What's In A Name (Part V)- Am I Still Pesach Sheini?

From time to time (although it's been a long time since the last one), I will be writing about my reasons for choosing "Pesach Sheini" as the name for my blog. The more I have thought about the name, the more I have felt that it chose me and not the other way around. What follows is the fifth installation. To read the first four click here. 

Dear Rabbi _________________,

After a recent discussion by email, you sent me an email where you spelled out your philosophical and theological views, and asked me to respond in kind; “And you, Reb Pesach -- how do the pieces of your worldview fit together?”. I responded that I was not sure whether I wanted to try and summarize my beliefs, but I would think about it. After much thought, I have decided to respond, with one caveat.

I cannot tell you how the pieces of my worldview fit together, as a unified theory is not something I seek to produce. I’m not sure if anything more than being mine, is what holds them together. One thing which came across quite strongly in your email is that your beliefs are long-held. I suspect, and please correct me if I am mistaken, that you could have used the same words to describe your beliefs five years ago, and probably much earlier than that. I cannot say the same for myself.

When I first started my blog “Pesach Sheini”, the name seemed to make sense. It was my way of saying that I had come through a long, complicated, and painful religious struggle, and that what emerged was a new me. While that was in many ways correct, I made the mistake of thinking that whereas before I had subscribed to certain philosophical and theological beliefs, which, like yours, I would call for lack of a better word, rational, now I had new beliefs which no longer fit that term. What I did not realize was that though I may not ever need a Pesach Shelishi, my new beliefs were not just different, but were also much more fluid.

By way of thinking about how to answer your question, I took a look at the sefarim on my bookshelf. I not only noticed the sefarim which get frequent use these days, those of the Piaseczna Rebbe, Rav Kook, and R’ Hillel Zeitlin, I also noticed the sefarim which I haven’t used much in a bunch of years, although they were helpful to me in the earlier stages of “Pesach Sheini”. Among those sefarim were those from R’ Isaac Breuer, Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits, and Rav Amital. This is not to dismiss any of them as having importance to me. Rather I use to point out that my hesitancy in answering your question is due to the fact that my religious understanding is anything but static. In fact, if you had told a year or two ago me that ideas from The Baal haTanya and Rav Hillel Paritcher would be part of my religious experience, I would have looked at you like you are crazy.

Please don’t mistake this as meaning that there are no core beliefs. I would be surprised if the Piaseczna Rebbe and his Torah ever stops being of great importance to me. I don’t think I could ever be a chasid, but if the Piaseczna Rebbe was alive, who knows. The same goes for Rav Kook’s and Hillel Zeitlin’s Torah.

As for specifics, beyond the fact that my worldview is mostly mystical, I’ll just share a few brief thoughts. While I understand the reasons why you and others try to take a more rational approach, that worldview has very little appeal to me. Ultimately, no how much we try to rationalize religion, it is anything but rational. It ultimately stands on a relationship with a God, who cannot be touched by the world of rational thought. As such, I take God at his word in the Torah, as did the rabbis in the Talmud, that tefillah is real communication, and that God is directly involved in our lives. While you are correct to note that this approach raises questions, all approaches do.

To sum it up as well as I can, and I do realize that I have left quite a bit unsaid, I try and stand in serious relationship to HKBH, and believe with every fiber of my being that it is a real two-way relationship. Does it all fit together? It does in the sense that this is me. I have no desire to convince anyone else of the correctness of any of my views and beliefs. My desire is nothing more than continuously try and think about, develop, and grow in my relationship with God.

Pesach

Finding God in the Lincoln Tunnel- a brief thought on my daily commute

I was astounded upon doing the math, to realize that I spend nearly 20 full DAYS a year driving to and from work.

I'm in the car on average 2 1/2 hours a day, and multiplied by 180, that means I spend about 450 hours in the car. Not only in the car, but quite often in traffic, covering a distance that in Iowa would likely take me 20-30 minutes at most. It's pretty much the only part of my job that I don't love, but how do I make peace with this?

