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Insights from our Rabbis

The period between Simchat Torah and Hanukkah contains no major holidays and so, little attention has historically been given to it as an integral part of our spiritual year. To remedy this oversight, last year we invited five of our NJRC rabbis to comment on this period of time, focusing on how it fits into our sacred cycle.

R. Gershon Winkler, NM

The period between Sukot and Chanukah is the "Wow! What was that all about_" time.

The Moon of Cheshvan, during which nothing happens, is about nothing happening. It's about being, allowing all the internal harvesting and personal change to settle in. It is the Night, the time of spiritual sleep. It is a period of dreaming, of gelling, of coalescing, of being pregnant.

Good night. Shhhh.

R. Aryeh Hirschfield, OR

Immediately following Simchat Torah, we begin to read B'raysheet, the story of creation. Right at the beginning we are presented with some kind of already existent Heaven and Earth, water, and darkness. This darkness is perhaps something very different from how we normally understand darkness, since, at this point in the Torah, there is no such thing as light. And even when light does arrive, it is a light very different from what we normally speak of as light, since the heavenly bodies have not yet been created. So almost the very first image the Torah presents is one of light emerging from darkness.

To me, the message is that I must connect in every moment of my life with this process of bringing light out of darkness. Bringing light out of darkness is basic to the experience of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur when we are encouraged to recognize and acknowledge all the painful, disconnected, unforgiving places in our lives. Through the process of speaking the truth about them to ourselves and to others, we allow for the possibility of transforming these places, of bringing light out of our own darkness. We may then be blessed to find ourselves a little more aware of the Divine core of all that is and all this not.

As we leave the High Holy Days behind, we head through the shortest, darkest, days of the year to Hanukah, the time of the Eight, the number which, when turned on its side, symbolizes infinity. Eight in Hebrew is "Shmoneh," which has, perhaps, the same root as "Shemen" - meaning "oil," which is a shining symbol of the light of eternity, of the Eternal One. At this dark time, the light of Hanukah reconnects us with the light we received during Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur which is not so different from the light of the first day of creation, the light of new beginnings. Each day, as I observe the visible symbol of the shrinking of the light, I am presented with a concrete image of the work that I must do internally. As we continue daily to do the work of the High Holy Days, we are given the power to transform darkness into light and to bring about transformation and healing.

R. Lynn Gottlieb, NM
Remedios de Luz

Layering and unfoldment
hiddeness and manifestation in the world: a
kabbalistic setting for a story
waiting,
waiting to reveal itself
to ears
which worship every word
and cherish each sound as sacred breath
to be used only for good.

Such is the nature of the story of Eloisa which I hear today in a class at shul about the hidden Jews of New Mexico. Today I learned women's kabbalah from a master, a curandera, a cantora, a deeply wise woman who mixes remedios for body and soul. She knows countless cures using the healing power of hundreds of yerbas/herbs. She has listened to her elders, apprenticed to curanderas, read the journals and diaries preserved by her family all of which contain wisdom accumulated over centuries and centuries of refinement. She prays with her herbs, chanting powerful alavados/songs of praise. She teaches us the bare outline of her ceremonial way. She is a woman of family and earth; her words, songs and remedios have healed thousands. She mirrors the true depth of human spirit we are privileged to inherit but rarely witness so fully in bloom. I hunger for her knowledge and see the sacrifice and devotion she has cultivated so that she can serve in truth. As this season turns toward cold and dark, we will begin to light candles and luminarios to warm the night. May the quiet, fierce, wise beauty of Eloisa continue to be preserve and protected as a source of divine light in the world.

When a curandera/cantadora heals, the Shekinah is present. So may it be for us.

R. Shefa Gold, NM

These eight and a half weeks between Simchat Torah and Chanukah hold for us a special challenge. It is the same challenge that I face each time that I open my eyes after the dramatic and infinitely entertaining ecstasy of the spiritual high, and face a pile of dirty laundry that includes every piece of underwear that I own. Ah, how we love to talk about how "all is holy", and yet procrastination and a tendency to live in the ideas rather than in the details of day to day tasks, keeps us from discovering the rhythm, and thus the music of that very holiness.

Here is an opportunity to dive in to that rhythm of the holy, not merely to reflect on it or yearn for it. When I listen to a niggun, I like to hear it all the way through before I join in, so that I can enjoy and understand the whole pattern. Then I know where it's going. This takes time and sustained focus. It takes dedication to the resolves that we made during the High Holy Days to turn away from the celebrations and inspirations and even the complaining...in order to just DO IT. In surrendering to the rhythm of our lives, we can begin to hear the niggun- the whole phrase in its rise and fall. The sustained effort and concentration of putting into action each day, the resolves of our heart, shows us both our strengths and our weaknesses, points us toward the work that is required.

Then, on Chanukah, we'll all look up from our work and together re-dedicate this temple of our lives. We'll shine a new light on those resolves which have been transformed by our knowledge of the whole holy rhythm.

The wrestle and the dance of each day's holiness can only be known if first you give yourself to that rhythm completely, suspending doubt, judgement, and theorizing. So my advice, to myself as well as to you, is to dive in to the song, and trust in the patterns of its rise and fall. Trust that our efforts will grow beauty and meaning, and that even as darkness increases, the light within is preparing itself carefully, and will burst forth come Chanukah.

R. David Wolfe-Blank z"l
HANUKKAH AND PREGNANCY

The statement, Hayom Haras Olam, from the Rosh Hashanah Musaf Service was translated by the Aquarian Minyan Makhzor Liturgy Team, "Today the world emerges from its pregnant status." This is in keeping with the theme of Rosh Hashanah as being a celebration of the anniversary of the creation.

Yet Haras, from hara, pregnant, could more literally be translated, "becomes pregnant," that today the world was conceived, and came into pregnancy.

This fits with a different theme of Rosh Hashanah, that of being the Rosh, the head, beginning, the Khokhma, the conception of the year to come. The new year hasn't been birthed, that takes place during the next Passover, six months away. Then, pushed by the waves of Mitzrai-yim (contractions) closing on us, we pass through the Red Sea and emerge into Freedom.

In this system, the end of the High Holyday period takes place three months into the pregnancy, at Hanuka time. Hanuka ends the High Holydays. After Simkhat Torah, the orgasmic celebration of the High Holydays, in which all the energies are gathered together (Shemini Atzeret, gathering of all rich "shemen" energies), we enter a time of darkness, much like a pregnancy. The cold and rain are discontinuous with the high of the high holydays.

We might even question, "Where did that all go_ Was any of it real_" The answer comes with Hanuka. At this time it becomes clear that the darkness will not continue to increase, but rather that light is starting up. This means that we are truly pregnant, that the High Holydays seeded us with something powerful, with light that has been in gestation and is now beginning to show.

May Hanuka be that validation for each of us that we have light within us increasing; that all the intentions we had during the High Holydays be realized at their best; that next Yom Kippur we amaze ourselves by having not the same old sins to worry over, but a different set, commensurate with light-filled birthings that occurred on Passover and have been nurtured and grown by us, ready to take wing on their own so that we may enter the process of creation again, truly co-partners with the Holy One, year after year.

[ From the latest issue of Or HaDor ] [ Translation of Psalm 19 ] [ Meditative teachings ] [ Hallel ] [ Heads or Tails ] [ From Psalm 22 ] [ Parades ] [ In a Plain Brown Paper Wrapper ] [ A Song for Raising Consciousness ] [ Elat Chayyim poem ] [ Shelach ] [ An Introduction to Schmelvic Aphorisms ] [ Passover Transformations ] [ Insights from our Rabbis ]