This essay was originally published before blogging existed or almost anyone had ever heard of the Internet. It was the first installment in what was a regular column called “On the Road… Back” in what turned out to be a short-lived weekly newspaper called the New Jersey Jewish Post. This column was entitled, “Home For The Holidays.”

And, please be kind. I was… very young, even for me: The date of this column is September 5, 1988.

As summer ebbs and the nights turn cool and crisp, Jewish families share many of the same concerns as other families. Children return to school, or, in the case of older children, head off — maybe for that first exciting time — to college. Jewish families, though, also think of this time of year as heralding the approach of “the Holidays,” which usually entails a pause in the back-to-school routine and, in the case of young people going out-of-town, an all-too-brief (for the parents, anyway!) return home to celebrate the High Holidays together.

It was around this time of year that my parents had sent me, their oldest, off to college, and the excitement was palpable for all of us. Though the school was only perhaps 15 miles from my parents’ home, it could have been a thousand. I was living on my own for the first time, and thrown into an environment — an entire world — for which nothing in my previous eighteen years could have prepared me.

My college was not the kind of place you send your child if broadening his Jewish horizons is foremost in your mind. The school’s reputation for academic distinction was second only to its renown as a bastion of “WASP elitism,” and much of the allure of it was the stamp of approval it provided for upward mobility in non-Jewish society — a guarantee of future “success.” Nonetheless, my parents, who had always endeavored to provide my brother and me with a strong “Jewish identity,” were concerned that we should have Jewish friends at college and hoped especially for a Jewish roommate. Imagine my surprise — and their wary amazement — upon learning that my roommate in this Ivy League citadel was an orthodox boy, also from New Jersey, who kept Shabbat and Kashrut and attended the on-campus minyan hours before I would even begin to stir from my bed.

I had never really known an orthodox person before, and it would be a mistake to say we hit it right off. He was somewhat aloof — maybe a little “yeshivish” I thought— and I was something of a rock-and-roller. (We would later become good friends and lived together for two more years.) In a matter of weeks, though, my eyes were opened to how a person — let’s call him Moshe — lived a distinctive and proud Jewish life in the very heart of assimilation. My growing respect for him wasn’t hurt by the fact that he was extraordinarily bright, from the top of his yeshiva high school class, with a very strong science background and near-perfect board scores. Surely this was not a throwback to the Dark Ages as I had expected!

As the Yomim Tovim rolled around, I asked my roommate if he was going to go home for the “High Holidays,” as I was. He answered me with a remark which never left me, but which took me years and years to begin to understand. “High Holidays?” he asked. In a patient, earnest way, he said, “Actually, there isn’t really any day that’s ‘holier’ than Shabbat.”

I was completely taken aback. I had just never thought of Shabbat that way. Shabbat was not part of my life. Saturday was the day we went down to the stadium and watched the Big Game against Yale. But planted in my head throughout that Yom Tov season was this idea of having a “holy day” every week.

Years later, when I was studying in yeshiva myself — partly as a result of the “consciousness-raising” I experienced from three years with Moshe — I would finally taste Shabbat and learn what it meant for a day to be “holy.” Once a week I put on my best clothes, shine my shoes, dine festively, sing my heart out, pray and hear the Torah read in synagogue. Even more than the way I left college behind when I came “home for holidays,” I leave the material world behind without even “going” anywhere.

And yet paradoxically, the Yomim Tovim did not lose significance when I made Shabbat part of my life. Rosh Hashana was not diminished by losing its status as the prime “Jewish time of the year,” even though it now had to share its status as “the holidays,” not only with my old friend Yom Kippur, but also with Sukkot, Shemini Atzeret, and Simchat Torah. On the contrary, consciousness of the Jewish year — of the cycles starting with daily prayers, to the Shabbat-centered week, to the celebration of Rosh Chodesh every month, and even beyond years to shmitta years and the like — enhanced my appreciation of the festivals. And by hooking up with my heritage, I learned that “time” is not only in the future but has preceded me as well.

