Dear friends,
My son Chaim has his own kids and a couple of grands.
Even so, it isn’t hard for me to remember him in the second grade. A few weeks before Rosh Hashanah, rebbe told them about the three books that would be opened, the book of tzadikim who will be inscribed for life, the book of evil people who will be inscribed for death, and the ones who don’t fit either description, the intermediate people, whose fate would be decided later, on Yom Kippur.
When he arrived home, he took out his pencils and paper and sat down by the table with an intense expression on his face. I was curious to see what inspired him to hit the books rather than play or eat as is the minhag of second graders.
I suspected that it might have been an assignment such as the ones that he, and also my other kids often had to face. The teacher would assign him to write “I will not disturb during class” (or a similar moral instructive), a hundred times. This was not an unusual punishment in those days. It was often shared with one’s siblings – each one writing one word (i.e., Yitzchak writes “I” a hundred times, Guli writes “will not” a hundred times etc.).
I had judged him unfairly. He was imitating the example of G‑d; he too had three columns, one was for the righteous, one for the wicked, and one for the intermediate people. I made it to intermediate column. He was very disappointed when I told him that Hashem is the only one who can make the decisions…
You may be wondering about how Hashem will judge us and what He will bring about. Look back and see how many times things happened in ways that no one could have anticipated. The unexpected remission. The birth of the twins. Covid. Terror. Lovely moments that you couldn’t ever have been envisioned or anticipated. Dreadful failures.
The One who loves you more than you love yourself is the only one who determines your future. The word gzeirah (decree) is related to the word gizrah (dress pattern). The decrees fit your needs to be the self you were created to be like a glove fits your hand.
The question you have to answer is “Who am I, and who do I want to be?” Giving honest answers to yourself isn’t simple. Your identity is multi-layered just like everyone else’s. It’s easy to focus on the outer lays of self, and think that you have seen the entire picture.
The difference between truth and factuality is huge. If someone were to ask you, “Who was the Chofetz Chaim?” and you answered, “A man from Eastern Europe who lived very simply,” you technically would be telling truth, but the person who asked the question would still have no idea of who the Chofetz Chaim was.
He certainly would have no way of knowing that, if the Chofetz Chaim had lived in Turkey and had inherited a huge fortune, his inner life would have been the same as the inner life of the man who wrote Mishneh Brurah, and who made communication holy by publicizing the books on Shmiras HaLashon (and bringing about a genuine revolution) – his outer life would be totally irrelevant.
Do you know your inner life?
If someone would ask you who you are, it would be completely normal to give them your name, maybe your job (or where you study), and maybe your country of origin. None of these answers give them any insight into your inner world (although they do reveal a great deal about your outer world). When the sailors asked Yonah about himself, his answer, “Ivri anochi”- “I am a Hebrew” let them know who he really was.
YOU ARE AN ARCHITECHT
TWO BUILDINGS
Envision two 10-story buildings. One is called the G‑dly soul, and the other is called the animal soul. The 10 floors each have 10 rooms, so there are a hundred rooms in all. The upper three floors have windows open to the street. You can easily see them. The lower 7 floors are covered with opaque material.
The higher floors of your personality are your desire to ask questions, your search for meaning, to observe and try to understand what your access to the world really is, and to draw moral connections that let you “speak” to your emotions. You are probably aware of your thoughts, but seeing how they touch your emotions is harder.
The seven lower floors are where your emotions live – your desire to love, your desire to overcome obstacles, your love of truth and harmony, your sense of there being more than just today and living accordingly with the ability to actually move towards what you have defined as good, your ability to “give birth” to your ever-changing self, and finally, the ability and desire to rule.
The animal soul isn’t evil. It can, however, move in that direction as you allow yourself to become more and more animalistic, more of a taker, less of a giver – more of a consumer and less of a seeker – more willing to believe the fantasy that doing the wrong things will make you happy. Your spiritual soul is also complex – it too can be captured or ignored, but when you are willing to meet it, it is there for you, always pure, always eternal.
Between the two buildings are the forces that do constant battle as each one tries to claim your thoughts, your words, and what you actually do.
HASHEM JUDGES ALL OF YOUR LAYERS OF SELF
The animal self can be the “best friend” of the spiritual self, if it somehow recognizes that this is the key to its meaning and the purpose for which Hashem created it.
On Rosh Hashanah, Hashem hears the honest words of the accuser (and He judges you far more generously than you would judge yourself. He knows the imprint of your upbringing, traumas, disappointments, and rejections better than you (or even your therapist) can ever know). He also hears the voice of your higher more meritorious self.
He recognizes your greatness far more than you do. He sees the eternity in your choices, even the small ones. He sees the beauty of your conflicts even when you choose wrong – the voice of conscious isn’t irrelevant.
Rosh Hashanah is a yom tov because if you want to let Him in, He is more than willing to enter. Listening to the shofar is a way of hearing the self that is beyond words – it’s a way of saying “I reject the damage that I do. I want more, better, and I want to hear you.” You go home, and eat the foods that suggest to you and to Him that you believe in the sweetness that will come your way this year, with His help.
When Yaakov told his father, that he is his first born, he was not lying. He was not describing the extremal birth order. He was describing himself as the first and only son who could carry on Yitzchak’s mission. He was right.
You are also Hashem’s first born.
Much hatzlachah as you look in the spiritual mirror to find yourself.
Ketiva Vechatima tovah,
Tziporah
PS: Most of what I wrote came from the Recanati.
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