SUKKOT: Marinating Takes Time

We've made it: the third event of the Fall 5772 Spiritual Triathlon.  

After spending the month of Elul in training for the Triathlon through self-reflection, self-assessment, and prayer, with Sephardim waking up early to say Slichot, and Ashkenazim daily trying to awaken their hearts with the sound of the Shofar...

...After the two days of Rosh Hashana, with double the normal Shabbat-hours in synagogue, digging deep to let the voice of the Teruah in, celebrating the year to come with multi-course meals...

...Finally, Yom Kippur -- one would think this would be the culmination, with its physical rigor of praying while standing for long periods of time in thin-soled shoes, sitting down, standing up, sitting down, standing up, and all the while fasting.  What could possibly top this steep 40-day climb to Yom Kippur?  Could there be anything higher than standing like angels before G!d, with no food, no drink, and praying for the majority of a 24-hour period?  What mitzvah could possibly mark the pinnacle of this process???

Sukkot. 

After all the early rising, the sitting, the standing, the praying, the fasting, the sitting, the standing...The mitzvah that crowns them all is literally just to be in the sukkah.  

"Dwell in it the same way you would in your own house."

-Sukka 26a

   

I don't know if you can spot a good deal when you see one, but this is a good deal!  Eating in the sukka is a mitzvah.  Drinking is a mitzvah.  Even sleeping is a mitzvah (we don't make a bracha on sleeping only because one cannot control precisely when he will fall asleep).  

Not that one should do this often, but looking at it from a business perspective: we can understand G!d "paying" us for educating our children, for overcoming our egos and giving charity, for controlling ourselves from gossiping -- all of these require effort, and one can begin to grasp why the Alm!ghty values them.  But what is the "value added" by us eating and sleeping -- doing what we would be doing anyway -- in a designated space?

If we keep our mental kettle on the fire a little longer, we will begin to reveal hidden depths of the Sukka experience...you see, there is a distinctive feature of the mitzvah of Sukka which allows for what we've described until now.  A Sukka is essentially a space.  It is one of two mitzvot we have today in which one is physically inside the object of the mitzvah.  A Talit is wrapped around the majority of one's body, so it doesn't quite cut it.  A mikva, on the other hand, requires one's full body to be immersed.  However, it is functionally slightly different from a sukka in that one immerses in the mikva in order to become pure, whereas, "immersion" in the sukka is a mitzvah and therefore an end onto itself -- making the mitzvah of sukka entirely unique.

Now that we've isolated this facet of the "soul" of Sukkot, let's replay the tapes:  

On Rosh Hashana, the primary mitzvah is to "remember the shofar," to go to a place before time and space -- to see the world and oneself a priori from Hashem's perspective -- to tap into the primordial cry of the shofar.  It is a "Rosh," a "head," the nascent beginnings of new thoughts for a different, better year.   

On Yom Kippur, one is in a space of time.  Yom Kippur is called the "Day of One" by the midrash, connoting a unity of the day unlike any other (Bereishit Rabba 3:8).  It is a sea of prayer and introspection from beginning to end.  It is the only day like it in the Jewish calendar.  With trepidation, we step in one side of the day hoping to come out on the other side changed by the encounter.  The day itself brings renewal for those who tap into it (Yoma 85b).

Finally, during Sukkot, what began 2 weeks prior as sublime, even non-verbal thoughts during the blowing of the shofar has evolved into the physical space of the Sukka in which we dwell for 7 days making it a space-time of a mitzvah.

Math-science jargon is nice, but what does it mean?


It means the following: the currents of time pull us inexorably towards the next minute, hour, day, month and year, as our professional, social, and personal calendars fill up with things to do.  When we finally arrive at the event or meeting that was planned for weeks or months in advance, we find ourselves texting or e-mailing about the next thing on the agenda.  Our successes can similarly not be savored while salivating for the next success. We're biting into lunch and thinking about what we're having for dinner.  Technology, which makes up such a large chunk of our lives is the same way -- the day we buy the iPhone 4 is the day rumors surface about the iPhone 5.  This is not just a critique of our times; the modern world simply brings into high-contrast this aspect of human nature to be swept out of the present into the future -- moment by moment.


In spirituality, this phenomenon may even be more pronounced.  Because spirituality, by definition, cannot be seen, heard, or touched, the tendency further diminished to "stop and smell the roses," but instead to run to the next conquest.  This is in turn even more of  a problem because spirituality and meaning, of all things, demand our contemplation and internalization the most...


