Someone once asked Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach: After all of the heart rending prayers and requests of Rosh Hashanah, what is the bottom line, where do we want to end up at the end of the day? His answer was simple but profound: The bottom line of Rosh Hashanah is that we want to be able to express in the most sincere and deepest manner our desire to come close to God. If we are able to open our hearts and minds and connect to God on the deepest level, then, in the words of Rabbi Carlebach, everything else will follow.
This sentiment is captured in a famous statement of the Alter Rebbe, the founder of the Chabad Lubavitch Chassidic group. In complete honesty and directness, he spoke to God saying – I don’t want your reward and I don’t want your World-to-Come: I want YOU!!
Relatedly, another Chassidic master, the Rebbe of Slonim, taught a slightly different reading of the verse: “and I, my prayer is to you God at an auspicious time…” (Psalms 69:14). He shifted the punctuation ever so slightly and by doing so changed the emphasis of the verse to read: “and I, my prayer is, [to be close] to You [and only You], God….”
All three of these explanations and exclamations are thematically consistent with the well-known acronym for the month of Elul: Ani l’dodi, v’dodi li, “I am to my beloved and my beloved is to me” (Song of Songs 6:3). Although the Ten Days of Teshuva between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are known as days of awe and judgement, nonetheless, the bottom line of all of the spiritual work of this time is to come close to God and to feel that closeness in the very depths of our being.
In this spirit, the Arizal created a paradigm that encapsulates and expresses this great desire to be close to God in the most intimate of ways, comparing various stages of intimacy to the order of the holidays of the month of Tishrei. As a basis for this paradigm he used the model of Adam and Eve and their evolving relationship in the Garden of Eden. Yet, this model is in fact also a parable for the love relationship between God and each individual person as depicted in the Song of Songs. Additionally, this very same paradigm works just as well for understanding the relationship between body and soul.
According to tradition Adam and Eve were originally created as one being, back-to-back, like a pair of conjoined twins. In this state, no real dialogue or deepening of relationship was possible, as they could not ‘face’ each other. They were therefore connected on some unconscious or inherent level, yet utterly disconnected on the more conscious levels of being, which require open, face-to-face communication. This reality corresponds to Rosh Hashanah when we are in a relatively “back to back” relationship with God.
Subsequent to Adam and Eve’s being initially one entity, the Torah describes how the feminine aspect was separated from the masculine aspect, creating two separate beings. This stage of separation and individuation, according to the Arizal, is represented in the intense spiritual work of the Ten Days of Teshuva between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, where we prepare ourselves to be fully seen and heard by God on Yom Kippur.
Now that Adam and Eve were two distinct self-aware personalities, the next stage of their developing relationship was to turn from the relatively distant type of relationship, represented by being back to back, and encounter each other face-to-face. This stage corresponds to the four days between Yom Kippur and the holiday of Sukkot.
The next image the Arizal provides in this paradigm is that of the masculine and feminine aspects reuniting and coming together in a loving embrace. This occurs during the holiday of Sukkot when we are enveloped, and in a sense, “hugged” by the surrounding walls and ambience of the sukkah.
The last day of Sukkot is Hoshanah Rabbah when, after seven circuits around the synagogue, we put down our four species and pick up five willow branches. Each of the four species represents a different part of the body: the lulav represents the spine, the etrog represents the heart, the myrtle represents the eyes, and the willow represents the lips. Based on this, the Arizal compares the taking of the willow branches on Hoshanah Rabbah to the next stage of coming close, that of kissing.
Finally, the holiday of Simchat Torah symbolizes the culmination of all the holidays and the process of evolving intimacy, that of marital union.
Thus, we see that the Arizal has provided us with a very tangible and descriptive visualisation through which we can relate to the holidays of Tishrei as a developing process of the soul as it comes close to God in love and intimacy. Like every process, relationships take time, effort and energy. It is no different whether we are coming close to God, to other people, or even when reflecting on how the body and soul, who are at first, in a sense, “back-to-back,” learn to not only coexist, but to eventually arrive at a level of mutual cooperation, love and integration.
Like any good paradigm, various additional ideas can be grafted onto the original model. Therefore, we would propose a similar paradigm, yet with a few slight amendments. Every relationship ultimately goes through a period of courtship. In envisioning the relationship between God and the Jewish people, or alternatively between God and each individual, we can say that the month of Elul is akin to this period of courtship. We are taught that during this month “the King is in the field,” meaning that God, as it were, leaves his lofty abode in order to meet us on our own “home turf” and be more accessible. The image of the “King in the field” lends itself perfectly to the earthy and amorous imagery of the Song of Songs, where the two lovers court each other among nature as it awakes in all of its glory from winter slumber.
This period of courtship then leads to a proposal and engagement. This stage is represented by the commitment and serious intent of Rosh Hashanah to formalize and deepen the relationship in order to establish an everlasting covenant and unbreakable bond. We can, in this sense, understand the blasts of the shofar as the celebratory announcement of the new engagement.
Symbolically, the marriage then takes place under the canopy of the sukkah. The seven days of the holiday correspond beautifully to the seven blessings recited under the marriage canopy at a Jewish wedding, as well as the seven-day wedding celebrations that follow. When the bride and groom leave the wedding canopy they go to the cheder yichud, a private room symbolizing the marital union which will take place. This, of course, is the holiday of Simchat Torah, which corresponds to the intimate union of groom and bride and the wedding feast where they are joined by all the guests in ecstatic dancing, singing and rejoicing.
This parallel paradigm, based on that taught by the Arizal, serves the same purpose of providing a real and tangible model in order to understand how relationships develop, grow and lead to the type of intimacy that every human being seeks. The holidays of Tishrei create a perfect paradigm within which we can not only understand these concepts on an intellectual level, but, even more importantly, experience them in a deeply meaningful and heartfelt manner.
