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A Rosh HaShana Teaching, 5770/2009
by Sarah Yehudit Schneider

R. Isaac said: Why do we sound the shofar on Rosh HaShana? …To confound the Accuser (TB RH 16a/b).(1)
Resh Lakish said: Great is teshuva that it turns premeditated sins into errors… But did he not say that teshuva turns premeditated sins into full-fledged merits. There is no contradiction: The former is the power of teshuva when instigated by fear, the latter is the power of teshuva when prompted by love (Yoma 86b).

There are three levels of teshuva. Each of them is real, but their sticking power varies. There is 1) teshuva from suffering, 2) teshuva from fear, and 3) teshuva from love. Teshuva is the most powerful tool of transformation available to humankind. It is not a mere formality; it is a potent agent of change.

First a definition of terms: Teshuva means, literally, return, and conveys a rich constellation of meanings: 1) Spiritual Path: It describes our life-journey which is to recover our authenticity and return, improved, to our Creator. 2) Personality Inventory: It refers to our ongoing effort of self-improvement and self-reflection. 3) Repentance: It refers to the three (or sometimes five) tasks which, when performed with a whole heart, can restore a relationship to its unspoiled state before the offense that created the breach that now requires an apology.(2)

Teshuva from suffering occurs when a person cries out from the torment that is the bitter fruit of his wrong action and resolves, on the spot, to straighten his ways. This is a real teshuva, accepted by HaShem, and it is potent to bring relief. The danger, however, is that once the discomfort lightens, we lose our motivation for change, and revert back to our old ways, and another cycle begins. Teshuva from suffering is passive because the instigation for change originates from without, from the distressing circumstance. Pharoah models the downside of this teshuva, the difficulty of making it stick. Nevertheless, each time Pharoah promised to “let Israel go,” he really meant it in that moment, and HaShem responded by stopping that plague. Yet as soon as the stressor lifted, the motivation to change dissipated as well.

Teshuva from fear is a higher level of repentance because it is self-initiated. The person has suffered the consequences of wrong action often enough (or witnessed the pattern in others), that she anticipates, even before the fact, that this promised pleasure will backfire and produce more pain than gain. The person’s nerve-net has finally integrated the (unwelcomed) message that grabbing forbidden fruit always, predictably, draws suffering in its wake. And so when she considers performing an illicit act, a fear awakens (a repugnance even) that is a foretaste of the anguish that will surely follow the transgression and that will, inevitably, obliterate its gains.

Teshuva from fear effects real transformation. The nerve-net absorbs spiritual law in a way that is potent to sustain change. Yet because the will itself has not altered, the person remains conflicted.(3) A “big” temptation can still override that fear. Its tidal wave of desire will throw him off balance and distort his judgment, deluding him into thinking that he will avoid the costs and dodge the rebound this time around.

“Teshuva from fear turns premeditated sins into errors.” When a person absorbs the fact that a temptation is really a hype—that it hurts more than it pleasures—and her aversion integrates deeply enough to counterbalance her wayward attraction, then she has really changed. She has become a different person. Though her will has not yet shifted, her behavior really has. She demonstrates, through the facts of her life, that if she had really grasped the consequences she would not have acted that way before. Proof is that now she does understand, and consequently she really does refrain.

Teshuva from love is when change touches core. The person integrates life’s lessons so deep that his instinctive response to the world always accords with spiritual law (at least in the area that is his current focus of inner work). The person’s genuine first choice exactly coincides with HaShem’s first choice for him. It is called teshuva from love because his heart, itself, (now corrected) steers him to the high road.

“Teshuva from love turns premeditated sins into merits.” A sin is something that takes a person off course, conceals G‑d, and lengthens the road to redemption. A merit is something that serves good, reveals G‑d, and shortens the way. When a person integrates truth so deeply that it changes her impulses at her core, then this is a teshuva that is sure to stick, because there is no conflict or competing will. She is not weighing the threat of pain against the promise of pleasure, but acts from an inner drive that is reliable, rectified and on the mark. When a person reaches this milestone, everything that preceded it (including her sins) becomes reframed. Instead of taking her off course, they now get judged as stepping stones that brought her to this paradigm-shifting moment where she chooses good (and G‑d) with a 100% whole heart. Her misdeeds get partial credit for her teshuva. This is how teshuva turns sins into merits.

