First off, I would like to say how proud and honored I am to be part of this outstanding group of women. Not only are the Divrei Torah inspirational, but it means so much to me to be able to be able to maintain my connection to so many Passaicers and former Passaicers this way.
Second of all, I would like to ask mechila from the entire group. I tried to say Tehillim everyday, but I must be honest that there were many times that I missed. (Ruthie very wisely placed me on the same day with another woman for Tehillim.)
Warning, the following is long. Actually, the following are two separate items that I wrote sitting here tonight. The second one is a little more personal, perhaps less inspirational to others, but I decided to attach it as an optional read in case it adds meaning to anyone elses’ life.
#1
Another year has come and gone. As with all years, we have had months of choices made, opportunities taken and opportunities missed. No one goes through a year without regrets...but it is what we do with our regrets that truly energizes the time of year known as the Yomim No’araim, the Days of Awe.
Another year has come and gone. As with all years, we have had months of choices made, opportunities taken and opportunities missed. No one goes through a year without regrets...but it is what we do with our regrets that truly energizes the time of year known as the Yomim No’araim, the Days of Awe.
As we rest on the edge of another Yom Kippur, I look back and see the past with an all too honest eye. Where have I gotten to?
I remember my first Yom Kippur in an Orthodox shul. I was at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, 20 years old on my Junior year abroad. I had recently found my niche with a group of other students who were searching and moving and slowly becoming frum. Since I did not live on a "religious floor," I chose to stay with a friend in her dorm room. I don’t remember much of the details, but I remember we set an alarm and rose early enough to be in shul at the very beginning–and stayed there the entire day, without tiring. It was....wonderful. I felt so geshmacht. I had connected to something wonderful and powerful.
That was 15 years ago. Since then I became fully frum, graduated college and grad school, spent a year in seminary, lost my father (obm), dated, gotten married, had three children and am currently gestating #4. I’ve lived in Maryland, Jerusalem, Brooklyn, Passaic, Portland (Oregon) and now Montreal...and no experience has equaled the spiritual elation I felt that first Yom Kippur.
The first year that I had a child, I fought against the idea of not going to shul on Yom Kippur. How could I connect without the spiritual umph of the davening in shul? That year, at least, he let me daven. The next year, then a toddler, my son walked over and closed my machzor so I would stop and play with him.
My son is now 5, so its been a while since I’ve been to shul on Yom Kippur, and it’s something that I have come to terms with. I am not going into the Yom Tov expecting to daven, because then I would be angry with myself and, chas v’shalom, with my kids, if I didn’t get to. If I do get the opportunity, I will see it as a gift.
What I am taking with me into Yom Kippur this year is more humility. In the midst of a difficult time this year, someone handed me a book of stories to read. They were the usual inspirational, wow that really happened to someone (and why doesn’t any clear message like that happen to me) type of stories. But one of them hit home the message that sometimes we need to daven to Hashem to help us to daven. Sometimes, far more times than most people are willing to admit, we need to throw up our troubles and tell God that we are leaving it up to Him, really and truly. I did that, and I did it about a complex issue of bitachon and emunah, and truly did feel a sense of peace as I have not before experienced.
Writing this brought to mind a line from Avinue Malkeinu that my son has been singing over and over (although my husband and I didn’t realize this was what he was singing because his rebbe is chasidish and he was singing Uvaynee Malkaynee instead of Avinu Malkeinu!) Avinu Malkeinu patach Shaa’rei shamayim l’tifilateinue: Our Father, Our King, open the gates of heaven to our prayers.
Not just the gates of prayers or the gates of tears, but the wider gates of heaven themselves. Let me just get my foot in the door to begin the process of teshuva, let my prayers enter even the first courtyard of the heavenly court!
When we come into the Yamim No’arayim, we need to come in humble and yet prepared to ask for the grandest of gifts-teshuva itself. (The ability to do teshuva, the willingness of Hashem to accept our atonement, is immense!)
Wishing each and everyone of you a successful, meaningful and inspirational Yom Kippur.
#2
From the very beginning, I wanted to talk about Psalm 27 for my Dvar Torah. This is the one we add to davening twice a day from the beginning of Elul through Hoshana Rabba.
Before I get to Psalm 27, however, a diversion. Today I did something I haven’t had the time or energy to do of late, I went to the local women’s Shabbas shiur (with Rebbetzin Wenger for anyone familiar with the Montreal community). During the shiur, Rebbitzen Wenger discussed the following passage from I Melachim 19 (11-13):
...And, behold, Hashem passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and broke in pieces the rocks before Hashem; but Hashem was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake; but Hashem was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire; but Hashem was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice. And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entrance of the cave. And, behold, there came a voice unto him, and said: ‘Why are you here, Elijah?’"
Rebbitzen Wenger pointed out that our chance to connect with the "still small voice" is during Vidui on Yom Kippur. Even among a crowd of worshipers (or a whirlwind of children), Vidui is a time for us to be alone with Hashem and to really talk to Him about the teshuva that we need to do.
It is in the time of this conversation that, in my head and heart, I would wish to scream out: Achat sha’alti ma’et Hashem, otah avakesh shivti b’vait Hashem kol yimei chayah lchazot b’noam Hashem u’lvaker b’haychalo (One thing have I asked of Hashem, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of Hashem all the days of my life, to behold the graciousness of Hashem, and to visit early in His temple. - Psalm 27:4).
And yet, somehow I never do. Why? This is my truest prayer...what does it mean, to me, to dwell in the house of Hashem, to behold the graciousness of Hashem? To me it means the comfort and security in a relationship–you know, that sense of ease when one is able to come into the house as if part of the family. And God is our ultimate Father, so it should be natural and easy to create that relationship. But for me, it is not.
Today I had a glimpse into one of the reasons that it is not. It all has to do with that "still small voice."
For many, many years, in different situations, people have been telling me not to "think so much." (For those of you who remember what I was like while dating David!!!) My response was always: "If I knew where the off-button was, I would!" You see, what I have learned in my lifetime thus far is that I am uncomfortable with silence, with being alone or even with finding inner-peace. (As David once said after I got a clean bill of health on something I was worried about–ok, now to find the next thing for you to worry about!) I do not believe that I am the only one who suffers from this unconscious fear, but I am aware of how it effects me.
Without silence within, how can I hear the still small voice? If I am busy looking for Hashem in the wind and the earthquake and the fire, I am blinded to all the nissim that are actually occurring silently within my life. In a busy life, it is hard to "stop and smell the roses," but if you don’t "stop to smell the roses" you won’t notice all the wonders of the world.
Without silence within, how can I hear the still small voice? If I am busy looking for Hashem in the wind and the earthquake and the fire, I am blinded to all the nissim that are actually occurring silently within my life. In a busy life, it is hard to "stop and smell the roses," but if you don’t "stop to smell the roses" you won’t notice all the wonders of the world.
Tonight is erev Yom Kippur. I won’t be at shul this Yom Tov, and I can’t even guarantee that I will be able to say more than basic Shacharit. I will be looking after my wind, earthquake and fire (Avi, Shevi and Leah...all miracles of their own). But, please God, this year I will try to follow my heart’s lead and let Hashem know that I want to reach a place to hear that "still small voice," but I need His help to get there.
May each of you have a meaningful, inspiring Yom Kippur, and may we all soon gather to dwell in the house of Hashem and to visit His Temple.
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