Rosh Hashana teaches us that we need to be woken up from the outside.  On our own, we get stuck in old scripts and need to be startled into making a fresh start.  


From Yom Kippur we learn that our high-flying thoughts on Rosh Hashana need commitment -- time needs to be set aside for contemplation; a person needs to literally speak out mistakes he has made in order to leave them behind; one needs to resolve within himself to make changes.  All of this is just to achieve mental clarity.  But even mental clarity is not enough.


Finally, at Sukkot, at the summit of the mountain, one needs to stop.  Stay in that space!  Don't run off anywhere!  Sure, you see more mountains now that you're up there, but stay a while!  One needs bottle the clarity and inspiration he has and build it into a place in which he can live in it and absorb it.  This is what we say just before beginning the evening prayer:

ופרוס עלינו סוכת שלומך ותקננו מלכנו עצה טובה מלפניך

~

...Spread over us the Sukka of your Peace-Wholeness, 

and fortify, Our King, the good counsel [we've gleaned] from You...

An idea takes time to get into one's head, but it takes even longer -- marinating in it experientially, for it to filter into his heart.    


To do this we have enjoy the moment "ושמחת בחגך" "Rejoice in your holiday" (Dvarim 16:14).  This is another mitzvah of Sukkot.  Joy is the feeling of bringing thoughts into action (Gur Aryeh, Shemot 15:1), which hopefully, between Rosh Hashana and Sukkot is exactly what one has done.  And, of course, joy is not only the result of this process, but like a good opening joke to a speech, it serves to further open the pathways of our hearts for spirituality to enter.
-----
Based on Rav Dessler's Michtav MeEliyahu II p 106-7.

YOM KIPPUR: The Symphony of Return

"[Psychology] is vastly more than fixing what is wrong with [people].  It is about identifying and nurturing their strongest qualities, what they own and are best at, and helping them find niches in which they can best live out these strengths."

-Martin Seligman, PhD, Leading Authority in Positive Psychology 

"Penitence" just doesn't have the same ring it used to in an era yearning for well-being, happiness, and self-confidence.  "Repentance" isn't much better, etymologically seeming to indicate that whatever penitence is, one should do it more than once.  If you go down the list of synonyms, "contriteness," "shame," "self-reproach," it just sound terrible.  

It's a good thing none of these have anything to do with Judaism.  The word the Torah uses is "תשובה" "Tshuva" and it means "Return."

Right now, we are in the home stretch of the "10 Days of Tshuva" that was introduced with a running start by the month of Elul, began with Rosh Hashana, and crescendos with Yom Kippur.  Aside from the Catholic terminology which messes up our grasp of concepts which are authentically rooted in the Torah, we generally-speaking don't intellectually understand why things like Yom Kippur work, and therefore deep-down, we maybe don't believe it does.  How can this process of tshuva erase mistakes I've made, terrible things I've thought, said and done?  A years worth of negativity, and "zap" it's gone? 

Most of us look inside ourselves and see some good, some bad, some neutral.  Good traits, bad traits, good things we did, bad things we did...On the Doppler radar we'll see some white, some black, some gray...overall, if you step way back to look at your own spiritual map, you will see a more-or-less gray satellite image.  

This is incorrect, inaccurate, and empirically and metaphysically false.

Every human being at his core pines "to be good."  

When we watch movies, we project ourselves into the role of the hero, wishing we had that opportunity to save those people in the burning building, or take a stand against the criminals, or not miss the chance to express our love before it's too late.

I challenge any person to say that he values an 18-year single-malt whiskey more than those couple of weeks that he stretched himself for that friend who was going through a hard time.  No one will say that he has more long-lasting fulfillment from the spring break in Cozumel, than even a single time he was able to stop himself from saying something hurtful to another person.  A lifetime of putting on tefillin, lighting Shabbat candles, running an honest business -- these are, by far, the most precious possessions we have. Undoubtedly.  

The problem is that we forget this...

And the point here is of course not to toss the Glenlivet or cancel the trip to the beach, rather that we don't distinguish clearly enough between the pleasures in our life.  "I like being honest and I like a good scotch."  Obviously, no one would ever utter such a stupid sentence, but because we do not take a stand for the great pleasures of life, we effectively identify equally with both.

We're not just gray blobs of good and bad stuff mixed together!  We are good people!  More than that, we are tsaddikim righteous, giving people -- at the very least, we want to be!  We all want loved ones to remember us when we're gone for our uprightness, honesty, kindness, empathy for others, and wisdom.