The Piascezna Rebbe has a powerful piece in what is known as Aish Kodesh (he called it Derashos Mishnos Ha'zaam) where he riffs off of the words:

אל תחלוק על המקום

Do not argue with, or maybe, don't dispute God.

He read these words to say don't argue on the place where you are. It's particularly powerful as he said these words on a Shabbos, while in hiding from the Nazis. He taught that wherever you are is a place where you are connected to God.

So what do I do while I'm tired and stressed, and sitting in bumper to bumper traffic? On a simple level, I try to listen to shiurim, podcasts and music, but that only a beginning. That's just the Litvak in me worrying about bitul zman and bittul Torah.

Can I really be at one with God in the ugly dreariness of the Lincoln Tunnel? Can I be as connected to Him at that moment as I am while hiking in nature, spending time with my family, or learning a piece of the Rebbe's Torah? Because if I'm really to learn from the Rebbe, that is indeed what he taught. That the world truly is filled with God's glory, and that if I'm not feeling it, it's not because God is not there, but rather because I'm not opening myself up to him, indeed to reality.

It's a battle but I try and speak with him while driving and to feel his presence even as a taxi is cutting me off to get a fare.

Both meanings of the words אל תחלוק על המקום are connected. If I can make peace with where I am, I am together with HaKadosh Baruch Hu no matter what surrounds me.

Leaving Har Sinai- On the challenges of taking Matan Torah Into life

Thanks to a wonderful shiur I listened to on Friday, I headed into Shabbos and Yom Tov with strong expectations. Rav Ami Silver gave over a derasha from Derech HaMelech, which the Piaseczna Rebbe first delivered nearly 90 years ago. I went into Shabbos wanting to learn through the rebbe’s words on my own, as I strongly wanted to internalize the message. It took a few times going over it, but eventually I was able to reconnect with the message of the derasha. I was deeply moved by the idea that Kabbalas HaTorah is something which re-occurs throughout time, and that we need to see ourselves as having something worthy to merge with the Torah, rather than accepting it passively. The part which touched me the most was the idea that we must dig down within ourselves, in our own “dirt” to discover that even there, we connect with the Ribbono Shel Olam.

Over the chag, I continued to learn from the Derech HaMelech, as well as from Rav Kook’s Midbar Shur. Combined with the time I spent with family, and the learning I did with several of our children, Shavuos was a deeply meaningful experience. I truly felt that it was a personal Z’man Matan Toraseinu.

Just as suddenly, as I went from Yom Tov to chol, the experience disappeared. I remember the words, and the ideas they conveyed, but I can no longer access them. Even as today is Iseru Chag, the day when we are to bind the experiences of the yom tov to our lives, the switch from kodesh to chol is too dramatic. While I try and pass it off as being a product of physical and mental exhaustion, it seems to me that something else is going on. As I stood at the base of Har Sinai, I could imagine finding the holy within dirt, even within my own. Now, having traveled on, my imagination fails, and this profound teaching has reverted to just an intellectual concept.

I better understand how 40 days after Kabbalas HaTorah there can be a Cheit HaEigel. To receive the Torah is an avodah, but to bring it with you from Har Sinai is a greater one, and right now I don’t know how to do that.

Mati V'lo Mati- Experiencing chassidus through seforim and the academy

One of the highlights of my week is the 45 minute chavrusa I have before mincha each Shabbos afternoon learning the Torah of the Piaseczna Rebbe. The combination of contemplating his approach to chassidus, along with the timing so close to the end of Shabbos, a time the Rebbe describes  as having the high that comes from having reached the highest stage of Shabbos, along with the sadness that it will soon be over, has a profound effect on me. Temporarily transformed, Mincha following this chavrusa is usually qualitatively different from the rest of my tefillos.

