wrinkled and holy like parchment paper

On Yom Kippur, when I had a lull in concentration, and no matter what I tried I couldn't focus on anything other than an old sci-fi movie, I started to think about the influential people in my life. I thought about my grandmothers and grandfathers, parents, aunts and uncles, teachers, in-laws. The only thing that stuck in my head was the texture of their skin. Holy holy holy skin, wrinkled and paper-thin.

It occurred to me then, and though it is something I've said and written in the past I understood it then in a new and deeper light, that the essence of being a Jew is being simple. Simply keeping to the laws and traditions, year after year, day after day. Your soul is always holy; infinite and holy. But in the persistence of Judaism your flesh, especially your skin becomes holy. And in that moment I understood that children are new flesh, with years and years of investment ahead in order to reach that same holiness of skin that Grandma or Sabba carry with such grace.

It is no wonder then, that the Tikkunei Zohar teaches that the skin is the organ that represents Malchut. (God's Kingship, the Word of the King)

hastening the end

We've all experienced the thrill of planning something new. We've also all experienced waking up the next morning and wondering what happened to all that energy and drive for our new plan. It just vanished overnight, as quickly as it came.

We aren't always 'energized' and when we are, we usually waste it.

The challenge for today and every day hereafter: whenever you have that burst of energy, invest it in something positive immediately. Don't hesitate, certainly don't wait, act on it, in some small sure-fire way.

This is the midah (attribute) of zrizut - haste.

When you suddenly remember something you did that was less than perfect, stop right where you are and confess before HaShem, do immediate Teshuvah. In the past I've written about how this kind of Teshuvah is the highest, because you are in the heat of the moment, you are reliving the sin and embarrassed by it.

When you think that you would like to be more spiritual or work on one aspect of religious observance or another, or honor the memory of a late (grand-) parent, don't put it off and decide you will plan something special. Stop right there, find something to eat/drink and make a berachah. Or give some tzedaka, learn some Torah, all of the above.

When you find yourself well-practiced at this new discipline, you will be thankful to see that you are bringing your desires into action, you will feel more fulfilled. Even more, you will see how this aspect of zrizut pours over into all aspects of your life. You'll turn off the TV when nothing interesting is on, you will catch yourself sitting mindlessly looking at your phone or out the window and utilize this time.

And then the test becomes: don't get irritated at every one else who isn't there yet. But that's a matter for another time.

I'd like to share one short example of how Avraham Avinu (our forefather) exemplified this trait of zrizut.

When God told Avraham to go and sacrifice Yitzhak (Akeidat Yitzhak) his only son, he didn't tell him where to go, but he knew it would take some time to get there, yet the Noam Elimelech points out something weird about Avraham's behavior: He chopped the wood right then and there, even though he would be carrying it for a few days. Reb Elimelech learns from this that when we are burning with the desire to do something, it's important to manifest this desire physically somehow, so that we don't lose the initial desire entirely. Avraham Avinu chopped the wood for the sacrifice right away in order not to lose his precious initial fervor.

It occurred to me that there is a question about the way we relate to the Akeidah, indeed some commentators suggest Avraham (despite what appears to be the literal understanding of the text of the event) did sacrifice Yitzhak. We even see support for it in references to "Yitzhak's ashes." So the question is: "If he wasn't burnt, then where did these ashes come from?"

I have two answers I'd like to share with you, the first is one that I arrived at a long time ago and it still provides an acceptable answer, but the second drives home our current point of zrizut:

(1) In Bereishith we see that man was created through the union of dust and wind/spirit. At the akeidah, the binding of Yitzhak, he divested himself of the dust component and was left in an entirely spiritual state. His dust [ashes] remained on the altar even though he was not sacrificed.

(2) The ashes of Yitzhak are the ashes of the wood that Avraham chopped in the initial moment of holy fervor and devotion in which he was prepared to sacrifice Yitzhak himself. From this we see that the initial spark of holy devotion is tantamount in the eyes of HaShem to the follow through of the act itself. Even though Yitzhak wasn't burnt, the wood that was prepared for the burning of Yitzhak was elevated to a level as holy as Yitzhak himself being offered.

From here we can learn how crucial it is not to lose that initial spark of inspiration, channel it into something concrete and know that you have already completed the greatest part of your goal.

