(The Objective) Scale of Yichus [i.e., Pedigree]
Next is a Scale of Yichus (you might say), which begins with the seven special fruits indigenous to Israel and continues with the fruits that are mentioned explicitly in the Bible and then, finally those named in the Mishna and Talmud. Status on the Scale of Yichus comes from association with holy writ. And since these texts have varying authority, so do the fruits mentioned therein.
When HaShem promised the land of Israel to the Jewish people, He mentioned seven local edibles by name to prove that this was His most prized real estate.
G d is bringing you to a good land—a land with flowing streams, and underground springs gushing out in valley and mountain. It is a land of wheat, barley, grapes, figs and pomegranates—a land of oil-olives and honey-[dates]. It is land where you will not eat rationed bread, and you will not lack anything…(Deut. 7:6-8).

The rabbis teach that when it comes to raw produce these seven are the most distinguished of all foods. Two are grains and five are fruits. Yet even among them a hierarchy exists. The word land occurs twice in this verse, and the closer a fruit appears to the word, land, the higher its status, and there are real privileges associated with its rank. According to Jewish law a pecking order exists among foodstuffs and we human beings must give honor where it is due.

Looking only at the five fruits, grapes are already 3rd in line from the first mention of land, whereas olives appear immediately after the Holyland’s second mention. Consequently the hierarchy of status with regard to fruits is: 1) olives, 2) dates, 3) grapes, 4) figs, 5) pomegranates.

Everyone knows that Jewish law forbids a person from eating before thanking G-d for the specific food that he or she is about to consume. When a person, with fruit in hand, before partaking, thanks G-d for the produce from fruit-bearing trees, all the other fruits at the table are covered by that blessing though only one was the actual focus of the brocha.

Every fruit hopes to be the one that inspires a blessing and gets tasted first. The spark that is its soul, has slowly made its way up through the ranks, enlivening minerals, now plants, soon animals, then humans and eventually (joyfully) tsadikim. It has, and will, spend painful years, centuries and perhaps even millennia in each kingdom. Yet now it has the chance to ascend many rungs in a single leap, boosted by the merit of instigating a blessing and being the one that gets eaten first. This is a privilege the Code of Jewish Law assigns to fruits based on their rank in the Scale of Yichus.[1]

So now, at a Tu b’Shvat seder, surrounded by thirty delectable fruits: How do you decide which to make the focus of your brocha, for only one out of all those thirty gets the privilege? One opinion is that the five fruits mentioned in the verse above are the elite of the fruit kingdom and must be accorded the honor that is their due. Hashem, Himself has set them apart which makes their superior status uncontestable.

Consequently, when faced with an array of fruits, the honor of being the focus of blessing goes to these five distinguished species, and if there are several present, it goes to the one of highest rank. So if olives are present, the blessing is always said on them.[1]

(The Subjective) Scale of Desirability
But the Code of Jewish Law brings a second opinion which gives primacy to the person’s genuine preference.2 The eater should say the blessing over the fruit that he likes best—the one that she honestly wants to eat first. In the Scale of Desirability the fruit’s rank is in the eyes of its beholder. It rises and falls according to the palette of the one who is about to eat it.
From this perspective, eating is an intimate encounter between a person and his food. It doesn’t make sense to force a person to eat olives first, when really he prefers an apple. This opinion weighs the person’s (subjective) wishes over the fruit’s (objective) yichus. The human’s right of self-determination overrides the aristocratic privileges of the fruit.

