on the unetane tokef…..just one more thing…

their origin is from dust, and their end is to dust

at their peril gathering food, they are like shattered pottery

verses 27 and 28 of the famous piyyut unetane tokef, are especially lovely for the Days of Awe and our understanding of t’shuvah. the general word for human, Adam, is taken from the matter of which s/he was made….adamah (dust/earth). we are but dust….even at our most lofty, we are but stardust. we are still from dust, and our end is dust, on earth as it is in the heavens. and we live by plowing dust, working our hands in the muck of matter for everything material we need…..or crave.

we are each of us an earthenware vessel for the soul that G’d inspires into us. and we have repeatedly said that we must break ourselves in t’shuvah to rebuild. we must go in the way of the world, which is itself broken from the Creation. fasting, prayer, standing, going unwashed (dustful), unrested and stressed is our way in yom kippur….for it is only at our ‘peril’ that we can gather even spiritual food. we are stiff-necked, but it won’t do now, we must be shard-necked to get right.

the image of the shattered pot can only be from a single place in Tanach…in only one spot is the word for earthenware ‘cheres’
coupled with the root for shattered, ie, shin bet resh. Leviticus 6:21

an earthenware pot in which it [chatat (flesh of the sin offering)] was boiled shall be broken

now remember that this is in Leviticus, so it isn’t a metaphorical phrase…this is halachah for what to do with such a pot once it is has been sanctified and can no longer be used in an ordinary human way. can’t go cookin cornpone after you’ve done up the chatat…it is now a pot for G’d alone.
well, earthenware can be made fit for human use again both after holy use and UNholy use! how do you kasher for everyday usage an earthenware vessel that has become unfit via contact with the either the utterly pure and holy or via contact with something impure? Mishnah (Keilim 2:1) and Tosefta (Keilim[Bava Kama] 7:14) specify that breaking is the ONLY way to purify. no need to throw such a vessel away, break it and then reassemble/reattach/rejoin the pieces….voila! fit for use by every rivkah, ike and marty.

it isn’t hard to see the intended connection. we must break our earthenware selves, shattering resistance to the way of humbly walking with G’d through habit, neglect, uncaring, indifference, laziness, ornery stiff-neckedness or deliberate choice. we must break ourselves and re-fuse ourselves in the doing of t’shuvah. it is only because we can break our wrong and thoughtless patterns that we can have hope for something better, stronger, more illuminated. the unetane tokef is not telling us to worry about death by fire, water, earthquake, strangulation, etc, but rather to use what we were created to be to make it better. we are earthen. to purify us, we must break or be broken…hardened hearts will not let neither People nor persons go. this is what is meant by Psalm51:19 when it tells us that “real sacrifice to haShem is a broken spirit”. and this is what R’ Nachman teaches us in urging us to well understand: “if you believe that you can destroy, you must, must believe you can repair”.

never too shattered to be repaired. so it is for the world; so it is in our souls. consider Pesikta d’Rav Kahana for Shabbat Shuva:

R‘ Alexandri said: the usual person doing a task would be embarassed to have to use a broken implement.

but the Holy One, blessed be, doesn’t see it like that. G’d’s work is always done with broken implements….

days of repentance: 19 Elul

“now, if you will obey My Voice indeed, and keep My Covenant, then….”

this is the king james version of the conditional preamble of Exodus 19:5. does it puzzle you like it does me? first because of that “indeed”….obey me indeed. how does one obey more than just to obey? and is that the standard against which we measure whether we have failed in the doing of a mitzvah (“commandment”)? if so, doesn’t it seem that we are all pretty much doomed to fail? to obey indeed…to obey extremely well….to go the extra mile in obeying…..tough standard…indeed.

but this translation, like virtually all of the english translations is simply wrong. but not so much in the use of the intensifier “indeed” as in the use of the word “obey”, for in biblical hebrew there simply is no word for “obey”. surprised?

it isn’t that we are not to do the commandments. there is a word for “to do” in Torah. and we have a word for “to guard/keep/watch over”…in fact, it is the word that you see before “My Covenant” in the quote we began with. but “obey”? nope. the word used at Exodus 19:5 for what is translated as “obey” is the root shin mem ayin, the familiar shema, usually translated as simply to hear/to listen. at 19:5 it is intensified as shamoa tishm’u…perhaps “really hearken to My Voice”. and it is used hundreds of times in Torah, most often in connection with mitzvot and how we are to react to them.