The institution of positive psychology has thankfully given us empirical data to prove that all of this is accurate.  But what is beyond the scope of academia is that the reason this is true is because, in reality, we are neshamot-souls that try throughout the year with trial and tribulation to shine through our bodies.  That soul is nothing less than a "chelek Eloki miMaal" unique rays of G!d's Light from above.  Our goodness is our essence -- not an accident.  (If you're wondering, "what happened to Original Sin?" you've got the wrong religion.)

Only the clarity from this awareness can pierce the gray inside of us, revealing our goodness as our essence, and consequently, making any "bad" within us a mistake, accidental and incidental.  By identifying with certainty with the good, we effectively say, "I could never do something like that, and would never do it again."  This is the return to our essence. 

Everything revolves around this principle on Yom Kippur.  Contrary to popular belief, fasting and not showering is not a punishment to rectify our sins, rather a method to re-identify with who we are.  The neshama-soul has five different aspects: the lifeforce, the oneness, the illumination, the spirit, and the pure identity.  Normally we live a double-life as souls and bodies, getting what we need from both, but on Yom Kippur, we go back to our source to remind ourselves of ourselves.  This is executed through the five things we abstain from on Yom Kippur:  

Instead of gleaning our life energy from food and drink, we turn to the lifeforce within us.   

Instead of the unity of intimacy of husband and wife, we turn inwards to our oneness with the Infinite.    

Instead of the clean, shining feeling of stepping freshly out of the shower, we look to the illumination of our soul. 

Instead of the feeling the uplift of comfortable shoes, we let our feet hit the ground in thin-soled shoes, so that our soul seeks the uplift within.

Instead of the purity of scent produced by perfume, we turn to our soul where our identity stands pristine.

The day is a day of communal prayer and introspection, of a community returning.  After finding ourselves again, we of course go back to eating, drinking, and everything else because we now have the clarity to make all of those actions holy and spiritually enriched.


Over the last decade or so, the idea of flashmobs has captured the imagination of many around the world.  Even when they do things as mundane as standing still in a train station; when so many people do one thing it in concert, it is stunningly powerful.  If we look at Yom Kippur as a day of self-flagellation, it is hardly a flashmob any of us would want to be a part of.  But if we see it for what it is, a community worldwide returning to their Divine roots, to the sublime values with which we define ourselves in our hearts but forget through the vicissitudes of time, habit, and error -- we will see the beautiful symphony of tshuva which we have the privilege to join in together -- a global symphony which could never be captured on youTube because it occurs in the hearts of a nation.  
-----
This piece is based on the end of the Maharal's Drush leShabbat Tshuva normally printed in the back of Be'er haGola.

ROSH HASHANA: The Day of Memory

The Day of Memory


A friend asked me yesterday if I was ready for Rosh Hashana.  


I said, "yeah, think so."  


It was clear that the question was not just a conversation starter, but was coming from a more personal place.  "Why do you ask?"