The Solution of the Pri Eytz Hadar (Guidebook for Tu B’Shvat Sedarim)[3]
For those who follow the first opinion, everyone at the table would say their blessing-of-gratitude-for-fruit-bearing trees over an olive, and then partake of all the other fruits which were covered by that blessing. Fortunate are the olives that land at such a table on Tu B’Shvat.
For those who follow the second opinion, everyone chooses the fruit that they prefer. Yet even here there is some confusion: Does this mean that they should choose their all-time favorite fruit, or the one that in this moment catches their eye? There are opinions in both directions.
The Pri Eytz Hadar suggests the following practice which honors both values. Each person should pick the fruit that is their favorite, the one that they want to honor with their blessing. Then the Seder proceeds according to the Scale of Yichus. Meaning, in terms of fruit, the olives are distributed and verses are read where olives are mentioned. Then, the person who chose olives as their favorite, says a blessing and eats their olive. But no one else eats olives yet. Then dates are distributed, verses are read, the one who chose dates recites the blessing, and that person can now eat not only dates, but all that came before (in this case, olives). Next the grapes are distributed, verses are read, the one who chose grapes recites the blessing and he or she can now eat all that came before. Everyone else has all these previously blessed fruits on their plate but they have not yet tasted them, for they are waiting till their favorite fruit comes up in the Scale of Yichus which proceeds as follows:
1) Olives 2) Dates 3) Grapes 4) Figs 5) Pomegranate 6) Etrog 7) Apple Walnut 9) Almond 9) Carob 10) Pear 11) Quince 12) Peach 13) Etc.
Not all of these fruits have to be claimed as the favorite by someone at the seder since those who choose fruits later on the list may have to wait quite a while before they partake. It is also fine for more than one person to choose each fruit.
Tu B’Shvat is New Year’s Day for fruit-bearing trees. May it be a year of abundant rain, nutritious soil, conscious pruning, right temperatures, successful pollination, disease and pest resistance, and bountiful harvest for the ilanot of the world. And may our Tu B’Shvat fruit-fest remind us that HaShem loves variety, color, vitality, sweetness and savor. And may we take that truth to heart. And may it change us in ways that serve only good.
———————-
1SA 211:1 and MB there (based on TB Brochot 40b, opinion of R. Yehuda in Mishna).
2SA 211:2 and MB there (based on TB Brochot 40b, opinion of Sages in Mishna).
3Pri Eytz Hadar, , Seder Tu B’Shvat (Mansour).

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1. Ahavat Olam. The process starts in the “head” as a shift of interest and intention. A decision arises—motivated by any number of things, but ultimately instigated by the nefesh Elokit (Divine soul)—to seek G-d, truth, authenticity, service, etc. Ahavat olam is a spiritual awakening that is totally unintegrated but which produces a calling.

2. Then begins the search, study and contemplation—the directing of one’s attention to G-d and spiritual things. This investment of time and energy now engages the daat (the sefira of integrated knowing which connects the head with the heart) and gradually one’s efforts and insights begin to penetrate the heart.

3. Slowly the heart awakens and begins to open an emotional channel with HaShem. Awe, fear, love, amazement, gratitude start to integrate and deepen.

4. Love intensifies to a passionate love (אהבה עזה- ahava aza) that overwhelms all other desires but by virtue of force (rather than sublimation). It’s a kind of romantic love of HaShem. In the language of Tanya the might of this love is from אכפיא (akafia-suppression) instead of אתהפכא (ashafcha-sublimation).

5. But slowly the heart transforms and purifies and one’s instinctive and reflexive desires (authentic desires) really do straighten and rectify as one comes to genuinely prefer G-dly pleasures over worldly ones.

6. The passionate (fiery) love gives way to what is called great or mighty love (אהבה רבה – ahava raba) which is more quiet and stable and compared to coals as opposed to flames. It doesn’t need to be constantly fanned but just burns steady on its own.

7. This mightly love effects a further transformation where the love integrates still deeper into ones heart, bones, cells and spaces…until it takes on a cool, watery quality called אהבה בתענוגים (ahava b’taanugim) which means literally a love of delights (but the delights referred to are the sweetnesses of Shabbat and all that it represents).  Ahava b’taanugim marks the complete integration of head and heart / love and fear and might best be translated as equanimity or deep and quietly joyful well-being…nachas.

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PurimBursts 2

the second decade of Purim teachings from A Still Small Voice.

( Hardcover, small format, 168 pp.). $14.95 / 50 NIS.

20% Discount on all orders received before Purim ($11.96 / 40 NIS plus shipping)

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Sarah Yehudit Schneider

The Mishna informs us that there are actually four New Year’s days in the Jewish calendar as well as four Judgment Days^[1]. It then proceeds to explain the significance of each. There is a subtle quirk in the Mishna’s language that begs interpretation.  Among these eight red-letter days, three apply to fruit trees. The 1^st of Tishrei marks the New Year for saplings^[2]; the 15^th of Shvat (Tu B’Shvat) marks the New Year for budding trees^[3], and on the 6^th of Sivan (Shavuot) the fruitage of the year’s harvest receives its heavenly reckoning.

The Mishna lists each of these eight dates along with the cycle that begins anew when it comes around—the reign of kings, the tithing of vegetables, the years of creation, the new budget of spiritual resources available this year, etc. And in each instance, the Mishna uses a plural subject—kings, years, livestock, rain, etc.—except for the three times that it mentions fruit trees. On those occasions the Mishna employs a singular noun—tree—though a plural form would have been more correct.

