Tag: Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks

Onward and Upward

The title of this post was inspired by my wife’s comment to yesterday’s piece, From Despair to Hope: Seven Weeks until Rosh Hashanah. Each day, we have the opportunity to do something that helps foster a feeling of onward and upward. Too often we remain in the despair, the stagnant place of not doing. There could be many reasons for the paralysis. We are afraid, we hate making a mistake or mistakes, we don’t want to fail. Or perhaps we are really in a place where progress is almost impossible to foster (and we need the support of professionals to help and support us in these darker moments.)

How do we foster the ability to go onward and upward?

Forward momentum begins from a place of taking stock. If we spend the time in introspection, in reflecting on our journeys, we will begin to see how far we have come. We have taken the step/s forward we intended on the way to attaining our goals. Yet, too often, as I have been writing about lately, we don’t recognize how we got this moment, but will only look at how far we still want or need to go. My personal growth and journey continuously includes the work of seeing what I have accomplished along the way, not as a means of resting on my past but as a way of drawing strength from what was to continue to take one step at a time. Every step is an achievement unto itself. By celebrating the results, regardless of “success” or “failure,” we can learn to find real success, which is the striving forward we all look for in our lives.

A primary element of the period leading into Rosh Hashanah is the preparation for the aspect of Rosh Hashanah that is Gd judging the world for the upcoming year. This preparation is usually described as Teshuva, normally translated as repentance but better translated as a type of returning. In the words of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson o.b.m. as presented by Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks o.b.m:

2. Teshuvah and Repentance

“Repentance” in Hebrew is not teshuvah, but charatah. Not only are these two terms not synonymous, they are opposites.

Charatah implies remorse, or a feeling of guilt about the past and an intention to behave in a completely new way in the future. The person decides to become “a new man.” But teshuvah means “returning” to the old, to one’s original nature. Underlying the concept of teshuvah is the fact that the Jew is, in essence, good. Desires or temptations may deflect him temporarily from being himself, being true to his essence. But the bad that he does is not part of, nor does it affect, his real nature. Teshuvah is a return to the self. While “repentance” involves dismissing the past and starting anew, teshuvah means going back to one’s roots in G‑d and exposing them as one’s true character.

For this reason, while the righteous have no need to repent, and the wicked may be unable to, both may do teshuvah. The righteous, though they have never sinned, have to constantly strive to return to their innermost. And the wicked, however distant they are from G‑d, can always return, for teshuvah does not involve creating anything new, only rediscovering the good that was always within them.

Torah Studies: The Ten Days of Teshuvah

What resonates most for me is that by seeing Teshuva as a focus on the idea of returning to one’s spiritual roots instead of seeing the time as one we spend reflecting on all we haven’t accomplished, we can find the strength to truly go onward and upward.

Today is the second day along the seven week path towards Rosh Hashanah. What will your “return to self” look like? How will you work on taking the steps you are taking in your lives and further fostering growth and change to better oneself in this life?

Looking for help along your journey as you go onward and upward? Contact New Beginnings Spiritual Coaching and Consulting LLC at 732-314-6758 ext. 100 or via email at newbeginningsspiritualcoach@gmail.com.

Chaos is the First Blueprint of Creativity

Genesis begins with God creating the world, heaven and earth, with everything being in a state of chaos.

בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית בָּרָ֣א אֱלֹהִ֑ים אֵ֥ת הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וְאֵ֥ת הָאָֽרֶץ׃

When God began to create heaven and earth—

וְהָאָ֗רֶץ הָיְתָ֥ה תֹ֙הוּ֙ וָבֹ֔הוּ וְחֹ֖שֶׁךְ עַל־פְּנֵ֣י תְה֑וֹם וְר֣וּחַ אֱלֹהִ֔ים מְרַחֶ֖פֶת עַל־פְּנֵ֥י הַמָּֽיִם׃

the earth being unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind from God sweeping over the water—

Genesis 1:1-2

Many different ideas have been learned and extrapolated from these first two verses alone. I would like to offer another thought, one which has been sitting in my heart for some days. It was inspired by a quote fromfrom Torah Studies, an adaptation of lessons delivered by Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson o.b.m. presented by Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks o.b.m. (from his days before being Chief Rabbi of Great Britain). (I originally received this book as a Bar Mitzvah gift many years ago and have recently begun reading parts of it again).

