Dear friends,

Now that Rosh Hashanah is drawing close, it’s time to open your machzor or vidui booklet. It’s the head of the year; the time that the person who you are, and the person you want to be are both going to be judged. In a human court, the agenda is either to find the defendant guilty and liable for paying a fine, serving time or the unappetizing combination of having to do both. There is no agenda for paying or rewarding someone for being a decent human being, or even for being an exemplary human being. Imagine seeing a court scene in which someone “charges” the defendant with changing their life by introducing them to learning Torah. The judge slams down his hammer and sentences the “accused” to long life and spiritual enlightenment. We humans have punishment down to an art form, but are rather clueless when it comes to reward.

Hashem rewards every step you make towards coming closer to Him. You write your own script. You are the unique package of good and less than good that you have become through your choices. He is with you when you struggle with yourself against closing the book, and dong something else, something less emotionally demanding. Have a coffee. Check your email. He will reward you just for keeping the book open. You see the list, and find that some of the items resonate. Yes. You sinned (so did I, so did everyone), you know that you have made choices that are not worth making, but no amount of resolve has as yet made it possible for you to cross the item off the list. You aren’t alone. Tshuvah is a process. You have to go back to dealing with your emotional motivations, to examining your response to what may be a less than perfect environment, and your lack of self- discipline. This feels both overwhelming and guilt provoking. The result is that you just don’t want to be there. You want to close the book. Big mistake. You are already rewarded for keeping the book open.

Doing tshuvah feels so good! Life’s greatest joy is closeness to Hashem. Whenever you try to do tshuvah, you are drawing closer. Even if the end result is that you are still far from the goal that you set for yourself, the desire to get there is a source of great pleasure to Hashem, and He judges you as a baal tshuvah. Today, the phrase Baal Tshuvah is used to describe someone who came from a less than observant background and chose to change his life and begin to keep the mitzvos. This is quite a distance from the literal meaning of the word. It means, “Master of Return”. Sincere longing to draw closer to Hashem puts you into this category even if you aren’t a former Buddhist monk who discovered Torah while meditating, or a girl who went to a Shabbos and was hooked on what might have been her first spiritual experience. You could be a Baal Tshuvah if you live in Flatbush, or Lakewood or even Har Nof, have an observant family and the benefit of a Torah education since pre-school. You want to do more than what you are doing. You have models to give you aspirations.

When my eldest son was about 6, he came home from school shortly before Lag B’Omer, and announced that he was going to be just like Rabi Shimon bar Yochai. He would learn Torah in a cave for 12 years. He plopped himself down on the daybed in the small “L” of our living room, closed the accordion door that separated the two parts of the room, and began reciting some chumash. He lasted about 10 minutes and then abandoned the “cave” and told me he would just be him, not Rabi Shimon.

His plan, of course was totally (and delightfully) childish. Do you do the same thing? Do you forget who you are? One of the problems that arise when you read books about the gedolim (great people), or see people who are several miles ahead of you in the race, is that you don’t see their struggles, failures and humiliations that they went through to get where they are. That doesn’t mean that your next step is to look in the mirror and give up. They got where they are because they didn’t. In order to receive the help from Hashem that you need to move forward, you have to stay awake, and actually make changes. This happens in 3 ways:

1-Concretize your tshuvah by letting go of established responses. Think new. Think about how all self-discipline generates self-esteem. Most of all think of where you want to head in life, and of the unique reality that Hashem crated for you.

2-Tefillah. Ask Hashem for what  you want and need (Hashem, I get so defensive when I hear criticism. Help me have the wisdom to know how to respond.” or “Only You know the truth about my addictions (food, media, etc.). Help me move beyond where I am!). Prayers such as these can be said before the closing brachah of the appropriate request in shmoneh esreh, or in independent self-composed prayers that you say whenever you want to.

3-Give tzedakah. It takes you beyond yourself, and bonds you to the rest of the Jewish people, opening door towards their merit and yours merging. 

Don’t stay in Chicago if you want to be in Detroit!

