10 Sep Dvar Torah with Rabbi Rosenfeld – Rosh Hashanah | Question Time
ב״ה
A few years ago, I was invited to sit on a panel with Stamford Rabbis Kurtz (Assistant Rabbi at Agudath Sholom), Shemtov (Chabad of Stamford), and Trencher (previous Principal of our Upper School). The topic was the High Holidays and the work of repentance that characterizes this intense period of the year, and the format was a series of questions posed by the moderator, Rabbi Daniel Cohen (Spiritual Leader of Agudath Sholom). In the spirit of preparing ourselves for Rosh Hashanah, I thought it would be appropriate to share some of my responses here in writing, in the hopes of sparking conversation and inspiring thought for the upcoming Yamim Noraim.
What is a poem, movie, or book that provided you with inspiration for Elul? I am not quite sure where or how I first stumbled upon it, but I find myself returning each year to read This is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared, by Rabbi Alan Lew z”l. Rabbi Lew was a completely unique teacher who was best known for establishing the first Jewish meditation center. This book is accessible and blends the wisdom of Zen and mindfulness with Jewish tradition. It is filled with profound, raw, and game-changing insights – for example, “The liturgy [of the High Holidays], however, makes a very different claim, namely that prayer, righteousness, and Teshuvah will not change what happens to us; rather, they will change us.”
What Passuk or Jewish insight do you keep front and center in your mind during Elul? I can pinpoint the very teaching that shifted my entire perspective on the work of teshuva/repentance. An older student in Yeshivat Hakotel was teaching us from the modern classic The Lights of Repentance, by Rav Avraham Yitzchak Hakohen Kook, the first Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Israel and a world-changing mystic. I think my understanding of repentance was basically, “you sin, you feel bad, you try to do better, especially during this time of year.” Rav Kook makes a stunning claim: teshuva is actually a constant affair, occurring perpetually, and it begins with something he termed “teshuvat ha-guf”, or ‘repentance of the body’. Channeling the ancient Latin phrase ‘mens sana in corpore sano’ (a healthy mind in a healthy body), Rav Kook is telling us that teshuva isn’t merely something we do for a few hours in synagogue on the High Holidays, but rather a constant effort, beginning with decisions to eat healthy food, get enough sleep, and exercise regularly. Without that very corporeal baseline in place, the spiritual work lacks proper foundations.
What is a High Holiday sermon or memory that you will never forget? It astounds me to no end that there are moments in life that remain etched in memory despite the passage of time. One of my earliest memories surrounds mussaf of Rosh Hashanah, which my dad told me was the longest prayer of the entire year, and perhaps the most important at that. I must have been around 9 or 10 years old. My brothers and I are blessed with just the best parents and, like today, I was also grateful for having a ‘cool dad’. My dad taught me how to throw a tight spiral pass; he introduced us to great music, and he dressed in these amazing Italian suits. Despite taking a very active role in our Jewish education, one thing I would not have associated with my dad was the word ‘spiritual’. Yet, that year, bored during mussaf, I made my way across the seats to where my dad was davening. His tallit was pulled way over his head, like during birkat Kohanim, and when I peeked underneath, I saw something shocking – my dad was crying! Actual tears were streaming from his eyes as he said the prayers. I didn’t quite know how to process it at the time, but the message about Rosh Hashanah, especially mussaf, was clear: this was extremely serious stuff, and this holiday really meant something.
What are the obstacles to becoming a better person, and what strategies might you suggest for taking advantage of Elul/HH? There is a ‘joke’ told in Yeshivot about learning Abarbanel’s commentary on the Tanach. Apparently, it should be forbidden to study, because the commentary’s style is to begin with a long series of probing questions, and the fear is that the student will not make it to the answers. This is a hard question, primarily because I don’t feel qualified to answer the latter part, but also because I fear that the obstacles I might cite are stronger than the suggested approaches for overcoming them. The reason those obstacles are stronger is because I personally experience them every year, and I don’t always manage to deploy successful strategies for overcoming them. So, the questions here might be better than the answers. In any event, I’ll offer one. One of the great obstacles to becoming ‘a better person’ is a sense of futility that plagues us when we try, time after time, to do just that and fail once again. “What is the recurring disaster in our life?”, asks Rabbi Lew in his book. “What is the unresolved element that keeps bringing us back to this same moment over and over again? What is it that we keep getting wrong? What is it that we persistently refuse to look at, fail to see?” His answer, and my suggestion for taking advantage of this special time of year, is that we must learn to recognize the value not simply in reaching our goals but in the struggle toward them as well: “The great journey of transformation begins with the acknowledgment that we need to make it. It is not something we are undertaking for amusement, nor even for the sake of convention; rather, it is a spiritual necessity.”