The Unwanted Teacher- Some final thoughts on my hospitalization and recovery

There’s a part of me that just wants to move on from my experiences of the past two and a half weeks. Yesterday, I went for my follow-up at the doctor and I’ve pretty much recovered. Still, I know that completely moving on would be a mistake.

I need to hold onto this experience. The pain, discomfort, and particularly the dis-ease I had with being somewhat dis-abled, even for such a short period of time, all of it can teach me something. It’s not just that I have to take better care of myself, although that’s certainly true. Between the kidney stone, and the return of my diabetes, there’s no more pretending that my health is fine. I can no longer, kind of, sort of, almost, begin to get back to healthy eating and exercising. As the Piaseczna Rebbe writes, my yetzer hara is trying to kill me, and pretending otherwise is futile, even insane.

There’s more, however. The issues with which I am dealing are not something rare and unexpected. They are fairly common for men my age. What’s affected me more than anything is the confrontation with the fact that I’m getting older. These maladies are in line with the muscle soreness I get after long car rides, and the general krechtzing I produce when picking things up off the floor. There’s a certain phenomenon, prevalent in Western society, of claiming that age is just a number. It comes with slogans like “Sixty is the new forty”. It’s cute as far as it goes, but that’s it. Age can be slowed down a bit, but not escaped.

If I’m honest with myself, I’m almost certainly on the back nine of life’s golf course. I don’t say that that to be maudlin or depressing. It’s important to face the fact that I will not live forever. That I don’t have forever to fix all of the interpersonal and religious flaws and weaknesses which I want to address.

I’m not trying to be melodramatic, or to make more of this than it is. It was pretty humbling to hear from a college student who has had to do deal with something more serious and of a much longer duration of time, who related to what I wrote, after I shared my initial thoughts. He shared his story, and it helped put things in perspective.

I see this experience as a teacher, albeit, an unwanted one. Among the lessons I’ve learned are to address my health, and to try and say Asher Yatzar with kavana, while recognizing that I should not take the ability to stand before God, or even the ability to stand pain free for granted.  Finally, it’s a reminder to not pretend that I have forever to become the person I may yet be. I hope and pray that I’ve learned what I need to, and in doing so, that I pass this test.

To begin Again?- A different approach for Elul based on the Piaseczna Rebbe

As we reach the end of 5758, as the last few days of Elul approach, those of us who are not so young, and who have seen their share of Elul commitments come and go, way too often not successfully, have to ask ourselves, what we are doing here. Is this just another charade where we say the necessary words of penance, and pretend things will be different this time? Can we really approach the Yamim Noraim honestly with a sense that we may yet become something more?

I have been deeply affected, perhaps more than by any other sefer of the Piaseczna Rebbe, by Tzav V’Ziruz. The short statements he wrote in his spiritual diary between 1926 and 1939 almost always speak deeply to me. Sometimes, his words feel like a cup of cold water splashed across my face, forcing me to sit up and take notice. They wake me up and bring to my attention ways that I think of the world, that I might not even consciously be aware of, and how they affect my relationship with HKBH. There is something about the nature of this work which has caused my chavrusa and me to move more slowly than we did with his other sefarim, as we try to make sure that we understand the full implications of his words.

There’s something else about this work that gives it such a hold over me. The Rebbe wrote these words beginning in his late thirties until he was in his early fifties. It is, if I may say so, the Torah of the midlife crisis. Torah written for those who are not so young, and who have faced their share of failures and disappointments. I suspect that a different sefer may have grabbed me, if I learned his Torah when I was in my twenties. Which brings us to a small Torah which my chavrusa and I learned this past Shabbos.

In Torah 24, the Rebbe speaks about the danger of having spiritual desires and aspirations, without having a real plan for implementing them. While one might think that spiritual goals are inherently valuable, he notes that without a way of trying to concretize them, it is likely that they will never happen. Many years of this leads to a sense of despair, that one will never get there. It may even leave one convinced that it’s no longer worth trying to aim for religious greatness.

Here I am just about midway between the age that the Rebbe wrote the first and last words in this sefer. As always, I wonder how someone of his greatness can know so well what lies deep within someone like me. At times, I’ve dreamed big in terms of learning goals, davening goals, middos goals, in a word of teshuva. I’ve wanted to become more than I am, certain, or at least hopeful, that I’m nowhere near where I could be. If I’m honest, most years my Elul plans come to naught. I daven, I plead, I apologize, both to God and to other people, and, much more often than not, little has changed by the end of the year. There are years where I wonder if it’s even worth trying.

In the Rebbe’s words, I received a challenge. Marching orders as it were. I’m never going to get my teenagers years back to redo. Same thing for my time in yeshiva and kollel, or the early years of my marriage or as a father. Still, God willing, I have many more years ahead of me. I can continue as I’ve always done, and foolishly imagine that the results may be different. Or, if I’m brave enough, I can continue to dream big, and this time try more carefully to come up with a plan. To really work on it, so that next Elul, and, BEH, in ten years, twenty years, and for as many years as I’m blessed with, I’m not left wondering what might have been. Thanks to a small piece in Tzav V’Ziruz, I’m once again able to dream, and to begin again