In this way, says R. Tsadok^[4] the Mishna presents both a literal teaching about how to apply our agricultural laws to the fruit harvest, and simultaneously directs our attention to the one-and-only-tree, the tree-that-embraces-all-trees, the tree that stands “at the Garden’s center,” the tree that is called the Tree of Life. The dense network of channels and tributaries (on the inner plane) that circulates life force to all created things is the corpus of this Tree of Life. The pith of every person is a stalk connected to a branch connected to the trunk connected to the roots of this cosmic Tree with roots above and fruits below whose branches reach to every corner of the universe.

The Tree of Life has as many fruits as there are creatures (and moments) in the world. The Shekhina is its gardener and she daily plucks its ripened yield. Every spark (including our very own soul) will eventually mature into a fully mellowed fruit whose final (and coveted) milestone is to be eaten with delight by the holy Shekhina. A spark must labor lifetimes to be worthy of this privilege. The Shekhina only dines on fruits that are edible through and through. In the course of its “growing season” the spark must dissolve all barriers to the light—both skins without and kernels within. By the Shekhina’s standards, an edible fruit is an enlightened fruit—whose boundaries are transparent, whose kernals of potential have been fully actualized, and whose will always aligns with spiritual law.

But this is not an all or nothing affair. The Torah informs us that “Man is a tree of the field.” Each of us is simultaneously a fruit on the cosmic Tree of Life, and a mini-tree in our own right, producing fruits of varied sorts, that are simply the deeds of our lives. The goal is to find the most spiritually productive option and to choose it with a whole heart. The sparks that enliven those perfectly ripened moments are plucked by the Shekhina and savored by Her.^[5] Conversely, our imperfect deeds, with shells and pits that resist the light, require rounds of tikun before they are done.

Tu B’Shvat is New Year’s Day for the cosmic Tree of Life. And on that day the Shekhina prays for all her holy fruits (i.e., us) that our lives should yield a bumper crop of ripened sparks this year. And we align our prayer with hers and strive for the same thing: that every step we take and every choice we make should bear fruits that are only good. And bringing it down another notch to include our branched and rooted friends, may it be a year of abundant rain, nutritious soil, conscious pruning, right temperatures, successful pollination, disease and pest resistance, and bountiful harvest for the fruit trees of the world.

———————–

[1[ 1^st of Nissan – which starts a new year when reckoning the length of a king’s reign and for [establishing the order of] the festivals.

1^st of Elul – which starts a new year for the tithing of animals.

1^st of Tishrey (which is also Rosh HaShanna) – which starts a new year for the counting of years, Sabbaticals, Jubilees, the sapling, and vegetables.

15^th of Shvat – which starts a new year for the tree.

In contrast, the four judgment days are:

Pesach (15^th of Nissan) – when the world is judged concerning the grain harvest.

Shavuot (7^th of Sivan) – when the word is judged concerning the fruits of the tree.

Rosh HaShanna (1^st of Tishrei) – when the spiritual (and by extension, material) resources that will be available to each creature are determined for the coming year.

Sukhot (15^th of Tishrei) – when Heaven decrees how much rain will fall in the coming year.

[^2] For counting orlah years.

[^3]For counting trumot, maserot and shmitot.

[^4] Pri Tsadik Vol. 2 (Shmot), Tu B’Shvat.

^[5]The Shekhina is called the behema who consumes the produce of a thousand hills each day. Also R. Shlomo Elyashuv, HDOH 2:3:20; HDOH 2:4:16:3

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The “You Are What You Hate” class will be moving from Nachlaot, Jerusalem, to the German Colony. Please read below for details!

Many thanks, A Still Small Voice Staff
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Class: “You Are What You Hate”- A spiritually productive approach to dealing with enemies and the Yetzer haRah (Women only). Learn what the masters of Chassidut have to say about this powerful topic, which is relevant to our everyday lives and struggles.

Day: every Wednesday, starting from January 5 (THIS WEEK!)

