Radical aPolitical G?D? Neutral preRosh HaShanah

“Teshuvah, Tefillah, and Tzedakah” – often poetically translated as “Repentance, Prayer, and Charity” but more accurately portrayed as a voluntary participatory process, including progressive consideration of “Cognitive Closure, Spiritual Closure, and Equitable Closure” – is OUR traditional three step Think–Feel–Act self-improvement Program for approaching Rosh HaShanah -and- this preparation orientation Plan needs some timely explanation, to Understand-Appreciate-Empower; as Relevant “Best Life Practices Advice” [‘Halacha’], for Our ever-present circumstances.

This year, Cognitive Closure (Teshuvah Repentance) is at least a solitary momentary (re-)acceptance of all that each of us does NOT know, of how inappropriate so many of Our judgmental presumptions turned out to be, of how much Our personal stress could be abandoned (even now) IF We could see any person anew; and how much potential maturation We could accomplish IF We could (re-)turn this alternative amenable perspective reflexively back upon how We sometimes (over-)judge Ourselves.

For example, reThinking people Judgment: perhaps everyone is over qualified (you too), but perhaps not necessarily at what they are doing (you too); so perhaps much of what each of us is actually experiencing, is contributing circumstances to Our next individual & collective maturation awakening convergence; while simultaneously, our Cognitive Closure (proactively relaxing the mind, to at least some unique glimpse of clarity) IS “only” a first step to seeing a bigger – but sometimes dream like picture of Life over Time; likewise “sometimes” sharing that clarity with those wronged by each individual’s misjudgment motivated action or inaction ⇒ then, true repair, of the damage caused, is transactional: by paying appropriate compensatory restitution, by specifically expressing profound apology, and by requesting & receiving personal forgiveness.

Spiritual Closure (Tefillah Prayer) of THIS year moves us another step forward, from simple minded instant judgment to complexity accepting indeterminate eventuality. YES, there certainly are cause & effect laws; operating perceptually instantaneously for underlying physical systems, for basic social norms, and even for aspects of Our instinctive physiology. However, higher complexity reality (consciousness inclusive) may also be amenable to (change; because of) OUR Life affirmative Actions; IF We intend to transform Our dignity → by Doing something; to Improve, Redirect or Fix a less than complimentary Life orientation: FROM an underlying inclination toward a not so desirable indeterminate eventuality, TO a Life Experience leading to one, a few, or more possible positive outcomes.

Altruism aside, IF You want a better than the present Future, THEN, at least for now, Meditate on Your addiction to making judgments, until You Feel Your own (sometimes literally tearful) inner transparency, Your own (embarrassingly honest) psychological priorities, Your own Inner Voice (of higher responsibilities) telling You what might (like it or not) need doing, what might need (patient even prolonged) waiting; THEN – for this New Year – as for any other aMoral addiction – achieving better living, with habitual unnecessary judgments suspended or delayed, IS easier to accomplish with a support group — so OMG … B”H … TG → We gather together!; which may be why Teshuvah is listed first – since We gather together best, when We suspend chronic cumulative tensions & instant mutual judgments – both negative & positive. 

Equitable Closure: OK, after adjusting Your best vision (Teshuvah) and accepting Your innate sincerity (Tefilla), Equitable Closure (Tzedakah Charity) of This year IS a viable renewal priority; directly giving someone (thereby yourself too) a chance (not Money) or another chance (Not Money) or yet another chance (NOT Money) for improving their self-esteem – through ‘in good faith’ any agreed duration Fair Wages [with benefits] Employment* → which leads to emotional & economic independence, and to equity ownership potential. Every third party intermediary between You (the investor employer) and that person (the enterprise employee) dilutes Your portion in achieving some much needed verifiable value-ultimate Return on Investment. [* Rambam’s best practices ‘Halacha’]

CAUTION: Equitable Closure calls for Your taking personal risks; including a “Do I really want to do this?” Introspective, lots of serious due diligence, contractual commitments, and direct liability.

The Risk or The Reward ? : Your human-capital investment might become a total loss, which will help You attain further Cognitive Closure (because it will help you discover flaws in your judgment dynamics); or Your investment may even become a total success, (which does not validate that your judgment is sound, but) will help You attain further Spiritual Closure (a more peaceful harmonious Inner Transparency). 