Perhaps this is why our Rabbis teach that all beginnings are difficult. (כל התחלות קשות)

[Those who delve into this teaching will understand the gravity of motzi zera l'vatalah, HaShem Yishmor.]

mouthing out His words

The Ohr HaHayyim, R' Hayyim ibn Atar, says that [in parashath Ha'azinu] HaShem referred to the written Torah as 'my lesson' (לקחי) and to the oral Torah as 'my sayings.' (אמרתי)

That's amazing!! One normally thinks the 'oral Torah' (תורה שבעל פה) refers to the speech or interpretation of the Rabbis, when here the Ohr HaHayyim is telling us no! HaShem counts the oral Torah as Torah spoken from His Own mouth.

This bolsters the teaching that every word of Torah we speak is tantamount to all of the mitzwoth combined, as taught by Chazal.

nonverbal dance of the soul

When a person talks, they have a tendency to move certain parts of their body. Those parts of their body they move when they talk are the parts of their body in which their soul primarily resides. (Tikkunei Zohar 132b)

haazinu : AZ-ify us!

האזינו השמים ואדברה - heavens! harken and I will speak

These are the opening words of parashath Haazinu. While learning the Ohr HaHayyim, he asks a simple question: what is the meaning of האזינו - harken? It suddenly occured to me that the deeper meaning of these opening words is something quite different from what we might have otherwise thought:

For a little background, we need to understand a few ideas. Speech is the power of the Moshiah. Why? Speech is associated with the sefirah of Malchut in a number of places, most notably in the introduction to the Tikkunei Zohar: מלכות פה - Malchut is the mouth. Also, the Moshiah will wage his wars through prayer - בקשתי ובחרבי - with my bow and my sword - is translated as through my supplications and my praise.

Another important introduction: Az Yashir, the song that Bnei Yisrael sang upon the Exodus from Egypt, hints that Mosheh and Bnei Yisrael will sing in the future, אז, not in the past. Chazal explain (since clearly Mosheh sings with Bnei Yisrael) that this song in the future will be in the time of Israel's final redemption. (when Mosheh is resurrected with all the rest of the 'dead')

Now we can understand the prayer that was hidden within the opening words of Parashath Haazinu:

האזינו השמים ואדברה - [I entreat the] Heavens, bring us to the time/state of אז (literally: make us אז) the time of the final redemption, and then [as the Moshiah, with the power of Moshiah] I will speak.

your prayers are always heard

Imagine this:

The King sits upon his throne in a sprawling chamber surrounded on all sides by infinite troops of mighty angels, the Holy Tzaddikim come and go petitioning the King and receiving His direct acknowledgement.

Outside the door to the King's chamber there is an anteroom, there the beinonim crush in a throng around the door passing notes in to be read to the King. They aren't allowed to enter, but they are at least priviledged with passing their prayers into the room.

At the far end of the anteroom the resha'im, the evildoers scornfully loiter, without any access to the King's ear.

That's the way the Tikkunei Zohar describes the scene. It seems to be in direct contradiction to the advice of the Ba'al Shem Tov: You should pray with the certain knowledge that your prayer will be answered.

How can we reconcile the two views? Either the Ba'al Shem Tov was only speaking to the Tzaddikim or else he knows something we don't know.

In fact, more than that, we know how much HaShem loves His children. (ie. infinitely more than the most a parent has ever (unconditionally) loved their child) So how could HaShem let a prayer go unheard? Moreso, a prayer that is unheard is a secret known only to the one who prayed it, and yet we say that the hidden things are for HaShem and only the revealed parts of creation are for us. (הנסתרות לה' אלקנו) These hidden prayers are under HaShem's sole jurisdiction, how could these prayers be refused entry into the King's chamber?

Perhaps Rebbe Nachman can enlighten us: In the past we discussed his teaching that prayers born of utter despair are always welcomed into the chamber of the King. [see prayers cleaving to prayers] The real trick here is that all the half-hearted or unintentioned prayers that loiter around, unable to enter the King's chamber, are embraced and wrapped up within a true prayer born from desperation. HaShem Himself brings such a prayer into His chamber and there, alone with this very precious prayer, all the other prayers are unwrapped and revealed.

Here we see that HaShem created the world with a structure and a system, it's called midah k'neged midah. (or 'a turn for a turn' as translated by R' Lazer Brody) The system (figuratively) handles the day to day function of how the world should work. But HaShem also created prayer as a means to petition HaShem directly, perhaps we could say (again figuratively) a means to balance the system. This is a secret backchannel established with His beloved children and it's actually bidirectional.

