Originally posted on A Simple Jew

The Day of Essences

On Yom Kippur we set aside the external trappings of what it means to be a human being and we return to the essence of who we are --
G-dly beings that existed long before our bodies came into being. In kind, our more aptly stated, as the impetus for our transformation, G-d also shows us His essence and relates to us directly without the regular buffers in place.

In other words, Yom Kippur is the day when we get real.

The rest of the year we wear many hats and we are busy doing. Doing what a parent does; doing what a spouse does; doing what a bread-winner does; doing what a member of a community does. On Yom Kippur, we strip down to our true selves and we just BE.

The Mechanics of Atonement

Indeed, this getting down to essences is how atonement works. When we have faltered, it is because of our lack of ability to deal with the world. We were supposed to interact with the world in one way, and we chose to interact with it in another, whether in how we eat, do business, engage in intimate relations and so on.

But when we get down to our essence -- an essence which has no need to be bogged down in the trappings of this mundane world -- we arrive at a place within ourselves that remains completely above the fray. Our essence cannot be sullied for it stands aloof from the incidental matters in which our rest-of-the-year selves are embroiled.

And so, on Yom Kippur, we divorce ourselves from the world and join G-d in a true state of Oneness. On Yom Kippur, we don't need a world and we don't have to figure out how to deal with it. We don't work, we don't eat, we don't engage in marital relations. We don't DO anything. We be.

Affliction or Transcendence

On Yom Kippur we are denied five bodily needs -- eating, marital relations, bathing, anointing and the wearing of leather shoes. On a superficial level, these five modes of abstention are called "afflictions," but the inner dimension of the Torah sees them in a very different light, not as self-denial but as self-transcendence. We do not deprive our bodies on Yom Kippur; we return to our essence and rise above our bodies. Whereas the rest of the year, we are nourished by eating, on Yom Kippur we are nourished directly from the Source of All Sustenance without need for the intervening medium of food.

Holy Sparks

During the rest of the year, the soul engages in the task of interacting with the world through the body, taking the mundane and making it holy. This is known as the task of elevating the sparks of G-dly energy that are encumbered within the physical world. This task is necessary for the refinement of the world and the ultimate transformation of the physical plane into a heaven-on-earth. The whole year round, the soul's mission in this world is to find G-d within the trappings of this world; but on Yom Kippur, when we and G-d reveal our essences, we relate directly to one another without the usual game of hide-and-seek.

Taking Off Your Shoes

The fact that we do not wear leather shoes on Yom Kippur is a symbol of the rare and unique relationship with G-d that exists for the twenty-six hours of Yom Kippur.

Leather soles represent a barrier between man and the earth upon which he stands. In macrocosm, this signifies the buffer that exists between G-d and His world. Creation is a dynamic, on-going process, a vast apparatus composed of various planes of existence. Normally, the creative energy filters its way down through this system before reaching us. On Yom Kippur, however, G-d removes the scaffolding which connects the highest heavens to the earth and "takes off His shoes," so to speak, placing Himself in direct contact with the lowest plane of existence. Our removing our shoes is simply meant to mirror this state.

The rest of the year, we interface with the world in order to reveal its latent G-dliness. On Yom Kippur we interface directly with G-d and thereby reveal our own G-dly nature. In other words, in the normal mode of conduct, we are G-d's emissaries, embodied souls which need to eat, work. procreate, manage households and so on, all so we can express the G-dly intent in these things. On Yom Kippur we step back from these roles and return to our true, eternal essence which is directly at One with G-d.

Anti-Asceticism

So, if our true essential state is to be aloof from worldly needs, does this somehow imply that dealing with the physical world the rest of the world is little more than a necessary evil? To the contrary.

We spoke about the buffer between our physical existence and G-d being like the sole of a great universal shoe. On Yom Kippur we remove our leather shoes to indicate that this barrier has been removed. In truth however, this physical representation is not an exact counterpart. In truth, the leather soles have not been removed but have become so refined that they cease to act as a barrier.

During the rest of the year, we are enjoined to deal with the physical worlds as our mission as servants of G-d. The word servant (eved) also means quite simply "worker," which is the same word for a "worker of hides." A worker of hides takes tough leather and makes it soft and pliable. The eved of G-d is thus one who takes the unfinished hides of physical existence and works them over until they become almost transparent to the G-dly intent that lies within them.

Yom Kippur is not an escape from our year-round task of grappling with the material but the net result and culmination of it. Whenever we have acted mindfully and deliberately in our dealings with the world, when we have partaken of our bodily needs for the sake of heaven, we have actually been softening tough leather so that on Yom Kippur when the essence of this project is revealed, we catch a glimpse of the sum total of our work that will ultimately be realized with the coming of Moshiach.

Tomorrow night is a new year.  Tomorrow night all of the energy allotted to the universe for the past year will have been spent and the  world will be a sapped and hollow shell.

