Cycles of Time, Holiday Challah and the Milky Way
Spiritual growth can be perplexing and that’s why it’s helpful to ground ourselves in our spiritual traditions and cycles of time. I am following up on some insights of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel that Jews hallow time.
Taking a look at our round and sweet challahs (holiday bread) for the high holiday season, I am reminded that it has often been said that the Jewish New Year completes a cycle of spiritual and mundane time. We dip pieces of the sweet raisin egg bread challah in honey to wish ourselves and others a Sweet and Happy New Year.
Take a closer look at your holiday challah. They are wound in spiral cycles of time, a little like the cycles of growth in nature and in ourselves. They look like seashells or fiddlehead greens, or even the Milky Way galaxy in which we live. Here’s a picture from NASA. Our Sun, the centre of our Solar System is near the Orion portion. Look up, look WAY up! And let’s look within, too.
https://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/science/objects/milkyway1.html
According to the Sayings of Rabbi Natan, repeated in the Talmud Sanhedrin, which governed courts of justice, every human being is a universe, and those who save one life save a world.
https://www.sefaria.org/Avot_DeRabbi_Natan.31.2?lang=bi&with=Avot%20DeRabbi%20Natan&lang2=en
Now, we all have our own preferences on how to slice and eat holiday challah, but one of my favorite ways is to gradually unravel the challah from its outer edges to its inner centre. I think that is somewhat the same process we undergo in spiritual reflection, prayer, and meditation. We move from the outward circumstances of our lives to our deepest soul concerns and work from there and then back out toward the world again. Perhaps it’s a little like unravelling a mystery or a Torah scroll!
Just last night I was comparing notes with my dear cousin Stephen about Tashlich practices and meanings. I like the ceremony of casting out the old year and old ways with crumbs of our holiday challah into a body of living water like a stream or river. It lightens us up, it is cleansing and meaningful, and it also gives us an excuse to visit nature and celebrate the majesty and rulership of God. In Ancient Israel, kings were always installed near natural bodies of water.
Here are some details and a PDF copy of the Tashlich prayer from Chabad that you can take with you to your nearest natural body of water.
https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/564247/jewish/What-Is-Tashlich.htm
https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/427290/jewish/The-Tashlich-Prayer-in-Hebrew-English-PDF.htm
Being the incurable philosopher I am, I quoted Heraclitus. He said, “One can never step into the same river twice”, because we and the universe are always in a state of continual growth and change and movement, which he called ‘flux’. Actually, one cannot even step into the same river once, because by the time one dips a single foot, the waters around it have already changed. Here is more on Heraclitus:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heraclitus
When I think about the cycles of time and our holiday challahs, I cannot help but recall the many soulful and reflective walks I took, orbiting around the block at our home synagogue in Hamilton during my breaks from services, sometimes alone, sometimes with friends, taking in the fall colors and our lovely landscape, where the Niagara Escarpment surrounds the town like a warm embrace. I would ask myself, who am I now? Who was I then? And who do I want to be?
Rosh Hashana is said to be the anniversary of the creation of the world, and like our birthdays and other personal milestones, represents the completion of one cycle of time and the beginning of another. Indeed, even our holiday liturgy during the Shofar blowing says the same. Hayom Harat Haolam, today the world is born, and in a way, so are we, if we are lucky.
https://voices.sefaria.org/sheets/255878?lang=bi
We are blessed here in Hamilton, Ontario to have more waterfalls and streams than anywhere on earth, so we have many choices of places in which to do Tashlich and reflect on our lives. It’s true! It’s a major selling point in our local tourism. Be sure to check on requirements for reservations and parking for certain sites such as Webster’s Falls and Tews Falls with the Dundas Valley Conservation Authority. They are awe inspiring and magnificent.
One of our favorite local places for Tashlich is the Lower Spencer Creek watershed in Downtown Dundas near a leading supermarket where my family has always shopped. I have actually seen live salmon spawning there in the waters of Spencer Creek in the fall season!
https://conservationhamilton.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Lower-Spencer-Fact-sheet.pdf
Please, come and visit us, and enjoy our warm and welcoming Jewish community and landscape. For more information on planning your visit, here are details from Jewish Hamilton:
https://www.hamilton.ca/people-programs/inclusion-diversity-equity-accessibility/jewish-life-hamilton
https://www.jewishhamilton.org/growhamilton-synagogues
So that's all for now. I wish us all well during the Aseret Yemai Teshuva or Days of Awe leading up to Yom Kippur in unravelling the mysteries of our lives like our holiday challahs and growing like the galaxies and universes we are! Am I being too cosmic? I don't mean to sound like a 'space cadet' but in a way, we all are, if we think about it.
Please join me in supporting Leket Israel and your local Jewish Family Services Kosher Food Bank for Yizkor and at every holiday. Best wishes for a Happy and Healthy New Year and meaningful and thoughtful Yom Kippur. Shana Tova and G'mar Chatimah Tova.
Am Yisrael Chai. We send our love from Canada.