It is not just the chassidus of the Piaseczna Rebbe which draws me. In chassidus in general, I have found a psychologically profound approach, which has become a lens through which I see the world. The focus on interiority, and on finding Hashem in all parts of my life, has transformed the way I understand Judaism. At the same time, I not only do not consider myself a chassid, but I also find myself drawn to various academic approaches to chassidus, works which often pull back the curtain on that which I find so meaningful; analyzing, deconstructing, and, well, in some ways, neutering it. After recently picking up Mendel Piekarz’s book on Polish chassidus, I found myself wondering why I engage in two activities which, although somewhat connected, are in many important ways so diametrically opposed.

It would be easy to say that the academic approach adds to my appreciation of chassidus, helping flesh it out in a way somewhat akin to utilitarian nature of secular knowledge in the Torah Im Derech Eretz approach, but that would be letting myself off the hook. As much as there are times when the academic approach enhances my appreciation of chassidus, there are many others when it detracts. Even as I try to avoid those approaches which are more glaringly hostile, or coming with a strong agenda, it is not always possible to know what I will discover before proceeding. It is not always good to know too much about one’s heroes. In certain respects, less is more.

If I’m to be honest, there’s a part of me that is relieved to have some of the chassidus I learn demystified. I am deeply moved by much of what I learn, but I want it on my terms. I’m not interested in fully diving in, something that at earlier points in my life might have been tempting. While I have written glowingly (if you’ll excuse the pun) of someone who made the jump, I could never do so for all sorts of reasons.The academic literature helps put a bit of a brake, or even a damper, on some of my enthusiasm and passion. This helps create a “yes, however” approach in me, which leaves me somewhere in the middle, simultaneously drawn towards, and pulling away from the chassidus I learn, although not in equal measure.

The elusive balance which I’d love to achieve is best conveyed in a delightful story told by Rav Menachem Frohman about Professor Yehuda Liebes, which I encountered in a post by Rabbi Josh Rosenfeld on the Seforim blog. Rav Frohman writes:

         

I will conclude with a story 'in praise of Liebes' (Yehuda explained to me that he assumes the meaning of his family name is: one who is related to a woman named Liba or, in the changing of a name, one who is related to anAhuva/loved one). As is well known, in the past few years, Yehuda has the custom of ascending ( ='aliya le-regel)^[21] on La"g b'Omer to the celebration ( =hilula) of RaShb"I^[22] in Meron. Is there anyone who can comprehend - including Yehuda himself - how a university professor, whose entire study of Zohar is permeated with the notion that the Zohar is a book from the thirteenth- century (and himself composed an entire monograph: "How the Zohar Was Written?"^[23]), can be emotionally invested along with the masses of the Jewish people from all walks of life, in the celebration of RaShb"I, the author of the Holy Zohar?

Four years ago, Yehuda asked me to join him on this pilgrimage to Meron, and I responded to him with the following point: when I stay put, I deliver a long lecture on the Zohar to many students on La"g b'Omer, and perhaps this is more than going to the grave of RaShb"I.^[24] Yehuda bested me, and roared like a lion: "All year long - Zohar, but on La"g b'Omer - RaShb"I!"

(emphasis added).

I’d like to believe that somehow I can simultaneously be deeply immersed in chassidus, letting it mold and shape me, while at the same time imagining myself to be sophisticated enough to know the difference between what nourishes me, and what I can experience with a knowing wink, or even some skepticism or doubt. I don’t think I’m there yet, but increasingly I believe I can almost make out my destination from here.

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Hugging the Divine- Finding Hashem in the Torah we learn

The rosh yeshiva who I heard speak this past Friday night, was as brilliant as I’d been led to believe. Listening to him speak, one could believe the possibly apocryphal story which I’d heard about him, that a Soloveichik once said that they’d never met anyone else who who could think like that who didn’t share their last name. Still, as I tried to follow his brilliant analysis of a difficult Rambam, I felt like something was missing.