You see, we've learned previously one of the most basic (and crucial) lessons of the Baal Shem Tov: When HaShem wants to give us more blessing than we deserve, (according to the system of midah k'neged midah) He wraps that blessing up in a package of suffering. When we experience the suffering and thank God for that suffering recognizing that anything that comes from God is ultimately for our own good, we merit to remove that outer package of suffering and get at all the surplus of blessing hidden within.

That's one direction of the backchannel. The other direction is prayer. As we just learned prayer lets us wrap up our prayers, all our needs and desires, all of our confusion, everything in the desperate prayers of any member of the Jewish people. One person's genuine prayer is enough to raise up the needs and wants of all to God's attentive ear.

Prayer is the general 'upload' channel, but repentance, Teshuvah, is a more specific protocol of prayer. Through Teshuvah we can awaken HaShem's infinite Mercy and bring down limitless influx of blessing. The reason it can bring down so much blessing is because it contains an element of the download channel as well -- we thank HaShem for the sin, for the fact that we failed the test, recognizing that even our failure comes from God, and even our failure was ultimately in our best interest.

In short, there's this whole massive edifice that is the rules and structure of creation, and then there's the entirely personal, entirely private relationship HaShem has with His children. The structure is really there to educate us, and to sustain us as long as we don't know how to access that personal relationship. But don't be mistaken, the entire goal of your existence is discovering and developing that personal relationship.

So if you find yourself standing outside in the anteroom this Rosh HaShanah, don't forget that you have a V.I.P. pass to the afterparty.

the end embedded in the beginning

Procreation and the root of evil share the same source. Both draw their life from the initial phrase of creation, בראשית. This phrase is referred to as a sealed phrase, but we aren't going to get into why, suffice it to say the answer may be beyond our ability to understand. (Likkutei Halachot Hilchot Kibud Av:4)

It is known that procreation creates a child who is imbued with an animal soul, which includes at least some small part of evil. The Godly (totally good) soul only comes later, at maturation, the age of mitzwoth. (bar/mat mitzwah)

What I'd like to focus on is an interesting tangent: The initial creation of the world involved (at least the potential for) evil, as Rebbe Nachman just explained. Shabbath, the essence of good and all blessing, the perfection of creation, was only created on the seventh day.

To me it's another striking example of how perfect HaShem's world is that the microcosm so perfectly mirrors the macrocosm, a child is created initially with a soul partially evil, and the perfection, the completion of the child only comes about at thirteen (twelve for women) years of age.

father son learning

When we learn with our children, their ability to absorb what we are teaching is directly related to how excited we are both to be learning with them and for them to learn and understand. (Iggeret HaKodesh 15)

We can apply this idea to learning Torah as well. When we sit in front of a sefer, we are sitting down to learn with God. Now there are two ways to strengthen this connection and therefore improve our Torah learning and understanding:

(1) By being excited about learning together with HaShem, we awaken (figuratively) HaShem's excitement to learn with us.

(2) By recognizing that HaShem deeply cares about us and is excited to learn with us, this in turn arouses our own excitement to learn with HaShem.

So these two methods create a feedback loop that reinforces our enjoyment and our comprehension of Torah study. It is no wonder that the true Talmidei Hachamim find nothing as enjoyable as learning Torah, and at once have such a depth of understanding when they learn.

coming of age

A Jewish child is born with the impression of a Godly soul, they only inherit an actual Godly soul when they reach the age of mitzwoth, bar/bat mitzwah.

This is how I explained it to a group of Bar Mitzwah boys:

If your dad gave you a shiny new sports car, you wouldn't hesitate, you'd jump in and go for a spin, let it loose, see what that car could really do.

Your new Godly soul will take you anywhere you want to go (in any world!!) much faster than the fastest planes or rockets ever invented. Jump in and see.

טעמו וראו כי טוב השם - taste and see that HaShem is good.

heavy conversation

We have a mitzwah to pray every day (for a Jewish woman once a day, a Jewish man three times a day) we are required to pray, to talk to God.

That's heavy. That's difficult. That's an awful lot of commitment.

But here's something perhaps you have never thought of:

In the Talmud (Masechet Berachot) we are taught that HaShem also keeps the mitzwoth.