And really, if you dig deep enough, you’ll find love of God at the heart of every Jewish soul. Through the power of resonance, the shofar’s wail connects us to that bedrock place inside our depths that cries the shofar’s cry: HaShem, I only want You, I only want truth, I only want to do what I am designed to do. On Rosh HaShana, when the shofar blasts, the House of Israel does teshuva-from-love and their sins get reckoned as merits.

And the Accuser gets discombobulated, for he has spent the whole year compiling a gigantic heap of accusations and incriminating evidence—the more the better, from every angle, concocting an airtight case. With glee he is certain that the weight of his denunciations will overwhelm the list of mitzvot proffered on our behalf. And yet, suddenly, when the shofar blasts, and our hearts awaken to love and our sins turn into merits, his massive pile of transgressions gets moved to the pan of assets. And now he’s all confused: he wants his pile bigger by not overlooking a single lapse, and yet it is having the opposite affect than what he had intended. And so he wants it smaller to minimize his loss but that undermines his raison d’être to ferret out misdeeds.

I want to bless us, as individuals and as a nation, that we open our hearts, minds, souls, and spaces to the shofar’s call. That we let its message reverberate through our being and awaken our own pure and genuine cry for good and God and truth and integrity in a way that is potent to sustain its resolve. Our teshuva, on every front, should be from love—our slate should be wiped clean and our misdeeds turned into merits. The world, and every individual in it, should be blessed with a good, sweet, healthy, joyful, peaceful, love-filled, light-filled, truth-filled, life-celebrating, Torah-sanctifying, Mashiach-bringing New Year.
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1) The full text: R. Isaac said: Why do we blow the shofar on New Year? [Are you asking] why do we make the [shofar] sound? Because the All-Merciful One has told us to do so [“And in the seventh month, on the first day of the month… is a day of blowing the horn for you.” (Num. 29:1 and Psalms 81:4).] What [R. Isaac] is asking is why do we make the particular sound called teru’ah [the broken staccato sound instead of the teki’ah mentioned in Ps. 81:4]? [Are you asking] why we blow the teru’ah sound? Because the All-Merciful One commanded us to do so [as it says] “a memorial of teru’ah!” (Lev. 23:24). What [R. Isaac] is asking is why do we make two kinds of sounds: a teki’ah [unbroken sound] and teru’ah [broken staccato] while sitting [before Musaf] and then again both of these two sounds: teki’ah [unbroken] and teru’ah [broken] while standing [within the Amida]? [The answer is] in order to confuse the Accuser.
2) Repentance is something that applies between and man and God and also between people. In the former there are three steps, in the latter there are five:

Both between people and between man and God:
-Confession. Admitting that one has done wrong and specifying the affront.
-Regret. Expressing a heartfelt apology that is proportionate to the hurt caused by the offense.
-Commitment to change. Resolve not to repeat that behavior again.

Between People, the same three as above plus:

-Securing forgiveness. We must apologize at lest three times until the injured party forgives the affront.
-Reparation. We must compensate for damages that accrued from the offense.
3) The deepening of relationship with HaShem that is effected by teshuva-from-fear is nevertheless back-to-back because a front-to-front encounter requires, by definition, a meeting of wills.

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Rosh HaShana, 5769/2008
by Sarah Yehudit Schneider

Like a shepherd…whose sheep pass beneath his staff, so shall You cause to pass, count, calculate, and consider the soul of all the living…who will live and who will die…who will rest and who will wander, who will live in harmony and who will be harried, who will enjoy tranquility and who will suffer, who will be impoverished and who will be enriched, who will be degraded and who will be exalted. But repentance, prayer and charity remove the evil of the decree.

Jewish mysticism chronicles the odyssey of seven spiritual worlds created and destroyed before our own (or eighth in the sequence). Kabbala speaks in metaphor when it states that each was a king with a universe-encompassing empire. The shards of these shattered kingdoms are called sparks, and they are the raw materials out of which our world is built. Everything that exists has a spark (or several) at its core. Each spark is a sliver of light (a synonym for consciousness in kabbala).(1)

Our cosmic task as their royal successors is to clean out the impurities and actualize the potentials of their fallen empires. HaShem gathers pile after pile of these shards and sends them down into incarnation. That’s how we all begin. Yet as newborns only part of our soul is confined to our body. The rest of our soul, the still-shattered pieces of it, remain strewn throughout the universe. Hashem leads us, moment by moment from coordinate A to coordinate B because there are fragments of ourselves, shattered pieces of our souls, that need to be recovered. When we act in a way that accomplishes Hashem’s purpose for that moment, we raise the spark and absorb its light back into ourselves. In the process, we become a sliver more enlightened. And so it goes, moment by moment, day by day, year by year, we gather sparks and become more whole. The sparks that have already been raised comprise our conscious identity. The still-fallen-sparks, connected to our soul, that lie outside our sphere of awareness constitute our unconscious self.