NEW LOCATION: The Kolot Building, 17 Rachel Immeinu, German Colony

Cost:35 shekels per drop-in class

30 shekels per class if paid in full, upfront, for all 4 classes in January

(= bring 120 shek for 4 classes and save 20 shekels, plus you receive the audio mp3 download for each class)

Contact: Debra

dpellface at aol dot com

We look forward to seeing you there! (Women only)

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~Excerpt from Lesson 1, The Enlightened Body
For further light, visit our School

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A Teaching by Sarah Yehudit Schneider

on What Would Have Been His 19^th Birthday

We have just stepped into the month of Cheshvan, the month that is the birthday of Avraham David ben Naftali v’ Rivka, one of the eight boys murdered in their innocence while studying Torah at the Mercaz HaRav Yeshiva in 2008. Avraham David would have been 19 years old today. Our Torah study on this night should bring an aliyat haneshama for his pure and holy soul.

I’m going to speak about the month of Cheshvan, and in particular the timely fact (in terms of parshiot) that it was in Cheshvan that the מבול, the famous flood, began.  R. Tsadok HaKohen has some inspiring teachings on this subject.

He explains that HaShem was hoping to bring down the Torah in Noach’s generation.  All the pieces were there, including the soul of Moshe Rabbenu, which the Talmud (Chulin 139b) proves from a verse in Bereshit, 6:3, which contains the word בשגם  (b’shagam) a word whose primary distinction is that it shares the same gematria as משה, both equal 345.  The verse describes HaShem’s, quote (unquote), disappointment with the fallen state of humanity and introduces a discussion (a soliloquy, really) that ends with His decision to blot out creation through flood.

And HaShem said, My spirit shall not abide in man forever, for that he is also flesh; therefore his days shall be a hundred and twenty years.

וַיֹּאמֶר יְהֹוָה לֹא יָדוֹן רוּחִי בָאָדָם לְעֹלָם בְּשַׁגַּם הוּא בָשָׂר וְהָיוּ יָמָיו מֵאָה וְעֶשְׂרִים שָׁנָה:

The pshat of the verse isn’t so relevant to the Talmud, more its context and the appearance of a word with the same gematria as Moshe.  And so, teaches R. Tsadok, HaShem wanted to bring the Torah down then, as soon as possible after Adam, and if that generation had been worthy, so it would have been.  The Talmud (San. 108b) teaches that HaShem tried several strategies to bring the generation around.  First He bribed them with a taste of עה”ב, hoping they would taste the bait and see that it was certainly worth their while to rise to the occasion. When that failed he started the rains gently, showing that the threat of flood was real, but giving them a week’s reprieve and one last opportunity for teshuva.

If only they had seized the moment, turned over a new leaf, and dedicated their lives to truth and good…they would have received the most precious gift in the universe, the holy Torah…which, as we know, is always compared to water.  Instead, in stubborn arrogance, they turned their backs on this golden opportunity, persisting in their wayward path.  Those same awesome Torah lights now crashed down, no longer expressing themselves as sweet, life-nourishing wisdoms…rather, instead, as מים זדונים, destructive, hurtful flood waters. From the negative we learn the positive.  As great as the flood’s power of devastation, so is the Torah’s power of tikun.  (עץ חיים היא למחזיקים בה…).

Noach’s generation was offered the highest honor possible in the universe, the opportunity to receive the Torah.  They blew it, and those very same lights that contained the sweetest teachings ever, now manifested as raging waters of death and destruction. All this occurred in the month of cheshvan.

R. Tsadok uses this to support an amazing and relevant teaching.  He derives a spiritual law from Noach’s story.  R. Taodok says that it is always true, that whenever we stumble in our lives, (be it our family lives, spiritual lives, emotional lives, career lives, whatever) there was some blessing that was trying to come through in that moment, and for whatever reason we didn’t rise to the occasion — perhaps we didn’t get the message at all, we didn’t even know that there was an opportunity at hand; perhaps we under-estimated the value of what was being offered so it didn’t seem worth its price tag; perhaps we really did try to seize the moment but couldn’t manage to change a bad habit that was blocking the way—whatever the reason, we blew it.  HaShem offered us a gift and it slipped through our hands and the worst part is that it feels like there’s no second chance.  The moment is gone it won’t come again.

R. Tsadok says no, in fact the opposite is true.  That blessing that was slated to come into our lives is permanently attached to our soul. And even more.  It’s not just attached to our soul, it is an actual piece of our soul, a spark of ourselves that got lost out there and needs to be brought back in.