If you are committed to talking to God every day, He is committed to talking to you too.

things I should say to my boss

I would love to make this deadline, but I've got much more important things to do.

In less than three weeks I have to stand before the Creator of all that is and justify my existence. He's the one who is paying the bills, He writes the checks. If I don't satisfy Him, I won't be able to make ends meet. On the other hand, if He's happy with me, I'm on easy street. You could fire me, and I wouldn't even notice.

I have to start working on myself.

Sounds ridiculous to you?

Sounds ridiculous to me too.. that's my problem.

In eighteen days I have to stand before the King of Kings, and I'm affraid I'll just be standing in synagogue, almost completely unaware of my current situation.

Can you imagine, being judged by the King and being so oblivious as to not know what is going on?

What chance do I have if I can't speak in my own defense? I'll be like someone showing up to court drunk.

Thank God He's merciful and graceful, exceedingly patient, infinitely kind and truthful, looks out for the good of all, overlooks transgression, crime, and sin and cleanses all.*

I'm only going to get off because He'll let me off; but shouldn't I at least put in the effort?

Wouldn't it be nice if I could be present for my judgement, maybe thank HaShem profusely for his infinite mercies?

Anyways, that's the way the conversation should go. But of course I won't say it. Year after year, this is what we go through, and we don't say these things, we don't take a month off to prepare (which by the way is the whole purpose of this month of Elul) to take stock, and to get to know God in a personal way. In the month of Elul we say the King is in the field -- He's around, get to know Him, so that when He sits on His lofty throne come Rosh HaShanah, we'll have a clue who it is we're standing before.

He's also our father, so we know even if He doesn't go easy on us, it's all for our own good. But Still. There are babies, who are all but unaware of the existence of their parents, and then there are children who know and recognize their parents, who take great pleasure in the attention afforded them, who want nothing more than to show off a new project or bring home a pleasing report card.

There are even young adults whose successes in the real world are even more precious in their parents' eyes.

And then there are those children who have grown, and wed, and birthed, and brought home grandchildren for their parents' pleasure.

Our mitzwoth are referred to as our children. When we do mitzwoth, real mitzwoth, the kind of mitzwoth that we meant to do, that we rushed to do, that we were overbrimming with joy to do, these mitzwoth are as alive as children. They have a body (the action) and a soul. (the intent)

When we come before HaShem in eighteen days, we don't (really) have to be worried whether or not we will get a favorable judge or a merciful jury, but what if Rosh HaShanah could be like bringing your kids home for a visit with their Grandfather??

That's what it really means to be inscribed in the book of life.

* this is my own translation of the 13 attributes of mercy

exile as scalpel

Two interesting points I've seen recently in Rav Avraham Azulai's Hesed L'Avraham:

He goes into great detail as to the suffering of the soul in Gehenom, purgatory, but the most important point changes one's whole perspective: The suffering of the soul is not a punishment, it is a purification process for the sole benefit of the soul. Normally we associate Gehenom with the non-Jewish idea of 'Hell,' but there is almost no correllation. Gehenom is a lot closer to vital soul-saving surgery performed on a soul in grave danger.

In that sense it might be possible to say that this world by default becomes a form of surgery with anesthesia. (In the most protracted sense.) Gehenom would be surgery without the anesthesia. Although I think all Kabbalistic texts agree that Gehenom is categorically less painful than reincarnation as a means of treatment for spiritual damage. I believe this is mainly because of the additional damage one will most likely cause in another reincarnation.

The point though, is that Gehenom, with all the rivers of fire, demons, and scorpions, is a therapy aimed at spiritual health, not at causing suffering. [This becomes apparent when we look at Pirkei Avot where we are warned not to think of Gehenom as a refuge after we die. (according to the understandings of the Notzer Hesed) How could Gehenom possibly be a refuge? It's a refuge from taking accountability for one's actions (vis a vis one's sins) because one might be tempted not to repent and simply let the fires of Gehenom cleanse one's soul. Talk about living life on credit.]

The second and related point of interest is that R' Azulai draws connections between the micro and macrocosm, explaining that exile is the spiritual equivalent for the totality of the nation of Israel, as the suffering in Gehenom is for a single Jewish soul. Just as Gehenom is a cleansing process for the soul, the exile is meant to cleanse and purify the Jewish people -- the redemption marks the completion of that purification.

(Hesed l'Avraham 5:12)