In order for G-d to invest another year's worth of energy into this project called creation, He will have to be extremely motivated.  He must be overcome with passion.  What elicits G-d's desire to create?

The prospect of union, of an intimate bond with His other half.

If we tell G-d that we want to have a committed and exclusive relationship with Him for another year, then He's willing to create the world in which that can happen.

Rosh HaShanah is not so complicated.  It's a simple day on which we are asked a simple yes-or-no question.  "Are you in or are you out?"

If we say "in" then G-d's passion to create is ignited.  The ball is in our court.  We know what G-d is hoping for.  He's waiting for our answer.

Rosh HaShannah is the day on which the Infinte reveals His vulnerability -- the romantic hope for a blissful union with His people, Israel.

Things have been hectic and I haven't posted in a while.
During that last month of the year, it's hard to concentrate on business as usual.  Indeed, the whole point of gearing up for the new year is to try and see to it that things should not be the same old same old next year.

At any rate, I heard a "vort" from a chasid today.  He told me that the numerical value of "shanah tovah" (a good year) is the same as "tov hanira v'hanigla" (revealed and obvious good.)  The reference is to the chasidic concept that everything that happens is good.  Only, there is good that is obvious and good that is hidden.  While hidden good is actually a more lofty and sublime form of good than obvious good, we mortals nonetheless wish each other the kind of good which we can see.

I haven't checked the sums to make sure that they add up but I invite you to do so and let me know if it works out.

The Perfect Excuse

A one-liner from comedian, Steven Wright:

"They told me in school that 'practice makes perfect.'  Then they told me, 'Nobody's perfect.'  ...So I stopped practicing."

A droll observation.  But it raises a serious issue.  Between these two truisms, which one is really true?  Or is the truth somewhere in between.  Is perfection attainable or is it not?

If we're talking about proficiency and skill -- like a major league hitter batting a thousand -- then perfection may be pie in the sky.  But if we're talking about matters of integrity and decency, then perfection is actually our bottom line.  Indeed, perfection doesn't seem like such an unreasonable expectation if we are to think of the alternative as an employee who doesn't steal 99% of the profits or a spouse who is faithful 99% of the time.

Chasidic Self-Help

The first Rebbe of Chabad, R' Schneur Zalman of Liadi, known as the Alter Rebbe, wrote a whole book as a step-by-step guide for  actualizing one's complete personal potential.  The book is called Tanya and its premise is that anyone who earnestly applies the methods clearly outlined in the book will be able to attain personal perfection and, with continued effort, consistently maintain that state for the rest of his or her life.

I Am, I Do

In Tanya, The Alter Rebbe points out an interesting dichotomy in the human condition.  On one hand, man is fallible by nature, prone to selfishness and self-justification.  On the other hand, man is in control over his impulses.  He is not an animal and has free will to act as he wills at any given time.

In other words, we might not be perfect, but we have the choice to do perfect.  Or to put it in psychological terms, not everything that is wrong with us on the inside do we necessarily have to bring into expression on the outside.

This is the perfection which the Alter Rebbe tells us we can achieve -- to become a person who despite being rife with imperfections on the inside, chooses to behave perfectly on the outside.

The Lie of Being Genuine

There is a common knee-jerk reaction -- at least from some people --  to brand this advice as a prescription for hypocrisy.  "If you're flawed on the insides, how dare you project perfection on the outsides?"

But is impulse control hypocrisy?  If you cover your mouth before you cough, are you a hypocrite?  Do you have to say every random thought that pops into your head in order to be "real"?

The correct definition of a hypocrite is one that preaches one set of standards to others while personally adhering to another.  But that's not at all what we're talking about here.  Feeling like doing something selfish and rotten but forcing yourself to do something altruistic and noble isn't called hypocrisy; it's called being a healthy, normal, decent human being.

Whenever we overcome our impulses to behave in a particular way, we aren't pretending not to be something we're not; we are making the decision to do what ought to be done.

"My Name is... and I am a Human Being"

In 12-Step programs like Alcoholics Anonymous, members introduce themselves at every meeting, "My name is so-and-so; I am an alcoholic."

Essential to his survival is the alcoholic's recognition of the difference between being and doing.  On the one hand, he is an alcoholic.  He says so at every meeting.  And since that's who he is, it's obviously not his fault.  On the other hand, he can't drink.  He must maintain total abstinence.  Because drinking or not drinking is something he does and it is entirely up to him what to choose.

It is axiomatic that if we are human, then we suffer from the human condition.  That's just who we are and we're not responsible for it.  At the same time, the human condition is a poor excuse for misconduct.  Whatever our foibles and flaws, behavior is a choice and if we choose to do the wrong thing, we have no one to blame but ourselves.