Accordingly, IF YOU need anything for the New Year, then instantly realize: others do too! By Your person-centric investment action step, You will be (re-)joining the preferably independent local-ranks of a Trans-Historical [albeit always timely] Global Improvement Movement) ⇒ for building Equitable Closure.

> A Timely Cynical-Sad Personal Observation OR some Advice <

{While altruistic “donation supported” religious, educational, social, and “scientific” organizations began authentically righteous → Typically their Tax Deductible status “matures” within a generation (or so) into family Businesses, which then become ostensibly ‘Not for Profit’ Enterprises, there after reorganizing into innate money laundering Investment Portfolio Foundations – characterized by Professional ‘Managers’ & ‘Fund Raisers’ having no sustained personal experience with the “charity” objectives – THEY never lived in poverty, cared for an aged relative, nurtured a physically impaired child, etc. THUS IF you donate, then at best – try to donate to a “first generation” organization; where your Good Deed ‘chances’ are perhaps better – or at least somewhat closer to the Risk Reward of human-capital investments…}

NOW: (hopefully, more Rosh HaShanah Ready) With an ongoing awareness that best case (scenario possibilities Always best describe Life’s) potential; I hope each of us merits to recognize/actualize/enjoy omnipresent Better Life opportunities, and to use all the intermittent often unscheduled waiting times (on our respective 120 year journeys) for growth consolidations by reconsidering, revising, renewing, and reinvigorating Our experiencing this annual three step think/feel/act development program; along with other themes (“how to” awe, love, and center) Life Wellbeing aspects that are to be celebrated, explored, innovated, and re-invented at other times of the “year”, the life, the study, and Our amicable relationship.

Thus, invoking a causal Life Enlightening blessing, for You & Yours, as for us all, and for all sentient beings: May Your relaxed mind make You aware of an ongoing multitude of wonderful Respect for Life choices; (so that) Your consciousness may apply mentally healthy “Best Life Practices Advice” to sort them appropriately for You, and for all who benefit from Your positive Life Energies; (so that) Your Life Actions may facilitate Success in cheerfully Accomplishing what You decide to intentionally Do; so that You may merit to share the sustainable radiance of Your Life Awareness, Your Life Maturation, and Your continuing Life Happiness!; at least for B”H another year.

Temporally, Chaim-Meyer Scheff (a naïve novice; perhaps only nominally approaching a brief introduction to Cognitive Closure – as a “better” Life Technology); currently trying to achieve some small measure of closure to this year (according to all that it has been & still is), and then, to start a New (hypothetically infinitely better) NEW Year too… 

P A U S E

We have undergone many (many) ‘technology’ & ‘survival’ compliance transitions over incomprehensible millennia. https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/mitzvah-the-concept/ For example, from Matan Torah until The Mishnah the measuring our ‘Jewishness’ was STRICTLY according to our subscription to the Positive & Negative Mitzvot (in Torat Moshe, et al),  then The Mishnah enriched us with a comprehensive catalog exemplifying Ways of Thinking,] thereafter – for OUR increasingly traumatic traversal amidst Inquisitions, the Pact of Umar, Crusades, Pogroms, etc. – Saadia Gaon & Rambam included What We Should Believe (https://www.sefaria.org.il/sheets/417740.1?lang=he&with=Translations&lang2=he). 

So now – HERE – we will regress TO an earlier Rabinic Ideation!

Specifically, Let us look at  <Mishnah> Rosh HaShanah 1.1 → Consistent with the postulated meta-Sabbatical Cycles of seven 7000 years [49,000 years] in  Sefer haTemunah by TANNA HaRav Nehunya ben HaKanah [earliest hand copied ‘manuscript’ version in Vatican Library, dated ~1270 c.e.]; & Appreciating that ALL indigenous calendars begin with an event having extra-ordinary importance for ‘those’ following that calendar.  

https://www.sefaria.org.il/Mishnah_Rosh_Hashanah.1.1?lang=he&with=Translations&lang2=he  

NOTE: Incompletely characterized, This Mishnah lists WHEN ‘On OUR Current Calendar’ we should place FOUR (previous Indigenous-Cultural) ‘New Years’ ??? -and- which Mitzvot we have carried over from those earlier epochs. Simply, LOOK at the order of these four (from: an Anthropologist’s vantage) ⇒ where each comes from a subsequent 7000 year Epoch:

Starting 4*7000 plus almost 5785 years ago, the FIRST literally portrays a nomadic (regalim ‘feet’) Epoch of our primordial ‘culture’; when we subsisted as a gather-trap-fish (&hunt?) society – with Leaders (melachim ‘quasi-Kings’) whose decisions led us to migrate in this or that direction -or- to encamp for a while. Q: Why did we begin a Collective Counting of Years (a calendar) almost 33,785 years ago? → What happened to our early (early) ancestors that caused them to begin that first of Our Four proto-national calendars? A: The Ice Age arrived in our Indigenous Territory, so our Leaders led us southward, and southward again – until we reached a habitable regions in southern central Africa https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Last_glacial_maximum_-_survivability_of_humans.svg – where we sojourned – as did various other climate migratory groups. 

NOTE: During this most aggressive Ice Age portion, there were other habitable regions on the globe – ‘suddenly’ disconnected from each other for millennia. 

An ancient (pre-)Vedic ‘human emergence – cosmology’ calendar with 12,000 year long ‘Yuga Cycles’ was partly an astronomical-data extrapolation system -yes- mostly (since part of the Indian SubContinent remained habitable during those times) They had no reason to begin an ‘Ice Age encroaching’ calendar; albeit they do record numerous prior epochs – including fragments of their primordial memories – as stories. TRAGICALLY, the primordial memories of MOST Trans-epoch Proto-nations were destroyed by European & Islamic ‘colonials’ exterminating indigenous scholars, and destroying physical aspects of respective ‘knowledge’ accumulations; which now ‘allow’ archaeologists & ‘extra-terresterial theorists’ to ‘imagine’ scenarios for items that once had explicit indigenous significance. 

The SECOND characterizes our transitioning Epoch as pastoral semi-nomadic herdsmen; given the remarkable technological innovation of domesticated two-toed (split-hooved) ruminant (cud-chewing) herbivores sheep (& goats). Thus our subsistence improved; as we became a Shepherding domestic-herds society → with a Social Tax (on the flocks).

The THIRD Epoch evokes images of substantially dispersed rural agricultural settlement → Essentially, becoming a Sedentary Seasonal Agriculture society via a social consensus → comprising a BINDING cyclic 7th year lands-public COMPROMISE: allowing six years Private Ownership of prior-Epoch public-for-all (second epoch) “grazing” & (first epoch) “traversal” lands; followed by ‘traditional’ seventh year public ownership. 

NOTE: New property forms emerge with changing technology; in our own lifetimes, these include air rights, broadcast rights, digital ‘currency’ rights, etc.

The FOURTH Epoch evokes our accepting practice limitations by preserving private land during the public land year → which then facilitated an ability to invest in multi-year agriculture (orchards & vineyards), and in other sustaining infrastructure (walls & irrigation channels). 

Preceding these Four Epochs, our deepest collective memory recalls Universal acceptance of ‘Seven Noahide Laws’ [https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/a-matan-torah-prequel-noahide-mental-health/] → a corpus of common-core ‘beliefs’ from a Life-Mind-Time Respecting Epoch (of food-clothing-shelter scarcity) → nevertheless absent of ‘mindless chanting mobs’ & their aMoral ‘Needs’ for conquest: the interim Labor-Lite paradigm to ‘acquire’ wealth. 

Apparently NOT universal in Today’s global context, these ‘Seven Laws’ validate venues providing reasonable accommodations & domicile. Thus, like Biblical Sodom → according to INSTANT Awareness {of proximate events, attitudes, declarations, etc.} many -either- remain migration-ready to some more amenable location -or- emigrate from self-declared senseless dePopulations! ⇒ TOWARD a soon Dawning Epoch of Abundance!

…reWritten following Rosh cHodesh Elul 5785 [within Our 6th ‘Memorable’ Epoch] & NOW Awaiting YOUR Life Loving Additions, Corrections, Suggestions, Objections, Questions, Approbations, Cautions, Disclaimers, or Simcha Invitations! ⇒ Please comment on THIS Blog entry → Since our concept ‘M’ShIAcH’ deconstructs into From-Discussion (M’Siach)… SO -maybe- each Epoch has different durations? OR? these parallel four micro-stages (self-awareness, meta-consciousness, mutual respectfulness, and responsible clarity) between “Teshuvah, Tefillah, and Tzedakah” and Rosh HaShanah!