In the shevirat hakelim (the breaking of the vessels), not only did the universe shatter, but every piece within it, including each of our own souls.  Consequently when a soul comes into incarnation, only part of it actually dwells inside its body.  The rest of it, the shattered pieces of itself, are strewn throughout the universe. So, HaShem guides us step by step, moment by moment, from coordinate A to coordinate B, because in each moment there is a spark, a lost splinter of ourselves, that needs to be rescued and brought back in.  Slowly, day by day, as we move through life, we become more whole, for we are constantly absorbing new lights that were really just estranged pieces of ourselves all along.  The recovery of a piece of our soul is always (eventually) experienced as a blessing.

Based on this model, according to R. Tsadok, there is always a second chance, and a third, etc…however many chances we need to get it right and earn the blessing…for the spark inside that blessing has nowhere else to go. Its home is our soul, and eventually every scattered spark must find its way home.

So how is this true for the דור המבול (the flood generation).  How do we see them recovering their lost blessing of the Torah.  Amazingly, the Ari teaches that the דור המבול will reconvene as the souls that comprise the generation that greets Mashiach. According to the Ari, the אנשי סדום (the generation of Sodom) came back as the generation of יציאת מצרים (who exited Egypt); the דור הפלגה (Tower of Babel generation) came back as the עולה גולה (the returnees from Bavel in Ezra’s time), and the דור המבול (the flood generation) will return as the דור  המשיח (the generation that greets Mashiach).

And one thing we know about the messianic time is that all the Torah’s hidden teachings will be revealed.  The midrash says that the Torah of Mashiach will be so radiant that all the Torah we’ve learned thus far, all the sweet and holy teachings that fill our libraries; that have rejoiced the hearts and brightened the eyes of generations, are dull husks before the lights that will shine as Torah of mashiach. The דור המבול (flood generation) will get all that they lost, and more.

And the culmination of this process will happen in Cheshvan, for according to Bnei Yisachar, the Third Temple will be built by Mashiach in the month of Cheshvan. In Cheshvan the stumbling occurred, the holy gift of Torah was spurned, so in Cheshvan the tikun will occur.

Now I want to explore another very relevant implication of this teaching.  Many of us walk around terrorized by the thought that at some point, HaShem offered us a blessing at a crossroads, and for whatever reason, we chose the wrong path, passed it by, and it seems all too clear that the opportunity will not come again.  The terror comes from the sense that we missed the opportunity to accomplish something essential to the purpose of our lives…that we failed on a cosmic scale, that our life mission can no longer happen properly, and that the loss is irreparable.

R. Tsadok says that that is impossible.  And he says an even more amazing thing.  He says that the whole thing is a setup.  He says that the blessing, when it first came down as a missed opportunity, was in a form that we were incapable of absorbing.  He says that the blessing itself is what knocked us over…the blessing itself caused the stumbling that resulted in its opportunity being lost.

Why?  Why would HaShem set up the world like this?  Why would he purposely cause us to fail?

The answer is that our yearning to recover what we’ve tasted and lost is the most powerful driving force in the universe.  And, in the course of our efforts to find that elusive promise of pleasure, we transform, sometimes consciously, sometimes by the by, But in the end, when we recapture that lost blessing, which we surely will, we are now a different person.  Our experiences along the way have changed us in ways that make us now perfectly configured to receive the blessing that we missed before.  And, דווקא, because of these changes, we enjoy the blessing on a higher, fuller level than would have been possible the first time around.

This model applies at all times but it comes up especially, each year, in the month of Cheshvan.  Both because of the flood but for other reasons as well. We generated a lot of merit in Tishrey through our many prayers, new-years resolutions and mountains of mitzvot.  We are surrounded by a cloud of holy lights that are the sparks we stirred up through our Tishrey avodah.  Just as physical clouds hold the blessing of rain, so do these spiritual clouds hold the blessings that will pour down into our lives this coming year.

And just as for physical rains we need cisterns to hold them and absorb them. And if our cisterns are too small, the rains then turn into floods that destroy instead of nurture.

The midrash says that until King Solomon built the first Temple, (which he completed on the first of Cheshvan) there was always a fear of flood every Cheshvan, when the rains began to fall.  People were afraid that the rains might just keep pouring, overwhelming their cisterns, and turning into a flood.

Why did this change just because the Beit HaMikdash was built?  Because the Beit Hamikdash, the Temple is a structure that is perfectly designed to absorb and transform light into blessing.  It is a spiritual cistern of infinite capacity.  Its physical structure combined with the avoda happening within, operated similar to an electric power plant that generates huge amounts of electricity but only sends the right amount through the wires to each one of our homes.  Similarly the Beit HaMikdash performed a parallel function on the spiritual plane.  Consequently, once it was built there was no longer a fear of being drowned by our blessings.

