The following Dvar Torah is more of a personal reflection piece. It was written as part of an AMAZING Elul group I have been participating in since 2002 (I think), in which each person is responsible for sending out a Dvar Torah during one of the 40 days from Rosh Chodesh Elul until Yom Kippur, giving tzedakah that day, and reciting one section of Tehillim each day. It is longer than my usual piece…
This past Friday, erev Shabbas Shuva, I was working
furiously throughout the morning to finish some last minute changes that I needed
to my lesson plans for the day. When my first class (9-9:45) finished, I ran
home to put up the cholent, start the soup, and daven Shacharis. By the time I
had taken care of everything, it was 10:50, and I knew that I needed time to
head back to school for my 11:20 class, since Fridays have alternate side
parking so I might have to walk a bit. As I was about to leave,however, I was
startled by a deep, rumbling crash and a sudden brightening of my living room.
I think I knew what it was before I even turned around… the long wall of my
modular sukkah had crashed down.
Let me take a step back to explain that two years ago I
bought a brand new sukkah. For years we had had a creative DIY sukkah that,
among other things, required my ex-husband’s ingenuity to put together. I
wanted the freedom of my own sukkah that I could do myself, which was what I
expected from the modular. Came year two, however, and I hired someone to put
it up because I felt overwhelmed at construction. The price was far steeper
than I expected. As this year’s holiday season approached, I asked around for
prices, and even the teenagers were charging upwards of $300. I just… it just…
I was determined that we could do this ourselves. I recruited my 15 year old
(ok, I recruited everyone, and my girls quickly bailed), and we set to it
before Rosh Hashana because I wanted to leave time to hire someone if it didn’t
work out.
We ran into problems fairly quickly. Certain board just
wouldn’t go straight. But, I persevered and, the next day, put it all together,
noting that I didn’t have enough wood to connect all the straighteners – things
were a little wobbly - but no storms were in the forecast so should be fine. My
son mentioned a time or two that we should ask the person who sold us the
sukkah to come and look at it, and I deflected. The last thing I wanted to do
was ask anyone else for help! – Motzei Shabbas, I texted the guy, and he agreed
to come help me tomorrow morning…so, hmmm, that wasn’t really a big deal, and
if I had done it earlier, perhaps I would have saved myself a sukkah panel (as
one did truly break in the fall).
This Dvar Torah isn’t about Sukkos. It’s about the very
significant idea of asking for help.
I hate feeling ineffectual or incapable. I hate feeling
pathetic. I hate feeling dependant. That is all to say…I hate asking for help,
and I think that in this I am not alone. (Go on, raise your hand if you are
like me!)
The very human hesitation on asking for help is something
that is the backside of the discussion of what we need to do during the Yom
Noarayim. We come to Rosh Hashana to crown Hashem as our King, which means
recognizing that Hashem is the source for everything that happens to us and all
that we have. Then comes Yom Kippur, when we face Hashem as the Judge and ask
Him to forgive us our transgressions, which means we appeal to His Rachamim to
wipe our slates clean.
It’s very interesting to think about these two concepts
together. We know that during Elul there is the concept of the King being in
the field, being available for us to speak to him directly. Many of us think of
this as a time to beseech Hashem for the things we hope for in our lives or as
a tool of teshuva and asking for forgiveness for our sins. How many of us ask
Hashem to help us with those very short-comings? How many of us think of the
acts for which we seek atonement and think about asking Hashem for the koach to
overcome them?
If you’re like me, along with the idea of teshuva and
atonement is the idea of overcoming our inadequacies. If I have been delinquent
on the mitzvah of, let’s say, giving maiser - and I feel like it is an annual
occurrence - I most likely enter Yom Kippur thinking about how I am going to
set up a new accounting system, keep better track of my income and my 10%, or
perhaps set up a separate account with automatic withdrawals. These are all
excellent strategies, but how often do we include Hashem in the solution? How
often do we ask Hashem to help us help ourselves?
Here’s where I get a little raw and overly honest. Coming
into the Yomim Noarayim, I was struggling with davening, with feeling like my
tefillah was a conversation, with the sense of connection to emunah. I was
worried about Rosh Hashana because I was filled with such a longing for that
rare, wonderful feeling of connection and in such dread of missing it. The
first day my davening was ok, but the second day was work – I worked hard to be
present and mindful at what I was doing, and still I felt it wasn’t enough
until the moment when I did stop and I spoke honestly from my heart to ask
Hashem to help me connect. It was a lovely but far too brief moment, not quite
the heights of inspiration, but closer. The next day, however, I was back to
struggling through davening and worrying about Yom Kippur.
During the vidui section of Yom Kippur, some of the Al
Chaits I connect with most sincerely are the ones translated as brazenness,
stubbornness, being “stiff necked.” Certainly, there are different
interpretations of these Al Chaits, but for me I can see the connection in them
to my challenges with tefillah and emunah. I keep mistakenly believing
that I have to solve my challenges alone, that my struggles in emunah and
tefilah lay on my head and are a problem for me to fix. This distills Hashem to
a piece of my problem rather than an active part of my solution. This is the
constant brazenness of humanity, because the matter stems from the belief that
all is in our control.
I know this Dvar Torah has gotten long, and I apologize and
hope it was not too long winded. Today is the 6th day of Tishrei. We have
three more days before Yom Kippur. These are the days of teshuva, of
repentance. As part of that process, let us add the important element of asking
Hashem to help us overcome the challenges we face - negative feelings for
others, resistance to davening, poor accounting skills on maiser. Recognize
your failing, confess them and repent on them, but don’t forget that Hashem is
our King who wants to see the best for His subject, and therefore wants to be a
part of the solution.
Thank you to all the wonderful ladies who took the time to
share their thoughts and their lives over the past month. I often did not have
the opportunity to respond individually as I would print them in clumps to read
on Shabbas, but they were definitely at a new level this year. And thank you
Caryn and Ruthie for the dedication you put into this project every single
year!
I am going to give tzedakah this year to Canadian Friends of
Yad Eliezer, which is now called B’Ezri in Israel.
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