The Baal HaTanya, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, advises us on the importance of “living with the times.” Torah isn’t a document given generations long ago that’s distant from and irrelevant to our present generation. To the contrary, looking into the weekly parsha helps us navigate the journeys that we face right now, in our time. So, as we head into Rosh Hashana, it’s worthwhile to take a few moments to notice what the parshiyos around this time of year are telling us. And in so doing, we see a trilogy of movements.
The Bravery of Going Out
Parshas Ki Seitzei begins by teaching us about going out to (a non-obligatory) war against our enemies, and how to conduct ourselves on the battle field (and thereafter). But what if the Torah isn’t referring to any war, in the general sense, but instead, to our own war as individuals? The war against our ourselves, the “self” that too often dictates the parameters of normalcy based on what it observes on the battlefield of everyday life all around us?
Life doesn’t need to be a scripted enactment that cycles in repetition, day after day. Because what if it’s about the struggles more than about winning the battles? What if life is about asking questions more than it’s about always finding answers to them? What if, instead of becoming seduced by the beautiful people and things we meet throughout our lives (which, as the Torah warns us, is often the case in war), we allow ourselves to be seduced by our own inner beauty? We shouldn’t be settling for perceived serenity when we have more light within us that’s still waiting to come out and shine into the world.
And finally, what if, in addition to putting up a guardrail on the roofs of our homes, we also place boundaries and safeguards on the “roof” of our bodies – our minds – to prevent our positive thoughts and sense of self-worth from slipping away? Because, in truth, there’ll always be others (and our own self-doubts, too) with proofs as to how and why we’re incapable of achieving whatever it is we’re working toward. Why bother attempting anything when we’re sure we’ll fall down and fail in the end? What if we believe in ourselves as much as our Maker does?
Each day we face a task – several, to be sure – of waging war with the material world in which we live. Do we embrace that reality and elevate it, or do we subjugate ourselves to it and settle? Do we involve ourselves in the experiences, and the people, that lie ahead, or do we retreat inwards and stay “comfortable” with what and whom we’re already familiar?
After all, the battle of daily life isn’t an obligation, but rather, a choice – and it lies solely in our hands. Be brave enough to enter into “enemy” territory. Be courageous enough to stare physicality straight in the eye, shave off its external beauty, and strip it of its defense mechanisms. G-dly potential is buried therein…and it’s screaming for our attention.
The Bravery of Coming In
The second phase asks us the complete opposite: not to go out, but to return home.
This is because in life, it’s not enough just to know how to go out and to wage war. We must also know how to come in and nurture our truest selves – to carve out time in our busy schedules to make peace within ourselves and settle the “land” by being present and not striving to advance our “borders” or “territories.”
In Parshas Ki Savo, we read about the Bikkurim offering, our gift of the first of our fruits to the priests in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. Who were the priests? Hillel the Elder reminds us that they were a group of individuals who were solely interested in pursuing peace, unconditional love, and seeing the good points in all of G-d’s creations. And we each have a potential “priest” buried inside of us, so to speak, that we can tap into as we go about our days. As we collect our “first fruits,” we need to seek the good points within them (and within others we encounter along the way), as opposed to just criticizing ourselves for how below par and imperfect we are.
The Torah specifically instructs us to bring these first fruits to the priest of that day (i.e., in each generation) because when we seek the good, we can’t base it on what was. It’s always easier to find faults in how we behaved at some distant time, or how others treated us at a particular moment in the past. Discovering the positive pieces in our experiences means looking at where we are right now. Yesterday already transpired and is unchangeable, and harboring ill-feelings about a reality that was, or the relationships we knew of then, is irrelevant and counter-productive. Each day is a fresh opportunity to forgive ourselves for how we may have behaved. And to do this, we have to make time to return home, to see ourselves for who we authentically are, beneath how we present ourselves to others on the battlefield as we strive to conquer the world around us.
Standing Still
Rosh Hashana is very much a “gray zone” because it’s the day on which we stand between what was and what can be. It’s the day on which we judge, and are judged, for how great our future can look tomorrow. And to achieve this greatness, we must embrace that unknown together – all of us – even those who don’t seem very skilled or contributive, such as our wood-choppers and water-carriers. We’re stronger together, and we need to own that truth.
Yet as important as it is to stand together firmly as a people, we must also learn how to stand alone. Going out and striving for success can be physically and mentally exhausting, but so too is the journey home. Standing is something else entirely. Standing is the ability to just be, to find our center again. It means to know what we believe in and what we’re willing to take a stand for. It means being comfortable in our own shoes, when nobody out there is necessarily supporting us. To stand means to invest in creating ourselves as individuals. It takes a great measure of courage to press pause, especially in the heat of an important project deadline. But if we don’t practice mindfulness and make time to just be, we lose sight of the battles which are really worth fighting for – especially in a society that assesses success in accordance with how quickly we can get a job done, and at the cheapest cost.
The Audacity to Show Up
The Rayatz, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, explains Rosh Hashana through the following parable: There was a great king with an army of many officers and soldiers. One day, a senior, elite officer entered his inner chambers, spat in the king’s face, declared his leave from the kingdom, and went to join the king’s rival army. After some time, this officer was reminiscing about his previous relationship with his former king and realized how much he missed him and the life he once had in the kingdom, and decided to return to reunite with his beloved king. In his excitement, he rushed straight from the battlefield – with a foul stench, and still dressed in the rival army’s uniform – straight to the king’s inner chambers, asking to be re-accepted into the kingdom.
The Rayatz explains that this story is really about each of us in our present. Throughout the year, we become “distant” from our King. We join the “enemy’s army” and give into our many impulses and temptations instead of fighting to strengthen our potentials for goodness. From time to time, though, our soul reminisces about the relationship she once had with her King, and we feel an urge to return to our true kingdom and reunite with our Beloved.
In the award-winning film A Star Is Born (a story that strives to break the stigma surrounding addictions and mental health), a powerful song, “Always Remember Us This Way,” can be said to enhances this parable, Rosh Hashana, and our relationship with our Maker in general. This is the chorus:
So, when I’m all choked up
But I can’t find the words;
Every time we say goodbye
Baby, it hurts;
When the sun goes down
And the band won’t play;
I’ll always remember us this way.
Sometimes we can’t find the words to explain the thoughts, speech, or behaviors that lead us down a certain course of living. Time and again, we tell ourselves that we’ll improve our ways and return to our pure and untarnished core within. But we’re human…and to be human is to constantly be at war with all those impulses and societal pressures surrounding us. Each time we slip along the journey we call life, we feel like it’s goodbye and a disconnect from the relationship we once had with our Maker. The sun sets, it’s dark and confusing outside, and we don’t know which way to turn or who we can trust to help us get out from the chaos. The band refuses to play because all hope for reunion with our Source has been lost and, after all, how can we possibly joyously sing when we’re still living in exile and in such a state of lowness?
But the beauty of teshuvah and the fall Yom Tov season is that at any time we can always return. Parshas Nitzavim drives this point home when it tells us: “You are standing today before Hashem…” Wherever we’re standing in life, it’s before Him. We can always remember the relationship we once had and recreate it again – this time even stronger than the way our unhealthy habits may have limited us in the past. G-d always remembers us how we truly are, not how we may appear to be to ourselves or others externally, given all the layers of mundane physicality that envelop from our day-to-day “wars” on the battlefields.
On Rosh Hashana, we stand tall and proud, at the turning point between what was and what can be.
May it be the sweetest year yet, filled with only revealed blessings and goodness! A gut gebentched yar and a k’siva v’chasima tova!