Sparks of Bereisheit

Sparks of Bereisheit

Posted on by Rebecca


Sparks of Bereisheit

The Process Is Everything

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The first moment of creation.  We can’t understand anything about it. And yet, the Torah tells us: Bereisheit Bara Elokim, in the beginning G-d created. We can’t understand these words fully, but we can learn from them. Each one of these first three words has an important message about who we are as created beings and what our purpose is in this world.

Bereisheit, In the Beginning

In the beginning, God created beginnings. Specifically, the Tikunei Zohar (19b) teaches, two beginnings. [Bereisheit = bet reisheit = two beginnings]. These beginnings were both created through the first utterance of creation, bereisheit, which brought time into existence. It is our perception of the nature of time and the nature of our existence within time creates the divergence between these two beginnings.

The first beginning is expressed in Bamidbar 24:20, “The beginning of nations is Amalek—and his end is eternal oblivion.”  This is the depressing way we normally think about time. We perceive ourselves as first existing, statically in this world. We imagine ourselves to be, essentially, as we are now, and then thing of time as a force, acting on that essential self. The force of time slowly wears us down, until, after what is often years of battle against the inevitable, we are worn down and disappear. The end is eternal oblivion.

There is, however, another beginning. It is the beginning of Israel. We are called beginning. The Torah is called beginning. And if we understand this way of beginning, we can perceive reality in a different way. The first creation of our world is time. Time is process. Our true existence is an eternal existence that exists beyond this world. For the purposes of existence in this world what we were given is not static existence, but time. Hashem has gifted each of us, individually, with an amount of time.

Our amount of time has a beginning. And the beginning means that our time is a path and a process. We are moving toward a defined end, Hashem’s planned destiny. We exist as fire exists, not statically, but in constant process. Just as the fire is the continuous expression of the hidden potential of its fuel, our lives are a continuous process of expressing the hidden depths of our soul. We were brought into this world in order to reveal the point of infinity that lies beyond us.

We were brought into this world for the process. This is the essence of who we are, of our existence in this world. We are not responsible for reaching the goal. We were never meant to achieve perfection, only to be in a state of polishing and perfecting ourselves. We are invited to enjoy the growth and the process, and trust that Hashem will bring us to our destiny.

Bara, Created

The first Ramban in Bereisheit explains that there is only one time that the word “bara, He created” is used in the description of creation, because it was only once that Hashem created something from nothing. All of creation was brought into being in the first moment of creation. “In the beginning G-d created heaven and earth.” Everything was there, but nothing was formed. It all existed in potential. “The earth was tohu.” It was astonishing in its lack of form. And then it was “boho,” an unformed mass where the potential for form can be seen. Still, “there was darkness on the depths of unformed matter” until Hashem said, “Let there be light.” And with light came the ability to perceive meaning and form.

Rav Shapiro sums up the process of creation: desolateness, followed by emptiness, and then light. It sees unrelatable, but it is actually an explanation of our entire avodah in this world. We were created to be creators. G-d’s first act in forming the world was to create light. After the conclusion of the first Shabbat, as Adam was sent out of Gan Eden into the world, Hashem gave Adam the knowledge and ability to create fire from two stones (Pesachim 54a). As a nation our first mitzvah was to find the new moon, that bit of light in the darkness and sanctify it.  

As we mentioned, our existence in this world is all process. We exist at the moment of our birth as the world existed at the moment of its birth. We are all potential. The world around us also exists only in potential. Our experience of the world, and our understanding of the world, is what invests it with form and meaning. Our experience of ourselves is what invests us with significance.

We begin in any moment in time in darkness, because the meaning of the moment is unclear. Sometimes the meaning is astonishingly unclear. Sometimes it is just hidden behind the veil of habit. We are in tohu and bohu. But we can create light. For six days Hashem formed the world into an astonishing variety of meaningful forms. We are created in G-d’s image, with the power of speech. We can choose to form the world around us in a meaningful way with our thoughts and our words. At one and the same time we create ourselves and our world.

 

Elokim, G-d the Creator

We were created b’zelem elokim, in the image of G-d, with the ability to create our world. The process of our creation as creators involved the combination of earth and water. The earth was taken from the place of the mizbayach, the place of our atonement. The water of our creation came from a special mist that Hashem brought on the land. This was necessary, because as Rashi (Bereisheit 2:5) tells us, it had not yet rained. There could be no rain because man had not yet been created. Rain only comes down into the world through our prayers. It is the physical expression a spiritual truth: the higher and lower worlds are interconnected. For this reason, it is inherently impossible to predict or control.

