From the Rabbi's Study
The Jewish Year — A Wholistic View
Rabbi Elizabeth Bolton
October 2002

The Jewish year cycle can be understood as an object lesson in extremes, at least at the beginning of the calendar year.

We start in joy, celebrating a new year and wishes for sweetness, but shaded in the colors of teshuvah throughout the days of repentance. Ten days later, we are at our most abject, fasting and praying through an evening, morning and afternoon.

A mere four days after breaking the fast, we're eating a celebratory meal, a key phrase for the holiday of Sukkot translating as: be happy with your holiday, be completely joyous! This first of the three festivals ends, as they all do, with a yizkor service, which draws us back not just to our memories of lost loved ones, but the recent experience of yizkor on Yom Kippur. But it also concludes with Simhat Torah, where we explode in a frenzy of dance and song and abandon.

One could easily suffer from spiritual whiplash in the Jewish month of Tishrey.

Because then what follows is ……. nothing! A month of NO holidays. Not even a minor fast day, a specific megillah, or tractate, or theme. Heshvan. MarHeshvan, as the rabbis dubbed it, bitter month.

Actually, it seems not bitter or sad to me, but rather wise, because we actually do have something to look forward to in the regular Torah cycle. It's that perpetual opportunity to see ourselves, our ancestors, our community our family, our values in Torah, that which we have carried and venerated in our sanctuary through that fall festival cycle.

Our regular engagement with Torah is what makes us a kehillah kadosh¸ a holy community. And I've seen plenty of evidence of this recently, via three recent sets of email conversations amongst members, which were shared with me. I'll describe them in very general terms:

Email exchange #1 was brief. The context was a Kesher school assignment, and the question was about the nature of the book one member had at home, if it was the "right" one in which to find a particular Torah story. The exchange clarified the distinction between TaNaKh [the collection that encompasses the Five Books of Moses, the Prophets, and all of the Megillot and other Writings], Torah "the scroll" and its contents, the aforementioned Five Books.
Email exchange #2 included setting the time for a particular act of gemilut hesed, most often translated as loving kindness and usually referring to acts of compassion and generosity of self.

Email #3 was actually a message from one member to a group of others, expressing thanks for organizational work well done.

These three exchanges really struck me as complete, and completely exquisite, expressions of who we are and what we do best.

Learning, supporting, making things happen AND expressing appreciation -- all within a cycle that is anchored by Torah and sails through the months with stories, festivals, and opportunities for study, support and growth. How much can be experienced, and accomplished, in a year cycle under those headings!

So while we all take a bit of a "breather" this month of no-holidays, don't wait too long to (re)commit yourself to learn, support, explore, offer, pray, sing, dance, donate, repair, play, request, be open, be here. It's "just" regular time now, but there is so much to be gleaned, and experienced together. I look forward to sharing another calendar year with you.

A post-script about our "other" civilization: The best way I can think of to appropriately acknowledge the political climate we are in, is to pass on this bit of encouragement to voice your opinion with regard to the move towards military action by the US towards Iraq. Here is some contact information:

- President George W. Bush (202) 456-1111 [9am-5pm EST] president@whitehouse.gov
- Sen. Paul Sarbanes (410) 962-4436 or (202) 224-4524 senator@sarbanes.senate.gov
- Sen. Barbara Mikulski (410) 962-4510 or (202) 224-4654 senator@mikulski.senate.gov