Now, rather than a short detour back on the trip away from my Jewish home, on the way to the seductive world of assimilation, the Yomim Tovim are an annual celebration that take place among the constant affirmations of what it means to be a Jew. Celebrating the festivals is no longer an incongruity for me but the logical culmination of day-to-day Jewish life. Only a couple of months into college, I’d learned more than many of us would take away even after four years, though it would take me that much time to realize what Moshe had been saying on that bright autumn day.

While Rosh Hashanah is focused on G-d’s existence, authority and supervision of the world, Yom Kippur is focused on our role in G-d’s plan for the perfection of humanity.

We’re created half-spiritual and half-physical with a strong ego, so we’re conflicted between doing what is good (spiritual) and what feels (physical) or looks good (ego).

Judaism does not deny us physical or accomplishment pleasures, rather we’re instructed to make these pleasures secondary to a focus on becoming giving, emotionally mature, G-d aware individuals.

However, because the ego and body drives are so strong, we make mistakes and instead of driving towards the long-lasting perfection of our spirit, we pursue short-lasting and often self-destructive physical and ego satisfaction pleasures.

G-d expects that we’ll make mistakes and He gives us the means to self-correct and erase the negative effects of our mistakes on the day of Yom Kippur. In fact Yom Kippur is considered a joyful day and we eat a festive meal before the day begins and one after the fast ends.

To assist us in our self-correction, G-d instructs us to refrain from physical pleasures like eating, bathing and intimate relations and we focus on the greatness of G-d and put our egos on the shelf for a day.

Eliminating our physical and self-centered pleasures gives us the opportunity to introspect, admit and express regret over our limiting self-destructive actions and negative character traits. When accompanied by sincere intent to improve, G-d assists in removing the effects of our mistakes and allocates the resources we need to become the better people we want to be.

May we be successful in using this awesome day to set ourselves on the path of actualizing the greatness each of us possesses.

Only when I began to study Paradise Lost, John Milton’s epic re-writing of Genesis, did it to occur to me that being religious was not a sign of neurosis or flaky otherworldliness. In graduate school at Oxford and later at Columbia, for me and many of my fellow Jewish students, Milton was a safe way, without the risk of embarrassment, of experiencing the poetry of a religious sensibility. In earnest discussions of Christian redemptive history, the relationship between free will and divine providence, I lived, through Milton, the possibility of religious engagement.

I may have been able to suspend my disbelief about Christian theology, but when it came to the Jewish High Holidays, I preferred going to the West End Bar on Broadway to returning to my parents’ Long Island Temple. If I were lucky, the assistant rabbi would give a sermon resonating with my graduate school politics. But the public spectacle of repentance, the responsive reading, the instructions – ‘please rise,’ ‘be seated,’ ‘turn to page 374’ – was distant from the inner voice I had been cultivating through reading Shakespeare, Donne and Keats. Turning worship into political activism may have satisfied my social conscience, but it made repentance into something external, a way to avoid myself.

For us, today, the question of repentance, of teshuva or literally ‘return’ to a more authentic self, unblemished by past habits and misdeeds, may be even more vexed. Our knowledge of the complexities of psychic history – of transgressions, dysfunction caused by trauma, and obstinate devotion to self-destructive behavior – may make repentance seem an unrealizable fantasy. Further, an enlightened conception of the self as creative, not merely passive, makes us skeptical about miraculous atonement activated through divine intervention.

Yet the Talmudic sage, Reish Lakish, says:

Great is teshuva, for deliberate transgressions are accounted meritorious deeds; as the Prophet Ezekiel says, ‘when the wicked man shall turn from his wickedness and do that which is lawful and right – through them he shall live.’

Through them – transgressions – ‘he shall live’? To understand the paradoxical words of the sage – for me, it was a matter of granting him as much credit as I did Milton – requires a different suspension of disbelief, starting with a notion of time.

For Shakespeare’s Macbeth, there is only the ‘tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow’ of successive moments leading the ‘way to dusty death.’ Macbeth’s time is now popularized on t-shirts, in paraphrase, ‘stuff happens.’ Teshuva, however, is based upon a different sense of time, and the High Holidays, starting with the New Year, Rosh Hashanah, challenge us to see our histories – as a people and as individuals – in the shape of coherent stories. In the cosmic history described in the Rosh Hashanah service, the sounding of the shofar marks the beginning and ending of Jewish history, as well as the significant middle. Heard through the Rosh Hashanah prayers, the shofar-blasts resonate with the first breath inspirited by God into man at the Creation, the sounds of the shofar on Mount Sinai, and the shofar-blast that marks the end of time. Through this story, the present is no longer merely part of a chain of unrelated moments – ‘tomorrow and tomorrow’ – but infused with the knowledge of the future when the shofar announces the redemption of humanity.