Water is necessary for our existence, and we can only acquire it through prayer. We are created from something that depends upon our prayers, because just as water is the necessary component of our existence, so is prayer. It is not that we exist, and then when we need something we pray. We exist because we pray. Just as without water we cannot exist, without prayer there is no existence.

We were created to create ourself and our world through prayer. This is why the tamid offering is called “karbani lechmi,” (Bamidbar 28:2) my offering, my bread. Just as food sustains the bond between our body and soul, the korbanot, together with our prayers sustain the bond between Hashem’s Will and Presence and our physical world.

Hashem created our world as an expression of His Kingship.  A king is connected to his subjects. He can hear, accept and fulfill requests. Prayer is therefore reciprocal. Just as we stand before Hashem and speak to Him, so too, He stands before us and listens. This is the act of prayer. It is for our benefit, but it also fulfills something beyond us. Every time we stand before Hashem, we uphold the attribute of Kingship. When we stand in prayer, we are together with Hashem. We strengthen the bond of Hashem’s presence in our world. We literally create our world and keep it in existence.

We are just beginning to pray for rain. May all of us be blessed with a year of physical and spiritual abundance.  

Zot Habracha and Shemini Atzeret

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Foundations of Joy

The Torah ends with three pesukim which are a sweeping tribute to the greatness of Moshe and his unique and lasting accomplishments. The last words of the tribute are, “which Moses performed before the eyes of all Israel.” Rashi tells us this refers to when Moshe broke the luchot. This last comment of Rashi’s on the Torah takes us back to a moment of national disgrace, but also paradoxically, to a moment of healing. Moshe received a yasher koach from Hashem for his decision to smash the luchot. Reish Lakish, the ultimate baal teshuva, comments on this that there are times when Torah is established only through a process of bitul, of negation (Menachot 99a).

This is an amazingly fitting and powerful message for this time of year. These thoughts of brokenness and repair accompany us as we finish our yearly reading of the Torah, the cycle of chagim in Tishrei and the cycle of the shalosh regalim. Years ago in the desert, the broken luchot were placed into the aron alongside the new luchot we received on Yom Kippur. When we marched forward as a nation into Eretz Yisrael, we were carrying them both together. The second luchot were born from the broken shards of the first luchot, just as today the joy of Sukkot is born from our brokenness on Yom Kippur, and our success in the new year is built on our ability to absorb and accept not just our successes but also the failures of the year we are leaving behind.

This idea takes on more depth through Rav Schorr’s beautiful explanation of the deeper meaning of the nisuch hamayim, the water drawing ceremony which took place when the Beit Hamikdash was standing. During the nisuch hamayim, the nation would gather together in the courtyard every night, singing and dancing with unparalleled joy until daybreak. Afterward, a procession would gather water from the Shiloach spring. The water would be poured on the altar together with the wine libation of the morning offering.

Rashi (Vayikra 2:13) explains that the spiritual origins of this ceremony began during the time of creation, when the lower waters were separated from the higher waters, causing them to cry out to Hashem, “we too want to stand before the King!” One way Hashem consoled the waters was that they would be part of the nisuch hamayim ceremony. However, as Rav Shorr points out, it was a very ironic consolation. The water of the nisuch hamayim was poured down the holes in the alter, to the shittin, the empty space under the alter, and from there fell all the way back down to the depths from whence they came. What type of consolation was this?

To answer, Rav Schorr looks more deeply into the meaning of the shittin, the empty space into which the waters fell. This empty space was originally formed when Hashem gathered up earth for the creation of man. It was the empty space left in the land from the creation of man. It was also the place where Adam offered his first Korban and the place where Avraham brought Yitzchak to the Akeidah.  As Rambam writes, “Man was created from the place of his atonement (Hilchot Beit HaBechirah 2:2).” The shittin symbolizes the empty space Hashem carves out to make room for evil in the world. In other words, it is the place of our bechira, our free will, the place where Hashem’s presence is hidden enough for us to be able to have a real choice between good and bad. It is the place where evil appears real.

Our bechira is born from our separation from Hashem, and so the pain of the lower waters is our pain was well.  From the moment of our creation as independent beings, we too have been crying out that we want to stand before Hashem. When we pour out the water of the nisuch hamayim, and at the same time “pour out our hearts like water before Hashem (Eicha 2:19),” the action becomes the kli, the vessel, to return both the water and ourselves to our source. On a deeper level, when we use our bechira to reveal Hashem in this world we are able to lift the curtain. We reveal that Hashem’s presence is really everywhere. Even in the depths we are still “standing before the King.” The water of the nisuch hamayim physically descends but spiritually rises.

