First let me thank Ruthie and Caryn for continuing to organize this amazing project. I have been with the Elul group from the beginning, and it seems shocking when I realize the stability it provides me through all of the many life stages I have been through in that time.
There is so much about this time of year that gives us hope
and inspiration, fear and anxiety, and, perhaps, more than anything else, a
yearning for clarity. If I might dare to hypothesize, I think that what most of
us really want is to understand why and what’s next. We want to understand why
we have our troubles, and we want to know that there is a plan for things to be
better. And that great desire… that internal need… is exactly why we need Rosh
Hashana, the day on which we specifically affirm Hashem as the King of kings.
Those of us who have been raised in modern, Western society
have no true concept of kingship. Our leaders are all too human. The more
fallible and selfish they have shown themselves - and with our insidious media
and full access coverage we see a great deal of it – the less people can relate
to the possibility of a true Melech. And without a Melech, we build up our own
autonomy, our own power, our own right to have everything in the world as we
want it…or to believe it is our right.
On Rosh Hashana, however, we have the prime opportunity to
remind ourselves, powerfully, that Hashem runs the world. Hashem has a plan. Hashem knows what is good
for His entire kingdom, and we, His individual subjects, do not have access to
His knowledge of the “why”s and the “what will be”s.
“Hashem has a plan” is the mantra that has gotten me through
a very difficult time in my life… that continues to move me through that
situation. It is a steadying thought. It
is a mantra that provides strength. But, in truth, it isn’t a thought that brings
great warmth to one in pain. After all, it means my suffering and the turmoil I
see in my children is part of Hashem’s plan.
Rabbi Uri Deutsch (of Lakewood, formerly of Montreal,
speaking on the Coach Menachem Sunday night program) cited an explanation of
the Book of Yona’s connection to the Yomim Noaraim from the Chofetz Chaim. (Transcribed
from him speaking and abbreviated…)
“Yona is a paradigm for what we sometimes do. Hashem has
a mission for us. He brought us to this world. Our neshama was brought down
from the Kisei Hakavod to experience all the travails and the challenges, the joys and the sorrows, and
the profound journey of what it means to be a Jew in an alien world because
HKBH declared that the world’s purpose can only be brought about when our neshama
comes here. Being able to grapple with that task, to embrace it, and to orientate
and guide one’s life along the path of being able to accomplish that unique
task, which is ours, is something we so often find ourselves wanting to reject.….
The Chofetz Chaim says, Yona was engaged in the struggle
to escape the Divine voice which would compel him to fulfill his mission. But
says the CC, HKBH doesn’t
allow the person to escape his destiny. And HKBH in his omnipresent, in his hashgacha, will
encircle the person, guide him, and will eventually create the circumstances
that will force him to face the growth, the journey, the struggle, the challenge,
and the joy that the Ribbono Shel Olam wants their life to be. So once Yona is
out on the sea, the Ribbono Shel Olam creates an unnatural storm. He then goes
as far as to bring a fish, in bizarre circumstance, to again bring Yona back to
where he should be, and eventually Yona realizes that this is the purpose of
him being the navi of Hashem and accepts all the challenge, all the agony, all
the pain, and all the confusion of carrying out a mission which to him sees
pointless…”
When I heard Rabbi Deutsch’s shiur, I felt greatly moved to
think of this situation as my “whale” (ok, big fish) and to hope that I can
find my way out of it, to find the teshuva that I need to do, before He determines
(Chas v’shalom) that I need to find an even less comfortable situation.
But teshuva is hard, especially when you are feeling punished.
It is especially difficult when you feel like part of you has been broken and you
know that Hashem already knows your pain. And so the perpetual cycle of doubt
and wonder presses harder as I come into Elul. How will I really daven? How
will I get through these days when my pain causes me to be so incredibly
focused on myself.
I have spent years focused on the definition of teshuva as
repentance. I know the Rambam’s four steps. I understand changing myself,
becoming a better person, and fixing the errors I have made. First, however, I need to look at teshuva for
its most literal definition: returning. And
for this I turn to Avinu Malkeinu. Right now, in my life, I find that I often
wake up with a desperate need for a hug. I’ve learned to ask my kids if they
will just hug me to get that physical need fulfilled… But the truth is that the
need is deeply existential. I am longing for a “hug from Hashem.” I yearn to
feel as if I am safe – safe from pain, safe from sadness, safe from being hurt
any further. My teshuva right now is to understand that the hug Hashem is
giving me may be in the form of the belly of the whale, so to speak.
In this year’s Rosh Hashana Mishpacha, in an article by Rabbi
Reuven Leuchter (“Look into the Mirror,” page 77). Writes about not spending Rosh Hashana focused
on worrying if we are davening properly, if our teshuva is acceptable, if our
prayers have enough kavanah. But rather, he explains, we should focus on the
words and thus discover “the world of Malchus Shamayim. If we look a little
more deeply into that world, we’ll see not only Hashem’s grandeur, but, surprisingly,
also ourselves….The Musaf tefillah of Rosh Hashanah shows us that Malchus
Shamayim has a role - an individual avodah, our own personal contribution to
making Hashem’s malchus manifest in the world.” He explains about the section
on Zichronos: “We think we’re
insignificant, and Hashem must have written us off. Say the pesukim: Hashem
calls out into the ears of Yerushalayim, ‘I remember how you followed Me into
the dessert! I remember that!’ No matter what we’ve done, we haven’t lost our
importance to Hashem and His malchus.”
It all comes together. Hashem, Avinu, has a plan. Hashem,
Malkeinu, has a plan. No matter how lost I feel, or how trapped, or how alone,
those are just feelings. The reality that often seems so hidden to us is most
accessible on Rosh Hashana. A true king, a Melech in the Divine sense of the
word, brings tests and challenges, as well and joys and simcha, into our life,
to move us forward in our true purpose. Our task, which sounds far simpler than
it is, is to recognize that unity of purpose given to us by Avinu Maleinu.
To this wonderful group of women as we travel this path
together, may you all be blessed to find clarity and success, and to learn to
appreciate the path on which you yourself traverse, in the year to come.
My tzedakah this year went to a fund being collected: Keren
Grushos v’Almanos.
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