"Everyone in Yerushalayim seems to be running around, busy buying things to get ready -- I think my wife and I took care of everything we needed, but I'm starting to get nervous amidst the flurry of activity..."

~~~

The Torah does not call Rosh Hashana, "The Day of Judgment," rather a Day of זכרון of Memory (Vayikra 22:24).


The first thing to note is that given that Rosh Hashana is the only holiday that is rooted in an event which antecedes human history itself, i.e. the creation of man, you would not think there is much to remember.  There are no "mementos," no old photographs, no re-enactments...


Remember the day before the Big Bang?  Beautiful weather...


If anything, Pesach, I would have thought, would be a much more fitting candidate for the name "The Day of Memory," remembering our leaving Egypt.  We ate matza then, we eat matza now...  


This said, perhaps if we meditate on what we know about Memory, we can try to extract a principle to guide us practically over the next 48 hours (maybe even 72).

When a person tries to remember an old acquaintance's name, or a friend's birthday, he instinctively closes his eyes.  No one starts looking around to see if maybe there is a clue around the room he's in -- he looks inside of himself.  He knows it's in there somewhere because it was in there once and has no where to go.  Being unable to remember something one knows he once knew can be immensely frustrating for this reason.  Where did it go!?!


There are things you don't have to remember because they live on the forefront of your mind.  It's right their on your dashboard.  Your name, for example.


However, there is something which you may think is impossible to forget but is actually the epitome of our forgetfulness -- you yourself.
  
Throughout the year, we are busy doing what we need to do: working, studying, exercising, spending time with family.  Contrary to popular belief, human beings are not built to mutli-task; when we're busy crunching numbers or writing reports at work, we must devote all of energies to it.  That is not the time to be pondering whether or not this job is the fullest fulfillment of your strengths and passions.


So too with all of the moving parts in our lives, and in a certain sense, that's the way it should be because being paralyzed in philosophical or existential internal monologue is not a way to live.  However, we must pause to plant a flag on this point -- by definition, we forget ourselves in the day-to-day workings of our lives.  Our names get used wherever we go, but who we are, if we don't revisit it, will be left in the dust years in our past when we last asked ourselves the big questions of life.


Moreover, we make mistakes in life.  We sometimes miss our mark.  Our true mistake, however, comes in the wake of the mistake.  Socially-engrained Catholic conceptions of guilt drag us down, identifying ourselves intrinsically with our faults, and distancing us from the ideals that we once wished to live by.  "Ideals" become labeled "Fantasies," and we further forget who we are.


Tangentially, but nevertheless significant in out time, we live in the self-proclaimed Age of Information.  We boast of our exponentially increased production and consumption of information, but at the same time pine for inner harmony within the sea of that same information.  Knowing has ousted Thinking.  Research has shown it to be true, but all of us have experienced it: you're researching a company for work, or a topic for a thesis paper -- at some point, you have so much information, that you lose sight of what exactly you're trying to prove...


Lastly, although every one of the mitzvot are meant to allow us to access our inner reality and through it Hashem, we can analogous to the above, lose sight of this.  The tefilin don't need to be wrapped, nor the candles lit, nor the Torah learned -- the mitzvot our to enrich us!  G!d is not an Asiatic despot nor is He a tyrannical industrialist who must produce mitzvah-widgets at minimum cost with us working the conveyor belt.  Hashem created the universe and gave us the mitzvot in order that we should be able to live special lives of purpose and meaning and taking pleasure in the splendor of it all.

The Zikaron, the Memory, that we are supposed to come to on Rosh Hashana is remembering ourselves -- not in a self-indulgent way -- but rather rediscovering, and clarifying the ideals, the sense of mission, the goodness that we have inside of us.  It is no accident that we're not meant to run around doing mitzvot on Rosh Hashana.  The only Torah mitzvah on Rosh Hashana is hearing the shofar, the inner cry of the human spirit.  The clarity we achieve now is in order to make a "Rosh" a "Head" for a year of activity in mitzvot, at work, and in our communities.  


The blackout in New York City in 2003 brought out the best of New Yorkers.  Everyone remembers that episode fondly.  Under pressure, the goodness burst through the infamous rough exterior of the city's inhabitants.  However, we don't have to wait for push to come to shove to discover what we're made of.


This is the crux of man's creation, and our re-creation every year.  Be'ezrat Hashem we should all merit this Rosh Hashana to tap into the best of ourselves, remember that Hashem loves us and wants us to have a life of vitality and fulfillment, and that all He is waiting for is for us to remember who we are first.        
-----
This article is based on the a dvar Torah delivered by Rav Beryl Gershenfeld on parshat Shoftim 5771.

BAMIDBAR: The Anti-Mob

Crowd Control


Too often we make a mistake of filing "Judaism" in our minds under the very general title of "Organized Religions."  The problem is that under "Organized Religions" appear other colorful concepts that shouldn't be allowed within a 100 foot radius of Torah: e.g. oppression of the masses through the perpetuation of illiteracy and the monopolization of information, Crusades, scapegoating, etc. etc.  


Listen, everyone's got their problems, but let those not be our problems.


Perhaps the most tragic cultural misappropriation is the idea that the Torah demands from us strict uniformity and the annihilation of self, seeking to convert the greatest number of followers in order to find strength in numbers.

Of course, no one can deny the synergy of people working in concert -- "two are better than one..." (Kohelet 4:9), but speaking about human beings merely in terms of quantities is clearly a vulgarization of this concept.


This said, we open up this week the Book of Bamidbar (incidentally called "Numbers" by the Greeks and later King James), and lo and behold we find ourselves knee-deep in a census!  Of all things to start a book with!  Cold facts and numbers...what a great way to grab the reader right from the beginning!


It sounds terribly technical, no?  


It's fine that they took a census for whatever reason it may have been, but leave us out of it!  Why on earth would Hashem codify this census for eternity in the Chumash?!?  3,500 years later, who cares?!?  And then, to go into every tribe one by one...Reuven had 46,500; Shimon 59,300, and so on...


And, come to think of it, why did they take a census?  G!d Himself commission it (1st two verses).  Isn't it safe to say that G!d knew the results of the census without having to actually take the census?  


And just to strengthen the question: this is the 4th census in 13 months (see Rashi on the first verse who is keeping score for us)!  Us Jews can be a tad neurotic, but this is Hashem asking for these countings -- what is going on here?  This is absurd!