This is the experience we take with us into Shmini Azteret. The Sfat Emet tells us that each of the Shalosh Regalim relate to one of the Avot: Avraham to Pesach, Yitzchak to Shavout and Yaacov to Sukkot. Shmini Atzeret is the holiday of Yosef. Like Yosef, who was sometimes considered an Av and sometimes considered a shevet, it has a bit of a duality. Shmini Atzeret is in some ways part of Sukkot, and in some ways stands on its own.

Yosef was the tzaddik who learned the lessons of Yom Kippur and applied them to life. He understood the real meaning of forgiveness, which is not necessarily what we might assume. When we say to Hashem, “Forgiveness is with you (Tehillim 130:4),” Malbim tells us that this is literal. Forgiving in the sense of making the wrong as if it didn’t happen is an attribute of Hashem.  When someone has truly wronged us, we cannot make it as if it never happened. If we try we will often find ourselves, years after an event, triggered and angry about something we thought we forgave so long ago. For this reason, there is no instance of one person forgiving another in Tanach. Instead, there is something different, something that is exemplified by Yosef.

This is a point Rabbanit Yemima Mizrachi makes eloquently in her book about Yom Kippur. Rabbanit Mizrachi explains that the Torah asks us not to forgive but to make peace. When the brothers came to ask for forgiveness, his response was, “You intended to harm me, but G-d intended it for good, to accomplish what is now being done—the salvation of many lives (Bereisheit 50:20).”

 “Joseph teaches us the meaning of true reconciliation. It is not about making our peace with evil and with evildoers, but about making our peace with what happened and where it led us. It is about being able to say to G-d, ‘Master of the Universe, from this degradation and loss of dignity, I have found salvation…It is about recognizing how everything that happened to us can make the world better for others, without destroying us.” (Yearning to Return, p.137)

Our sukkah is a sukkah of peace. It is the time when we make peace not just with others, but with all the events of our own lives, and with ourselves. As the Ohr Gedalyahu points out, at that moment when Yosef made peace with the brothers, they experienced a complete shift in their perception. They had been interacting with the King of Egypt. They had been facing the enemy. And then the enemy was revealed to be their brother, the brother they had thrown out, but who was willing to make peace with them anyway. The entire world as they understood it shifted. The empty space of evil was revealed to be the place of the revelation of Hashem.

Yosef’s name is given two meanings in Tanach. It means both gathering in and adding (Bereisheit 30:23-24).  Shmini Atzeret, the last day of chag, the day of Yosef, is a day of this two-fold avodah. We gather in all that we have accomplished, including all of our failings. We recognize that just as the ark carries both the broken luchot and the new luchot, we can carry together, in unity, both our successes and our failures. From that place we can move forward and add.

The Sfat Emet (בראשונה”” (תרלו tells us that this is why Sukkot comes after Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. On Yom Kippur we are all baalei teshuva. We feel that we have no place in the world. However, if we can create no place for ourselves from our own strength, Hashem steps in and gives us a place. And the place Hashem gives us is a better, higher place than we could earn on our own. “In the place where baalei teshuva stand, the perfectly righteous are not able to stand (Brachot 34b),” because baalei teshuva stand in a place that was given to them as a gift from heaven.  

Our sukkah is a gift of place from God. We sit in it during the holiday of the harvest, and at the time when the entire world is gathering in the harvest, we do a personal harvest. We gather in our actions over the last 40 days and take the time to absorb the results of our spiritual activities, unifying them, and allowing them to take root in our soul, so that we can use them as a source of joy for the entire year. We can take the time to recognize the value of both our successes and our mistakes. The joy of Sukkot is built on a recognition that Hashem loves us and created us imperfect, so that we could have free will. The process is everything. Every mistake, every place of emptiness, is a precious foundation stone for growth and joy.

Yom Kippur

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Jumping In

We are so close to Yom Kippur now. If we let ourselves, we can feel the power of the day. Rabbi Akiva gives us an image for the day: on Yom Kippur, Hashem is our mikvah (Yoma 8:9). The spirituality of the day is a vast pool, and in this case, just walking into it is transformative. “The day itself atones (Yoma 87a).” If we didn’t manage to achieve everything we wanted in the last 40 days, if our teshuvah seems less than complete, we can still walk into Yom Kippur and let the spirituality of the day wash over us.

