Dear Friends,
I hope this note finds you well and managing these challenging times.
Within the OU and its departments, we are focusing meaningful effort on considering and addressing the issue of sinat chinam, providing both food for thought and practical action points that can help us begin to demonstrate care for each other and ameliorate our nation’s divisions by adjusting both our thinking and actions. We invite you into this process in the hope that you may find it meaningful and helpful, add your own energies to this effort, and be in touch to contribute your own thoughts and ideas. Thank you to all who have already shared their thoughts and ideas.
We began by pulling out our ear pods to try to notice those around us a bit more, went further to provide someone with a sense of “imach” by taking a bit of time to check in, and then moved towards building mutually appreciated relationship with others who may not have it elsewhere, inviting them into our homes or reaching out into theirs.
How should a Jew prepare for Rosh Hashana and the Yamim Noraim? The Alter of Kelm, one of the great Mussar masters, had a simple and surprising approach: focus on v’ahavta l’reiacha kamocha, work on loving others more.
He returned to this theme year after year, undertaking personally and along with his students to recall at every time of prayer the mitzvah to love others. In this, he was faithful to the custom instituted by the great Kabbalist, Rav Yitzchak Luria, and followed by many hasidim and others, to declare before every prayer: “Hareini m’kabeil alai mitzvat as’eh shel v’ahavta l’reiacha kamocha. I accept upon myself the mitzvah to love my fellow man as myself.” The Sefardic version of this declaration is even more exquisite, adding a declaration of actual love for every Jew k’nafshi u’me’odi.
The idea is both beautiful and puzzling. How does expressing our commitment to other people – bein adam la‘chaveiro – fit the intense religious moment of prayer bein adam la’Makom?
Notice however that the original Jewish prayer recorded in the Torah was offered by Avraham on behalf of the people of Sodom. Avraham did not resort to prayer in search of mystical or spiritual communion. He approached God out of a deep concern for his fellow man. Sodom was in trouble, its future was threatened, and Avraham stepped forward to plead with God on their behalf. That is evidently what prayer is supposed to look like. We approach God with others in mind. And, as the Alter of Kelm himself explained, when we approach God with Klal Yisrael in mind, we stand before Him empowered by the history and the destiny of our nation.
This practice of beginning davening with that commitment to our fellow Jews has not previously been part of my routine, but I intend to do it now as the next step on working on sinat chinam. Davening can easily be an experience of turning inward or looking upward while focusing on our own needs, but when we bring the Klal into those prayers it makes us bigger. When making that commitment to love my fellow Jews, I will try to think of a specific part of my community or of the Jewish people that I do not strongly identify with for ideological, religious, cultural, or any other reasons. I hope in that way to stand before Hashem not as an individual but as part of the unbreakable and ultimately indivisible Jewish people.
Every day of the year, most of our prayers focus on the overwhelming need for a better world. Particularly on Rosh Hashana, the Alter of Kelm would remind his students via a note he would hang on the door of the beis hamedrash that our main request of God is that He build His kingdom and bring us all together in His service. We can only sincerely make that request when we ourselves come together, when we stand with our fellow Jews in love and commitment, prioritizing the unity of our people and of the kingdom of God for which we pray.
Hareini m’kabeil alai mitzvat as’eh shel v’ahavta l’reiacha kamocha.
Have a wonderful Shabbos and may we be blessed with besoros tovos, much good news.
Moshe Hauer
Please use this LINK to download printable Hebrew and English versions of the Alter of Kelm’s Yamim Noraim note to his students emphasizing the critical importance of unity and ahavat Yisrael. Please print and post it where you and others can be reminded of its precious message.
PS – for those who wish to see something on the Parsha, please see the Dvar Torah below.
The Real You
Who are you really? For better or for worse, we are not identified as much by what we do than by who we are.
As Moshe introduces Klal Yisrael into the covenant with Hashem (Devarim 29:17-19), he addresses those amongst them expressing a commitment they do not really feel, who go along with the group for fear of deviating from the consensus when in their hearts they are not truly committed and connected. Moshe speaks of how even as they may be doing and saying all the right things, that shallow and insincere commitment will result in eventual bitter and negative results, “shoresh poreh rosh v’la’anah,” angering Hashem and stimulating a very strong response. As Ramban expressed it, “mishoresh matok lo yeitzei mar,” bitterness will not emerge from a sweet root. The roots of our being and identity are the feelings and allegiances in our hearts. When those are not in a good place, negative results will follow.
Evidently external compliance is insufficient as it does not define who we really are and will ultimately unravel. Rachmana liba ba’i, Hashem seeks a deep and heartfelt commitment.
The positive side of this same coin is how we stand before Hashem on the Yamim Noraim. While our parsha speaks of the person who seems to be doing the right things but is lacking in internal commitment, during these days we speak of our failures, of the actions that we do wrong not because of who we are but because of our going with a flow in the wrong direction, ki l’chol ha’am b’shgagah. During these days we dissociate from failures that are external to our true selves while affirming that our true desire is a sincere bond and commitment to Hashem and His will. Maharal of Prague went so far as to explain that the term “kippurim” refers to a surface wipe, such that Yom HaKippurim as the day of our spiritual cleansing reflects a mere wiping away of external and incidental grime that our mistakes have built upon the surface of our sweet and refined selves and that in no way reflects our true essence.
The basis of our standing before Hashem on these days is the assertion of our personal shoresh matok, the sweet and healthy root of dedication to Hashem’s will that lies within each of us. This is the compelling idea articulated by the Rambam (Hilchot Geirushin 2:20), when he wrote that the core of every one of us is our inherent desire and interest to be part of the Jewish people and to do all the good things and avoid that which is wrong, and that it is only the confusion generated by our desires and other fundamentally external factors that get in the way.
The long road from one Rosh Hashana to the next has many twists and turns that often take us far away from that which we value most. These precious days of the Yamim Noraim present the opportunity for us to revisit and restore our true selves, to reconnect to that which is our essential desire: to be a part of the Jewish people, do all that is good and avoid that which is wrong.
That is who we really are.