Our mission is to collect all the sparks connected to our soul. But not all sparks are alike. Some are a pleasure to gather, while others take blood, sweat, and a lot of tears. Some sparks lie in holy terrain while others inhabit forbidden realms. To extricate the latter entails great ordeal. Their lessons are learned (and lights are absorbed) through the school of hard knocks. Most would prefer to avoid that route but they don’t heed the signs till its way too late.

On Rosh Hashana (according to kabbala) HaShem decides which sparks will be raised this year and where they will lie waiting. This new batch of subconscious lights, called gevurot (dark knots of unactualized potential synonymous with sparks) that we will unpack and integrate this year, gets selected on Rosh HaShana through a process that kabbala calls nesira.(2) Let’s try to understand what that means.

Each soul comes in with a long list of sparks that only it can raise. Failure is not an option. Each year, on Rosh HaShana HaShem reviews our past performance and the current balance in our spiritual accounts, tallying the sparks already collected and those that still need to be raised. Based on projections of lifespan and other relevant indices, HaShem selects the sparks that will comprise our spiritual agenda this coming New Year. This assessment happens mostly without our input; it is just the fact of who we are and where we stand and what HaShem decides we have to learn about the world this year.

The next determination that occurs on Rosh HaShana is where these sparks will reside while they wait for us to raise them. How will we encounter them? Will they lie along a pleasant path, the preferred course of our life or will they require tedious detours, calamities, and costly rescue missions? What will it take to absorb their lights into our souls—to integrate their flashes of wisdom into our hearts?

This decision, to a large extent, depends upon us, for oftentimes an option exists. For example, a severely debased spark would naturally reside in the more polluted layers of reality, serving as the life force of some forbidden thing. Since a spark can only be raised by contact, someone must go there to pull it out, which means that fallen sparks get raised by fallen people.(3) The only folks who enter its domain are law-breakers, for the only way to get there is by trespassing the Torah’s bounds.

The transgressor will enjoy (perhaps) a moment of pleasure but the cost of his misdeed will soon outweigh its gains. In the end (which may be in this life or another), he will realize (and integrate to his bones) that crime doesn’t pay—that one who violates spiritual law never comes out ahead. And that realization is itself the spark of consciousness absorbed by the wrongdoing (or at least some portion of it). But what an exhausting ordeal; what a massive amount of unnecessary pain. Perhaps that same message could have been integrated through study, meditation, good deeds or community service.

So why didn’t Hashem just plant the spark in a more wholesome environ? Why does he bury sparks in wayward places where people must stumble in order to raise them? The answer is that the spark’s placement depends, to a large extent, upon us.

The default position for a turbid spark is in some forbidden deed or object for that is the way this grimy spark expresses itself on the physical plane. Yet (at least theoretically) it is also possible to contact this spark without stooping to its unseemly level. But that requires a different kind of labor. At a higher (and holier) plane, these same sparks are present but they are nearly invisible—they can only be found on the inner, subtle strata of that world. This makes them difficult to access. A person must bore through many layers of appearance to contact this unrectified spark at a level that is above its “natural home,” before it intersects the outer, physical plane and presents itself as a tempting misdeed.

And so, on Rosh HaShana, when HaShem decides where to place our sparks, He positions them at sites that we are likely to traverse in the coming year. And that depends (to a large extent) upon us: Do we float through life without goals or commitments, reacting to circumstance and avoiding discomfort? In that case our sparks must lie on the surface, because we are not the type to push through the façade, sacrifice for authenticity, self-reflect, or go deep. And that means that even when an option exists (which is not always the case) our spark will reside at the lower position (the messier alternative) which requires fall, purgation, and teshuva for its release.

