, delighted at being whole again, even if just for a moment!
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What is it like for you to face an ‘unknown’?
What is your image of Gd these days? How has it changed in your life?
How have shifts in your life unfolded? Slowly? Suddenly? In hindsight?
What does it feel like for you to receive a gift? To give a gift?
Teshuvah: what do you yearn to return to? To heal? To salvage from your situation?
How do you frame your experience within a Jewish context?
What are the doorways into your Jewish identity?
How do you increase your attentiveness to the nuance of life? Does that mirror a divine attentiveness? If so, how? (Are you mirroring in your life how Gd might be manifested?)
Where do you feel more energy in your life? Where do you feel whole, engaged, energized, clear, fully present? How does that feel? (Might this be a face of Gd for you?). And its opposite: where do you feel dragged down, alienated, cloudy?
What is it like to be connected?
What do you yearn for?
What obstacles exist for you?
Where in your body do you register different emotions? (Psalm 40, “Your Torah implanted in my viscera” and “Your scroll inscribed upon me”)
How might you discern between acting for your own self interest and acting for the interest of others? How do you understand “to act justly, to love kindly, and to walk modestly with your G-d” (Micah 6:8)?
How might a connection with G-d impact how you live?
What is your understanding and experience of your soul? Do you feel a connection with other souls?
Facing decisions, how do you make a choice? What is the role of the voices within you that drag out a decision, or sabotage or support your decisions? What has it felt like to ‘reach consensuses within you? How has that affected the way you carried out your decision?
How does self-deception play out in your life? self-inflation? Hiding from necessary confrontation?
How do you imagine that you are a co-creating partner with Gd?
How does imagining your life as a work of art aid in your discernment process?
What boundaries might you have to cross if you followed your discernment process?
How do you perceive the sacred within the ordinary? (berur Addison, p. 98)
How would you discern that something was, or was not, pleasing to G-d?
What do you think are your gifts? What do you bring to the world?
What is your prayer as we open our discussion? (and, then after the session)What is your prayer as we leave each other?
Upon whose opinions do you lean, in making difficult decisions? Do you lean upon your own opinion, as well?
Can you get in touch with those moments when there is no separate identity, between you and another?
How would you react to the statement:, “We are not the finite aspiring to the Infinite; rather, we are the Infinite expressed as finite.” (Weinberg, p. 134)
Or, “We know fragmentation; we intuit unity” (p. 135)
How do you experience ‘your Self’? and how might you imagine that you could experience an “expanded Self”?
How do you experience the words ‘trust’? ‘surrender’? ‘sweetness’? ‘to understand’?
One of G-d’s name is “I will be who I will be”. How do you respond to that facet of GD?
How does it feel when you are open to a new idea or experience?
How does it feel when you shut yourself to a new idea or experience?
What if your actions affected the cosmos? How would that affect your behavior?
Describe a moment of wonder in your life, of holiness.
Let us examine how you celebrate and live in the cycle of Jewish time.
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