The dust has settled. After 20 services over a period of 30 days, 2 services every three days for a month, we’ve finally reached a period of relative calm.
And then the Phillies had to go and liven things back up for us again.
In all seriousness, we find ourselves in the month of cheshvan, formally known as marcheshvan. A midrash has been articulated that notices the connection of the prefix mar to maror, the bitter herbs we eat on passover. It is marcheshvan, bitter cheshvan coming after the month of tishrei, which is comprised seemingly entirely of holidays, marcheshvan the bitter month of cheshvan, with not a single holiday to celebrate.
Or is it? Why are we here if not to celebrate the holiday of shabbat, the weekly holiday commemorating the creation of the world, elevating rest, presence, being over creating, doing, achieving. Celebrating, as Abraham Joshua Heschel says, the creation of the world rather than the world of our creating.
Shabbat is the holiday where we celebrate not the work of our hands, but of the recognition that we ourselves are created. “Elohai Neshamah she’natata bi,” we pray each morning. “My God, the soul you placed within me, she is pure.” “Atah Yetzartah. You created it, you formed it, you breathed it into me, and you guard it while it is within me. וְאַתָּה עָתִיד לִטְּ֒לָהּ מִמֶּֽנִּי One day you will take it from me, וּלְהַחֲזִירָהּ בִּי לֶעָתִיד לָבֹא and restore it to me in the time to come.”
The chagim, the holidays, the Yamim Noraim, remind us of these cycles if we do not slow down to remind ourselves. Mi Yichyeh u’mi yamut. “Who will live and who will die,” we chant on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, reminding ourselves that the answer is: us, to both, confronting ourselves with this fact so that we are inspired to savor our time—so that we remember that we are trustees of the souls which have been breathed into us.
Cheshvan is the month where we get to take our renewed insights out for a spin. It is the moment in When Harry Met Sally when, spoiler alert, Harry tells Sally then when you realize you want to spend your life with someone, or lived in a certain way, you want it to start as soon as possible. Cheshvan is the moment in the calendar that gives us space to live basking in the light and the warmth of these renewed insights.
It’s where we get to take the training wheels off and head out onto the open road. It doesn’t mean we won’t take a tumble or two or ten, but it’s now time for us to stretch out our muscles, to flex the spiritual muscles we have honed over the course of the holiday season. We can’t keep the training wheels on forever, we can’t spend our lives in the holiday season.
Shabbat is our pitstop, our place to refuel, our place to remind ourselves of the insights we’ve gained, the truths we’ve centered on—that we do not come into this world to worship our accomplishments, but rather to serve as vessels of holiness and goodness, cherishing the spirit that has been imbued within us and sharing it with others in the ways we’ve learned how to do.
Another way to think about Chesvhan is like those days after the wedding. Rabbi Joshua Waxman, citing the Hasidic teacher Rabbi Noach of Lechowitz, notes “the contrast between the seven days of Sukkot, filled with beautiful rituals and adornments such as the sukkah, lulav, and etrog, and the festival of Shemini Atzeret,” the final day of the holiday season, with a sentiment that could easily apply to Marcheshvan. “He compares this to the difference between a wedding ceremony and the first time the newlyweds are alone together. At the wedding, the participants are dressed in their finest clothing; there is ritual and excitement, music and dancing. When the newlyweds are finally alone, they need none of these accouterments—in fact, they would just get in the way. All of these distractions are discarded, and the newly married couple is left in a pure state of connection and intimacy. So too with God. On Shemini Atzeret, [or in marchesvahn] we do not need the vast profusion of ritual objects, of the symbols that we employ on Sukkot [and the rest of the holidays]; rather we quietly rejoice in the feeling of deep connectedness from standing in God’s presence.”
This is marcheshvan. It’s a little spare, a little quiet, maybe even a little lonely after the loud din associated with the holidays, surrounded by people all the time—and maybe that’s okay.
It’s time for a little more intimacy, a little more contemplation, a little more of the opportunity to carefully live out themes we’ve been reflecting on, and if we feel ourselves becoming a little unmoored from them, here is shabbat to help anchor us.
Shabbat, at the risk of being too on the nose with the baseball metaphor, is home base. During the course of the week, we reach for first base, second, third, aspiring to build, to go out, to do, but ultimately, our ultimate goal is to return home, secure, at peace, safe.
May we, and the Phillies, do it many times over. Shabbat Shalom.