On the other hand, when we set goals and diligently work toward them, we develop the muscle of persistence and learn to stick to our commitments despite theirs costs. By articulating our goals we anchor ourselves in the deeper layers of life. It is no coincidence that one of the main preparations advised for Rosh HaShana is to formulate our aspirations as a prayer vision for ourselves and our loved ones and our holy people, Land, and planet this coming year.

So I want to bless us as individuals and as a community that we use these last days before Rosh HaShana to commit ourselves to the high road and make a plan of how to get there. May we stick to our commitments and strengthen our capacity to “go deep” in whatever is the priority of our lives: whether it be to think deep, or pray deep, love deep or serve deep, or just be a mentsch in the deepest sense of the word. May the sparks that appear on our to-do list this year be lodged in lovely places. May the combined power of our prayers and visions transform our lives in ways that are only good. And may they create a vessel of vision and commitment that is big enough and strong enough to pull the spark of mashiach into the world now.

References:
1)The term, spark, is not to be taken literally. It is a metaphor for some increment of consciousness. It is similar to but not identical with what philosophy calls ”qualia” or “memes.”
2) R. Isaac Luria (Ari), Eytz Chayim, Shaar HaKavanot, Rosh HaShana. For a clear explanation of this term and its process see Kabbalistic Writings on the Nature of Masculine and Feminine by Sarah Yehudit Schneider and available on the Still Small Voice website (www.astillsmallvoice.org).
3) Toldos Yakov yosef, Parshat Metsora, daf 103, amud 4. Appears in the Torah of the Baal Shem Tov, Acharei Mot 10.

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A Rosh HaShana Teaching, 5768 (2007)
from A Still Small Voice
Based on R. Tsadok HaKohen, Rosh Hashana 9

When Elul (the month before Rosh HaShana) arrives we begin to exchange well-wishes for a good, sweet, healthy, joyful and bountiful year. One of the recommended practices to prepare for Rosh HaShana, is to create a prayer-vision of the best that could possibly unfold for this new year: What will it look like for ourselves and loved ones to live our lives in the most God-serving way possible, with a bounty of resources (both inner and outer), a commitment to good, and a generosity of spirit, making full use of the gifts that HaShem endowed each one of our souls? This vision expresses our deepest hopes and prayers for a year of revealed good, and inner satisfaction, where growth occurs through joy instead suffering. Of course this is what we want…or is it?

It sounds like we are hoping to press the reset button, and restart our lives with a clean slate. We are asking HaShem to cancel our karmic debts. We want to be free of the consequences produced by the chain of cause and effect that was set in motion by our wrong actions. Let bygones by bygones and let’s start anew. That sounds great, but is it really what will serve us best? From a spiritual perspective it seems a little short-sighted.

One major purpose of life’s discomforts is to provide feedback from the universe about what works and what doesn’t and how to adjust our course. Crashing into a (metaphoric) stone wall hurts for sure, but it also conveys an effective lesson about the decisions that got us there. A retrospective musing reveals clues throughout the way that could have been warning signs had we paid them sufficient heed.

In this sense our sufferings are precious, for they convey critical information. They are the symptoms of our wrong actions, the wakeup calls that prompt us to choose a different route. Without them we skip merrily along until we find ourselves at a dead end and realize that we have painted ourselves into a corner and there is not way out.

There are certain cancers that are especially lethal because they produce no symptoms until they are already so advanced it is nearly impossible to treat them. Symptoms are precious and essential. This is true for our bodies and true for our lives. The small mind opts for instant relief despite its hidden costs which are the loss of critical information required to correct our course which will prevent an even bigger disaster around the next corner.

So how is it that we are seeking to press the reset button, wishing and praying for a sweet year, free of the karmic consequences of our wrong actions, cleared of the distasteful symptoms of our errant paths. Isn’t this just a glorified version of immediate gratification.

The answer is the secret (and the power) of the shofar. In truth, these symptoms and sufferings do not serve an end unto themselves. They are messengers designed to awaken the heartfelt (bone-felt) awareness that there is nothing to be gained by acting against spiritual law (i.e., God’s will). They force us to face the lie: These wayward options promised gain and pleasure, but look! Open your eyes and admit that they have only produced loss and pain. They were a hype. Look where they’ve left you now.”

This shakeup produces a deeply internalized visceral recognition that sin doesn’t pay, which instigates a fierce resolve to travel the high road. Every cell of our being cries: “HaShem I only want You. I only want to do what is right. I only want to do what I was designed to do. I see now that every attempt to do otherwise, always backfires, and only produces pain.”