This consciousness of time makes repentance on Yom Kippur possible. Not only does the nation have a sense of an ideal future, so too does every person – in which time-future connects back with time-present as well as time-past. Through the retrospective glance of repentance, past history – now not just neurotic obsessions weighing down the self – can be redeemed. But teshuva is not a divine fiat, nor a human one. For repentance is creative, an active process of integration, bringing together the diverse parts of the self.

So important is repentance, the Talmudic sages say, that God created teshuva before Creation, allowing for the unconventional story-telling that undoes normal cause and effect. Past actions do not bring about future events, but the ideal of an unrealized future re-creates the past so that a different outcome is possible. But though I may regret past deeds, indeed, in some cases must, I also acknowledge that I am who I am now because of who I once was. My imagined future was generated by my desires and, this is the sage’s insight, even my transgressions.

Atonement may be a divine gift, but one requiring the courage to acknowledge that the past, no matter how seemingly recalcitrant – no matter how ‘damaged’ I may feel – is mine to transform. The repentance that is transformative is an ‘act of love’ for only by accepting the self, however daunting a prospect that may be, are transgressions turned into a source of life. When repentance comes out of fear of punishment, and the past is merely renounced, transgressions are made null, but the self remains unchanged. But repentance based upon love works because intentions and actions, never simple, are open to reframing. The story I tell now reveals that the past about which I feel regret, perhaps even shame, is not only consistent with, but propels me towards a future I had not yet imagined.

‘No one,’ the psychoanalyst Adam Phillips writes, ‘can be better at living your life than you.’ But we find excuses in the personae we adopt – sometimes our public political and even religious commitments – to avoid who we are, and who we want to be. Repentance neither means neurotic fixation on past failure nor avoidance of aspects of ourselves we prefer to ignore. Nor does it mean believing in external rituals that guarantee purification.

Teshuva does mean a commitment to living our lives, and a faith that the stories we tell can give both past and present a new voice. Not a vicarious engagement, teshuva permits cultivating the poetry of a personal religious sensibility – starting with our own rewriting of beginnings (finding signs of life in transgression, trauma and loss), continuing in the reinvention of the present, and opening, finally, to the possibility of a different future.

Originally posted on Aish.Com

Sometimes you hear something short and to the point and it motivates you. My daughter sent me an email with the following short moshel:

There are a group of boys playing in the street. A bus pulls up and stops. The bus driver honks his horn because he needs to get through. The boys don’t flinch. They continue playing ball as if the bus doesn’t even exist. The bus driver honks again. The boys look up and, almost in unison, shout “We heard you!”. The bus driver replies “It’s not enough to hear me, you also have to move.”

It’s not enough to hear great and inspiring droshas and profound insights. You also have to move. Take a step, a small step. Get moving.

Share a SHORT insight or story for YK in the comments. G’mar Tov.

One Yom Kippur, in his drashah right before the Neilah prayer, our rav gave a short but powerful speech. He started off with a tragic narrative of a family that lo aleinu lost a child in a fire. Then he spoke about “taking back last year’s Neilah.” If someone had been through a painful year, he/she might wish with all of his/her heart the power to take back last year’s Neilah and really daven with extra special kavanah, The rav said, “Next year we might regret doing only lip service for this year’s Neilah. So make this year’s Neilah really count. Daven with extra kavanah so that next year you won’t want to take back this year’s Neilah.”

I have tremendous respect for my shul’s Rav, a brilliant man, totally frum Jew and eloquent speaker. Yet I find the concept of “taking back last year’s Neilah” more than a little bit chilling.

I haven’t read Joan Didion’s memoir, The Year of Magical Thinking, about the horrible year when she lost her husband (and later her only child). From the reviews and comments that I have read, magical thinking or wishful thinking is a kind of self-delusion that one somehow has the power to influence events through unconnected actions, sort of along the line of, “If I wear my Jets jersey to every home game, the Jets will win the Super Bowl,” or more importantly, “If I pray and give charity, then my close relative will recover from his/her terminal illness.”

