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KJ Hannah Greenberg

Unusual Efforts &Other Yomim Noraim Necessities

It’s that time of year, the period when we’re focused on crowning Hashem our King and on begging for His clemency. Throughout this span, it’s typical for us to fret over small and not-so-small factors.

Whether or not we add coffee to our honey cake, break our Yom Kippur fast with bagels and lox, buy our granddaughters socks with ruffles, or prepare handmade flags for our grandsons’ Simchat Torah marches are fairly trivial details. On the other hand, how and when we make teshuva to the folks populating our days and nights, as well as how and when we improve our relationship with Ha Kodesh Baruch Hu, are acts belonging to the second category. That is, these latter concerns are of unquestionable significance especially for the hours between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

While it’s true that, on occasion, recompense is straightforward, even easy, mostly we’re beholden to apply unusual efforts to formulate restitutions. Applying ourselves to redrafting our deeds can be difficult. E.g., “when it comes to making peace, it is sometimes necessary to bend the rules. One cannot stand on principle all the time. One must not always be yelling “the law is the law!” [we learn] kal v’chomer from the Almighty. If G-d can forgo His honor to bring peace between husband and wife (Frand),” it’s that much more urgent for us to put aside pride to restore harmony between ourselves and our family, ourselves and our friends, and ourselves and our other associates. Our toils matter.

Checking our intentions is essential, too. Even if we muster enough energy to modify our behavior, we have to proceed for fitting reasons. More exactly, although, ordinarily, doing good brings with it all manner of endorphins, “doing good” might not feel good. Yet, “doing good” elevates our mindfulness. We grasp for an upsurge in our decency because doing so is appropriate. Period. Ultimately,  as “Rabbi Carlebach says[,] fixing [is exemplified by the] Chanukah candles. . . since [we] can’t benefit except to look at them” (Katz). Integrity’s reward is, itself, an upsurge in our rectitude; we don’t need external validation of our uprightness to reach higher.

Beyond integrating exertion and purpose, our self-reformation must be pervasive. Consider that not only are we obliged to better how we treat other people, but we are equally duty-bound to amend how we treat the rest of Creation. Viz., we are required to be careful when we slaughter animals so much so that an attendant rule is part of the Noahide laws. Basically, we (as a model for humanity) oughtn’t to cause unnecessary suffering to any living being.

Though [non-Jews] don’t have to follow kosher laws, they can’t rip a limb off a living animal, for instance. One of the reasons this law is so important is because it shows the true character of a person. How they treat creatures that are below them in the hierarchy of life and more vulnerable demonstrates their respect for all of G‑d’s creations (Lobell).

Part of our ongoing restructuring of ourselves involves our correcting how we treat man and beast. Our self-improvement is necessarily all-inclusive.

Nonetheless, personal development must be more than the sum of our labor, our perseverance, and our comprehensiveness; it must also incorporate a decrease in our wilfulness. It was, is, and will forever be that The Aibeshter, not us, runs the universe.

In Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto’s mussar text, The Path of the Just, we’re reminded of the positive consequences of yoking ourselves to Hashem’s desires.

Torah study leads to watchfulness; watchfulness/carefulness leads to alacrity;  alacrity/diligence leads to cleanliness; cleanliness [from sin] leads to abstention [from improprieties]; abstention leads to purity; purity leads to piety (devotion); piety/devotion leads to humility; humility leads to fear of sin; fear of sin leads to holiness; holiness leads to prophecy; and prophecy/Ruach HaKodesh/enlightenment of the soul leads to the resurrection of the dead (Luzzatto).

This seemingly protracted route yields an Eden of treasures and is attainable via steps (rarely is the dedication needed to attain difficult ends measured by bounds.) The transformations inherent in our modifying our attitudes, articulations, and actions benefit us. If we treat other people with enlarged sensitivity, care for the elements of Creation with additional vigilance, and cleave to G-d, we will augment our morality.

Whereas we’re expected to be human, i.e. ever imperfect, we gain when doing our utmost to be closer to The Boss and when expanding our actualization of His commandments. Our Sovereign yearns for our obedience, our loyalty, and our fidelity and rewards us when we improve those dimensions.

Sure, it’s fine to clinch familial culinary minhagim. It’s likewise okay to treat our children’s children with all styles of purchases. However, it’s imperative that, this year, as ever, we resolutely expand our devotion, our service to Hashem.

Sources:

Frand, Rabbi Yissocher. “The Connection between the Chapters of Sotah and Nazir.” Torah.org. 17 May 2010. torah.org/torah-portion/ravfrand-5770-naso. Accessed 14 Jul. 2023.

Katz, Rabbi Shlomo. “Learning How to Look at the Land of Israel.” “The Soul of Israel.” The Land of Israel Network. 14 Jun. 2017. thelandofisrael.com/view/1132.   Accessed 22 Sep. 2023.

Lobell, Kylie Ora. “What the Torah Taught Me About Kindness to Animals.” Chabad.org. chabad.org/theJewishWoman/article_cdo/aid/3559350/jewish/What-the-Torah-Taught-Me-About-Kindness-to-Animals. Accessed 17 Jul. 2023.

 

Luzzatto, Rabbi Moshe Chaim. Trans. Yoseph Leibler. The Path of the Just. Torah Classics Library. Feldheim, 2004.

About the Author
KJ Hannah Greenberg has been playing with words for an awfully long time. Initially a rhetoric professor and a National Endowment for the Humanities Scholar, she shed her academic laurels to romp around with a prickle of imaginary hedgehogs. Thereafter, her writing has been nominated once for The Best of the Net in poetry, three times for the Pushcart Prize in Literature for poetry, once for the Pushcart Prize in Literature for fiction, once for the Million Writers Award for fiction, and once for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay. To boot, Hannah’s had more than forty books published and has served as an editor for several literary journals.
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