Jimmy Carter's Heart

When Jimmy Carter first ran for president, a journalist asked the candidate if he had ever been unfaithful in his marriage.  Carter's solemn response was, "I've lusted in my heart," to which he added, "But G-d knows I will do this and forgives me."

What is that supposed to mean?  Was Carter admitting to having natural urges and desires?  And, indeed, if that was the case, should we care?  What kind of news is that?

Imagine asking a Jew, "Did you ever eat on Yom Kippur?" and he answers, "I felt hungry in my stomach."

You felt hungry.  That's not a moral issue.  It's a physiological issue.  You were hungry.  And even if you say that you felt hungry when it was only an hour into the fast and your stomach was still full from Erev Yom Kippur, then it is still just an emotional or psychological issue.  The bottom line is that you did not eat!  You didn't do it.  You didn't talk about doing it.  You didn't even entertain it as an actual thought.  You felt it.

That's why Carter's statement that he "lusted in his heart" makes no sense.  If he was trying to convey that he had felt urges, then what substance is there to his "confession"?  It seems rather like admitting to having driven 50 mph in a school zone... "in your heart".

If, on the other hand, what he was saying is that he hadn't just felt impulses but actually calculated and made plans to act out them out but never actually gone through with them, then that might be worthy of mention.  But then the tag-on "G-d knows I will do this and forgives me" makes no sense.  Why should G-d give out a free pass for a person's scheming just because the All-Knowing is aware of it before it happens?

The Jewish Dichotomy

Either way you read the statement, both it's logic and its belief system seem weak.  At the very least, we can say that it's not a very Jewish answer -- which is perfectly understandable coming from a Baptist. 

1) The very notion that I am condemnable for impulses and feelings is consummately un-Jewish.  Humanity is not damned for being human. 

2) The idea that I am entitled to forgiveness for wrongdoing because my human frailty and fallibility excuses me is equally un-Jewish.

On the one hand, a Jew doesn't need to "come clean" about the fact that he is human but neither does he assume absolvence for misdeed on those same grounds.  Judaism teaches us that we are innately imperfect, but at the same time, G-d has high enough expectations of us to judge our actions against a standard of perfection.

When Benjamin Franklin wrote about self-perfection in the late 1700s, his ideas were thought to be very un-Christian by many of his coreligionists.  After all, the chief tenet of that religion, the need for salvation, is predicated upon the assumption that we are all hopelessly imperfect.  Self-perfection has no place in such a belief system.  It throws a wrench into the theological gears.

But we Jews don't have that stumbling block.  We don't look to G-d for salvation from our imperfections but for direction how to heal the world from its imperfection.  Our job -- the job we were chosen for -- is to put our own imperfection aside and take actions that help make a perfect world.

A Jew thus has not only the license but the obligation to pursue perfection in his or her deeds.  After all, there is really nothing stopping us.  Or as the saying goes, "Everyone is just as much of a mentch as he wants to be."

The Talmud says that for every concept, King Solomon had three thousand metaphors.

Chasidus explains that these metaphors weren't parallel tracks for explaining the same idea.  The three thousand metaphors weren't horizontal but vertical -- one stacked on top of the other.

In other words, King Solomon could take a lofty concept that was totally removed from other people's capacity to understand and bring that self-same concept down three thousand levels until anybody could grasp it.

About a millenium later, the Sage, Rebbe Meir, was said to be able to come up with three hundred metaphors for every concept.  That means that he could get anybody to understand a concept that was three hundred levels beyond that person's intellect.  That's only a tenth as far as King Solomon was able to go, but it's still pretty impressive. 

Metaphor is the intellectual, verbal art of making the abstract accessible.  It means teaching us something that we are unable to relate to by comparing it to something that we already relate to.  More aptly stated, a metaphor solidifies for us a lofty idea by pointing to how that very concept is manifest on a lower plain of reality.  The one who is proficient in the art of metaphor uses the language of our experience of the mundane world as a platform upon which to build for us a scaffolding to the sublime.

A good metaphor lifts us to intellectual heights to which we could not even dream of, let alone reach, on our own.

A good metaphor takes us up, above and beyond what we could normally understand.

A good metaphor.

What's a bad metaphor?

One that uses lofty terms to describe what is course and crass.

One that brings us down.

"Mysticism" is a word we throw around quite a bit when talking about spiritual beliefs and practices. 

I once gave a lecture that was advertised as "Jewish Mysticism 101."  It had a massive turn-out.  Why wouldn't it?  After all, it was about mysticism.  I asked the students to indicate, by show of hands, who had come because they were attracted to mysticism.  They all raised their hands.  Next, I asked if anyone could define the word mysticism.  A few brave souls took a stab at it, but no one was really sure what it meant.  As one fellow said, "I don't know what it is exactly, but it's something spiritual.  It's deep stuff."

