Yom Kippur
“The Secrets of Change”
(Insights for the 10 Days of Teshuva)
Three years ago, when I spoke about the following ideas at our Longport
Minyan, my brilliant Brothers spontaneously chimed in with poignant puns.
I am introducing those puns directly below in incomplete form. Why, you
might ask! Because a) the puns really only make sense after reading
through the initial paragraphs, and b) to whet your appetites! We’re
talkin’ HUGE incentive to read this one from beginning to end! A
Good Sweet Year to you all!
· This Week’s BR1 (Brother Reference #1): “Don’t bite off more
than you can _______” – Marc Erlbaum, Summer 2005
· This Week’s BR2 (Brother Reference #2): “Don’t go
too _______” – Daniel Erlbaum, Summer 2005
RETURN TO WHERE YOU’VE NEVER BEEN?
As long as we’re playing word games, let’s have a quick round of “Wheel of
Fortune”, shall we? Clue: something that human beings are born
with. “ORIGI_AL _ _ _”. You’d like to solve the puzzle? Oh, I’m
sorry – the answer is NOT “ORIGINAL SIN”. Not in the JEWISH Wheel of
Fortune! The answer is actually “ORIGINAL PURITY” (ok, so I
intentionally tried to throw you off by leaving only 3 letter spaces!)
In case you missed it, this is fantastic news! You see, during this time
of year, between Rosh Hashana & Yom Kippur, there is an especially strong
emphasis on the Mitzvah of TESHUVAH – loosely translated
as “repentance”, but tightly translated as “RETURN”. How does the
tighter translation of “RETURN” help us to breathe easier through the
challenging Teshuva process? By reassuring us of an awesomely comforting
reality: that all we need in order to accomplish “Teshuva” is to “RETURN”
to who we already truly are! To strip away the schmutz that masquerades
as being fundamental to our identities, and to come back to our pure,
essential selves! To know definitively that we were not born with the
stain of original sin! True, the moment we left the womb, we were endowed
with the challenge of “original self-centeredness”. Nonetheless, we can
rest assured that we were created in the “Image of G-d”: pure and holy.
GET BACK TO THE GARDEN
So now we know what we’re called upon to do during these days of awe: in
the words of Joni Mitchell’s “Woodstock” (later echoed harmoniously by
Crosby, Stills, and Nash) “we’ve got to get ourselves – back to the gar-
ar-ar-ar-den”). Which garden? The Garden of Eden, no doubt! We’ve
got to get back to our natural, fresh, pristine states of being. But how
do we fight through the layers of schmutz? The following inquiry provides
us with some valuable insights:
GROWTH OBSTACLES: SURROUNDED BY SCHMUTZ
In our Evening prayers, we ask G-d to remove our growth obstacles
“from in front of us and from behind us”. Questions:
1) In what way do growth obstacles stand “IN FRONT OF us”? One way
is by putting up the paralyzing roadblock known as “ALL-OR-NOTHING
THINKING”. We somehow convince ourselves that change is meaningless
unless we go all the way with it! This growth-stunting fallacy, also
known as the “HYPOCRISY TRAP”, tells us: “Don’t bother doing a partial
Mitzvah – don’t bother keeping a little more Kosher or a little more of
Shabbat – such ‘selective Judaism’ would only make you a hypocrite!” This
type of self-defeating attitude stands “in front of us”, as it blocks the
forward motion of our Mitzvah & character improvements! But we can jump
over these roadblocks by reminding ourselves that a true hypocrite is
someone who professes a belief and then does not make an honest effort to
live up to it in practice. A hypocrite is NOT, however, someone who
professes a belief and then fails to live up to it fully in
practice. We all fall short of our ideals to some degree, simply
because we’re not perfect – and fortunately, we are neither required nor
expected to be!*
2) In what way do growth obstacles stand “BEHIND us”? By
PUSHING us to grow too fast! By SHOVING us in the direction of
forward change at an unnatural, unhealthy pace! Sure, we might achieve
forward strides in this manner – but at the high cost of burn-out and
resentment! And when we fall, who knows how long it will take us to get
up again?
TWO POIGNANTLY “PUNNY” BROTHERS
So now we arrive at the profound but simple secret of our sages (spiced up
by the spontaneous spin of my Brothers). How do we create lasting
change? Little by little! And as I was saying these ideas to a group of
people that included my Brothers, near the end of my remarks I mentioned
that it’s crucial to not bite off more than you can chew, after which my
Brother Marc quickly quipped:
o BR1 (Brother Reference #1): "Don’t bite off more
than you can TESHUVAH” (Poignant Pun #1).
Similarly, the sages warn us, “TAFASTA Merubah Lo Tafasta”: “If
you’ve grabbed at too much, you haven’t grabbed anything” (keep your eye
on that word “TAFASTA”). We know this in everyday life: if we try
to pick up that extra bag of groceries (e.g. to avoid another trip from
the trunk to the kitchen), we may drop all the bags we could have
otherwise carried successfully. So too, in areas of personal growth, less
is often more! So as we approach our Teshuvah this year – as we look to
return to our holy essence – may we create lasting change by remembering…
o BR2 (Brother Reference #2): “…not to go TOO
FASTA” (climactic & Poignant Pun #2, courtesy of my Brother Daniel)!
Have a Wonderful Shabbos and meaningful days of Teshuvah! Love,
Jon & The Chevra
*The Informed Soul, by Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb – pp.184-5
Text Copyright © 2008 by Jon Erlbaum and
Torah.org