the 19th day of Elul is for t’shuvah for the month of cheshvan, which has the distinction of being the only month in the jewish calendar that has no particular holidays or mitzvot associated with it. many modern jews see it as a sort of break after the heavily “burdened”, if you will, month of Tishrei, which has not only the Days of Awe, but also the long Festival of Sukkot, and all the particular mitzvot associated with all those special days and that special season. there is, of course, Rosh Chodesh in Cheshvan and Shabbatot, but none with special character associated with that month.

but Cheshvan does have something special in it (aside from my birthday, which is neither here nor there), for being the 8th month of the year (why the new year begins in the 7th is for another time), it is associated with the beyond natural…..and we learn in the kabbalistic text Sefer Yetzirah that Cheshvan is reserved for the Messiah and the mitzvot that will come to be understood in that Time. but the thing to remember is that the month is associated with redemption….

and that brings us back to why there is no word for obey for redemption is not a matter of obedience, but of hearing, truly listening to the Voice of G’d in the mitzvot, in the world, in ALL.

“we will do and we will hear”

this is the third and definitive reply of the People (Exodus 24:7) to the call to hearken and to keep that we began with. through the doing we will get at the hearing, the listening to the Voice of G’d, which is full understanding. and it matters, for transgressions are less “wrongdoings” in the end than “wronghearings”, akin to “misunderstandings”. we learn that “we will do what we understand” (Mekilta d’rabbi Shimon bar Yochai 24:7). and it is this distinction that allows for chesed (loving-kindness) to overtake gevurah (strict justice) allowing for t’shuvah to be the central point in judaism…not obedience. sin is disconnection that comes from “wronghearing”. t’shuvah is getting the listening/understanding aright. the life of t’shuvah is one that gets and stays attuned to the Voice of G’d. and the mitzvot are the notes and and the holidays the rhythms by which we

“sing unto haShem a new song”

perennially new, miyom l’yom (“from day to day”), everyday, as King David, model and sire of the line of Messiah, sings in Psalm 96. maybe in Cheshvan we have the time to listen to all the doings of Tishrei as they echo in our souls…the lingering sostenuto.

a practice to follow might be to linger on what you are doing right…what brings you close to G’d already…the “righhearing” you already have. abide in it today.

ketiva v’chatima tovah

days of repentance: 18 Elul

“the month of Elul, a time of t’shuvah, a time of healthy tears”

This is the Ari’s comment on the nature of the month of Elul. healthy tears are life restoring, and that is something to remember on this chai day, for traditionally it is on this day that we begin to examine our failings more analytically, dipping into memory to recall our wrongs in time, month by month.

today begins the last 12 days of Elul, conveniently corresponding to the months of the year. and as you would then guess, today we reflect on our shortcomings and errors of Tishrei of the year now passing. indeed, we look again to the wrongs in our way from last Rosh haShanah on! so if you remember wondering the rabbi’s sermon would end more than you remember the message…..well, this is a good day to rectify that and reintegrate your ability to learn from every jew every day into your spiritual walk……

but wait…didn’t we finish with last RH on last YK? well, think about it. what is judged on Rosh haShanah? the walk we have walked in the year previous to that Rosh haShanah. and what judgment is sealed on Yom Kippur? the judgment from Rosh haShanah that just passed that year, so the judgment for your way between RH last and forward is yet to come….and this is another reason to remember that t’shuvah is not a one and done affair, but a continuous way. hei vav hei…not hei and then just vav.

“bring us back to You, haShem, and we shall return to You”

ends a conversational debate between the Creator and the People recorded in midrash (Lamentations 5:21). G’d tells us to return, we say that it requires the power only G’d G’dself has! and guess what? we are right. let’s turn again to the letters of haShem: hei is the letter representing t’shuvah, the letter with a narrow escape route into the future, and the vav is the extent of G’d’s expression from “above” Creation all the way through it to the Creational level in which we walk–it is the representation of the straight line between the Holy One and us. we’ve said already that hei brackets the vav…there is t’shuvah on either side of the axis between heaven and earth. to understand the midrash, we can just turn to the hei vav hei. the first hei is our own earthly impetus to return as we recognize G’d, and the second hei, the one after the reach down from heaven, as it were, is the G’d-empowered return.