"Mysticism" is from the same root as the word "mystery."  When we're talking about mysticism, we're talking about things that we cannot really understand.  It's not a mystery we can solve.  It's fundamentally mysterious.

Now, why would people be drawn to come and learn things that are fundamentally unknowable?  Why would they want to be presented with concepts that are so profoundly abstruse that they cannot be understood?

Life is mysterious enough on its own.  What we need is clarity, to shed light on the meaning of life, not to obfuscate it behind a cloak of abstraction.

Chasidus is a teaching which demystifies the mysteries of life.  It uses spiritual language to tells us who we are, what we are supposed to be doing and why those things are important to G-d.  Absent this kind of practical application to the here and now, spirituality can be just another euphemism for a self-indulgent trip.

Chasidus lifts us up to the heavens in order to give us a perspective which we can then bring with us upon our return back to earth.

We are currently in the time of year that commemorates the anniversary of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem.  One of the things that our tradition tells us is that moshiach was born on the day that the Temple was destroyed.  This does not mean that the actual person of moshiach was born on the 9th of Av almost 2000 years ago.  What it means is that at the very moment that the world was plunged into exile, the potential agent for redemption was immediately brought into existence. 

The same may be said for each one of us.  In our lives, we may experience a personal destruction, a cataclysmic event that brings us to the depths of spiritual bankruptcy.  We must remember that even at that darkest moment -- even before things have even begun to appear to have gotten any better -- the perfect serenity and joy that is to unfold for us in the future already exists now.

I know a woman whose life was at one time completely devoid of purpose; she had lost everything meaningful to any human being.  Over a period of years, she began to deeply change herself and begin a completely new life.  Conveying the secret of her success she remarked,  "When I look back on my life, I see that everytime I thought that my life was falling apart, it was really falling into place."

This Shabbos there was a Shabbaton for the Gan Israel Day Camp here in Milwaukee.  The counselors asked me if I would tell the kids a story.

There is a reason that I made my career in adult education.  I tried my hand at teaching kids.  It's not my strength.  I don't like teaching students who have to ask for permission to go to the bathroom.

At any rate, five or six minutes is about my maximum for holding a room full of kids.  Even then, I was relying on the counselors -- a group of 18 year old Lubavitcher girls -- to handle any discipline issues that might arise.  Remember, these kids had been bribed with sugar all day.

The story I told them is a tale of Rabbi Akiva from the Talmud.  This is a story that I tell my own kids all the time.  It's about how Rabbi Akiva was traveling and came to a town to stay for the night but they wouldn't let him in.  The Talmud tells us that whenever anything like that would happen, Rabbi Akivah would say, "Everything that G-d does, He does for the good."  This case was no exception.  Rabbi Akivah said, "Everything that G-d does, He does for the good," and went to go sleep out in a field outside of the city walls. 

Now, Rabbi Akivah had three things: a donkey, a rooster and a lamp.  Soon, a lion came and devoured his donkey.  Rabbi Akivah said, "Everything that G-d does, He does for the good."  A cat came and ate his rooster.  Rabbi Akivah said, "Everything that G-d does, He does for the good."  A wind came and blew out his lamp.  Rabbi Akivah said, "Everything that G-d does, He does for the good."

In the morning, he discovered that during the night, a band of marauders came and attacked the town.  Had he been allowed to sleep there, he would have met the same dismal fate as the townspeople.  Had the marauders heard his donkey bray or his rooster crow, he would have been spotted.  So too, if they would have seen his lamp.  All of the seemingly unfortunate events that happened that night -- his not being let into the town, his donkey being eaten by a lion, his rooster being eaten by a cat and his lamp being extinguished by the wind -- quite literally saved his life.

So, what's the moral of the story?  Don't worry about what looks like a bad luck or a tough break.  Don't get stressed when you think you've suffered a setback.  Relax and remember that G-d is in charge and He's working things out for you just fine without your getting all bent out of shape.

This is the most important thing I could think of to tell the children.

I was speaking to a friend about faith and its place in everyday life.

He told me that many ideas to which he had held fast early on in his spiritual journey, he now dismissed as false, even damaging beliefs that had led him away from real growth.  Practices that he had once revered as a zealous devotion to spiritual ideals, he now saw to be superficial, sanctimonious and immature.  Particularly, he expressed a disdain for a way of life that he felt had drawn him into a delusional, religiously themed fantasy world.  As such, he had been re-examining all of his beliefs but did not wish to throw the baby out with the bathwater. 

"Do you know what I think is the difference between fantasy and faith?" I asked him.  "A fantasy is an idea that you use to get away from the world.  Faith is an idea that gives you the courage to live in it."

It's nice to see the world seeking spiritual enlightenment. 

It's nice that they are looking to the Jews for the path.  People want to know how to live their lives.

What's unfortunate is that what they are really looking for is Chasidus but what they keep asking for is Kabbalah.