Seasonal Shifts in Faith

In just a few weeks our realities will shift from the mindset we are in now and we’ll be thrust into the Holy Days of Tishrei. We’ll be leveling up our mindset from being cast aside for 1,956 years and we will feel as if our King has now become closer to us and that our relationship has grown from being a lowly creature to the son of the King. The actions we’ll be doing with our bodies will be different as well. Today we fast while on the days of Rosh Hashanah and Sukkot we’ll be feasting and on Yom Kippur we’ll be singing songs of praise as well. The way we walk and the things we’ll speak will be automatically transformed into the subjects of those days, whereas now, we are by default in the cloud of today.

It is fairly easy to be manipulated, although many would argue out of fear. The seasons of the year control our moods and the presidents we have somehow have us repeating their words. No matter how you may feel towards Biden, his words “Here’s the deal,” have become a popular and common phrase even by right wing commentators. It is just the fact of the world that we become influenced by our surroundings. Unless… unless we learn how to change them on our own. 

There is this common metaphor people have. “Why are you telling me to sit down if I’m on my way to the chair already?” If the seasons will be changing on their own and we will find ourselves in the Tishrei mood if we like it or not, why then is it necessary for us to actively be bringing about that change? “Let it happen, why are we even thinking about it right now?” some may say. But the truth is, as much as we need seasons in our life just to keep things interesting, we still need to do something different each year so we can be engaged in the changing of the seasons.

The Gemara states at the end of Megillah 32a, “Moshe established for the Yidden to be learning and reviewing the ways of the upcoming holiday, thirty days in advance.” As we’ve pointed out numerous times in our talks here on paper, learning Torah has a surface level that we swim in and a deep water zone when we just take a dive in. We can learn the Halachot of Rosh Hashanah on a very shallow and surface level and know exactly what to do at the right time, and such learning should be emphasized and reviewed continuously. And then there is another way to swim in the Torah, as we dive deep into the meaning of those Halachot we start understanding that there is an entire metaphysical world that explains each and every action in those pages. 

With this newfound meaning we can go about the Chag with such happiness as we go about enacting those rules and applying these meanings as we perform that Mitzvah. Bring some inspiration into your life weeks before the Yom Tov comes around, don’t just wait for the Rabbi’s speech a minute before Shofar. Make every single day leading up a day of excitement and awe.

And now we can dumb it down to our physical world we live in. We have days with different clouds over our heads, some days we get some sunlight while some nights are pitch black. How do we go about bringing life into our lives, how can we see ourselves out of the current season? Yes, we know that the seasons do change eventually, but what can I do to bring it about sooner?

Can we change our feelings? “Am I not in such a deep cloud right now? My glue isn’t sticking and without it I cannot finish my project! What can wake me up from this darkness I’m covered in, even my own self doesn’t realize that it is stuck.” We aren’t clear minded all the time so what can we do in order to bring that sunshine into our lives? We can start by adding meaning into our day to day. Find meaning in the things that you do and in the things that keep you busy, look forward to doing things with heart from now on. Don’t just do the job, understand it and live it, dream of ways to make it better and come up with ideas that will make the customer happier.

Don’t just be sad on Tisha B’Av because you can’t eat, be sad for the reason you can’t eat. Allow your mind to dive in deep into the thought of what we are missing as a nation. Lead yourself in observation, “How would my life be better when I have a Beit Hamikdash that offers clemency for my sins? What kind of confidence will we be walking around with knowing that our past mistakes won’t be haunting us for a lifetime. Feel the joy we are lacking and ponder the day when we will once again feel that love in our bones. Upgrade your status as a Jew and speak of your identity with pride and yearning. See how it uplifts the soul and recognize how much a broken heart really hurts. 

Much like finding meaning in different seasons of the year, so too do we find meaning in every level of our life. The deeper we dive the more we can go and the deeper one’s love the more meaning they’ll find in Hashem. Each victory comes with its own challenges and at each depth we find ourselves doubting our air supply. We gain oxygen as we flow in the waters but our physical component keeps pulling us back to shore. It is a constant struggle to maintain this level of consciousness and for that we are given seasons in the year to allow us not to get lost underwater. We need to swim in different waters and expand our focus beyond our current scope. Just as one should not stay focused on their depression or else it would clinically affect them, same is with any mindset we level up to, we have to switch to different areas in our mind and elevate different parts of ourselves with meaning.

Learn how to multitask and apply meaning to more than one place at a time. Place meaning on your weaknesses and struggles, add a tablespoon of meaning to your relationships, a pinch for your eating habits and a whole lot for your spirituality. Juggle them properly and keep yourself balanced, know how much depth you can hold at once and don’t try to be the greatest on day one. Don’t expect anything of yourself, because this work is not about expectations, rather it is for living a life with meaning. 

Learning how to live every moment with meaning without losing it with anger, sadness, anxiety and/or the like, is the work of a lifetime. As we find meaning in our belief and are in search for more throughout every action of our day, we become invincible in our hearts and we start living full days. We don’t end up at the bedside each night saying, “Wow, I just went to sleep last night, I don’t even remember what I accomplished today.” Every minute of the day is calculated and every step of life is meaningful. Our work in life is to learn how to change our seasons by bringing meaning into every moment. And when we accomplish that, the prolonged season of our exile will surely come to an end and the sun will rise with the Glory of Hashem in our midst.

David Lemmer is an Orthodox Jewish Author and Hypnotherapist. Watch his Videos on YouTube and find his books on Amazon. He can be reached at LemmerHypno@gmail.com