An Existential Dilemma?

Shabbat Table Talk from the desk of Rabbi Alexander Seinfeld

Oct 11-12, 2024 • 10 Tishrei 5785 • Yom Kippur.
In memory of Binyomin ben Shneur Zalman z''l who left us just before RH and whose funeral was this week.

Once upon a time, I opened a checking account in Israel.

The banker explained that I was allowed to write the date using either the Gregorian or Hebrew calendar.

I thought that was so cool. 

And you know what would have been even cooler? If writing the Hebrew date had been the only option.

I wondered why Israelis — who do all speak Hebrew last I checked – would not want to use the Hebrew calendar?

Fast forward a few decades to October 7, 2024. 

Should we memorialize the massacre on its Gregorian date or on its Hebrew date (Simchat Torah), which this year will be on October 25?

Question for your pre- or post-Yom Kippur meal: What do you think?

We're only one year in, and this question has already cracked the unity as some indeed observed our new memorial day this week on October 7 while others are waiting for Simchat Torah, while still others are going to wait until after Simchat Torah so as not to mar the holiday...??

Is there any room for compromise here?

Is this fracture perhaps related to the ultimate Jewish Question?

Question 2 for your table: Are you a "Jewish American" or an "American Jew"?

(Jewish Canadian/Canadian Jew, Jewish Israeli/Israeli Jew, etc.)

Follow-up question: Would you have answered that question differently prior to October 7, 2023? 

Follow-up question to the follow-up question: Could someone who holds the latter view be elected to public office?

I received a phone call this week from a very Jewish, very American young woman who told me that she feels very stuck in a rut. "When I was eighteen, I was so driven, so happy, and for the past number of years I've been so unmotivated and so unhappy."

Besides therapy, what would you advise her?

It seems to me she's very fortunate. Because she has a vision of the kind of person she wants to become, of herself in a better place. That means she just needs some tools for returning to that self.

But what if someone can't remember not being the way they are? Not being angry, not being critical, not being impatient, not being lazy, or whatever the issue may be? What if they don't have model eighteen-year-old self to return to?

It seems to me that the answer is simple: go farther back. 

Even if you have to go all the way back to your birth day. 

A newborn baby is not angry, nor critical, nor impatient, nor lazy. Contrary to popular mythology, a newborn is completely innocent. 

You were indeed that innocent once upon a time. All that bad stuff that you want to shed, that's all learned layers that can be peeled off.

Picturing yourself as innocent and vulnerable as a newborn baby, that's Rosh Hashanah. 

Peeling off layers of negativity, that's Yom Kippur.

How will you know if you succeed?

You're successful if you can get along cheerily with someone who thinks different from you about the October 7-Simchat Torah question, or who plans to vote differently than you. Or who has a different definition of "genocide" than you. 

It's a high bar, but our our 2024 Yom Kippur Kit can help you get there. If you'd like a copy, reply to this email.

Wishing you an successful/uplifting Day of Atonements,

    an easy fast, 

and may you and yours, and Am Yisroel, and the world be sealed in the Book of life, peace, good health, happiness, holiness, and wisdom,

 

Shabbat Shalom 

and 

Happy Yom Kippur

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