Now thus far, I have focused on Rav Tsadok’s teachings as they pertain to our individual lives.  But his model applies equally to our collective journey. The tragedies that befall our people can also be attributed to this flood of holy lights trying to come in (destined to come in), and yet, if our collective vessel is not yet equipped to hold them, they will overwhelm us and (at least, temporarily) wreak havoc . And some of us are chosen—and and burdened—with bearing a disproportionate share of that load for the rest of us.

That’s one understanding of Mashiach ben Yosef (depicted both as the warrior Mashiach and the suffering servant of Isaiah 53), who is sometimes portrayed as the composite of those individuals who have born the brunt (the lion’s share) of our collective hardships—the transpersonal ones—that apply more to the Jewish people as an entity than to the individuals who are bearing them. They are the mysterious price tag connected to our national (and cosmic) mission of shining the Torah’s ethical monotheism out to every corner of our global village until “knowledge of G-d finally fills the world like the waters cover the seas.”

And yet, the second part of R. Tsadok’s teaching also applies, meaning that it is also true that the terrible losses that we endure (as final and as poignant as they appear) will also experience their reversal…whether in this world or the next, we will reunite with all the sparks connected to our soul…all the ones that we have lost and mourned along the way—be they lost objects, lost opportunities, or lost beloveds—because that is the promise and the law, that we can never permanently lose anything that is connected to our soul.

So I want to bless us on this 6^th of Cheshvan, the 19^th birthday of Avraham David ben Naftali v’Rivka, that HaShem should help us to make the right decisions in our lives (both individually and collectively) enabling us to integrate all of our blessings to the fullest extent possible without having to stumble…or, if stumbling must occur, to learn to stumble in the most spiritually productive way possible.  This should be the year that the promise be fulfilled, that we build the third Temple with mashiach at our helm in the month of Cheshvan as our tradition foretells.  And we should speak the words that David HaMelekh wrote when he envisioned the Temple, built and glowing, in his mind’s eye

הָפַכְתָּ מִסְפְּדִי לְמָחוֹל לִי פִּתַּחְתָּ שַֹקִּי וַתְּאַזְּרֵנִי שִֹמְחָה

Psalms 30:12. You have turned my mourning into dancing; you have loosed my sackcloth, and girded me with joy.

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A Teaching by Sarah Yehudit Schneider

R. Kruspedai said in the name of R. Johanan: Three books are opened [in heaven] on Rosh HaShana, one for the wicked, one for the righteous, and one for the benoni.¹ The thoroughly righteous and the thoroughly wicked are inscribed straightaway, the former in the Book of Life and the later in the Book of Death. The benoni’s fate hangs in the scales until the final reckoning on Yom Kippur.  If he uses that time to generate merit, he’ll be written into the Book of Life. But if his demerits supersede, his name appears in the Book of Death. (TB RH 16b)

This teaching on Rosh HaShana is certainly true, but not obviously so, for its exceptions outnumber its proofs. There are just too many holy souls fated with early demise, and far too many psychopaths that prosper year after year. And then there is the holocaust (and pogroms and the like) where righteous millions die in their prime while their slayers live to a ripe old age. The Talmud is teaching a much more subtle truth.

There is quantity of life and quality of life, and the Talmud, here, speaks to the latter. Yet while quantity of life is easy to measure, quality of life is hard to pin down. Its criteria vary from person to person and also shift with the stages of life.

A survey of folks throughout the world identified nine ingredients to Quality of Life: 1) health, 2) nurturing and stable family life, 3) community affiliation, 4) material wellbeing, 5) political stability, 6) climactic comfort, 7) job security, 8 ) political freedom, 9) gender parity.² Yet even these “universal” keys to the good life cannot be what the Talmud has in mind.  True, our Rosh Hashana liturgy does include prayers for these things in its litany of requests.  Yet, is that really how we gauge whether a person made the cut—whether he entered the category of tsadik³ and earned an inscription in the Book of Life? If a person has a hard year or dies young do we assume he was judged wicked on the Days of Awe? No, it is clearly not that simple.  There are just too many exceptions to make lack-of-suffering a meaningful benchmark of spiritual standing.