But if we could get to this visceral awareness without suffering, then the pain becomes superfluous. It serves no purpose. It adds nothing. Be done with it. And this is the power of the shofar, whose cry awakens the deepest point of our soul and expresses its woeful yearning for closeness to God, and its willingness to pay any price for that most precious of gifts.

The shofar preempts the need for symptoms for it brings us to that same visceral awareness that “I only want God, I only want truth,” without the messengers (i.e. afflictions) that are agents of natural law.

I want to bless us, as individuals and as a community, that we open our hearts, minds, souls, and spaces to the shofar’s cry. That we let its message reverberate through our being, and awaken our own pure and genuine cry for good and God and truth and integrity, in a way that is potent to sustain its resolve. The world, and every individual in it, should be blessed with a good, sweet, healthy, joyful, peaceful, love-filled, light-filled, truth-filled, life-celebrating, Torah-sanctifying new year.

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This Elul teaching was sponsored by Jerry Krivitzky and is dedicated to his rabbi, R. Joel Soffin in gratitude for his instruction and modeling of how to live by Jewish/Torah values.

An Elul Teaching, 2006/5767
By A Still Small Voice

These forty days between Rosh Chodesh Elul and Yom Kippur are called days of grace. They correspond to the forty days that Moshe again spent with HaShem receiving the second Tablets (replacing those that Moshe shattered in his outrage at the Golden Calf). HaShem forgave the people, replaced the Tablets, and revealed one of the deepest secrets of the universe, called the Thirteen Principles of Mercy. These are Thirteen descriptions of Divine compassion, and the vibrations created by their words, when spoken aloud in a prayer gathering, open the deepest gates inside the soul. Kabbala teaches that the grace of these forty days comes from the fact that HaShem released these love-lights into the world when He forgave the unforgivable, the idolatrous betrayal of His beloved people in this very season, »3,500 years ago.
Always, light refers to consciousness. According to Kabbala, these thirteen revelations of Divine compassion are channels that link the soul’s superconscious root (keter) with its conscious levels of mind (chokmah/binah). In some sense HaShem’s compassion depends upon our capacity to perceive that compassion, and that depends upon the state of these thirteen channels inside our soul. The more expanded the channels, the greater our capacity to absorb new light and appreciate its gift. The more constricted the channels, the greater the gap between mystery (keter) and knowledge (chokmah/binah). The conscious mind cannot grasp the fullness of Divine compassion, which then remains hidden, appearing as its opposite, and this is a painful state both for us and for Him.

The custom is to blow the shofar each of these forty days from the first of Elul to Yom Kippur. The Hebrew word for shofar has the same root as shipair (self improvement). The Baal Shem Tov explains that one major point of this custom is to awaken the leaders to do their inner work, to take time for deep introspection, and to wage a battle with their lower inclinations (as subtle as they may be). Presumably this is because the leaders are likely to become complacent when they compare themselves to the more lowly masses. The Baal Shem Tov suggests that the simple folk will do their Elul work either way, and that the shofar is calling upon the leaders to join in, and take the lead, and bind the people into a group effort that is greater than the sum of its individual parts (RH & YK -1).
Every generation is itself, altogether, a single partzuf (macrocosmic stature) and its leaders function as the thirteen channels of mercy that connect the commoners to the superconscious root of their collective soul. When the leaders do their inner work, the channels stretch and Divine compassion rules, grace fills the world, and life is good.
But truly there are leaders on every scale. There are inner leaders, outer leaders, big leaders and small ones. In fact, we are all leaders in some context, with others depending upon us. The Ari explains that every human soul is connected by an invisible circuitry of golden threads to certain animals, plants, and minerals in the world (which s/he may never actually meet face to face). Together they comprise a soul cluster (with the human at its center) and their destinies are entwined. The bounty that will be available to these creatures this coming year (sunshine, fertilizer, health, provisions, etc.) is dependent upon what their human soulmate pulls down this Rosh HaShana as a result of their own inner work.
Let it be, that we should all rise to the shofar’s cry this Elul, admit our failings, improve our deeds, and rededicate our lives to the service of G-d, and truth and good. And let our resolve be potent to sustain its commitment. And let the transformation effected by this teshuva draw HaShem’s utter compassion down into the grasp of our own conscious selves, and into the heart-minds of all of our dependents, and ultimately the entire of creation. Let us finally tip the scales and bring Moshiach Now!