Of course, an Orthodox Jew does engage in some of this thinking, it’s part of our Emunah. We’ve all heard the saying, “Tzedakah tatzil Maves,” charity saves from death; also the famous line from the Yoraim Noraim tefillos about how “Teshuva, Tefillah, Tzedakah” can cancel the evil decrees against us. But as a noted rebbetzin once said, “G-d is not a waiter to whom we can give orders.” A beloved rabbi, the rebbetzin’s husband, was diagnosed with advanced stomach cancer. Despite the outpouring of sincere prayers and tzedakah given on his behalf, the rabbi was niftar only weeks later. Should that shake our Emunah? We continue to pray and give charity when someone is ill, but don’t we already realize that sometimes we will not get the answer we want?

There is a story in the Agadita of the Gemara of two men who were about to die by hanging. (Sorry, I don’t remember the masechta and daf: if someone else can supply it, I would be grateful). Both men, about to die, offered up a prayer. One man’s prayer was granted (the rope snapped and he was saved) and the other man died. There is a machlokes as to whether the man who died offered up a “sincere” prayer, but then what is a “sincere” prayer? The Gemara seems to indicate that the man who lived had true Bitachon that his prayer would be successful. That only leads to more questions – the man who died lacked Bitachon? What does “faith in Gd” and “trust in Gd” really mean, especially to someone facing illness or death? Does he really need to believe that everything will be turn out to be Bseder and OK and wonderful?

I find the concept of “taking back last year’s Neilah” ironic because bli ayin harah, I had a very good year this past year 5770 in many important ways, yet I don’t remember having davened such a special Neilah last Yom Kippur. Maybe I should say to Gd, in a more august and respectful manner of course, “Let’s have another one just like the other one,” if only I knew how. Then those of you who had sadly not such a great past year might protest, “I davened such a meaningful Neilah last year, why did G-d give me those painful difficulties in 5770?”

In reality, there is no way to “take back last year’s Neilah,” any more than we can take back a car accident or stop a disastrous past choice. Perhaps the Rav was referring to having foresight almost as keen as our 20/20 hindsight, to be able to daven this year’s Neilah with as much Kavanah as if we really did (and do) have the power to prevent bad things from happening in our lives.

I think this is one of the most important articles to read in preparation for Rosh Hashana: Why Judgement – By Rabbi Noson Weisz

An excerpt:

INVESTMENTS VERSUS REWARDS

The very first point that must be emphasized is that contrary to popular belief, Rosh Hashana is not about reward and punishment. The Talmud informs us that mitzvot cannot be rewarded in this world (Kiddushin 39b). The commentators explain that the physical world simply does not have the resources to deliver the amount of joy required to compensate the performance of even a single Mitzvah.

Only people who do not have the merit to make it to the World to Come are written into the Book of Life to compensate them for their past good deeds; we certainly hope that none of us are in this position, The conclusion: when we stand before God and pray for a good life in the coming year, we are not asking Him to provide it fo rus as a reward.

But if the judgment we face on Rosh Hashana does not concern reward, what exactly is being weighed? According to Rabbi Dessler, the model we should study as an aid to understanding the deliberations of the Heavenly Court on Rosh Hashana is an economic investment model; the judgments of Rosh Hashana are the heavenly equivalents of earthly investment policy decisions. On Rosh Hashana it is decided how much Divine energy God will invest in the world in general and in our own lives in particular in the course of the coming year.

Please read the whole thing.

As a sometime contributor to BeyondBT, I’ll let you in on a little secret. From time to time the administrators send out emails with suggestions for written submissions. Usually these suggestions are great springboards for someone with the patience and time to write to actually come up with something meaning, relative, and thought-provoking. And then, there’s me.

