The Jewish calendar around this time of year (the Jewish month of Tishrei) is one where a Jew almost feels like a chicken with its head cut off. Within one month, there are four Jewish holidays: Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, and Shemini Artzeret/Simchat Torah. In addition to our normal lives, Jews have spiritual preparation, meal preparation, and sukkah building to contend with. Within the craziness is the time between Yom Kippur and Sukkot. Normally, that is the time to make sure the sukkah is built and that meals are lined up for the first days of Sukkot. Within the commotion, I find something else more spiritual when looking at this craziness within the context of the High Holiday structure.
Elul is our spiritual preparation to get us geared up for the holidays to come. Rosh Hashanah is our time to get that initial spiritual jolt by listening to shofar blasts. Yom Kippur is a spiritual spa day: no food, no drink, no worry about comfort as is represented by not wearing leather shoes. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur have a few common themes. They act as a reminder of our limits and imperfections, as well as our own mortality. The chest-thumping and the guilt trips cannot go on indefinitely. If they did, we would be debilitated. That is why Yom Kippur only lasts one day, and that is why there is a change of tone within the holidays. The switch does not begin at the end of Yom Kippur when we say to ourselves "Thank G-d we can eat again." It happens during the Ne'ilah service towards the end of the Yom Kippur services.
R. Israel Salanter taught that as a minimum, one did teshuvah (repentance) between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. If you want to take it up a notch, you start during the Jewish month of Elul. However, if you really want to take the concept of teshuvah seriously, you start at Ne'ilah services. Why? Ne'ilah represents the turning point in which we act on all the spiritual work we did between Elul and Ne'ilah in the hopes of a better future.
As my Rabbi, R. Shmuel Herzfeld, discussed this Yom Kippur, our past does not define our future. That is the essential lesson of Yom Kippur. Judaism is not a fatalistic tradition in which we believe that we are condemned by genetics, environment, or G-d Himself. We take those efforts from Elul, Rosh Hashanah, and Yom Kippur, and we transform ourselves into something more.
There are many reasons to be joyful for Sukkot. R. Shlomo Wolbe expresses the view that Yom Kippur and Sukkot are juxtaposed is that we received positive judgement from G-d. Our ability to have another chance to work on ourselves, our goals, our teshuvah, are all reasons to be joyful.
Another reason to be joyful is to be thankful for what we have. The sukkah is a temporary structure that is flimsy relative to an actual house or building. That sukkah is a metaphor for life: ephemeral, fragile, uncertain. One thing we realize is that we become thankful for all that we have in the simplest of settings because life does not come from material fulfillment, but spiritual fulfillment. Additionally, the joy of Sukkot comes from becoming at peace with our environment and who we are (R. Yitzhak Berkowits).
Speaking of being at peace with ourselves, my Maharat, Ruth Friedman, brought up a certain tension that exists during Yom Kippur. On the one hand, we are meant to be our most spiritual selves to the point where we act like angels on Yom Kippur. We wear white, we don't eat or drink, we say "Baruch shem kavod malchuto l'olam va'ed" out loud, and we wear our tallit in the evening. On the other hand, we are meant to bring our most honest selves to Yom Kippur: confess all of our imperfections from the previous year and figure out how we can be better next year.
Going off Maharat Friedman's words and R. Berkowits' interpretation, I think that we are meant to find joy in the paradox of striving for perfection while realizing our human limitations. As Maharat Friedman brought up during Yom Kippur, we need to find a way to accept our non-angelic humanity while still striving for our best. Coming to terms with both our humanity and our expectations not only helps because it helps optimize goal-setting, but it helps bring us closer to G-d since we can feel the joy of Sukkot, as well as life, all the more so.
No comments:
Post a Comment