You will notice that the hidden emunah in you suddenly and surprisingly can be rediscovered. When that happens, your “detour” into sin, will have become the springboard for your self-discovery and tshuvah!
 
Love,
Tziporah   

Dear friends,

Good news as always, first! Illana’s wedding in Neve Ilan was simultaneously a blast and an inspiration.
And what a perfect time for a wedding! This month’s Hebrew name, Elul has the same number value as the word binah, which means understanding. Understanding means being able to enter another state of being, (another person, his situation, another life, their realities, an new idea) and draw a new conclusion.

The Arizal compared binah to the womb, where the unborn child who is all potential develops from being just two cells to an entire human being because of its being nurtured in a place where that can happen. When you take in a person who is new to you, or even an idea that is as yet undeveloped and give it what you have to give, something much greater comes into being. Ultimately that is what marriage is about. Marriage by its nature involves two people who are different. They are born to different families, have had differing life experiences and are of different genders. You can’t marry yourself. You have to move beyond yourself to see the other person and to nurture what is real about them. One of my husband, z”l’s many gifts was the way he never felt at all threatened by anything I did, or with the differences that were part of our relationship. He didn’t try to convert me into being just like him. He encouraged my every move.

Bina is there in you. It’s an aspect of the Divine image that makes you unique. It’s also the source of tshuvah. The literal meaning of tshuvah is return, not repentance. Hashem is compared to a parent who always is there for each child. He knows what your situation better than you do. He loves you more than you love yourself. He understands what will make you grow with far greater insight than you have. Doing tshuvah means coming back to Him, with love and longing, letting yourself feel empty and asking Him to fill you. It also means that you want to know how to find your way back to your hidden self.

The same way that you don’t marry yourself, you can come back to Hashem when you acknowledge your present distance from Him, and try to draw closer by knocking down the barriers that you may have been erroneously put up because like the rest of us, you are unaware of your potential for good. Maharal tells you how to begin.

Don’t only look at yourself, or at people who are just like you. Find what’s noteworthy and good in people who are not carbon copies of you. Loving people who are just like you is compared to loving a sibling. What draws you close is common genes, common upbringing and common experience. Loving people who aren’t just like you is compared to loving a dear friend, one who you had to make an effort to know. The result of the effort is that the bond is in some ways deeper, like the bond between a bride and groom who have to move beyond the givens of common background. On a practical level this means using Elul as a time for seeking out the people who you may have harmed in some way (financially, emotionally, with words, etc). At the time that you did whatever you did, you probably stepped away from seeing them as being as human as you are. You were focused on their faults, or you felt anxiety or fear and defended yourself. Now is the time to see them as people who are different, human and deserving of being treated with decency and kindness.

​This means stretching, and in Elul that’s fine.
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One result is that Hashem mirrors your newfound understanding and acceptance, and relates to you with His binah, since you are now able to move beyond where you were.

There are many ways to go about doing all of this. How about starting by making a life review of just the last 5 years, and really be honest about your relationship with people with whom you just don’t click.
Another way of drawing down binah and compassion is by remembering the Jewish People have merit that goes beyond your lifetime. It started before you, and merit doesn’t disappear.

My daughter Dvorah has organized a trip to the Kivrei Tzadikim in Israel’s north for next week. For details of what may a very transformative experience, call her at 054-849-5896 / 052-7608425 [email protected]

Love,
Tziporah

Dear friends,

I am writing this in Israel’s north, where it seems the entire religious population has migrated for the end of the bein hazmanim vacation. The yeshiva bachurim, young mothers with strollers, middle aged folks who look like pictures from “Chareidi Illustrated”, a mythic magazine that I made up for this letter. It features the kosher eateries that spring up this time of the year, with reviews ranking them from “edible bidieved” to gourmet. It will have the hours of the separate swimming beaches and the easiest way to get to the holy tombs, along with first person stories of interest (“How I Got the Driver to Stop in Meiron”, “Ten Things to Know if You Get Lost On a Mountain Top as Dusk” etc). The mood here is generally upbeat, relaxed which gets me wondering.