There is something comforting in that thought, even though there is also the realization that harnessing the full spiritual experience of the day requires that we invest ourselves. Rav Schorr points out that every time we sin there are two results. On the one hand, we deserve repercussions for the harm we caused. At the same time, we also create distance in our relationship with Hashem, and also in our relationship with the truest part of ourselves. If we just wade aimlessly through the spiritual pool of Yom Kippur, the day will be able to bring us kapparah, atonement, mitigating punishments we may deserve. But it can not bring us to taharah, to a place of spiritual connection. For that we need to put in a bit more effort. We have the opportunity to really jump wholeheartedly into the day the way we might jump into a cold pool, or a mikvah.

Sefer HaChinuch (Mitzvah 173) explains the experience of mikvah as one of rebirth. Placing ourselves into the water is an expression of nullification. Under the water we are like the pre-creation world. Emerging from the water is a process of being created anew. Our body and our actions are new.

On Yom Kippur we are like angels, so it is not surprising that the midrash (Shemot Rabbah 16:6) describes them as being born again daily. The midrash describes how the angels praise Hashem each day, and then return to the river of fire, the river Dinar, from where they came originally. Each day Hashem creates them anew from this river. Similarly, we, Am Yisrael, are sunken in our sins, but we return to Hashem in teshuva. And each year Hashem forgives us for our sins and recreates us.

We can understand from the midrash that our teshuva is our river of fire, the river of our embarrassment. Real teshuva, Rav Schorr explains, includes a feeling of displacement. When we face the reality of what we need to atone for, we can feel overwhelmed. We sinned against our loving Creator. We might feel, for a moment, that perhaps it would have been better if we had not been created. We might feel that we can not find our place in this world. The essence of the day is that from that place of nullification, Hashem draws us close.

Hashem is our mikvah. We ask for forgiveness, and Hashem renews us. Zecharya (1:3) teaches, “Return to Me, and I will return to you.” At the moment that we open ourselves up to return to Hashem, Hashem removes the covering from our heart, and returns to us in closeness. We open ourselves up, we ask for taharah, and Hashem grants it. We become like a new creation.

The Chidushei HaRim adds that not only do we become like a new creation, Hashem, who is HaMakom, The Place of the world, gives us a new place. From the liminal space of teshuva, and from the closeness of Yom Kippur, Hashem leads us into our sukkot, where we make our home surrounded by Hashem’s presence.  

To get to Sukkot we first jump, body and soul, into Yom Kippur. We do this with an understanding that the mitzvah of teshuva is qualitatively different on Yom Kippur than it is on the rest of the year. During the year we do teshuva for one thing at a time. We fix one area and leave another untouched until later. This relates to the attribute of Hashem’s mercy that we describe as “ve-nakeh lo yenakeh, He pardons, He does not pardon.” When we are ready, Hashem forgives us in the areas where we are ready to move on, and He holds space for us in the areas where we are stuck.

On Yom Kippur we are invited to approach Hashem through the first two Middot, “Hashem, Hashem: I am Hashem before you sinned, and I am Hashem after you sinned.” This is an all-encompassing approach. This is a promise from Hashem that no matter how far we have moved from where we want to be, or where we once were, we can always come back. We have the opportunity on Yom Kippur to dream. If we can take the time to imagine who we really want to be, we can dive into the day and live the vision.

And if we feel that we are very far from that reality? Then we are still exactly in tune with the essence of the day. Yom Kippur is the day we received the second luchot. Hashem gave them to us even though we were very far from where we were the first time around. We were literally like angels when we stood at Har Sinai for the first time. Our bodies were completely purified. On our heads were two shining spiritual crowns. We didn’t have the luchot in hand, but they were engraved on our hearts. We were free of our yetzer hara, free of the angel of death. And then we lost it all. We sinned with the golden calf and Moshe smashed the first luchot in front of us.

Certainly, the teshuva process after the chet haegel was a river of fire. Not only did we question if we deserved a place in the world, Hashem questioned it as well. And yet, after all of that, we were reborn. We were given another chance. We didn’t get back the same kedusha that we had at Matan Torah, but we did get tahara. The shofar we blow at the end of Yom Kippur is a shofar that reminds us of the shofar we blow at the Yovel, when slaves are freed. It’s a shofar that brings with it spiritual freedom.