So if it doesn’t guarantee longevity or freedom from travail then what is the point of this Book of Life? Why should I strive to be listed there?  To answer that question we need to explore the Talmud’s definition of “life” which most likely derives from the Torah’s use of that term:

When the Torah urges us to choose life, it is not merely banning suicide. It is directing us to choose eternal life, to prefer options that enhance the soul, for these are everlasting acquisitions. Material profits are finite. We cannot take them past the grave. They are subject to death. Self-actualization, integrity, generosity, courage, wisdom—these are gains that enrich the soul, and as such, they are permanent possessions. They are death-resistant profits. The Torah is not asking us to renounce the world and become ascetics, but it is exhorting us to give priority to eternally enduring benefits when calculating the pros and cons of a range of options. “Choose life” means: invest your assets in death-resistant securities, in ventures that enrich the soul.

Throughout the ten Days of Awe we add requests for “life” into our daily Amida.⁴ (This is apart from the special liturgy recited on the holydays of Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur themselves):

“Remember us for life, O King Who desires life, and inscribe us in the Book of Life, for your sake, O Living G‑d.” [inserted into 1^st blessing of Amida].

“Who is like you…Who recalls His creatures mercifully for life.” [inserted into 2^nd blessing of Amida].

“Inscribe all the children of your covenant for a good life.” [Inserted into 18^th blessing of Amida].

“In the book of life, blessing, and peace, good livelihood, good decrees, salvations and consolations, may we be remembered and inscribed before You—we and Your entire people the Family of Israel for a good life and for peace.” [inserted into 19^th blessing of Amida].

It is clear that the primary striving of these special New Year’s prayers is to be inscribed in the coveted (and mysterious) Book of Life. Yet, while most of us interpret this as a plea for health and longevity, this is probably not the Talmud’s prime intent.

It seems more correct to view these words as a prayer for HaShem to help us accomplish the tikunim that are going to appear on our task list this year through life-empowering choices. The Torah’s #1 key to quality of life does not show up in the nine-point survey mentioned above. It is the gift of identifying the most spiritually productive option in any given moment and then picking it with a whole heart because that really is our first choice. It is the boon of genuinely preferring the option that packs the most “life”—that is maximally in line with spiritual law—for that is the one that is sure to produce the most enduring good.

Every soul comes into the world with a list of sparks that it must raise. A spark is a sliver of consciousness. The totality of sparks attached to our soul is the sum-total of lessons we will absorb in our days whether from life experience or book learning.  We acquire wisdom through wrong choices as well as right ones.  When we grab for a glittery pleasure and it turns to grit in our mouth or we suffer purgation for a wrong action that nobody even saw—the discomforting consequences of these mistakes burn spiritual law into our nerve net, and thus, despite ourselves, sparks get raised. Yet this journey through the underworld is not the path of life, for so much of the energy expended and pleasure enjoyed gets obliterated in the purgation.  The residue of eternally enduring value is minute compared to the drama of the ordeal and the losses (i.e., death) it produced.  Some portion of the sparks of every life will be raised through this adverse route.  (And for some unfortunate souls, it could even be the bulk.) Yet, the point is to learn from these falls and failures and make wiser decisions next time…to better recognize the path of life and choose it at the next turn.

For we also gather sparks along the high road, by sacrificing for integrity and picking the most spiritually productive option.  That is the “path of life” and that is what it means to be written into the Book of Life: where our commitment to life, as demonstrated by our deeds and sincerity of prayer, evokes a reciprocal response from on high. HaShem commits Himself to help us choose life, by providing opportunities from without and guidance from within.

So I want to bless us, as individuals, as a community and as members of the larger world community that we should cultivate an insatiable taste for life (in the Torah’s sense of the word)….a passion for life that is pure enough and potent enough and integrated enough to get us inscribed in the Book of Life, so that every decision we make this year should take us along the path of life and bring us, via the most efficient and least painful route possible, to the Tree of Life. And together we should greet the harbinger of life…the messianic redeemer who will carry us across the threshold to the era of eternal life.

כתיבה וחתימה טובה לכל העולם כולו

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¹Benoni – Literally, Intermediate Person. The Talmud uses the term here to indicate someone whose merits and debits are equally balanced.

² http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality-of-life_index.

³ Tsadik is the Hebrew term for the thoroughly righteous person in the Talmudic quote above.

⁴ Amida is the standing prayer of (now) nineteen blessings that is the central prayer in the liturgy.

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