All these people will soon be back to real life. Not only real life, but Real Life. Elul is around the corner. It can be a natural transition if you happen to be amongst those who like life, or a really hard adjustment if you don’t…

It’s easy to get wrapped up in the normal stresses of regular living. Check up on yourself.  How do you feel when you hear your alarm clock ring? Do you force yourself to get out of bed with a feeling that if articulated would be, “once again”? Nothing terrible. Just the usual stresses of a life in which you may feel unfulfilled in many aspects of your day to day being.

Stop right here

Notice the light piercing the edges of dark. Listen to the flow of traffic attesting to the miracle of human beings on their way to making their day work for them. Look at the marvelous sight of the myriads of buds the come into bloom simultaneously when spring comes, and the darkened silhouette that the same trees cast in the winter. Ask yourself, “Who is breathing life into all of the  pulsating creation around me”? Could it be that you are weighed down by the stress of mere survival because you feel that you have to shoulder the burden yourself?

Like the spokes in a wheel that connect to the central hub, all of the events in your life are driven by Hashem. Once you recognize Hashem’s fundamental role in your life, things change. All the obsessive concern with petty wants and imagined needs that hound you in your desperate pursuit for security become stilled. Stop feeling so needy! Hashem is above all of your needs and He is taking care of you. You can decide not to put off thinking about Hashem’s presence in your life for tomorrow. Each day has inherent value.

Do you know anyone who has fallen into spiritual apathy? Is that person you?  The environment is so morally ambivalent, and so coolly indifferent to anything real! Avraham lived in times like these, and decided to make every day count. He is described, at the end of his life as “Old, and his days came”, meaning each day reached its target. How did he do this?

He never chalked up a day as “bad” or write it off as a failure.

Stay focused on today. Take a small step today in approaching G-d. The Zohar tells you that every person has something of Hashem’s presence within him, but it can be concealed, so your awareness of Hashem’s presence is dimmed by whatever you added to the inherent concealment of just being human. When you miss the central concept of the puzzle that is life, you can find yourself seeing life as though it is a bunch of random pieces that don’t come together. The sense of arbitrariness of life makes you feel exposed and vulnerable, to the point that you think that the world around you is a dark a friendless place.

The way out of this ennui is recognizing that the cause of all of this is your perceived lack of common ground with Hashem. There are times that you may feel close to Him. There are other times when you don’t. You may perceive Hashem’s presence in the abstract, and if this is the  case, you have to make changes down here in real life to develop your inherent commonality with Him. Start by displaying generosity and good will to the people around you. When you learn to love people, you will learn to love Hashem and to feel your inherent connection with Him.

It isn’t easy. It’s easier and easier to find yourself connecting to Cyberspace more than you connect to people. There are fewer emotional demands on you, fewer faults that demand you to learn to be tolerant. and no one to genuinely love.  If you retreat into yourself you can end up in a vicious cycle of avoiding all real connection. Instead of asking yourself the hard questions about who you are, and what you are dong to make your day the gift it could be, you can end up blaming others, painting the rest of the world as cold and unfriendly land and become even more bitter. If you want to break out of the myopic thinking that start seeing life objectively in terms of your connection to G-d, you must begin by connecting to others.
Follow Avraham’s example and treat other people with love a tolerance. Being tolerant by definition means accepting people (and entire communities) with their faults as part of the package, it is defeated when you find yourself unwilling to love them unless they are faultless.

When you do this, you can make every day a good day. When you feel Hashem is with you, you will automatically seize every opportunity to do good. You will end up changing other people by the example of your faith.

Vacation is always a good beginning. The extraordinary beauty of Eretz Yisrael, its people, and its past can be an eye opener and a heart opener Even if you don’t have vacation, your mind can take you wherever you want to be.

You can step back and find yourself in places that bring out the part of you that you want to know.
Then you are ready for Elul, the last year of the Jewish calendar, the month of stepping back, redefining, reframing, and coming to love Hashem for what He has given you, and to love your fellow man for what he is.

The end
And the Beginning are
Locked
Embracing
Inseparable
And both Yours
And yours.
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Love,
Tziporah