Thinking about it afterwards, I tried to reflect on how the shiur which I’d witnessed was any different than what I would have experienced had I listened to a lecture from a world-class physicist. While I imagine that in the latter case I would have been less familiar with the content of the lecture, I can still imagine that I could be mesmerized by their brilliance. I found myself thinking of ‘“What” has Brisk Wrought?’, an article Rav Moshe Lichtenstein wrote in the Torah U’Madda Journal nearly 20 years ago. In the Article, he spoke about the limitations of the Brisker Derech of learning, noting that they often stopped at the “what” of categorization, without moving on to the why. It is for this reason that while I’m often impressed by the analysis that comes from those well-versed in the Brisker Derech, I’ve rarely found it religiously edifying. In thinking about the rosh yeshiva’s shiur, I realized that for me, it felt like the Ribbono Shel Olam was missing, or that if he was there, it was with a separation of more than six degrees of separation with which we are all said to be connected. It was as if I was discussing the method by which a beloved friend’s favorite shoes are stitched, rather than talking about something more directly connected to my friend.

The next day, given the opportunity to attend another of the rosh yeshiva’s shiurim, I instead decided to learn with my regular chavrusa.It wasn’t a difficult choice. While I can’t say when I will again get the opportunity to hear a shiur of that caliber, it is during my weekly chavrusa in the Torah of the Piaseczna Rebbe’s Torah that I often experience the Divine.

As we sat learning Mevo Hashearim, the rebbe quoted a beautiful mashal from the Ba’al HaTanya used to explain why learning the non-esoteric parts of Torah also has value. When one learns Torah of any kind, one was is hugging Hakadosh baruch Hu who is found within the garments of Torah. Even if a particular approach involves hugging Hashem through more garments, one merely needs to keep in mind who it is who is wearing those garments. Ironically, it was here, in a chassidic rebbe’s defense of learning nigleh and not just nistar, that I found a way to frame the Brisker Torah which I had learned on Friday night. Even within analyzing the categories of the Rambam and focusing on a halacha which lacks practical application, one can, with the right focus, hug HaKadosh Baruch Hu.

Aish Kodesh in its Historical Context- A review of Torah From The Years of Wrath 1939-1943

Without lifting up a gun or molotov cocktail, Rav Kalonymous Kalman Shapira, the Piaseczna Rebbe committed some of the greatest acts of heroism of World War II. While experiencing much personal trauma and suffering, the rebbe managed to offer words of encouragement and hope to unknown scores of Jews, religious and irreligious, chassidim and misnagedim alike, who, like him, were trapped in the Warsaw Ghetto. Those who have read the rebbe’s words of Torah delivered on many of the Shabboses and Yamim Tovim between the years 1939-1943, the written record of which miraculously survived after being buried in the ground before the ghetto was destroyed, have been inspired by his uplifting words delivered under the most trying of circumstances.Still, until recently, readers had an incomplete picture of his words.

After being discovered in the rubble of the Warsaw Ghetto, the rebbe’s derashos were published by some of his surviving students and chassidim in a work they titled Aish Kodesh. While they did their best to give over the rebbe’s words as accurately as possible, there were various typos and other errors that made it into the sefer. Recently, Dr. Daniel Reiser of Herzog Academic College and Tzefat Academic College published an incredible two-volume critical edition of the rebbe’s derashos which is destined to be the one used by anyone interested in learning the rebbe’s wartime Torah. The first volume includes fascinating biographical information about the rebbe, as well as a fully corrected version of each of the derashos. The second volume has a facsimile of the actual pages which were buried by Oneg Shabbos, as well as a transcription in multiple colors of the rebbe’s words. Still, one problem remained. In delivering his words of Torah, the rebbe consciously chose to almost entirely refrain from mentioning the name of those who were behind the terrible suffering which he and his listeners experienced. With almost no exceptions, one who reads the rebbe’s words from this time period could theoretically be unaware of the particular tragic time period in which it was written. While his divrei Torah provide comfort and hope to those who are suffering, the reader is largely  left unaware of the particular events which led the rebbe to say what he did  each week.