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A Rosh HaShanna Torah, 5766/2005
from A Still Small Voice

You might be surprised to learn that not only is Rosh Hashanna the Day of Judgment (יום הדין), and the Day of Remembrance (יום הזכרון), but it is also, according to the Ari, the day of nesira (נסירה), which means literally, surgical uncoupling. This is a term used to describe the spiritual surgery, the sawing apart of Adam and Chava, who were originally created as a single androgynous being, back-to-back. Though nesira means surgical uncoupling, it only severs back-facing, addictive bonds. Its uncoupling actually initiates a higher, willful, and more rectified recoupling. (Ari, Shaar HaKavanot, RH)

In a back-to-back relationship the glue that binds the couple is from unconscious, compulsive forces that may even oppose their stated conscious intent. In contrast, a front-to-front relationship is one where the couple shares common goals and a mutuality of desire, at least to some extent.

“As below, so above.” Nesira is also the means by which the holy One created twoness in the world. At one stage in the creative process, HaShem employed the scalpel of nesira to carve out a cosmic other. Voila! Gender appears in the universe. He is called the Blessed Holy One (or man), and She is called the Shekhina (or woman).

The entire course of history (and its whole point) is for this cosmic couple to finally achieve a perfect union. They have been working on their marriage for nearly six thousand years. Eventually they will get it right. Eventually, says the Ari, they will meet and match from the crown of their heads to the soles of their feet. Yet, since each of our souls is a piece of the cosmic She, this striving for healthy (and joyous) union is also the secret (and the point) of each one of our lives.
Yet nesira is not something that happens once and for all. It occurs and recurs over time. In every relationship there are unrectified layers where the couple is enmeshed in a back-facing (dysfunctional) liaison and rectified layers where they meet eye-to-eye, heart-to-heart. With each cycle of nesira, the relationship deepens and sweetens as it turns face-to-face.

So too does this apply to our union with HaShem. There are areas of this relationship, where we are not earning our keep, where we are taking more than giving. Perhaps we are not living up to our potential, perhaps we are only serving from fear and not love (or perhaps not serving at all). In these unconscious and unrectified places our bond remains back-to-back.

On Rosh HaShana we receive our allocation of spiritual resources for the new year. This means that HaShem decides what He is going to reveal to us, of Himself, this coming year. And since “HaShem’s seal is truth,” His Self-revelation includes all that we are going to learn about life, and truth, and how to be a mentch in the world. It includes all the wisdom we are going to absorb in the coming cycle. With each new insight our relationship becomes more front-facing. In Hebrew, the word for face and the word for inward derive from the same root. A front-to-front relationship is one where each sees the other’s depths and their insides meet.

According to Kabbala, the deepest layer of a person is will. In the spiritual planes things are close when they are similar. The relationship between G‑d and man consummates when a person’s authentic and spontaneous desires exactly coincide with HaShem’s will. Intimacy then occurs at the most core level of being. This is as close as any two can get, and the pleasure of their union surpasses all earthly delights.

Each year, when the shofar blows, man and G-d strive for a meeting of wills. The first shofar was G-d’s breathing into Adam’s nostrils the soul of life. (Sod Yesharim, 1) With that breath HaShem conveyed to Adam all of His hopes and prayers and visions for mankind. But the shofar is also the primal cry of the human heart longing to be good and to serve and to receive the resources it needs to actualize its potential. (Sod Yesharim, 1). These two shofrot, one from above and one from below, effect the nesira. Some increment of soul, as yet unconscious, is pried loose to begin its holy turning, to face its Maker in conscious, willful, joyful union. Next year at this time it will be seeing through our eyes, loving through our hearts, and knowing through our heads. Next year the Shekhina’s marriage with the Blessed Holy One will have rectified and consummated a little more because of the growth that has occurred in our life (which is one cell in the mystical body of the Shekhina).

I want to bless us, as individuals and collectively, that the shofar’s cry should awaken our heart, cells, bones and spaces to KNOW that the only thing we want is to do what we are designed to do. We should receive a new glimpse of what that is, and HaShem should mark out the most direct and least painful path toward its fulfillment. As we move through this year we should KNOW that it is all about relationship and we should find the joy that comes from that in all the circumstances of our lives. Please G-d, let it be a good, sweet, healthy, joyful, peaceful, life-celebrating, heart-opening, faith-deepening, soul-liberating, love-filled New Year for all.