The process of Yom Kippur is a process that leads us to freedom. It is a process of shedding whatever separates us from Hashem, whatever is holding us back. Rav Schorr tells us that the power to do this comes from connecting to the aspect of good within us. Each year in the Bet Hamikdash two identical goats were brought into the courtyard. One was marked for Hashem, and was brought as a korban and one was marked “l’azazel” and was thrown off a cliff. The se’ir l’azazel had to stand in the courtyard through the entire process of the avodah of bringing the se’ir l’Hashem. And only after that was completed was it taken out to the cliff. Removing the bad is the second step. First, we find within ourselves every spark of good, everything worthwhile, which we separate out and treasure. From that place of strength and connection, it becomes clear that the parts of ourselves that are separating us from Hashem are not serving us. We are free to let them go. We have the opportunity to live as we want to be, to jump in and immerse ourselves completely in the experience of connection to Hashem.

Parshat Nitzavim/Rosh Hashana

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Nitzavim: We’re Still Standing

This week we leave our curses behind. While the Torah reading cycle is specifically designed for the curses of Ki Tavo to be read before Rosh Hashana, we experienced that last week. This Shabbat, the light of Rosh Hashana is already in the air. This is the time to feel the brachot of new beginnings, and to let that inspire us.

The Zohar in Bamidbar tells us that every time it says, “vayehi hayom, it happened one day” (as in the first chapter of Iyov) it is a reference to Rosh Hashanah. Rav Schorr expands this idea, and says that the first words of our parsha, “You are standing today,” are a refence to Rosh Hashana as well. Just as we stood so many years ago together as a nation, preparing for the transition from Moshe’s leadership to Yehoshua’s, we stand together as a nation this Shabbat, jointly preparing to transition from one year to the next.

On that day in the desert so many years ago, Rashi (Devarim 29:12) tells us that we needed some encouragement to move forward. When we heard the 98 curses of Ki Tavo added on to the 49 curses in Vayikra, we got scared. How would we survive? Moshe told us, as a nation and as individuals, “You are standing today, all of you, before Hashem your G-d.” You angered Hashem many times, but you will always endure. You stand as the day stands. It may become dark for a time, but it will become light again. The purpose of the curses is to enable you not just to stand, but to stand before Hashem.

The first message of Parshat Nitzavim is that the goal of everything we experience, including all of our challenges and difficulties, is to bring us, ultimately, to a place of bracha. This happens when the Kingship of Hashem is revealed, and is the essence of Rosh Hashana. The avodah of the day is to crown Hashem as melech of the world. There is a specific aspect to a Melech, a king, as opposed to a moshal, a ruler. A melech is a king chosen by the people. A moshal is a ruler who dictates by force. On Rosh Hashana we are choosing to recognize Hashem as our King.

This is why we celebrate Rosh Hashanah not on the 25th of Elul, when the world was created, but on the first of Tishrei, when man was created. Of course Hashem rules over the world from the moment it was created. But it is only once we humans, with our faculty of free choice, exist that Hashem can be crowned melech and not just moshal.

The deciding factor is our ratzon, our will. It all depends on the choice we make about what we want. This is expressed clearly at the end of the parsha, when Hashem tells us (Devarim 30:19): “I have placed life and death before you, blessing and curse; and you shall choose life.”

The essence of Rosh Hashana is connecting to our desire for life. What is real life, eternal life? The psukim continue: “To love Hashem your G-d, to listen to him and to cleave to Him, for that is your life and the length of your days.” At the moment when we were created, Hashem blew into us “the breath of life.” The desire and the ability to lead a life that is alive with connection to the eternal is an intrinsic part of who we are.

Each year Hashem’s kingship in the world is renewed. Each physical piece of Hashem’s creation has its part to play in the revelation of Hashem’s kingship in the world, as does each moment in time. The judgement of Rosh Hashana is a judgement on how we fit into the plan. We are gifted with this Shabbat as a time of inspiration before we step into the next year. The break in the week and in our routine gives us a moment to contemplate. What part do we want to play in Hashem’s plan for the upcoming year?  Can we open up our hearts to choosing Hashem as the guiding force in our life? Do we want to choose the life that Hashem wants us to live?

Rosh Hashana: Choose Life

As humans, we don’t have a great record for choosing life. From the very beginning, Adam and Chava chose to eat from the Tree of Knowledge instead of the Tree of Life. The result? Adam was banished from Gan Eden lest he “send forth his hand and take from the Tree of Life and eat and live forever (Bereisheit 3:22).” Rav Schorr explains that after the sin, Adam could not live forever. He needed the tikkun that comes with death.