To fill this void, Dr. Henry Abramson, dean of Touro College in Brooklyn has written Torah From the Years of Wrath 1939-1943: The Historical Context of the Aish Kodesh. As with Reiser’s books, Dr. Abramson’s book promises to be groundbreaking for both scholars and laymen alike.

After an opening chapter which provides biographical  information about the rebbe from before the war, there are three chapters each of which concentrates on a year from the war, what the rebbe spoke about at that time, and which events led to the choice of topic. Through Abramson’s thorough scholarship and compelling writing, the reader’s eyes are opened as the divrei Torah are connected to the rumors which might have been going through the ghetto that week, a new policy which led to additional suffering, or the narrowing of the parameters of the Warsaw Ghetto. Just to cite an example, the rebbe chose to speak about the walls of a house getting tzaraas during the week where the Nazis built the walls of the Warsaw Ghetto. This is just one of the scores of examples that Abramson’s scholarship has uncovered.

In addition to providing the background information for many of the derashos, Dr. Abramson also provides other fascinating information about the rebbe’s time in the ghetto. One of the highlights of the book for me was reading about the rebbe’s pre-dawn visit to the mikveh on erev Yom Kippur. Meticulously planned, the rebbe’s efforts to immerse in the mikveh came at great risk, as the Nazis had closed all mikvaos and threatened to kill anyone who attempted to immerse. Even for those who can’t fully understand what going to the mikveh meant for the rebbe, the details of his visit with the help of others, as well as what happened when he reached the mikveh (page 139), will leave the reader speechless.

The book concludes with a fifth chapter where Dr. Abramson addresses something which has long been a point of contention among scholars. As one reads rebbe’s words from during the war, one notices a shift in his outlook. While at the beginning of the war the rebbe seemed to see the suffering that he and his fellow jews were experiencing  as fitting within traditional explanations for earlier tragic eras, where teshuva is required, it is clear that at a certain point he recognized that the level of suffering was way beyond that which could be explained by seeing it as a mere extension of earlier tragedies. The rebbe no longer suggested that those who were listening to him could change things by returning to God. Instead, he tried to figure out how a believer should view this sui generis experience. While unfortunately certain academic scholars have used this change to suggest that the rebbe (God forbid) lost his faith, Abramson shows the absurdity of such a claim (Rieser does this as well in the first volume of his work). He makes a conclusive case that while the rebbe struggled to make sense of the atrocities that the Jewish people were suffering, he remained what he had always been, a person with deep and enduring faith.

Dr. Abramson has written a book which is destined to lead to an increase of study of the rebbe’s Torah and thought in both the academic and Jewish world. His is a work which while maintaining high academic standards and containing ideas which will advance the field, is at once also accessible to the non-scholar, and written in an engaging and compelling manner. Especially for the reader who is looking for a work which contains both Torah and Avodas HaShem, along with serious scholarship, I can’t recommend this incredible book strongly enough.

Dr. Abramson will have a book launch for Torah From The Years of Wrath this Monday, October 30th at Touro College in Brooklyn. For more information, please click here.

On Being Godly- God's place in the life of an Orthodox Jew

It happened a number of times. I started to think about writing what I’m about to write, and then I decided not to. I wasn’t sure if this was a topic which I could address in a thoughtful, meaningful, and nuanced manner. Each time however, something occurred which convinced me that I had to write it. Yesterday, after this pattern was completed for a third time, I decided that I had no choice but to try. I am not sure if I will be fully successful in trying to express what I want to say. At the very least, I hope I will spur a larger discussion.

The Orthodox world has a God problem.

Well, not exactly a God problem, as much as a language of God problem, or maybe a comfort with discussing God problem. Many of us, including our rabbis and teachers can easily discuss halacha and mitzvos, but somehow few attempt to discuss the encounter with God, in general, and their personal encounter with God, in particular.

