Here’s a riddle for you:
I’m completely prepared for the High Holidays, and I’m completely unprepared for the High Holidays. Who am I and why?
The answer, of course, is me. The reason is a bit less obvious.
For years and years, the High Holidays and their approach filled me with agita and trepidation. Mainly because of my role as the rabbi which comes along with a two-fold responsibility as we approach Rosh Hashana.
The first is the material preparation which includes daily shofar practice (fun, except to everyone else in the shul office), the planning of High Holiday events and programs (Selichot, tashlich, chazzan’s concert, youth groups), and the writing of long (hopefully not too long) and meaningful drashot. That’s a tough one. I feel good about the ideas and speeches I come up with, but getting them out of me is like squeezing water from cheese (I know it works for the guy in the Grimm Brothers fairy tale, but you try squeezing water out of some Swiss…the cheese my brain resembles most).
But that is just the material preparation. The spiritual preparation is more difficult because there is no simple path to teshuva. I need to stop, be honest with myself, and take a closer look at my heart and my actions. I need to feel the pain of my shortcomings alongside grati-tude for my growth. I need to open the tap of my heart. I need to recognize the gravity of another year that has passed which brings me one year closer to the day I will stand before my Creator and give an accounting for the life I chose to live.
For years, right around this time, I would feel a sense of foreboding and dread. But this year, I feel…not too much. This will be my 17th High Holiday season at MMAE. I’m past the point of any illusion or mystery of what will unravel over the next month. I’m not feeling nervous. I feel ready. I’m prepared. And that’s exactly what’s scaring me.
Paradoxically, feeling prepared is being unprepared. If I’m not feeling the fear and awe of the approaching days, it means I’m completely unready, and awakening a soul at rest is much harder than waking a soul that is already stirred.
I have a great book in my office about the High Holidays by Rabbi Alan Lew called, This Is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared: The Days of Awe as a Journey of Transformation. Maybe I’ll give it a read because the title perfectly describes my predicament.
If you are like me and not feeling anything yet, perhaps the wisdom of the holy rebbe, Rav Nachman of Breslev (Ukraine 1772-1810) will help. He taught that if you don’t yet desire holiness and closeness with God, begin by wanting to want. If you can’t even do that, then want to want to want. Even that desire is precious. Yearning itself (ratzon) has enormous spiritual value, even before a person changes their actions. No sincere desire for God is ever lost.
Whether you already feel spiritually awake or are still waiting for your heart to stir, may Hashem bless all of us with open hearts and awakened souls. What a gift it is to spend another High Holiday season together at MMAE. Thank you for allowing me to share this journey with you.
L’Shana Tova- Kesiva V’ Chasima Tova
To a good year ahead! May we be written and sealed for good!
With love and respect,
Rabbi Yerachmiel Shapiro
