Shaarei Tzedek – Orthodox Judaism in Downtown Toronto

[via Rabbi David Lapin, http://iawaken.org]

On Rosh Hashanah we take a break from Selichot. Rosh Hashanah is not about begging for forgiveness. Begging for forgiveness focuses on the past whereas Rosh Hashanah focuses on the future. Rosh does not mean beginning; it means much more than that. Rosh Hashanah means the Head of the Year. The head is the seat of thought, of intellect, of purpose and of vision. Rosh Hashanah is the Head, the quality of whose thinking will determine the direction and quality of the entire year.

You create your whole year on Rosh Hashanah. You apply your mind (Rosh) to envisioning the future you really crave. In this process do not limit yourself. Think big. Do not limit yourself by your past, by your disappointments and by one of the tens of thousands of negative, critical messages your mind communicates to you every day of your life. Your future knows no limits except the limits you impose on it by the fear and timidness to envision boldly. Envision your future in detail, including color, feeling, smell and sound. Picture every detail of the future you want. Your family, spiritual heights, learning, finances, home, and every thing that goes with them. Feel what it would be like to live inside the painting you have created of your envisioned future. Whenever your mind is pulled back into the past, into negativity and thoughts of failure, gently bring it back to your beautiful picture of the future you are creating.

Only you can create the blueprint of your future, Hashem makes it happen but He doesn’t create it without your help. Too often we leave Hashem to create our futures and then we over-exert ourselves to try to make things happen. Try it the other way around: you create your own future, and leave Hashem to help you make it happen! Bederech She’Adam Rotzeh Leileich, molichim otto (“Hashem leads a person in the way he or she truly wants to go”). You have to want to go places for Hashem to lead you there. Determining the places you want to go this year, is your Avodah on Rosh Hashanah.

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With gratitude to Rabbi Lazer Brody and his blog, Lazer Beams:

A week doesn’t go by without three or four people asking me what to do about the chatter in the synagogue, especially among the “big wigs”. Since it’s easier to correct ourselves than it is to correct someone else, I tell people not to get into arguments with the chatterboxes, but to work on their deep concentration in praying until they don’t hear or feel anything that’s going on in the periphery.

Image, left: A Big Wig

Folks chatter in the synagogue because they don’t believe that Hashem is right there with them. If they knew that The King was there, they’d freeze! If a person chattered to his buddy in the solemn court of a flesh-and-blood king, he’d get the guillotine.

The more we develop our emuna, the greater our spiritual sensitivity becomes. The greater our spiritual sensitivity becomes, the more we feel Hashem. The more we feel Hashem, the better we pray. The better we pray, the less we chatter in the synagogue.

Our dear friend from London, gifted musician and songwriter David Dome, wrote the following witty song about the big wigs that run their mouths off in the synagogue:

The Big Wig

words and music by David Dome

Well I’ve got plenty to say, In the shul everyday.

I’m such a big wig in here, No one else can come near.

You see I open my mouth, My big “north and south”.

And I break all of the rules, About talking in shul.

Instead of saying Amen, I’m gonna talk to my friend.

And when the Rabbi turns round, I won’t make a sound.

But when he turns round to pray, I still have more to say.

About the traffic that lay, On the road yesterday.

Someday when I realise, I’ll shut my mouth and open my eyes.

Such a twittering bird, I know I’m quite absurd.

Ah, but what can I do? I’m more important than you.

I speak of whiskey and wine, The Financial Times.

And what’s happening in, The shul I haven’t yet been.

I’m a twittering bird, With what’s overheard.

But when I’m outside the door, I won’t say anymore.

I got plenty to say, In the shul everyday.

I’m a big wig in here, No one else can come near.

The Big Wig, by David Dome

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Parshat Ki Teitzei 5768

© Rabbi David Lapin, 2008 (http://www.iawaken.org)

“The Power of Pride”

I was the second speaker of the day. I walked up to the podium with a knot in my stomach. I was following immediately after Ian Thomas, an inspiring wildlife guide turned public speaker. His topic is “The Power of the Pride,” showing how lions use pride as a tool of leadership. Ian enthralls his audience, and after he finished they were in no mood to listen to me.

The loud din eventually settled. In a quiet voice I asked the audience whether Ian had shown them how lions make each other proud and how they can make even baboons feel proud. They shook their heads quizzically. “You see,” I said, “The reason Ian didn’t show you that is because lions cannot make others feel proud. Only humans can. Making others feel good about themselves is a G-dly trait, it comes from the Divine within each of us. This is why we should not learn leadership from animals; we should learn leadership from G-d.” You could hear a pin drop.

Feeling and transmitting emotion

The same applies to many emotions. We are capable not only of feeling a wide range of emotions but also of transmitting those emotions to others. This is the role of art. Art does not convey information. Art conveys feelings. Looking at a landscape of a scene you could never have been at, still allows you to feel something of what the artist felt as he or she looked at that scene. A great work of fiction can give you the feel of a place in the world or a time in history at which you could not have been present. Music and drama do the same thing.

We transmit not only positive emotions. We can transmit negative emotions too. We can radiate negativity, sadness, and cynicism just as we can radiate happiness, optimism and joy. We can demotivate people and we can uplift them. We all know the effect of being around people who are draining with their negativity compared to being around people who radiate positive energy.

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Parshat Shoftim 5768

© Rabbi David Lapin, 2008 (http://iawaken.org)

Last evening I wrote a list of my incomplete tasks and projects. I wrote down everything I could think of that was awaiting decision, action, completion or abandonment. Stunned by the length of the list I understood why I was feeling so drained, overwhelmed, somewhat unfocused and generally miserable!

Unresolved issues and incomplete projects clutter the mind and block our energy. I am sure you have felt the liberation of un-cluttering a space, whether a desk, a computer filing system, a room in the house or a closet. There is an ease, a lightness and a clarity that comes with a clean-out. The clarity and lightness, and the high energy and focus that follow a mental clean-up is far greater even than the feeling after a physical clean-up.

Unfinished projects can be things as trivial as unreturned voicemails or as serious as unfinished masechtot (Talmudic Tractates), incomplete construction or business projects, and relationships that are unresolved.

Some incompletion is due to not having made a decision. Some of it is due to not having acted on a decision that has been made, and some is not having completed tasks that have been started. We’ll look at each of those categories:

No Decision

In an indecisive state we can fool ourselves into believing that two or more doors are open and we are not yet decided which to walk through. We are deluded into feeling we have the freedom of multiple options. The truth is we are paralyzed. We have no freedom at all. None of the options are open doors until we actually choose one of them. Not making a choice is disempowering and paralyzing.

It is helpful to perceive indecisiveness not as a decision pending, but as a decision made. Indecisiveness is a decision not to act at all! Recognizing that indecisiveness is in itself a decision, and accepting that it is a decision not to act, enables us to close the issue or it forces us into a different decision: a decision to act. Either way we break the paralysis and move on.

Imagine a person agonizing over whether or not to go on Aliyah. He believes that until he makes his decision his options are open and thast holds him back from deciding. However, if he accepts that his ambivalence is a decision for the status quo, he might confront the fact that for now he has made his decision: he is not going on Aliyah. This will either propel him into making a different choice, or still the turbulence of his agonizing dilemma.

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