I got my email from them August 10th. This week, during a casual email exchange with one the administrators very sweetly asked for a submission. The first thought that I had was basically that I have nothing to say. This is what I’ve been thinking most of Elul. I’ve attempted to become more serious about davening (read: take time to think about what I’m saying in the siddur) of the past few weeks. I’ve checked my “cheshbon hanefesh” (spiritual accounting) that I keep on a daily basis to see what areas I’ve excelled in over the past year and what area I need improvement in. I’ve been to the gravesite of a grand-child of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter and said Tehillim. I’ve given tzedaka to organizations. I’ve got my volumes of Strive for Truth by Rav Dessler and the Rambam’s Hilchos Teshuva all marked at the passages de jour. I have even have committed to 10 minutes of daily hisbodedus (speaking directly and informally with Hashem).

Without try to sound to pretentious, can it be that even with all that I think I’m doing to prepare for the Yom HaDin, I still feel like I have nothing to say? Probably, but I can only say this because I’ve thought long and hard about it, even prior to writing this. What is there to say, when I know that very soon I’m going to be having a one-on-one with the Rabbono Shel Olam (Master of the World) and I know that I didn’t do my best this year. There are times when you get caught by the principal or your supervisor at work and you just simply have “nothing to say”. Even saying that you were wrong and that you’re sorry doesn’t feel like it will make a difference.

To us, it might not make a difference. To Hashem, though, every step we take towards Kedusha (holiness) makes an incredible difference. That’s why we have Elul, the Ten days of Teshuva, and the concept that we not only return, but have an even closer active relationship with our Creator. I suppose that it’s not so much about Rosh Hashana approaching, as it might be about how I approach Rosh Hashana.

With all the new food recipes available for this Rosh Hashanah . . .
it might also be good to have a Recipe for a New Rosh this Rosh Hashanah, so . . .

For 5771 and going forward I will do my best to . . .

1) only think and say nice things about a fellow Jew
or say nothing and try to minimize any negative thoughts . . .

2) remember that only G-d knows our madragas (levels)
and observe that comparisons and judgments (uttered or not) on ritual observance, hecksherim (kosher supervision), and households goods, etc. are potentially harmful to everyone
. . . and may plant the seeds that foment baseless hatred . . .

3) look at the man in the mirror, and ask him to make a torahdich change . . . e.g. deter and avoid sessions of sanctimony with myself or fellow Jews

Preparation: initially slow cook for best results then simmer for a lifetime …

– David Lichtenthal

R’ Moshe Schwerd – Attaining Spiritual Purity on Yom Kippur and Shoes – mp3 can be downloaded here.

By “A Hopeful Mother”

Do you have a child who’s at risk, or maybe already gone off the derech? Well, I know how misery loves company, so I just wanted to share with you a shocking piece of news I heard… about someone (someone really big) who’s kids also went off the derech (don’t worry it’s not lashon hara, because a lot of people already know about it).

Are you ready?

Perhaps you already guessed… it’s Hashem. He has many, many children who went off the derech. And it’s a terrible source of anguish to Him.

I heard in the name of Rav Usher Freund ztz’l that we have to join our pain to His pain. We need to feel bad that Hashem is in pain. It hurts Him more than it hurts us that His children are lost and far from the truth.

“Anyone who prays for his fellow man when he is in need of the same thing is answered first.” Let’s daven – even beg – to Hashem to show His (and our) children the way back… for His sake… not because of shidduchim, seminaries, what will the neighbors think… but because as much as it hurts us it hurts Him much, much more.

by Rabbi Mordechai Rhine

The day preceding Yom Kippur is an anomaly on the Jewish Calendar. Although Yom Kippur is a solemn day, the day before it is a day of semi-celebration. We do not recite tachanun; it is a mitzvah to eat and drink. What is the significance of this day before Yom Kippur?

Some people will answer that the eating and drinking is simply a health precaution, preparing for the long fast of Yom Kippur. But as with all observance I believe there is a deeper message.

Not long ago, in a large city called Humanville, USA there was a terrible crisis. The largest company in the region, the employer of thousands of workers, was about to be closed down. Apparently their business had been run with enormous carelessness. Record keeping was seriously flawed. In fact, during a recent audit it was discovered that even the computer programs were messed up. In many cases assets were showing up as debts, while many debts were not being reported at all. Shareholders who heard the news were ready to sue. The Feds were appalled and threatened to close the company down. For over a month there were rumors that everyone would be getting a pink slip within days.