Recently, a virtual friend bemoaned the fact that he could not hear a certain theologian who defines himself as halachic egalitarian in my friend’s own Orthodox shul. In the subsequent discussion I wondered aloud (assuming one can do that in a comment on FB) whether the problem was larger than whether this theologian, who I admire greatly, could speak in an Orthodox shul. Perhaps, I suggested, a big part of the problem is that there is a dearth of Orthodox thinkers who are openly willing to explore their faith in an open manner, and the fact that we need to look outside of our community to find those who are willing.

I would never question the value of learning and observing halacha. I strongly believe that halacha helps us encounter God in an embodied manner in all areas of our life. Still, I do wonder whether the fact that halacha plays such a large role in our lives, leads to the possible outcome that we get stuck in the details of the act, and lose the ability to feel, think about, and discuss the encounter with God which lays behind and within halacha itself.

More recently, while driving, I listened to a podcast where my friend and colleague Rabbi Joshua Bolton, a Reconstructionist rabbi, who works with students at the University of Pennsylvania, described his religious experience, including his encounter with God. It was profound, holy, and powerful. It shook me to my core. Part of what bothered me was that I couldn’t think of the last time I heard an Orthodox rabbi talk so openly about what it means to believe. Somewhere in the back of my head I wondered how many rabbis could find the words to discuss it. At first I pushed off this thought by thinking that talking about God is not an Orthodox activity. Immediately, I thought about things I’ve read from Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, Rav Amital, the Piaseczna Rebbe, and Hillel Zeitlin where they discuss their encounter with God. My next question was, why is this not happening (more often?) in the Orthodox world?

I get it. Not everyone is going to encounter God in the same way. Heck, when I listen to Rav Herschel Schachter address an obscure halachic topic for an hour, it is a deeply religious experience, even as I can’t fully explain why. Still, when was the last time you heard a rosh yeshiva or shul rabbi explain what they experience when they learn a Ketzos or a Rav Chaim? I can’t help but wonder whether part of the discomfort that many Jews express about the lack of meaningfulness of tefillah (see this recent study for an example) comes from the fact that past a fairly young age, nobody talks about God anymore.

The final straw which convinced me to write this, came yesterday. This time, it was listening to Christian pastor Eugene Peterson address his religious experience on the NPR show On Being, a show which explores what it means to be human. I listened to him explain what he gets from reading the Book of Psalms. I heard him talk about how the experience of anger and frailty fits into his encounters with God. His experience was not my experience. In fact, his approach to religion, as well as his translation of the bible, do not fully resonate with me. Still, for 50 minutes I was enrapt. When the show was over I found myself wondering about which rabbis or teachers could so openly, comfortably, and compellingly discuss what they mean when they talk about God, and what they experience when they read Tehillim, forget something due to old age, or look in a baby’s eyes.

We are religious. We are observant. We learn Torah. We do mitzvos. Where in all of that, and in the world around us and inside of us do we find God?

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Bnei Machashava Tova- My aspirations to grow with the help of others

What can I say? I’m not a Litvak. Each year, when I come to Shabbos Shuva, having left Rosh Hashana and on my way towards Yom Kippur, I have no interest in a Shabbos Shuva derasha which explores the intricacies of Migo for 58 minutes, with a two minute reminder that essentially says “Oh yeah, don’t forget do teshuva” (I say this not criticize anyone's approach, but merely to point out what doesn’t work for me). Alas, I have made my home in Passaic rather than Mezeritch, so that chassidic derashos about teshuva and our relationship with HaKadosh Baruch Hu are not to be found. It has been many years since I last attended a Shabbos Shuva derasha.

This past Shabbos, a friend from a different shul mentioned that he would be going to hear Rabbis X’s derasha, as he thought it would be more inspiring. As I thought about what he said, it occurred to me that what I was missing was not just a live version of what I could get in the Piaseczna Rebbe’s Derech HaMelech, but even more so, is a live version of what I have found in his Bnei Machashava Tova, which I recently completed for the second time.