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בס”ד

Prayer-Visioning

The Holy Preparation for Rosh HaShana, 5765 / 2004

from a still small voice

Everyone knows that this pre Rosh HaShana period is a time for intensive soul searching.  There are many advices about what this entails.  It’s important to seize the moment, for on Rosh Hashana we receive our allocation of spiritual resources for the coming year (both individually and collectively).  The great CEO (Chief Executive Officer) in the sky gives each one of us a budget of “lights,” based on our past performance, and our proposals (our prayer-visions) for the coming year.

So in general, at least from the perspective of chassidut, the main work for this time (as opposed to the more intensive teshuva period between RH & YK) is to formulate our goals, visions, and resolutions for the coming year.  We should come to Rosh Hashana with a proposal in hand.  As if to say, “HaShem it’s worth investing in my life, because this is what I’m going to do for you this year.  The ROI (Return On Investment) is unquestionably worth your while.  This is the contribution I intend to make to your global project of tikun olam.  I’m going to improve and develop my property (my dalet amot) in the following ways (XYZ)…I’m going to contribute to the Jewish people and the planet in the following ways (XYZ).  A small investment of blessings on your part will pay off in a bounty of tikun on my part.  You will not regret your venture.”

To help us with this holy work, we are told that HaShem has left his fortified, bureaucratically protected palace, and is available in the field.  Kind of like during sukot when the President of Israel has an open house, and anyone can approach and have a moment of consultation with the Head of State.  Any other time of year a person is screened by many layers of bureaucracy.

But it’s not only that HaShem is more accessible to us, says R. Tsadok; the reverse is also true.  We are more accessible to HaShem, in the sense that our souls (and psyches) are more receptive to the flow of communication emanating from on high.

He explains as follows: Rosh HaShanna is the anniversary of HaShem’s vision of perfection for the universe and for each of its individual inhabitants. And each year at this time HaShem reformulates a new, mini-vision of the highest that is possible for us this coming year.  And yet, according to kabbala, our original Genesis did not happen smoothly. There were actually seven universes created and destroyed before our own.  These shattered worlds were the deliberate means by which HaShem fashioned the raw materials out of which our world is built.  According to kabbala, we are the resurrected shards of these fallen worlds.  And so, says R. Tsadok, this entire cycle repeats itself each year in Elul (the month preceding Rosh HaShana). HaShem is again forging raw materials for the new vision that will be born for us this coming year.

This creative churning that is happening within Divinity at this time, is sensed by our souls down here below.  And HaShem gives us major hints about what we should pray for, both in a positive sense and negative sense, by awakening in us specific yearnings and fears. R. Tsadok instructs us to pay especially careful attention to the stream of thoughts, concerns and longings that pass through our heart-minds at this time.  In Elul they reflect HaShem’s whisperings to our soul much more than usual.

The work of Rosh HaShana preparation then, says R. Tsadok, is to take these Heavenly hints and weave them into a prayer vision for the coming year that is verbalized as prayer.  It should not only express our longings, says R. Tsadok, but should also include the positive counterparts to our fears.  He says that especially during the pre New Year period HaShem may communicate what he wants us to pray for by causing a fear to awaken inside us which becomes a clue that he wants us to pray for the positive antidote of that fear.  For example a fear of financial collapse would signal that HaShem wants us to pray specifically for a prosperous year.  A fear of illness means that HaShem wants us to pray specifically for a healthy year, etc.

And this is the work of this time, to create a list of prayers and resolutions that reflect our specific hopes for ourselves and our loved ones and our holy people, Land, and planet this coming year.  The more thoughtful the vision, the more likely that it will accurately reflect the Creator’s vision and the more powerful it will be.

So I want to bless us, as individuals and as a community, that we open our hearts and our minds to HaShem’s communications to us at this time.  That we catch His hints and turn them into holy prayers that pierce the firmaments and sweeten the harsh decrees at their root.  May the combined power of our prayers and visions transform our lives in ways that are only good.  And may they create a vessel of vision and yearning that is big enough and strong enough to embrace our individual and collective destinies, and to pull mashiach into the world now.

Copyright © 2007 · A Still Small Voice

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