~~~~~

Names & Numbers

Last week, we began to speak about the idea of counting.  Counting brings things together.  

If one were to say, "there are 1 billion people in China," he means to say that those billion people have something in common in order that it makes sense to count them together, namely, of all the billions of people in the world, he wants to refer to, and therefore conceptually unite, the one billion people in China.  This is straightforward.  

But let's say he said, "there are 225,000 lychees and screwdrivers in the State of Delaware," he better have a good explanation for grouping Delawarian lychees and screwdrivers in that number.  

A number has the capacity to unite.  Interesting.  Obvious perhaps, but on the other hand, we probably never stopped to think about it.

Now, there are certain things one would never count individually.  Sand, for example -- even if you value sand very much -- let's say you're in the playground business -- you would not keep an inventory of grains of sand purchased and sold.  You simply wouldn't -- ever.  You would probably measure your sand in terms of metric tons, or cubic meters, but certainly not grains of sand.

In contrast to numbers are names.  Names identify unique individuals.  This is what names do -- they single one out from the crowd.  "David K. Harris."  "Jessica Sara Kahan."  "Jonathan Rosenberg-Glickstein."  And as surely as I wouldn't count my grains of sand, I wouldn't name my slices of bread.

Immediately, something unique pops out at us from the beginning of the Book of Bamidbar:

  שְׂאוּ אֶת רֹאשׁ כָּל עֲדַת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל לְמִשְׁפְּחֹתָם לְבֵית אֲבֹתָם בְּמִסְפַּר שֵׁמוֹת וגו

"[Hashem said to Moshe,] Count the heads of the entire Eida of the Children of Israel according to their families and the houses of their fathers with number-names..." (1:2).

This sounds like a nice idea trying to consolidate unity (numbers) and individuality (names), but don't they contradict eachother?

The reason that our initial reaction to the juxtaposition of these two concepts is that they clash is likely because our gut definitions for "unity" and "individuality" are slightly off.  

"Unity" we often confuse with "uniformity."  

And "individuality" we tend to define in terms of the interests, abilities, personality quirks, style, etc. of a person.  (What comes to mind almost immediately are those high school years in which one so desperately is trying to forge his individuality through hair-cuts, clothing styles, so-called "alternative" music, and even flame decals on the sides of his car.)  

These definitions are not totally off -- "unity" certainly implies some aspect of uniformity, and "individuality" is related to the unique bundle of the aforementioned attributes a person possesses.

The key to begin to understand how these two concepts can co-exist is to rethink of individuality as most essentially founded in mission.  Of course, every person has a unique set of כחות strengths and שאיפות interests, but these only find their context and purpose in terms of the mission.  

The best metaphor for this is the army.  No two people in the army can have the same mission -- by definition.  Joey is in charge of gathering information at point A. Billy is covering him from point B, and Joey from point C.  Simultaneously, Jimmy is relaying this information to George who is infiltrating the compound through the air conditioning duct, and so on and so forth.  Every person is indispensable to accomplish the meta-mission.  As such, every person's micro-mission is unique to him, and was given to him after much thought by the General based on his strengths and interests.  

Does an army need a lot of people?  Yes.  But, only because there are so many missions that must be accomplished to accomplish the ultimate goal.

Is there a uniformity among the soldiers?  Of course.  They are all wearing more or less the same uniform, they have the same basic training, they all have to abide by a basic level of physical fitness, they all have to speak the same language and lingo -- all of this is correct, but the purpose is not so that they become some large, indistinguishable, uniform blob.  The goal of uniformity is entirely in order to facilitate all of these individual soldiers with their individual strengths and missions to work together towards a common goal.

There are different words in the Hebrew language that relate to the different aspects of the concept of "mission."  One of them is תפקיד.  It's fascinating to now see how the passuk lights up, when we see that the word used for "counting" is not the normal word לספור, but לפקוד.  And why the Torah in counting the Jewish people specifically relates to those of age to serve in the army:

מִבֶּן עֶשְׂרִים שָׁנָה וָמַעְלָה כָּל יֹצֵא צָבָא בְּיִשְׂרָאֵל תִּפְקְדוּ אֹתָם לְצִבְאֹתָם אַתָּה וְאַהֲרֹן

"From 20 years of age and above, all those who [would] go out [to serve] in the army in Israel, count them (תִּפְקְדוּ) according to their army ranks, you and Aaron." (1:3) 

The Torah then proceeds to count the Jewish people according to each one's family, and tribe -- each tribe with its own flag and symbol, and unique spiritual gifts (see the end of the Book of Bereishit and the end of the Book of Devarim).    