Each time I go through a small portion of the sefer which was written to create small groups of chassidim who work together to become truer Ovdei HaShem, I am left with mixed emotions; joy and inspiration at the ideas he writes about, mix with feelings of sadness as I can only imagine what being part of such a group would be like. To cite one example, his descriptions of Shaleseudos leaves me yearning for an environment where the singing and camaraderie would truly be m’ein olam haba.

None of this is to suggest, God forbid, that I am not surrounded by those who aspire to greatness in their Avodas HaShem. I am fortunate to live in a community which has many Bnei Torah. At the same time, I’ve reached a point in my life where my soul yearns for a different kind of nourishment. While I’m fortunate to have a chavrusa with whom I learn Hachsharas HaAvreichim, which is a high point of my week, and to have friends in real life, as well as online who are into chassidus, most of the time I am left with the feeling of something akin to parallel play, like what young children do when they play next to each other, but not with each other, as each of us tries to grow in his own way.

Of course, part of my struggle comes from my own weakness. I am simply not capable of becoming who I want to be by myself. I want to learn together with others, aspire together with others, and grow together with others. I picture myself as part of a group of like-minded individuals with whom I could try and put the Piaseczna’s holy words into practice, meeting each week to learn, sing, and talk of holy things.

That’s what I realized this past Shabbos. Not only do I wish I could have been present for the Rebbe’s teshuva derasha from 1930, but that afterwards, my friends and I could have gotten together to talk of what we learned and how, together, we could take steps towards living it.

Letting Go- On teshuva, religious experience, and the intellect

When I think about what I’m experiencing, I am scared. I feel myself changing, and that leaves me feeling vulnerable. I also find myself questioning the change and my motives. Is this real? Am I fooling myself? If I really change, what else goes along with it?

For a while, I’ve associated teshuva with brokenness, and gravitated to Torah where brokenness and even darkness could be found either explicitly or implicitly. Rebbe Nachman and Rav Shagar spoke to me, while other more optimistic approaches like that of Rav Kook did not. The reasons for my preference were not hard to understand. In the battle between my father’s pessimism and cynicism, and my mother’s ever hopeful optimism, life had mostly pushed me towards the former. I struggled to not fall into skepticism, or even worse, cynicism. Little by little, I tried to stop dreaming dreams, fearing getting hurt once again, if like Charlie Brown I convinced myself that this time I’d succeed at kicking the football.

I can’t put my finger on why things changed this year, but somehow the dark shadows receded, and I found myself connecting to Rav Kook’s Torah. I felt hopeful, and started believing that I could really change in a way I’d long thought impossible. Still, I struggled to just go with it. The fears of what this change would mean to me and those around me, and whether what I was experiencing was real, attacked me, refusing to let me go without a fight. I felt like a faker, pretending to be what I am not. A friend’s recommendation to take things a day at a time rather than worrying about the future helped, but only partially. Then I learned a section in the Piaseczna Rebbe’s Derech Hamelech this past Shabbos which I think might allow me to take a big step.

In the ninth perek of Derech Hamelech, the Rebbe gives strategies for working on Avodas HaShem. As with other places in his writings, he touches on the power of the imagination and how it can put you deeper in an experience than merely thinking about it intellectually. At one point he suggests a partial way to attack thoughts and feelings coming from the yetzer hara. Essentially, he suggests intellectualizing the experience. By looking at the thought and questioning where it comes from, the power of the feeling dissipates, as you stop experiencing it, and switch to thinking about it. In discussing this with my chavrusa, I recognized that this is the opposite of what the Rebbe suggests with davening, where he warns against intellectual thoughts and assessing whether davening is going well, as this prevents being in the tefillah.

Here, in the moment where an optimistic and hopeful teshuva feels possible, and my connection to God real,  intellectual scrutiny will be destructive. Putting these experiences under the microscope will dry them up, sapping them of their power and vitality. For now, I will simply be in my experience of teshuva, and not worry about ramifications, authenticity, or what comes next.