From my heart to my mind to your mind to your heart. Lest G-d forbid it stay in the mind, added to the huge pile of ideas heard and learned but not ever known.
We are in the midst of the counting of the omer, the period between Passover and Shavuot. Passover, and the commandment to remember the leaving of Egypt every day, the awareness that, at the root, no matter if we know it or not, we are free. Though we are bound to the raw materials with which we were born, these raw materials do not have a specific bent to them. Nothing we were born with is "bad" - it is only raw. So remembering every day that we are free, that we can change to the deepest level, that it is not too late, we are not too old. We are free, but still perhaps wandering until the Conductor gives us our roles in the Torah.
Everyone knows that on the second day of Passover we bring the barley- offering. This is considered animal food. On Shavuot we bring leavened loaves of wheat-bread. People food. One way to look at the progression from animal to person is the journey from our actions being unconscious to being conscious. Even learning Torah can be animalistic if it happens in a way that is not conscious. And, of course, the most animal of actions can be so human with the light of consciousness.
The omer offers us a way to bring our unconscious actions to the surface - by isolating portions of our personality. If I am feeling like my guitar playing is too rhetorical and unconscious, the best way to change it might be to suggest I notice how I am holding the thumb of my left hand, or how I am using my eyes while playing. I cannot be conscious of the entirety of my personality, but I can be extremely conscious of any one aspect of myself. With forced consciousness of, say typing, the line between conscious and unconscious almost disintegrates. Rashi tells us on the verse in this week's parsha "and I will visit upon you… michalot einayim," that "the eyes expect and long for healing to come, and it does not come. Everything which is desired but does not come is called michalot einayim." In many ways, the trodden hope that healing would come was is more painful than the illness. I was surprised and pleased to discover something unconscious that I was holding on to which was keeping me down. I went to Meron on Lag B'Omer to be by the grave of the tzaddik, R' Shimon Bar Yochai. I came away the next day disappointed. Upon further introspection, I discovered that my fantasy about what would happen there was that I would be completely and immediately transformed, and see Hashem in everyone (healing would come). It didn't happen, so I walked away disappointed, not even noticing the small victories and moments that had touched me there. I realized it is important for me to notice before-hand what I am expecting out of a situation, because in many ways I have an animal response of trying to live out certain myths still left from early childhood, or Hollywood, or wherever.
There is so much inside of us which makes us disappoint ourselves. Most importantly is a lack of self-awareness. We may find ourselves secretly longing to be like this person or that person. Without being aware of that desire, we constantly disappoint ourselves, without ever really knowing why. This is a time to really search out the parts of ourselves a bit at a time. And the means is provided by the omer which asks us to break ourselves down (like the incense, to be ground up finely) a bit at a time, in the small places, where the power of darkness does not reign). When we are fully conscious, we will be able to receive Instruction without the friction of unknown desires and blocks, and we may all merit to serve Hashem to the deepest extent of our abilities.
Rav Gavriel Goldfeder
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Rav Gavriel Goldfeder is one of the first semicha recipients of the yeshiva. A graduate of Drew University in Religious Studies, he came to Bat Ayin after stints in other yeshivot and found a spiritual and intellectual home. Here he met his wife, Ketriellah, who was a student in our short-lived Women's Yeshiva. Upon graduation, Gavriel took the position of rabbi of the Aish Kodesh Congregation in Boulder, Colorado and together with Ketriellah and their growing family, they are busy creating (in Gavriel's words), "a community infused with Torah values, passion for learning and prayer, consideration of one another, and action, as well as deep celebration of the joys of life." |