Suddenly there was hope. A certain expert, we’ll call him Mr. Fix It, called the CEO and offered to help. After checking Mr. Fix It’s credentials, the CEO decided that it was really worth a try. The CEO hired Mr. Fix It for an amazing 25 hours. The goal: To assess the problems, and to revamp the company.

Come join us as we eavesdrop on the CEO as he dictates a memo to the staff regarding the visit of Mr. Fix It.

“…all files are to be made available… all computers are to be at his disposal…staff shall be totally focused on ensuring that the consultation with Mr. Fix It is a productive one… There will be no cover-ups…all problems shall be identified and a recovery plan shall be put into place…”

The hope for recovery spread quickly. Although the staff knew that the consultation day would be a grueling one, they began to look forward to it because it provided a chance for salvation. The day before was celebrated in the cafeteria like a holiday. Hope for the company’s future, the city, and their jobs, had been rekindled.

The message of Yom Kippur is much the same. For a month now we were warned of a judgement day. Rosh Hashana came and we were judged. But we might not have fared as well as we had hoped. Perhaps our priorities were not found to be entirely in order. Sometimes we did mitzvos and then regretted them. Other times we considered our shortcomings as if they were assets. Our accounting books were a mess, and we feared that we might get closed down.

Suddenly a glimmer of hope appeared in the form of Yom Kippur. We are told that Hashem Himself is willing to do a Fix It type of review of our holdings. Aware that we are human beings with human failings, He is willing to give us another chance. During the 25 hour review nothing will be withheld. Infractions will be identified and a recovery plan put in place. Through our beloved machzor prayer-book we are confident that a full point checkup will be administered effectively.

The day of the review will be a challenging day. First the problems will be identified, and we will think that all is lost. Then Mr. Fix It will insist that there is hope, and He will propose a solution. We may be comfortable with the solution, or we will counterpropose one of our own. But if we cooperate with the review, we know that within 25 hours our company will be well on the way to recovery.

So as the day of review nears, hope fills the air. The day before Yom Kippur is a day of hope, a day of happiness. Eat, drink, and be ready, for tomorrow we will live.

Rabbi Mordechai Rhine, originally of Monsey, New York, is the Director of TEACH613, an organization which promotes Torah and Kiruv programming in the Cherry Hill/ Philadelphia area. He is the Rov of Young Israel of Cherry Hill, and the author of a popular book, “The Magic of Shabbos: A Journey Through the Shabbos Experience,” (Judaica Press, 1998). To invite Rabbi Rhine to speak in your community, please contact him at RMRhine@Teach613.org or 908-770-9072.

Rabbi Mordechai Rhine
Young Israel of Cherry Hill
www.teach613.org

Let’s Start at the Very Beginning…

Rabbi Yosef Albo in the Sefer Ha’Ikarim categorizes the Rambam’s 13 principles of Jewish belief into three:
(1) Hashem created the world
(2) Hashem gave us the Torah
(3) Hashem scrutinizes, punishes and rewards us for our deeds in this world and the next

The Sefer Ha’Ikarim says that on Rosh Hashanah, we strengthen our belief in these three tenets with:
(1) Malchiyos and its proclamation that Hashem is the King and Creator of the world
(2) Zichronos which says that Hashem knows all of our deeds and rewards or punishes accordingly
(3) Shofros and its affirmation of our belief in the Giving of the Torah

However, the primary theme of Rosh Hashanah is Malchiyos, and the focus on Hashem as creator, who created us for a purpose and gives us the tools and circumstances to accomplish our mission. Perhaps it’s a good time to commit ourselves to working on internalizing our intellectual awareness of Hashem through the learning of Mussar or Chassidus. This transformation of intellectual to heartfelt knowledge will help us keep focused on our purpose throughout the days of the year, and specifically when we’re involved in Torah, Tefillah and performing Mitzvos.

A Kesiva v’Chasima Tova to the entire Beyond BT community for making this the warm, supportive, growth oriented place that it is.