Why were we counted so many times in the desert?  And moreover, why record it for eternity in the Torah?  

Rashi explains: 

...מתוך חבתן לפניו מונה אותם כל שעה  

"Because of the love for [the Jewish people] before [Hashem], He counts them all the time..."

Every person is precious.  


No one can possibly know this more than Hashem who created us and gives us everyday the tools and learning experiences to bring out our potential.  The Jewish people is not a mob nor a rally on the White House lawn nor a football crowd.  The unity of individuals in the Jewish people comprise a magnificent mosaic -- a poem -- a symphony.  It's therefore not sufficient to estimate more-or-less how many Jews there were in the desert.  The census was not for technical reasons.  Certainly not the 4th census in a little over a year.  It was a show of love and appreciation of every individual who by definition cannot be replaced by anyone else.  This is a message that shines throughout the Book of Bamidbar (see the intro to the sefer in the Emek Davar), and throughout the Chumash.  


The fact that the census was included in the Torah, with such a shocking amount of space dedicated to it, is a testament to Hashem's love for us.  It is one thing for HKBH to love us, but what is even greater is that He wants us to know it.     

THE OMER: Making It Count

The Other Side of Being Human

We almost always hear the words "being human" with a connotation of fallibility, weakness, normalcy -- "human error," "he's only human," "he succumbed to his natural, human urges," and so on.  All of this is certainly true, and without a doubt we must be conscious to maintain our idealism in perspective, keeping our feet on the ground.  However, I would like to suggest, and think you will agree, that there is another dimension to being human that although diametrically opposed to the first, is a more essential expression of our humanity.

~~~~~

The soul of man seeks endless expanses -- pines to touch the infinite -- thirsts to taste eternity.  

Without exception, every human being is compelled, whether he knows it or not, towards Greatness.  From the free-faller diving from an airplane to the entrepreneur hoping to go global -- from the violinist who demands perfection from every bow-stroke to the mathematician poring over an unsolved proof -- from the bride and groom lost in eachother's eyes to the parents quietly taking in the sight of their newborn child -- from the Israeli backpacker in a Tibetan monastery to the college students waxing philosophical in the wee hours of the night, to the pair of chavrusas probing the Talmud's secrets...all of them are looking for the Ineffable, for that cusp of Reality that glows white hot -- Life's cutting edge -- where the finite approaches the Infinite asymptotically, hoping to find what they are so desperately looking for albeit unaware.

None of these admittedly unnatural human behaviors should come to us as a surprise seeing as a "the soul is nothing other than a fragment of G!d Above, with its only desire to return and connect to its source" (Ramchal Daat Tevunot I:24).  People are not wholly natural creatures.  That boundless place inside every person of thoughts and emotions, creativity and ethical strength has its root in the Infinite.     

You don't see many cows bungee-jumping on their own volition -- nor partaking of any other extreme sports or grandiose artistic, intellectual or ethical endeavors (I know I haven't watched TV in a while, but I am confident that this is still true).  It's not sufficient to chalk this up to their lack of intelligence because: 1) it's not clear that the people who choose to bungee jump on a regular basis are quantifiable smarter, and 2) even given the resources they (cows) have at their disposal, there is nothing they do which even remotely can be described as a "striving for transcendence" -- no behavioral outlier beyond the pale of food, shelter, survival, and reproduction.   

Not so the human being.  It is a disservice to our species to only refer to our humanity in the context of what is normal and natural, for in the heart of every one of us is an unquenchable desire to have contact with that which we can hardly put words to.  Extreme sports is perhaps not the best use of the infinite longings of the human spirit, but at least it can serve for us as a vibrant image of how super-natural of a species that we are. 

The "Insurmountable" Chasm

As surely as the desire for Greatness burns inside of us, we precariously stand at risk of losing hope of ever reaching it.  

It's a catch-22.  Surely, a person with no- or low-expectations will not get very far -- this is clear.  But, on the flip side, a person with high expectations, can get crushed under their weight.  The young man with dreams of "making it big" in the business world can very easily throw in the towel after one or two failed start-ups.  The athlete that defines success by competing in the Olympics will not only have a bitter career, he will almost certainly never make it to the Olympics.  If he does not value any of the smaller but significant success along the way, how will he ever cross the gap to Greatness?

All of this is true in the world of "natural" endeavors.  How much more so is it true in our pursuit for Torah, Hashem's Wisdom Itself.

