This past Sunday, we celebrated Rosh Chodesh Elul.
For those of you who don’t know, this is the final month of the Jewish calendar, and Rosh Chodesh is our celebration of the beginning of a new month. Thus, when we reach the month of Elul, things get crazy.
Basically, imagine that you started getting ready for New Year’s Day (the January one) on December 1 by celebrating its upcoming arrival with a huge party. Then throw in a bunch of religious observances through the rest of December which heightens the anticipation of New Year’s—that kind of what Elul is for religious Jews everywhere.
You see, Elul and the following High Holy Days season are so much more than a bunch of religious holidays to observe. They’re about repentance, about being restored to your true self you’ve maybe forgotten the past year, of removing the distractions of the world and remembering what is precious, vital, to existence.
It is about holiness.
Now what I’m about to say will certainly make a lot of people angry, but it’s something I’ve been musing over for these past couple of weeks as I have anticipated Rosh Chodesh Elul’s annual return: you cannot have holiness without Hashem.
There is no holiness without G-d.
And I think this is what is so…wrong, broken, about our world today: there is no holiness.
Of course, one could assume the defaulting argument is thusly that there is no G-d in our world. That’s simple logic. However, that’s not what I’m saying at all. G-d is ever present in the mundane, in Life, in the world—our world—whether we see Him or not.
What then do I mean by holiness?
The Hebrew word we attribute to holy, or holiness, is קָד֖וֹשׁ, or transliterated as kadosh. If memory serves from my years of hermeneutical training, this is one of those words that doesn’t necessarily translate to English. The essence behind קָד֖וֹשׁ is better understood as an otherness, a uniqueness, an aloneness.
The best scriptural example of this otherness is in Isaiah when the titular prophet has a vision of Hashem on His throne, surrounded by the seraphim.
וְקָרָ֨א זֶ֤ה אֶל־זֶה֙ וְאָמַ֔ר קָד֧וֹשׁ ׀ קָד֛וֹשׁ קָד֖וֹשׁ יְהֹוָ֣ה צְבָא֑וֹת מְלֹ֥א כׇל־הָאָ֖רֶץ כְּבוֹדֽוֹ׃
And one would call to the other,
Isaiah 6:3
“Holy, holy, holy!
The LORD of Hosts!
His presence fills all the earth!”
Another way one can read this is, “Other, Only, Alone! The L-RD of Hosts!” It is as if the seraphim are crying out, “There is only one like the L-RD; the L-RD is alone in His uniqueness; the L-RD is other.”
Here’s a similar example: for the shema prayer, we say,
שְׁמַ֖ע יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל יְהֹוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֵ֖ינוּ יְהֹוָ֥ה ׀ אֶחָֽד׃
Hear, O Yisra᾽el: The Lord our God; the Lord is one.
Deuteronomy 6:4, translation provided by Koren
Notice that word אֶחָֽד [echad]. See how in this version it is translated as one? Well, it could be argued one is a mistranslation, but instead should be alone. Thus it would read as,
Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone.
Deuteronomy 6:4, translation provided by JPS
Personally, I like using the word other to denote the distinct uniqueness of Hashem. He is other. He is.
Okay, but what has this got to do with holiness?
Ever heard of havdalah? Well, it’s this “quaint” ceremony we have to signify the end of the Shabbat, “The first among the holy days.” We do this because it is about separation—which is what havdalah literally translates to—between the sacred and profane, or the holy and unholy; the unique and the common. One of the prayers we recite is,
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יי אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, הַמַּבְדִּיל בֵּין קֹדֶשׁ לְחוֹל, בֵּין אוֹר לְחֹשֶׁךְ, בֵּין יִשְׂרָאֵל לָעַמִּים, בֵּין יוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי לְשֵׁשֶׁת יְמֵי הַמַּעֲשֶׂה, בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יי, הַמַּבְדִּיל בֵּין קֹדֶשׁ לְחוֹל:
Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who creates the light of the fire. Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who distinguishes between the holy and the profane, between light and darkness, between Israel and the nations, between the seventh day and the six working days. Blessed are You, O Lord, who distinguishes between the holy and the profane.
Siddur Ashkenaz, Shabbat, Havdalah
See the word הַמַּבְדִּיל [hamavdil]? This is from the same root—בָּדַל—as הַבְדָּלָה [havdalah], which both mean to separate.
Thus, one could say something is holy because it is other and must be kept separate.
Here’s where I want to take this exegesis and dive deeper into a possible mystical connection. In other words, things are about to get trippy, so strap in. If you’ve ever read my blog before, then you know how frequently I reference the myth of gathering the sparks, so you probably can rightfully assume on where I’m headed.