By Aryeh Taback

Rosh Hashona resolutions are not so much about changing what we do, as much as they are about changing who we are, and close to the core of who we are stand our middos. The word middos is often translated as “character traits” but a more literal meaning would be “measures”. Middos refer to the ingrained thresholds we all have in our character. In the area of gluttony, one person may be able to resist the double thick ice-cream sundae under almost all circumstances, whereas his friend may need little encouragement to wolf down three. For one person, laziness refers to the single day last year when he slept past six am, whereas for another, facing the world before ten is bordering on superhuman. These scales exist in all areas of our character; in some areas we may have low thresholds while in other measures we may have very high ones. The combination of all of these measurements is what makes up our unique middos constellation.

The Vilna Gaon writes: “All service of Hashem depends on the remedying of one’s middos …The primary reason for the existence of man is to be constantly exerting himself in the breaking of the middos. If he does not, why should he live?”

One of the great kabbalists, Rabbi Chaim Vital, states that not only is the improvement of ones middos of critical importance, but it is in fact more significant than the observance of the mitzvos. This does not meant that one can be lax in observing the mitzvos, but simply means that if one wishes to raise ones level of observance, more energy must go into repairing ones middos, because our middos are at the root of all of our mitzvah observance. Fixing a mitzvah without fixing the root middah is like cutting a weed without pulling up the root. At some stage the weed will again rear its ugly head.

Secular success literature has in recent years also moved in the direction of a deeper improvement of character rather than the “window dressing” of good manners. In one of the “bibles” of secular success literature, Steven Covey makes a distinction between what he calls a “personality ethic” and a “character ethic”, the latter being the preferred approach to a successful life. There is however a major difference between the secular approach and the Torah one, for the secular approach still sees the improvement of deep character as the means to an end, namely getting what you want out of life. Torah however views the improvement of character as an end in itself, and one of the major reasons we walk this earth. I quote Covey: “If I try use human influence strategies and tactics of how to get other people to do what I want, to work better, to be more motivated, to like me and each other — while my character is fundamentally flawed, marked by insincerity — then, in the long run, I cannot be successful. My duplicity will breed distrust and everything I do — even using so-called good human relations techniques — will be perceived as manipulative. It simply makes no difference how good the rhetoric is or even how good the intentions are; if there is little or no trust, there is no foundation for success. Only basic goodness gives life to technique. To focus on technique is like cramming your way through school…..”

A careful reading of his words reveals that fundamentally he does not disagree with the personality “quick-fix” approach, but simply sees that it will not always allow you to manipulate people and get what you want. Improving your character in his mind is simply a more effective method, like the crook who realizes that he must wear a suit and greet the guard if he wishes to be admitted into the bank he intends to rob.

But how does one go about changing or modifying a middah? One of the most important things to do is to first familiarize yourself with your unique “middos constellation”, the combination of thresholds that exist within you. Without knowing where your strong and weak points are, you cannot set out to improve them.

At the root of all middos improvement is one’s knowledge and awareness of the fact that a higher Power runs the world. A person who lives with an awareness of Hashem in his life is equipped to confront his ordeals and consequently shape and mold his middos.

For example, a person who struggles in the area of anger has just been told that his car was damaged and that he is not insured. His capacity to restrain himself and not vent his frustrations against the people around him is directly proportional to his awareness that Hashem is in control of his world. By wielding this tool, he extends his threshold and becomes a greater human being as a result. This is true with every middah, be it gluttony, arrogance, melancholia, anxiety or thriftiness. The more that we integrate the knowledge of Hashem into our lives the greater our chances are of standing up to our challenges and expanding our inner horizons. In truth, every struggle is actually a struggle of faith. The Orchos Tzaddikim, a classic work on the subject of Middos, sums this up in the following way:

“Any person who wishes to bring himself to fine middos, needs to blend Yiras Shomayim with every middah, for Yiras Shomayim is the knot which holds all the middos in place. This can be compared to a string which is threaded through the holes of pearls, and they tie a knot at the end to hold all the pearls. There is no doubt that if the knot unravels, all the pearls will fall. So to it is with Yirah; it maintains all the middos and if the knot of Yirah should unravel, all the fine middos will be separated from you. Moreover, when you do not have good middos, there is not in your hands Torah or Mitzvos, because the entire Torah hinges on remedying ones middos.”

May we all merit to a Shanah Tova filled with personal growth.