B"H
THOUGHTS FOR THE MONTH OF CHESHVAN
Dear Friends:
The Passover Seder ends with the taste of Afikomen, so that the unique flavor of Redemption will linger on our palates.
What taste will linger now that the mighty days of Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Sukkos and Shemini Atzeres are behind us?
I write to you from the Holy City of Yerushalayim. Here we sat in our Sukkah and here we waved the Four Species.
We purchase the Four Species with great care. Yet as soon as we bring them home, they begin to wither. We have to protect them! The lulav tip must not be bent. The hadassim must not get caught in the zipper of the lulav holder. The esrog pitom must be guarded. And how do I keep the arovos from drying out? So much can go wrong! Every day one must inspect the Four Species to ensure they are still kosher.
Just like us human beings; every day a new problem! I am reminded of my doctor's joke: "If you wake up one morning and don't have a new ache... call 911!"
In fact, the Four Species do resemble us. Just as we try to sanctify our own frail bodies, elevating flesh and blood into holy beings, so we take these flimsy plants, wave them in six directions, and sanctify G-d's Name. How does it all work?
Maybe we can learn from the s'chach that covers the sukkah.
What is s'chach? The Mishna tells us, "Whatever is not susceptible to contamination and grows from the ground, we may use for s'chach." [1] We take discarded twigs and branches, vegetable "waste products," and elevate them to holiness. [2] We sit under their protection during the seven days of Sukkos.
But how does s'chach protect us?
S'chach grows from the earth, as we do. We come from dust and return to dust. But s'chach must be DETACHED from the earth in order to become holy. And so we also must detach ourselves from our earthly desires in order to rise upward toward G-d.
Secondly, s'chach must not be susceptible to contamination. Again, just like us! We are bombarded constantly by spiritual and physical contamination from every direction. But if we want to be holy, we must protect ourselves from that contamination; we must imitate the s'chach.
That is how s'chach protects us: by showing us how to achieve closeness to G-d. Soon we will read in the Torah the account of our Father Jacob's dream in which he ascends the ladder toward G-d. The s'chach teaches us how to make that dream our reality.
My friends, we are alone in a hostile world. We have left our Sukkahs and our holidays behind and now we travel forward into a new year. We do not know what awaits us. G-d wants to bring our Final Redemption, but sometimes we are so tied to material things and so full of contamination that we become cynical, believing that we can never attain spiritual greatness. We say in our depressed state, "let's just enjoy the physical world around us. We will never attain greatness, so let's just be satisfied with earthly pleasures." But this world is precarious. More than Global Warming, I would call it Global WARNING!
What will save us?
On Shemini Atzeres we add to our prayers the words, "mashiv ha ruach u'morid ha geshem. He makes the wind blow and the rain descend."
This is more than a prayer for rain in Israel.
What is "ruach? "Wind" in Hebrew, but also the Spirit of G-d, the Eternal Life that He breathes into us. How do we connect with ruach? How do we reach up to G-d?
"Morid ha geshem"!
What is "geshem," my friends?
Geshem is rain.
When the "rain" falls from our eyes during prayer, then G-d will send His Holy Spirit into us. When we cry out to Him with tears, then the ruach enters us. "Tati, our Father. Please save us! Please make us Holy. Please let us believe we can be holy! Please solve our problems! Please bring us together as one family! Tati, I want to be a good Jew! Sometimes I feel so inadequate! Please help me"!
Let the rain fall! Let the tears fall! In the generation of Noach, whose Torah Portion we read this week, the world was destroyed by rain. Now let the world be redeemed by rain, the rain of tears that will open the Gates of Heaven and usher in a new era of spiritual fulfillment, Redemption and the Age of Moshiach ben Dovid! May we see it soon, THIS YEAR!
If our prayers fall like the rain, then G-d will send His Holy Spirit into us!
With blessings from the Holy Land,
Roy S. Neuberger
[1] Tractate Sukkos (1:4)
[2] I am indebted to Rabbi Yaakov Hillel for a fascinating discourse on this subject.
