Yomim Toivim

“This month will be the beginning of the months for you”

PESACH

In the middle of the first month it was declared to us that we are independent people.

Released from bondage by other human beings we are now in the position to take the route of our own choice, to shape our own future.

SFIRAH and SHVIOS

The hints where to go were given, but to get the tool to complete freedom, it takes some work; some preparation. We got 50 days to climb the steps to be worthy of the treasure, we got the guidebook to freedom. Now we have freedom not from other human beings, but freedom from ourselves, our own earthly character.

Freedom engraved-written on the Tablets containing as the sages explain, all of the Toira.

Engraving and freedom spells the same way in Hebrew.

We said “Naaseh ve nishma” – “We will do, and we will listen”.

THREE WEEKS

This declaration and readiness from our side was unprecedented and still is unprecedented but the gloomy days and weeks of summer came, and we lost it, we messed up.

ROSH CHASHANA

The Awakening came later in the summer. We made a cheshboin haneifesh - the introspection and its culmination came after a month of preparation at the beginning of the civil year, on Rosh Choidesh Tishrei, when we accept once more the Sovereignty of the King.

YOM KIPPUR

We made a proper attempt to see ourselves in our full misery and after ten days in anguish we came to ask for forgiveness.

It was granted to us.

SUCCOS

Now we were ready to renew our bond to the Giver of life, so we showed our complete trust going out and living without physical protection for seven days.

By dwelling in flimsy structures without a real roof we declared to our Father in heaven and to humanity our confidence and conviction that He is the one who protect us from any harm, and we can’t be harmed unless He withdraw His protection. But we knew that it is ultimately in our own hands. Our deeds have a power to alternate this protection, i.e. we may, in our madness ruin the pledge of His shield.

SIMCHAS TOIRAH

At this moment of the calendar however, we are too high to fail and after the affliction and cure of Av, Elul and Tishrei we come back to the Source, and once more in the year we take the gift of Torah to dance with in excitement, to learn the steps of the ultimate dance of existence

CHANNUKACH

But first we must understand that it is not an easy task, that besides our own physical corruptive powers there are also outside influences. We must see it in clarity that to fulfill our individual and national task we must carefully separate ourselves from foreign persuasions.

We don’t withdraw from the general society to achieve this, quite the opposite, we declare to the public our confidence in our own values and the power of light invested in us. We declare the readiness to serve the rest of humanity sharing the guidelines to achieve a bond with the Creator, a bond that is uncorrupted by human imagination.

PURIM

If we achieve this level of understanding…another holiday is given to us, almost at the end of the year, a holiday closing the cycle and concluding the path we stepped on still as slaves.

This one is a true gift, it reveals all what was hidden till now. And the name of the Book that we are reading on this day is precisely such “Megilas Esther” - “Revelation of the Hidden”.

Of course, to get to the heights of this last Yom Tiv we must properly follow and prepare ourselves through all the days preceding Purim. Otherwise we will experience a superficial day of rigid commandments with a slight taste of fun.

What we will miss is the understanding of what the mask is really hiding, what is the true character of reality.

Mathematics, chemistry, biology and music are declaring unfathomable harmony in every aspect of the creation, a harmony impossible without the hidden hand of the Creator.

Theoretical physics are telling us that all three-dimensional surroundings exist against the very same laws that keep this world in existence; that what we see, and experience is nothing but a mask showing or declaring existence but behind the mask there is Truth. Hints of it is given to us in the form of this mask.

If you are not ready for them, you don’t have to go to Sifrey Kabula to understand, that this world is just a virtual reality serving one and only purpose – to find the way back to Eden.