“haShem is my light and my redemption…whom shall i fear?

haShem is the strength of my life…whom shall i dread?

yes, Psalm 27 yet again, chevrei. but it gives us another important way to look at the hei vav hei way of looking at t’shuvah. haShem as light source is 1 hei; haShem as strength source is the other. Chazal teach G’d is revealed before every transgression as a light to us (are we looking?), and after a transgression haShem is revealed to us as our source of strength for return. it is the “strength of my life” that we count on in the next 12 days to finish the work of rectifying a year’s worth of trudging cheit and aveirah. but i know also that this is the time of embracing and being embraced by beloved G’d

“may His left hand [gevurah] be under my head

and Her right hand [chesed] embrace me”

now do you see why R’ Akiva insisted on including Shir haShirim (Song of Songs) in the “canon”?

ketiva v’chatima tovah

days of repentance: 17 Elul

“y’yasher kochacha sheshibarta”

(you are to be congratulated for the shattering [of the tablets])

this is the astounding conclusion of Chazal (Yevamot 62a) concerning haShem’s decision to have a second set of tablets made by Moshe, upon which G’d G’dself would inscribe afresh “the words that were on the first the first tablets that you shattered“. this shattering is 1 of only 3 completely independent actions of Moshe that G’d praises, according to Chazal. have you ever been praised for shattering something of value? for shattering something of great value? for shattering something of profound value?

well, yes. if you are doing profound t’shuvah, you are shattering youself in order to get to the essence of your Self. and this is praiseworthy. it is righteous.

“a time to act toward haShem”

we learn from Psalm 119:126. “toward” is usually translated as “for”, but the prefix means toward as well, and when so understand points to the basis for calling the shattering of person in t’shuvah a righteous act. when you are returing to G’d, which way are you going? well, toward G’d. it isn’t the full extent of “to” that matters, but the direction of “toward”. and in Elul all of us have the opportunity to recognize that it is a time to act in a direction leading unerringly toward haShem.

the shattering of the tablets is, in the eyes of the Meshech Chochma, a late 19thc/early20thc chassidic scholar, necessary to demonstrate to the People Israel that there is only 1 source of holiness in existence: G’d G’dself. particularly if you consider that the People were, at the time of Moshe’s descent with the first set of tablets, engaged in worship of a golden calf, it is easy to see how dangerous bringing the tablets themselves to the gathering could easily have led to the replacement of the calf with the tablets. that might at first glance seem to be an improvement, but it is actually even worse. G’d intended the words to be holy revelation and not the stones, and it was abundantly clear to Moshe that the People were doing “thing” idolatry.

t’shuvah is correction of our mistaken making of things to which we cleave instead of cleaving to G’d. but we each must be Moshe to ourselves. we have to develop, in our efforts at t’shuvah, the instinct to know to shatter before our error becomes entirely stony barrier or substitution for acting toward G’d. but none like Moshe has ever arisen, we hold as “creed” in the prayer yigdal. but that was only in Moshe’s capacity as prophet. the action of shattering was taken by Moshe in his independent humanity. what it taught, and still teaches, is that now we can always recover from stoniness and shattering by preparing ourselves as new tablets

“I [G’d] will inscribe the words that were”

the words that were before we mistook them, or misplaced them, or engraved them ourselves in ways that created idols instead of revelation. paths that led us away from the walk with G’d.

make like Moshe and shatter the hardnesses–it is time to act toward G’d!

days of repentance: 6 & 7 Elul

“soon i’m going to make a mortal human of flesh…but only on 1 condition…when they, because of their iniquities, turn to you,

you must be ready to erase their faults”

so says the Holy One, blessed be, to…well, to whom? to an angel? nope. to ‘wisdom’? well, if you are willing to see t’shuvah as the wisdom it is, maaaaybe. to t’shuvah….yup, to t’shuvah (Zohar3:69b). to t’shuvah, which was created before the Creation of the World, and not just according to the mystics, but according to Chazal, the rabbis of the Talmud (Pesachim 54a).