Where Adam failed, Avraham succeeded.  At the akeidah he “sent forth his hand (Bereisheit 22:10).” When Hashem tasked him with an almost impossible mission, to sacrifice his beloved only son, he chose to do exactly what Hashem asked of him. The kabbalists tell us that at that moment Avraham grasped the Tree of Life. He created something eternal. The spiritual energy that Avraham created was not actualized in the slaughter of Yitzchak in this world. But it was powerful enough to create the spiritual reality of Yitzchak’s ashes resting before Hashem forever. The message is that our spiritual reality can sometimes be different than our physical reality.

How perfect that we read this on Rosh Hashana. Tosafot tells us (Rosh HaShanah 27a) that Rosh Hashana is the time when the world is created in thought and in potential. Sfat Emet explains what Rashi means when he tells us that the world was created first with strict justice, and then upon seeing that that could not endure, with a combination of justice and compassion. Rashi is expressing that the first reality that Hashem created, the world of Din, continues to exist in the higher spiritual realms, in the world of thought, but it can not be expressed completely in our world. In this way, Yitzchak’s ashes rested before Hashem in the spiritual world even as he continued to live in our world.

This cosmic reality parallels our personal reality. We too have a world of thought and a world of actuality. We are not guaranteed the ability to express ourselves in actuality exactly as we might want to. On Rosh Hashana we are judged on the aspect of ourselves that we have control over. We are judged on who we want to be. Our job is to clarify our ratzon.

We are helped tremendously by the spiritual reality of the akeidah. Avraham created a lasting reality in the world of thought. The Sfat Emet points out that as Avraham leaves his servants behind and prepares to walk with Yitzchak to Har Hamoriah, he tells them, “I and the boy will walk to koh, to there (Bereisheit 22:5).” He is echoing the language of Hashem, who promised him (Bereisheit 16:5), “koh yihiyeh zarecha, so shall be your children (like the stars).” And his actions echo through all the generations of his descendants.

Rav Schorr explains that Avraham accomplished perfect action in the world of thought. His entire, perfect intention was to fulfill the Will of Hashem, over and against his own desires. With this spiritual action, Avraham activated potential revelation for all the generations. He gave us the ability to offer ourselves up as korbanot the way Yitachak did—sort of. Rav Saadiah Gaon explains that while we don’t offer ourselves or our loved ones physically as a korban, what we can offer to Hashem on Rosh Hashana is our will. We give over our will to do His Will. The spiritual potential that Avraham activated at the Akeidah is a spiritual inheritance that lasts throughout the generations. However, it remains our job, in each generation, to bring this revelation from potential into actuality.

In the words of the Midrash this is expressed through the concept that the horns of the ram became the shofrot that are sounded throughout history. When we stood at Har Sinai the first shofar of the original ram was sounded and we experienced the greatest spiritual freedom. As the words of the aseret hadibrot were carved into the luchot, this freedom was carved into our soul. The shofar of Rosh Hashana reawakens our connection to the part of ourselves that remains spiritually free.

The second shofar of Avraham’s ram will be blown at the end of days, when we enter into a world of eternal life. R’ Tzadok Hakohen explains that, just as there is a lasting impression made in time from things of the past, there is an impression from the future which reaches backward throughout time and impacts us. When we blow the shofar, if we open ourselves up to it, we can experience an awakening of the freedom of Moshiach.

What is this freedom of the time of Moshiach? It is a freedom of expansion. Yishayahu (27:13) describes the shofar of Moshiach as “gadol.” It is so great, so expansive, that nationally it will reach to those lost in Assyria and exiled in Egypt and bring them to Jerusalem. On a personal level, it is so great, so expansive, that it can reach the hidden point of untouched kedusha within us and awaken it to expand throughout our bodies.

The blowing of the shofar is a time that exists beyond time. When we hear the shofar we are transported to stand before Hashem. We are grounded in the spiritual potential of Avraham. We experience the spiritual influence of Matan Torah. And we are given the opportunity to meet our future selves. It is a moment of din, when we are asked, who do we want to be?

There is a pose in yoga called the star pose, where we spread our hands and legs wide and allow ourselves to take up space in the world, to expand and express ourselves. On Rosh Hashana we are the children of Avraham. We are like the stars. When we hear the shofar, we can connect to the spiritual inheritance we received from him, that spark of will deep inside, and let that spark expand and take up space within us. We can be moser nefesh, sacrifice the will of our nefesh, our lower self, and connect instead to our higher will, our desire to take our rightful place in creation as a beautiful and unique expression of our Creator.