Last Vaad in Elul – reality builds the Esek in Tora and this can be a part of life

Last Vaad in Elul – reality builds the Esek in Tora and this can be a part of life

 In the last vaad, we said the only way to connect with sugyos in learning is by doubting how to learn the sugyah. In the same vein, the only way to connect with avodah is through having doubts. We connect through thinking, not by being fed clear conclusions from those greater than ourselves.

Let us discuss teshuvah. It centers on reconnecting with avodah and Hashem. This reconnection comes through dealing with teshuvah, along with doubts and tzdodim.

Avodah always works by taking something that already exists in our lives and developing it in a way based on Torah. For example, take a person who wants to start taking responsibility. Everybody has at least a bit of responsibility in their lives. At the bare minimum, everybody takes responsibility for their health.

Teshuvah is an exception to this. A person’s middos are not connected to doing teshuvah during the rest of the year. Teshuvah is outside the framework of our daily life. This makes the avodah of Elul and aseres yemei teshuvah very unnatural and difficult. Whatever teshuvah we do wears off almost immediately. By the time Succos is finished we return to our normal life, again, without any teshuvah.

Esek-involvement

How to make a connection through ‘esek’?

We connect through making an esek.

Let us give several examples of how to make an esek:

Tefillah

1)Tefillah-making an esek through reality.

Imagine you’re tired and you come to daven maariv. One option is to push yourself to overcome your tiredness.

Alternatively, you might give up. In that case, you should take a siddur, point to the place, and at least say all the words. This is an option. You are close to being ‘ones’ so such an effort is not so bad.

Alternatively, you could learn more about tefillah from the Gaon, the Maharal etc. However, I have a big shailah on this: whether or not it helps.

Another option is to be mechadesh a way to daven when you’re tired. The basis of such an approach is to abandon the picture of tefillah looking a certain way. When we are tired, it is impossible to create the ideal, exact tefillah that we picture. In order to overcome the tiredness we need to broaden what tefillah means for us.

The gemorah in Eiruvin says that when a person comes from a journey they are exempt from davening (we don’t use this heter). We see from here that a tirdah really disturbs tefillah. 

Two days ago, I had a certain tirdah. I wanted to go to daven, but this tirdah weighed on me.

I realized my tirdah stemmed from my nefesh’s involvement with it. If so, I thought that if I could be mislahev (enthusiastic) in something else, I would become more involved in that than in the tirdah. I began to daven with hislahavus. Despite never having seen Rav Don Segal or Reb Tzvi Myer daven with hislahavus, I nevertheless have my own way of davening with hislahavus, and it worked! I succeeded to daven without the tirdah disturbing me. Having more than one way of davening (whether it’s in a way of hislahavus, emunah or subjugation) enables us to deal with different situations when davening is harder.

The reality teaches us to broaden the sugyahs. If we are committed to something but reality makes it difficult to do it, we need to find new ways to carry it out.

Bein odom lechhaveiro

Say, for example, a husband and wife sit down to drink a cup of coffee together, and then the phone rings, and the wife takes the call and begins speaking. This saddens the husband. He wonders why he isn’t important enough to his wife for her to ignore the phone call.

Most people say that the husband’s attitude comes from being an egoist. I, on the other hand, say that the reason for his feelings is because his sugyah of bein odom lechaveiro is not broad enough. He thinks the only bein odom lechaveiro is sitting, looking into each other’s eyes, and talking. Perhaps the bare sitting next to one another is sufficiently bein odom lechaveiro. Just as there is more than one way to understand the concept of chazakah in learning, so too there is more than one way to achieve bein odom lechaveiro.

Saying Tehillim is also Torah

I have a grandson who was sick with a high fever. Most people give up. He did not. Instead, he read Tehillim. This came from his broader concept of limmud hatorah. Tehillim is a great way to connect with limmud hatorah.

My friend Reb Chatzkel Cohen from the Mir once asked me who I thought was the biggest marbitz torah of the generation. I said that I thought it was Rav Shach. He replied that it was Rav Ovadiah Yosef since he brought a possuk into every Jewish home. He understood a bigger concept of what Torah is. A possuk is also Torah.

Broadaning the sugyah of aveiros

There is also a gain in broadening the sugyah as far as our committing aveiros is concerned. For example, I tell people who are having problems with the internet that they first need to change the computer’s location. Through this simple change, they can see that when the internet is in a more public place, they will use it less and waste less time on it. Through this, a person can see that the aveiros they stamp themselves with as perpetual sinners are not necessarily true. They can learn about themselves that they are prone to the aveirah only in certain scenarios.

Rebbetzen Wolbe

I believe that on Rosh Hashanah the mother stays at home and looks after the little children whilst the older girls go to shul. I know some people believe that on Rosh Hashanah the older girls should look after the little children so the mother can go to shul. I believe that since the responsibility of looking after the little children rests on the mother and the job of the older girls is to daven, there should be no role reversals on Rosh Hashanah.

Kenenihora, we have ten children. Consequently, my wife didn’t go to shul on Rosh Hashanah for many years. Only once the youngest child became old enough did my wife begin to go to shul.

My wife spoke to Rebbetzen Wolbe about this, asking what she could hope to achieve on Rosh Hashanah without tefillos. The Rebbetzen said, ‘So you will daven in your own words!’ Instead of malchiyus, zichronos, and shofaros, you can daven with your own words. Again, we would not have thought like the Rebbetzen. We make the sugyah too small. We like to stay close to clarity, and this prevents us from connecting.

Commitment and learning from the reality

When we connect with our davening or with Shabbos, we think that we connect through our unique kochos. This is incorrect. We connect by being committed, and this reality teaches us how to connect in all different ways. Building up a connection in this way will take time. But by building these connections, we can be chozer biteshuvah.

Rosh Hashanah is a day of malchus shomayim. It is not a day of teshuvah. We also do not speak about our aveiras. The malchus shomayim doesn’t relate to specific areas of our avodah. Rather, the malchus shomayim is very general in a way that affects the whole world.

Rosh Hashanah doesn’t deal with fixing a specific problem (that is for the remaining days of aseres yemei teshuvah). Rosh Hashanah is about committing. We begin with a general commitment. Then, during aseres yemei teshuvah, we build on that by broadening sugyos in specific areas we need to work on. I think it is worth trying to work on just one new area.

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Written by Rabbi Rapport