The essay on Genesis reflects upon:

In the chronicling of creation, one detail strikes us with the force of mystery: Why was light created before everything else, when there was nothing to benefit from it? The Rabbinical explanation only adds to the mystery, for we are told that the light was immediately “hidden for the righteous in the world to come.” The Rebbe explains the difficulty and elucidates the implications of the creation narrative for the individual and the conduct of his life.

https://www.chabad.org/therebbe/article_cdo/aid/110297/jewish/Torah-Studies-Bereishit.htm

As part of this analysis, R. Schneerson presents a piece regarding a rabbinic idea that when Gd created the world, Gd “looked” into the Torah as if the Torah was the blueprint of the world. In R. Schneerson’s words (as presented by R. Sacks):

To resolve these difficulties we must consider a remark made by the Midrash: “Just as a king wishing to build a palace does not do so spontaneously but consults architect’s plans, so G‑d looked into the Torah and created the world.”

In other words, by examining the order in which a man sets about making something which requires planning and forethought, we can learn something of G‑d’s order in bringing the world into being.

https://www.chabad.org/therebbe/article_cdo/aid/110297/jewish/Torah-Studies-Bereishit.htm

Or, more precisely, the Midrash states:

דָּבָר אַחֵר אָמוֹן, אֻמָּן. הַתּוֹרָה אוֹמֶרֶת אֲנִי הָיִיתִי כְּלִי אֻמְנוּתוֹ שֶׁל הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא, בְּנֹהַג שֶׁבָּעוֹלָם מֶלֶךְ בָּשָׂר וָדָם בּוֹנֶה פָּלָטִין, אֵינוֹ בּוֹנֶה אוֹתָהּ מִדַּעַת עַצְמוֹ אֶלָּא מִדַּעַת אֻמָּן, וְהָאֻמָּן אֵינוֹ בּוֹנֶה אוֹתָהּ מִדַּעַת עַצְמוֹ אֶלָּא דִּפְתְּרָאוֹת וּפִנְקְסָאוֹת יֵשׁ לוֹ, לָדַעַת הֵיאךְ הוּא עוֹשֶׂה חֲדָרִים, הֵיאךְ הוּא עוֹשֶׂה פִּשְׁפְּשִׁין. כָּךְ הָיָה הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא מַבִּיט בַּתּוֹרָה וּבוֹרֵא אֶת הָעוֹלָם, וְהַתּוֹרָה אָמְרָה בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים. וְאֵין רֵאשִׁית אֶלָּא תּוֹרָה, הֵיאַךְ מָה דְּאַתְּ אָמַר (משלי ח, כב): ה’ קָנָנִי רֵאשִׁית דַּרְכּוֹ.

Alternatively, amon means “artisan.” The Torah is saying, “I was the artisan’s tool of Hashem.” In the way of the world, a king of flesh and blood who builds a castle does not do so from his own knowledge, but rather from the knowledge of an architect, and the architect does not build it from his own knowledge, but rather he has scrolls and books in order to know how to make rooms and doorways. So too Hashem gazed into the Torah and created the world. Similarly the Torah says, “Through the reishis Hashem created [the heavens and the earth],” and reishis means Torah, as in “Hashem made me [the Torah] the beginning (reishis) of His way” (Mishlei 8:22).

Genesis Rabbah 1:1

In reading this piece, I was struck with an alternative question to the one that drives the essay. I was wondering, if Gd had used the Torah as a blueprint, how does that jive with the notion of chaos, unformed and void, that we read about in the second verse of the Torah? When a person has a blueprint, while the outcomes might not be known, the picture presented should be clear enough to have some form and substance.

In reflecting on this, I realized that the answer was sitting in from of me. Any creative act we have has multiple blueprints throughout the process. As someone who enjoys writing and tries to present ideas in the word form, this resonated for me in the following manner.

The initial idea for something is a jumble of thoughts in my head with some fundamental connector between the ideas. Often this chaos is so distorted that the words don’t even begin to flow. As I continue to write and reflect, the idea becomes clearer in my conscious. It then begins to take shape into a new blueprint, but even that blueprint is not the complete product. Rather it is a more orderly picture of what message to convey and how to convey it. This continues on and on until the product is “complete.”

The story of Genesis reflects this same creative process to us. Gd has a blueprint. Gd “creates” heaven and earth. The picture becomes clearer but is still chaos. Then Gd begins to place things in a certain order, starting with “light” and concluding with rest (the Sabbath. Rest, the cessation from creation, is the real last created thing described, not the human being, a topic unto itself).

All new beginnings start from an idea, a blueprint, but often a blueprint that is chaos by its nature. In order to achieve, we have to work and work to improve and hone the blueprint to something that is orderly and clear.