Elul Group 5786

 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. 

 

Parshas Nitzavim: Striving for Emunah

I often imagine that if I lived in a different time, feeling the necessary awe of Elul would be easier. It’s a logical conclusion given how often the inspirational speakers share stories of the mighty figures of our past – and even common stories of their incredible grandfathers or great-grandmothers or etc. We often find it easier to imagine that their lives were simpler – certainly they weren’t easier – and that that earnest simplicity allowed them to flourish in their emunah.

 

The basic fact of the matter is, however, that emunah isn’t easy, and, probably,  it was never meant to be easy. If it was designed to be easy, it wouldn’t have merit; it wouldn’t shift the balance of one’s neshama. If it was easy, it would make it impossible for people to have bechira, free will.

 

A discussion of bechira, however, leads to many questions of hashgacha and Divine intervention. Did Hashem make something happen or did I make choices that caused results in reality… were those results always going to occur? Such questions, of course, drop one back into a question of emunah, of trying to understand to view the world with the understanding that Hashem allows this incredible duality of our existence – our choices matter AND Hashem runs the world. The question of bechira also leads us to the famous statement of Rabbi Hanina, who said: “Everything is in the hands of Heaven, except for fear of Heaven.”

 

Yiras Shemayim is one of the most important goals of a Jew’s spiritual development, and, like emunah, one of the hardest. Hashem made humankind with a strongly driven ego. We have trouble completely sublimating ourselves to anyone, let alone remembering that all that we accomplish is an accomplishment of our Creator and we are merely His conduits in this world. Developing our yiras shemayim is not just a goal, though, it is a mtizvah in and of itself.

 

According to Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman, the Ramban, it is only through developing our yirah that we can get to ahava, which is another mitzvah in the Torah. And Ahavas Hashem is the ultimate achievement of a relationship with Hashem.

 

Reading all of that is, in and of itself, somewhat overwhelming. We have so much we are meant to achieve spiritually, and – at least as my experience tells me – it only sounds easy. It is a constant spiritual and emotional battle of will to be active in our emunah, to be striving to have yirah, and to take the steps to achieve ahavah.

 

In Sefer Devarim it is made clear that Hashem has always been prepared for us to slide back down from our achievements, to have moments of greatness and moments of utter failure. This up and down journey is the path Hashem made for us because it fulfills our mission of tikun olam. When we have completed this tumultuous journey, when we have made as much progress in enhancing the world and ourselves as we possibly can, then Hashem will pull us into a new era, which we refer to as the era of Moshiach.

 

In that era, we are told in parshas Nitzavim, “then God, your God, will ‘circumcise’ your heart, as well as the heart of your offspring, [enabling you to] love God, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul, for the sake of your very life” (Devarim 30:6).

 

Sforno explains that this idea of circumcising the heart is about removing the very things that make emunah so much work for us today. He says: “He will open your eyes so as to remove every erroneous conception that has prevented you from recognising the theological truth of all aspects of the Jewish religion. Once these ‘blinds’ have been removed from your eyes you will realise that everything G’d has done was out of His love for you” (Sefaria).

 

Understanding the idea of Hashem doing only that which is good for us, even when it seems to cause us pain and suffering, is one of the greatest challenges of emunah and bitachon. One might think, upon reading Devarim 30, that if one just waits long enough, everything will be taken care of. However, it is the very work of developing one’s emunah and bitachon, of letting the world see emunah and bitachon, that is the work of an eved Hashem – that is the work that will gets us to Moshiach.

 

Rabbi Shimshon Refael Hirsch comments on this pasuk: “And by everything that you have lived through in the past times of trial, and by what God now lets you live through in this final geula, at last every orlah, everything ‘intractable’ will be removed from your heart and from your children’s hearts for ever, so that henceforth ‘God’ and ‘your life’ are identical for you, and just as your breath is an indispensable part of your life, so will the consciousness of God, the consciousness and feeling of the nearness of His bond of the Torah to you, and your nearness to it will be so much a part of your ‘living’, that with the whole of your heart and soul you will be absorbed in love of Him.”