A relative of mine told me recently that she had been convinced that she would never understand any idea in Torah.  She had accepted this as fact and had grown comfortable with it.  Divrei Torah always seemed to her "too high," she said, with "too many foreign concepts," and logically "too complex."  What a tragedy -- her perception of Torah's Greatness was the very thing that kept her away from it.  

The real tragedy is that this is true on some level for all of us.  All of us give up to some degree at some point in looking up the mountain.  

"Me?!?  I will never be able to understand what those people are talking about..."  

  "That stuff is for rabbis...people in yeshiva..."  

     "I'm going to understand Rabbi Akiva Eiger's kasha?!?"

        "What's a 'kasha?'"

            "The Maharal?  No, no -- that stuff's too deep for me -- I'm a simple Jew."

Right now is the period of preparation between leaving Egypt (celebrated through the holiday of Pesach) and the receiving of the Torah 50 days later (the holiday of Shavuot [June 7-9 this year]).  Let's take a look at how the Torah prescribes to remedy this uniquely  human predicament of being stuck on earth with aspirations towards the stars.

Counting the Omer

It's often worthwhile to think of how you would have written the Torah to appreciate how Hashem chose to write it.  Personally, I would have thought of a more grand series of mitzvahs leading up to our receiving the Torah at Shavuot.  I don't know...regimented Torah study everyday, go through the entire Chumash...something!  The last thing that would have occurred to me is a mitzvah to count every day from Pesach to Shavuot.  Indeed, that is what the Jewish people are doing right now -- counting the Omer.  Every night, we make a bracha for that night's count and say, "Today is ___ days of the Omer."  

Why is this the way to prepare for receiving the Torah?  It is really a quite unimpressive mitzvah.  It doesn't get more simple than...counting.  

And why is it called the "Omer?"  Of course, the simple answer is because of the Korban Omer, the barely offering that marks the beginning of the counting.  But this begs the question: why is the whole count defined by that offering?  Why do we mention it every day, היום _ ימים לעומר "Today is the __ day of the Omer?"  This is most bizarre because the word "omer" is just the name of a measurement (a tenth of an eifa)...this is like calling this month-and-a-half mitzvah "the counting of the kilogram!"  It just doesn't have that nice ring to it that we would like to see for the mitzvah that leads us to Shavuot, the celebration of the Giving of Torah...

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To open up this mystery, we must know a little bit about the Korban Omer.  

Until the Korban Omer is offered, eating from the new harvest is not permitted.  This means that this barley is essentially the first of the harvest.  The question is: what are we expressing by giving the first of our national harvest?

It's very "in" today to speak about where our food comes from.  Usually, this means explaining all of the chemical, social, political and economic human factors that went into a particular food product.  But what about the pre-human factors?  You need the right amount of rain, rain acidity, alkaline level in the soil, sunlight without excessive heat, insects to keep the soil fertile but not too many to ruin the crop...this is just a basic list, which we could probably continue to expand and break down into thousands and thousands of independent factors.  All of those factors must intersect in the perfect proportions to produce this crop.  

We have a choice.  Either we look at all of these coming together as happenstance, every natural element on its own -- and they all happened to end up in the same motel i.e. my barley crop, OR we see the one-ness of their harmony, orchestrated by Hashem who took interest in us that we should have a harvest this year.

This is the unique human process of bundling, taking disparate elements and binding them together.  In Hebrew, the word for this is לעמר leAmer, which is actually one of the 39 creative processes forbidden on Shabbat, and of course, the exact same word as עומר Omer.  

We have a choice to look at the world as "fortunate coincidences" or expressions of Hashem's Love for us.  When we offer up the Korban haOmer, we are saying, "Thank You -- we realized that all of this came from You." 

It is this very human act of bundling is what kicks off the Counting of the Omer.  It serves as our paradigm for the whole time period.  As we mentioned, "Omer" is a measurement.  More specifically, it is the measurement of food a person needs in a single day.  In the desert, every person received exactly an omer of manna (Shemot 16:16).  This is the path the Torah helps us chart to reach the Infinite.  We have to look at everyday as a portion.  

The way infinity works is that you can come into contact with infinity by touching any part of it.  Divide infinity by any number and you will come to infinity.    

Everyday we try to look at we have in front of us and try to find the local unity.  We have to turn our day into a bundle that is worth bundling all on its own.  Everyday, we can מעמר-bundle the different pieces together of that day -- we can find oneness where we are.  