this is quite an idea. the means of repair of the relationship between humans and G’d (and humans) was created before the humans themselves. t’shuvah is something like the medium out of which radical free will is created…without an “out” humans were doomed to lives of error, iniquity, and darkness. why? because as Creations truly free to act, they were created to act without a sense of certainty in what to expect….Creations not given to habit and instinct only….Creations with a consciousness that would enable to act against their own interests!….and, of course, against whatever was thought to be G’d’s will. we humans are self-seducing, you see. we are truly free to test limitations and limits because the way back is already there before us. like air. and light. and plant life. and the universe. reb Nachman must have been thinking of this pre-Creation t’shuvah when he taught:

if you believe you can destroy, you must believe you can repair

aside from the Sh’ma, i don’t know that anything states the essence of judaism better than this simple phrase. this is the essence of belief outside of belief in haShem purely…this is the way. remember, the Zohar actually points out that the human appeal in times of darkness would be to t’shuvah, which can act with humans alone to effect repair. it is like the existence of the Rad51/Srs2 enzyme balance that allows for “spontaneous” DNA repair within the cell…Rad51 is that hint at a u-turn. the street is always potentially 2-way. likewise, the u-turn in approach to haShem and to moral/ethical behavior can reciprocate.

when the Holy One needed to make a point to pharaoh and the world, he “hardened” pharaoh’s heart….think of it as Srs2 predominating, allowing pharaoh’s spiritual DNA to continue replicating bad…..the issue for all of us is to flip the t’shuvah switch and live differently.

we are not automatons for either the good or that bad. ours is a pied way (GMHopkins, 1918):

“glory be to G’d for dappled things–

all things counter, original, spare, strange; whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)…..

…….Praise him”

Chazal see the way of t’shuvah in the hebrew letter hei, stating that the universe was created with it (Menachot 29b). the hei has a solid horizontal bar on top, attached on the right side to a solid vertical bar. but on the left, the vertical bar is short of reaching the top bar. there is an opening in it moving toward the next letter (hebrew is, of course, read from right to left). and hei has no bottom. how does it represent t’shuvah? well, one can fall away out the bottom of the hei, but can always work back up and take the passageway to the left back into the stream of endless possibility in each and every moment.

we should note that there are 2 hei’s in the unpronounceable name of G’d: one after the yod that is the entrance of the Divine in Creation, and another after the vav that is the full extent of the Divine in Completion. after the explosion of the creative yod, then, there is no full extension, ie, vav, no completion (hence, redemption ultimately) without first navigating the hei of t’shuvah. and after the completion/redemption what still remains? the hei of t’shuvah. the present moment represented by hoveh, is redemption sandwiched twixt t’shuvah. a good way to remember that t’shuvah is the alpha and the omega, if you will, in the walk with haShem (the Name). return and return…continuous t’shuvah….not at all something to “do” once a year in the fall.

and consider quickly the difference between hei and the closed letter equivalent, the letter chet, the very name of which means “sin,” or better, errancy, missing the mark, deviating from the path. pry open the left side of chet and you have hei. t’shuvah is only redemptive when it continues to be open, so if you think you can “do” it once a year and be done, well, you’ve made your hei into a closed chet….t’shuvah into a thing and not a way of walkin Torah. you have, one might say, created an idol that has no ongoing power. from a chet, one can only go down…..

now, since we have also just enjoyed the 7th day of Elul, the first shabbat in the month that was not also Rosh Chodesh, we should consider the relationship between t’shuvah and Shabbat. you probably have already guessed the shabbat frees us from the routine of everyday life, just as t’shuvah frees us from deadly habit. shabbat is the only in the moment living many people have a chance to do, for living so in the hubbub of workaday routine is very difficult for many. so, since we are dealing kabbalistically with letters, let’s notice the shin bet tav (shabbat) are rearranged as tav shin bet in tashev, which means return and is the root of the word t’shuvah. of course, each week, in the hebrew calendar, is a counting up toward the next shabbat…ie, yom rishon toward shabbat, yom sheni toward shabbat….so it is shabbat to which we return each week…a taste of the world to come in that it is a day of just being, and not our everyday doing. now to make the word t’shuvah from tashev, you add a vav of redemption after the shin of shabbat and tack a hei on the end after the bet: tav shin vav bet hei. t’shuvah is, then, a sort of open-ended shabbat of redemption….endless being, endless blessing….constant walkin Torah with haShem.

t’shuvah is the breathing out of hei (go ahead say it, either as “hay” or as “ah”) ridding us of the spent, and preparing for the next oxygen-rich breathing in….all through that opening in the letter. a good way to remember it. t’shuvah breaks habit, which is really nothing but the predictable, mindless, determined extension of the past, and opens to endless possibility in each moment. t’shuvah is the ever extending possibility of newness, the u-turn on a one-way street.