 

Parshat Netzavim is always read in the time before Rosh Hashana, in the time when we are standing before the heavenly gates and striving to truly recognize Avinu, Malkeinu, the dual relationship of Hashem as He Who Judges Us and He Who Loves Us. As we approach this ultimate day of emunah, each on our varying spectrum of proper awe, let us take strength from Parshat Nitzavim that the work we do now in Elul and throughout the Aseres Yemai Teshuvah – and, in truth, throughout the year as we continue to strive for spiritual growth – is the work that is laying the foundation for the era of Moshiach, when we will be free of the orlah that interferes with the connection we so desperately desire.

 

Wishing you a beautiful Shabbas and a Ksivah v’chasimah new year – a year full of joy and clarity and strength, and a year in which peace comes upon us.

Parshas Ki Tova – Words that Express Relationship.

Parshas Ki Tavo is, when taken as a whole, a complex parsha. It starts with the mitzvah of bikkurim and includes the tithes, the creation of stones inscribed with law, and the curses and blessings that were to be declared upon entering the land. The vast majority of the pasukim in the parsha, however, are the Tochacha, the terrible consequences that will happen if the people stray from the right path.

 

Within all that, there is an interesting set of verses that seems, at the outset, to be not so interesting: “You have affirmed this day that Hashem is your God, in whose ways you will walk, whose laws and commandments and rules you will observe, and whom you will obey. And Hashem has affirmed this day that you are, as promised, God’s treasured people who shall observe all the divine commandments” (26:17-18).

 

As incredibly important as these ideas are, they have been stated numerous times throughout the Torah. This leads to the question of what is unique in this inclusion. The answer lies in one of my favorite subjects (just ask my students!) – word choice and grammar. In Hebrew, pasuk 17 declares: Es Hashem he-e-marta hayom lihiyot l’cha l’-l-okim, and pasuk 18 states: V’Hashem he-emeercha hayom lihiyot lo l’am segula.  The two pasukim are mirrors in their language. More than that, however, Rabbi Shimshon Rafael Hirsch notes that aleph – mem – reish “in the Hiphil only occurs here (17) and in the following verse (18). In that form it can mean nothing else than to cause somebody else to say something.”

 

Rav Hirsch translates the pasukim as “‘You have brought it about, you have caused it to be said that He must be your God; and God has caused it to be said that you must be an am segula to Him.’  That is to say Israel’s solemn promise to God and God’s pledged Word to Israel has not remained, so to say, a private matter, it has become internationally know, a fact engraved in the mind of the world.”

 

The wording of these two pasukim has intrigued commentators throughout history.  In the sefer Lessons from Targum Onkelos (Vol II), Rabbi Yehoshua Dovid Portowicz explores the translation of these two words by Onkelos, since he used the word chativa in place of he-ehmar. Chativa seems to be a unique word that each commentator understands differently. Rashi, however, explains Onkelos’ word choice as “praise and importance,” although he himself understood the words of he-eh-mar to mean “separated” or “divided.” This separation, according to this understanding, is not between God and Bnei Yisrael, but rather separating Hashem from false deities and Klal Yisrael from the nations of the world.    

The word he-eh-mar comes from the root aleph mem reish, which is the root of the word emor, to say. More than that, Emor is the root of the verb by which Hashem created the world. Once again, we are reminded that words have power, that words make things happen.

 

Rabbi Portowicz does not actually translate the word chativa itself in his analysis of the Onkeles, but rather explores the fact that so many commentators understood it to be a reflection of something that was created. Quite beautifully, the Aruch (Natan ben Yechiel) teaches “in the name of Rav Hai Gaon: “chativah” means  “a special picture.” The lashon he-eh-marta and he-eh-meercha comes from “wool” sewn onto a garment in the form of a picture or letters to decorate it. This indicates something recognizable that there is nothing like it; there is no Gd like Hashem, and there is no nation like Yisrael. The Aruch [says] ‘You made Me one chativah in Olam Hazeh; I will make you one chativah in Olam Haba.’ Hashem will reward us in Olam Haba, middah k’neged middah for being special in Olam Hazeh.”