...Very often, another individual can look to us like a disparate package of quirks, thoughts and interests, but there is a one-ness there to uncover...  

...We may not be able to bring the world together, nor the entire Jewish people, but we can start with the people we come into contact with on any given day -- our classmates, co-workers, family members -- it's very good to think global, but without acting local, we will turn into cynics...  

There is no such thing as jumping to grab onto the infinite -- to all-at-once, see the One-ness of the Big Picture that those college students, up late at night, think they are so close to uncovering.  BUT, every day of our lives we have the opportunity to find Hashem in that day -- the things we will learn about life, the people we will help, the new insights into what makes us tick.  Everyday has its one-ness to uncover.  As the picture unfolds, we will see how today's one-ness is really part of the higher perspective of one-ness we will have tomorrow.

A person who learns Torah regularly knows this well.  Everyday, you open up your gemara and find a page of Talmud that makes no sense whatsoever.  There are arguments about arguments, contradictions and paradoxes -- it's a mess.  Part of you wants to close the book, and the other part is flipping to the end of the tractate to see how many pages you have left to finish, and then the rest of Shas (the whole Talmud is called "the Shas").  Again, stuck between despair and high expectations.  

The mission is to realize that the Torah is One, every part of it is Infinite.  If you cannot enjoy learning this daf of gemara, what makes you think you will have enjoyed finishing the Shas?  A person has to look at this daf of gemara as his mission.  Find the unity that resolves the problems at hand.  Reveal the beauty here.  This is the way is to appreciate our daily portion -- to put our whole being into it.

For the person who doesn't learn Torah regularly, this principle can change his life.  As soon as he realizes that the Torah is One -- that every single concept he gets clear can be applied all over the place and throughout his life, the panorama of Torah will open up for him.  

Moreover, often, we get blocked from seeing the trees because of the forest.  We're hung up on enormous questions about the nature of G!d and the Torah at large.  The omer teaches us a mind-blowing idea: in Torah, if we keep our eyes open, we will discover the forest in the trees! 

We must learn to appreciate the micro to get to the macro.  This is why everyday we make a bracha on that day's count -- on the underlying beauty and unity we will discover on that day.  It's not just one bracha at the beginning of the count and another at the end of 49 days.

We must also appreciate that everyday is connected to the next.  This is essentially what counting is.  When I say the "5 books of Moshe," or the "3 forefathers," I am indicating an underlying unity among those 5 books and among those 3 forefathers.  This is the depth of what counting is (לספור to count is of course connected to ספר book, a sequential narrative of otherwise disparate events/information).     

If we do this, Hashem takes care of giving us the Big Picture, that Ineffable and Infinite Expanses our soul so intensely longs for.

It's like learning a language.  You learn one word, two words, start constructing sentences, etc.  For a long time, even if you're having conversations, it's still disparate parts that you are mechanically putting into place.  Until one day, after you've immersed yourself in that foreign culture...you're fluent!  You are no longer translating as you go.  You can just speak!

This is the aspect of "50" in Torah -- the Ineffable that we don't even count in the Omer because it's really not in our hands to count.  It's a gift.  Even if you have all the pieces together, you may still not have the "all."  The absolute one-ness.  This, the Torah calls "כל" which means "all," and "happens" to appear in the unbounded middle of the aleph-bet, and also "happens" to have a numerical value of 50 (כ=20, ל=30).  

It is for this reason that the holiday on the 50th day of this count, after 7 weeks, is simply called by the same name as the sum of its parts that were spent preparing for it, שבועות "Shavuot," which literally means..."Weeks."

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Leaving Egypt is relatively easy.  What did we have to lose?  Plus, we were shown a flash of the Infinite.  Razzled and Dazzled by miracles, it's not so impressive that we left.  On a certain level, a herd of cows would have done the same.  That is what was necessary for our nation in its childhood.  However, what is quintessentially human and adult, is to have the soul's desire for the infinite, yet realistically direct it to every day's unique mission.  To find the infinite within the finite, and to appreciate that this is the path to Hashem.  

Day 26...here we go...

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This post was based heavily on a shiur by Rav Immanuel Bernstein shlit"a, and a Shabbat drasha by Rav Beryl Gershenfeld shlit"a that was explicating the approach of the Arizal to the Omer.