If what the sages teach us holds any truth, that Hashem’s primordial presence [His Ein Sof] was placed into jars when He finished the work of Creation, which shattered and scattered His essence into all the world, and it is now our task to repair the world by finding His hidden presence, unhusking it, and releasing it back into the world—it is this act which is holiness.
In Kabbalah, there is the idea that holiness is hidden in “shells” like a nut seed or “peels” like fruit. These husks are called qlippoth. Thus, we are tasked with “deshelling” holiness in the world through various mitzvot. These acts of mitzvot are ways we partner with Hashem to bring His presence into the world, or to free the hidden holiness waiting to be released.
When G-d created the world, He did not need us. He wanted us.
It was this compelling desire which knits together the very fabric of Creation. Judaism and performing mitzvot is our way of responding to His lover’s call, in partnering with Him to restore Creation. (If you want to read more about it, I cannot recommend enough Abraham Joshua Heschel’s G-d in Search of Man which discusses this topic in more length and depth than I can ever provide.)
It’s like why I wear a tichel, or a head covering, now that I’m married. It shows that I’m separated from the single women and I belong to my husband. (It’s also why I wear a wedding ring, which I’m sure most of you can relate to better.) Performing mitzvot is similar in that adopting a lifestyle outside of what pop culture considers as “normal,” we are separating ourselves saying we belong to Hashem, and by default, making a place for His holiness.
For me personally, I’ve been noticing how I’ve taken for granted all I could do to restore, invite, Hashem’s holiness into my life.
For the past three-ish years, I’ve had the privilege of working an alternate schedule so I could maintain my religious observances for Shabbat. Meaning, I’ve worked a 4 days a week, 10 hours a day schedule so I could have Fridays off. When I searched for a new job, I would bring up this accommodation during the interview process because I needed to know if I’d be able to maintain my lifestyle. However, after almost 6 months of interviewing and getting nowhere, the hubs and I had a conversation where we had to consider what it would mean for me to go back to a five days a week schedule. Hopefully, it would just be temporary, but something in me felt like I was sacrificing too much of myself just to get a job.
When I stopped bringing it up in my interviews, I finally got hired as we suspected. Except when I asked for an accommodation after I started my new job, they were reluctant to extend any. I had to compromise and say for now, during summer when the days were longer, I could work a regular Monday through Friday, eight to five, schedule, and we would revisit my accommodation come autumn when the days grew short.
That part of me which felt like I was sacrificing too much has been screaming at me since.
Unfortunately, there’s a worse part of me that feels like maybe I deserve this, to lose my Fridays in a way, because I didn’t cherish them as I should have, I wasn’t as diligent in preparing for Shabbat as I could have been. While I realise those are all lies, it still nags at me some days, and it spills over into my other thoughts. I’ve recently found myself often wondering what other ways I’ve been “slacking off” if you will in keeping other mitzvot, in making sure I’m diligent in my observances, which is probably what spurred me to write this entire blog post.
I’ll leave you with one last thought to hopefully better connect all these musings.
The name of this month, Elul, is sometimes referred to as an acronym of the verse,
אֲנִ֤י לְדוֹדִי֙ וְדוֹדִ֣י לִ֔י
I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine.
Song of Songs 6:3
What this means then is this is the time of the year when we’re to do inventory of our relationship with Hashem.
If we are meant to be His beloved, if we belong to Him, then performing His mitzvot are all those little ways of saying showing how we are His, of saying, “I love you.”
You know how my husband tells me he loves me? He doesn’t buy me flowers, no matter how much I beg. He doesn’t rub my feet or my back, unless I ask.
No, instead he washes the dishes. He kills all the bugs we find in our home. He makes me coffee every morning (or tea if I ask for it). He takes out the trash, cleans the toilet, and does all the other chores I find too gross.
That’s how I know he loves me. Do I wish he were more romantic sometimes? Absolutely, but that doesn’t remove the fact I know he loves me.
Do we know Hashem loves us? Are we aware of all the little things He does for us?
More importantly, do we love Him back?
I think if there were more of this expression of our love, our devotion, to Hashem through keeping his mitzvot, there’d be more holiness in the world, and we would be all the better for it.
That’s my quest before the new year. Maybe it could be yours, too?
שנה טובה ומתוקה ,כתיבה וחתימה טובה!
May you have a good and sweet year, and a good inscription and sealing!
Making Light
Dare to Linger
What’s on my Shelf: In the Labyrinth of Drakes
WOMS: The Mage’s Daughter