practice the idea of repair in your personal resolve. know, absolutely know, that no matter how fallen you may be, you can rise, even if you need crutches. resolve to get up today, or tomorrow, or very, very soon and know that there is no destruction that can’t be repaired in some way. t’shuvah has been around longer than you…it’s roots are deeper sunk and cannot be uprooted.

days of repentance: haftarah of comfort 2

“Zion says…haShem has forsaken me

haShem has forgotten me”

the curious thing about the first haftarah of comfort (consolation), called ‘nachamu’ (after the meaning of the repeated first word, ie, “comfort my people, comfort them, says your G’d”) is that after the first verse it is anything but comforting. it goes on to say that the People is but as grass blown about and withered by the wind and the sun….in the face of G’d’s displeasure, the withered blades of grass are carried away as stubble. the first haftarah is comforting ONLY in that it asserts strongly that G’d is, in fact, in charge–in spite of all appearances to the contrary.

small comfort when one is feeling freshly dead in the destruction of the Temple…when one has died at tisha b’av with the departure of the Shechina from out of Israel’s midst….forsaken, forgotten, with no Presence to which to turn…

sometimes i feel like a motherless child…a long ways from home

but in the second week, Isaiah (49:14-51:3) answers with G’d’s pointed reply…

“can a woman forget her baby…..

or not feel compassion for the child of her womb?”

well, you mothers out there? in spite of the sometimes mindnumbing, backbreaking routines of parenting, can you not still feel compassion for the child of your womb? is that not about as good a surety—in the face of all the effort, the exasperation, the worry, the discipline, the sometime rejection and insolence of adolescent children, the fear of being ignored as you age—as great a certainty as any love we know on earth? is there any better certainty then a mother’s love? even among the most secular, the “miracle of birth” is treasured, and is nearly never relinquished. severing the umbilicus severs only the physical.

but we are in a series of 7 haftarot of comforting us, comforting those who mourn loss of Shechina in the Temple. we are not yet comforted…..

the grief of a mourner has 3 prominent steps at internment: 1) the e’l-mole rachamim corresponds to acknowledgment of death and the request for protection of the deceased, 2) the tziduk hadin corresponds to the accepting of truth in G’d’s judgment (verses proclaim G’d’s greatness and the “wisplike” existence of humankind, and 3) the graveside kaddish corresponds to turning of acceptance of death into the “magnification” that comes with comprehension of the greater good in the power of G’d. this structure of the internment service corresponds to instruction from Talmud (Mo’ed Katan 27b): “3 days for weeping, in 7 for lamenting, and 30 [to not] cut the hair and [wear] pressed clothing.”

from tisha b’av to the 1st shabbat is step 1 (reflected in haftarah 1 of comfort); from that to the 2nd shabbat is the acceptance of the judgment and of the truth of G’d’s promise (reflected in haftarah 2 of comfort); from that to the 3rd shabbat, and rosh chodesh elul, is the beginning of kaddish, the eye toward the future promise through t’shuvah (repentance), leading through the remaining 4 of the 7 weeks to the Birthday of the World, the day of the greatness of haShem, Rosh Hashanah.

so the 2nd shabbat of comfort begins with the cry of the forsaken, but then pivots through the realization that the Promise to the People is as rock solid as the love of a mother for her child. and at the very end of the haftarah, there is mention of Avraham and Sarah, the first parents of the People Israel, to whom was given the promise not to be fulfilled in their own day, but in days to come–even after dark days of exile from the Land and slavery.

“look to Avraham your forefather and Sarah who birthed you”

and the haftarah closes with the assurance that haShem will comfort, comforting even the very ruins, the persistence of memories of the destruction, the evil, the despondency. we are all of us spiritual ruins to one degree or another after another year of selling our spirits short, yes? our failures to live up to our best hopes, our strongest intentions, our responsibilities to each other and to G’d pile up into ruined heaps about this time of year. but right here. at THIS point in time the promise is that G’d will comfort our ruins, making Eden of our wastelands, we have the Promise of the other side of t’shuvah. for on the other side of the Days of Awe, we are promised, if we do the work:

“joy and gladness will be found there, thanksgiving, and the sound of music”

this as we enter the third week, so start to look to the mountain of G’d in Jerusalem, and know that you will hear what you’ve heard before…your heart will be blessed with the sound of music, and you’ll sing once more.

PS-don’t forget, richard rodgers real family name was abrahams………now there’s the Promise in exile, eh?)