Elul And Love

I have attended many weddings in my life. One of the parts of the wedding I enjoy most is watching the chosson really get into it. He dances and dances the night away. He is rushing NOWHERE. Then I will meet this same boy at a different wedding and he is either not dancing or is on the periphery of the people going very slowly in the outermost circle. Then, shortly into the beginning of the wedding - he is OUT the door.

"See ya Rebbi, gotta run".

Where are you running to? At your wedding you stayed until the end and were running nowhere. What happened?

"Gotta go, it's getting late".

9:15pm is late?

What really happened is the following. At someone's own wedding, he feels that it is HIS simcha. He is in love with the kallah and excited and wants to share this with all of his family and friends. He has all of the time in the world.

At someone else's wedding, he doesn't feel so much part of the simcha, he is not in love with the kallah and has a lot of other things on his mind. So he rushes out.

For the same reason people rush out of davening early. They simply don't feel connected to the tefilla and have a million other things on their mind. They are not in love and have already "been there, did that" 10 thousand times.

Comes Rosh Chodesh Elul. אלול, we all know, is an acronym for אני לדודי ודודי לי - I am to my beloved and my beloved is to me. The beginning of the teshuva process is trying to rekindle the love we have for Hakadosh Baruch Hu. When there is love there is also time, engagement, enthusiasm and heavy involvement. One is no longer "dancing" around Hashem slowly in the outer circle with all of the old men with artificial knees but is dancing a storm in close proximity to the Chosson Himself.

To fall back in love with Hashem means to feel deeply connected to His will. As the Kotzker said [and we recently quoted on these pages] לא יהיה בך אל זר - Don't let G-d become a stranger to you. He is not [as many relate to Him] this odd annoying policeman up above who tries to get in the way every time you want to have a little fun in life but is at the very root of your existence and the source of everything good and sweet. When he tells you that something is forbidden it is not because He wants you to suffer but because He knows that it is poison for you.

Touching or gazing at a girl, pleasurable as people think it may be - is cancer to the soul. Who wants cancer? Speaking lashon hara is a different type of cancer. Sleeping late and missing Krias Shema means that instead of reading Shema on time and winning a spiritual lottery worth far more than 46 million dollars [as we will find out one day in the not-to-distant-future], instead all you got was an hour more of sleep and you are stuck with your thirty year mortgage and car payments you don't know how you will make.

Mitzvos Lo Taaseh are acts that if committed destroy you and Mitzvos Aseh are acts that bring one tremendous spiritual bounty. If we feel connected to Hashem then the teshuva process becomes all that much easier. We become connected when we realize how much He loves us and therefore all of the mitzvos are for our benefit. There are not, as many would have it, 613 PROBLEMS, but as the Zohar Hakadosh puts it, 613 very good pieces of advice on how to get the most out of life.  

When we realize that, then we want to get to know more about how to keep His mitzvos. If that would happen then the battle that the yetzer hara fights with us [and wins all too often] to stop learning is over. The beginning of teshuva is learning. The bracha of teshuva [הרוצה בתשובה] starts השיבנו אבינו לתורתך - Bring us back to [learning] your Torah. If we feel connected then we will learn more. And if we learn more we will feel more connected.

Taste and see:-).

A gut choidesh.

Bi-ahava,
Me

לזכות עדינה בת שבע בת נעכא גיטל ושמואל אלכסנדר בן נעכא גיטל לברכה והצלחה בכל מעשי ידיהם