 

This is reflected powerfully in one of the understandings of the Ohr Hachaim on pasuk 18: “Still another thought which may be concealed in our verse is that Hashem, the attribute of Mercy, will participate in judgment of the Jewish people. While it is true that G'd judges everyone and every nation according to their just deserts, i.e. lihiyot l’cha l’-l-okim, in your case, G'd the merciful will cause the Israelites to say (to acknowledge) that His judgment is fair, i.e. they will bless the Lord even when they experience what appears to them to be a harsh judgment” (Sefaria).

 

These are powerful words to hear before the parsha dives into the devastating Tochacha. Here in the parsha in which we read the dramatically devastating punishments that will befall our nation, we also receive the incredibly important reminder that our relationship with Hashem was forged in the wilderness. He will always be our God; we will always be His nation. The relationship is inseverable.

 

Wishing you a beautiful Shabbas and hoping we all have time to contemplate that what we do with this special relationship is a constantly shifting dynamic. How much we claim Hashem through tefilos and mitzvos and basic ahavas and yiras Hashem is a measure for how much the world can respect us as the Am Segula.

 

Parshas Ki Tetze: We Make Choices

Parshas Ki Teitzei is one of those parshios that discusses a wide variety of mitzvos, and very few of them link together in any way other than that they are commandments we must uphold. Some of the mitzvos appear to be chukim, laws that we cannot understand. Indeed, this parsha includes the mitzvah of shooing away the mother bird, a mitzvah of definite action who purpose is rather mysterious and spiritual.  Other mitzvos, however, are exceedingly practical. For example, it includes both the commandment to maintain a hygienic army camp and the prohibition of withholding or delaying wages from a worker.

 

Included in these mitzvos are several pasukim dealing with the very serious issue of not fulfilling one’s vow. “When you make a vow to Hashem your G-d, do not put off fulfilling it, for Hashem your God will require it of you, and you will have incurred guilt; whereas you incur no guilt if you refrain from vowing. You must fulfill what has crossed your lips and perform what you have voluntarily vowed to Hashem your God, having made the promise with your own mouth” (Dvarim 23:22-24).

 

Making a vow – which can be as simple as stating “I promise to…” -  is incredibly powerful. Each of us, every human being, is btzelem E-lo-kim, made in the image of G-d, and Hashem created the world by speaking. What we say matters…but what about what we do not say.

 

Dvarim 23:23 is a fascinating sub-statement: “Whereas you incur no guilt if you refrain from vowing.” If you don’t vow, you won’t get punished for not fulfilling your vow. That seems a fairly obvious statement, but for all of its simplicity, it is actually a rather powerful reminder. Each of us has control over our words. Each of us has control over our actions.

 

If you don’t want to risk breaking your word, then be careful how you give those words. Indeed, in Sukkah 46b, the sages quote Rabbi Zeira: “A person should not promise to give a child something and then not give it.” His reasoning there is that the child may learn to lie, but underneath is the same foundation – our words matter even in situations where we don’t think they are such a big deal, like promising a child a cookie. That concept then expands to the idea that if you don’t want to risk breaking a Torah commandment, do not put yourself deliberately into a situation where you will come to do so.

 

Most of us are not tzadikim. Most of us find ourselves in situations here or there where we must make an active choice against our personal desires in order to maintain our commitment to being ovdei Hashem. Sometimes, being totally honest, we put ourselves in those situations. Devarim 23:23 is a soft, subtle reminder that we have the power to choose where our actions might lead.

 

Wishing you all a beautiful Shabbas.