What a week! And I almost made it to Shabbos without writing a dvar Torah! OY! There was a three day music festival in Tzfat, which meant I was up until at least 4 every night/morning. I started going to an Israeli learning program and plan on moving in there next week, which means I will be learning all in Hebrew and living with only Hebrew speakers. That’s intense. And above all, the new Hebrew month began this week: Elul. Ahhh Elul…it is the time that the sages say, “The King is in the field.” What the heck does that mean? We say the King is HaShem and He is accessible on the level of a ‘field’. So what is a field? I thought of something, but I don’t want to take credit for it. I’m sure someone much more important than me thought of this first, but it happens to be that I tapped into this awareness this week and want to share it with you. Okay, enough preface. So what is in the field? It is where we collect our food, our produce, our currency. We can use what we gather to eat for the week, store it for the future, and sell the rest to finance other aspects of our lives. Basically, the field is the source of our livelihood. But it isn’t just there for the taking. We have to work the field in order to benefit from its fruits. Sometimes the produce is ready to eat as is out of the ground and sometimes you have to harvest it, discard the shell, grind it and reform it into something edible. I’m a little crunched for time here so let me make my point… Usually we are in the home, where life is comfortable and routine. But this month the King is in the field and we must leave our homes in order to meet him. He met us more than halfway. We don’t have to go all the way to the palace to have counsel with Him. He is in OUR field, there to help us harvest this year’s crops. All we have to do is meet Him there…and work WITH him. In this month, the last of the year before Rosh HaShana (the first day of the new year), we are asked to leave our comfort zone. But not drastically. We don’t have to travel to far off palaces. We just have to travel to a place still within our jurisdiction. But that doesn’t mean that it is necessarily easy. We still have to work and put forth effort. But that effort is met with helping hands, a warm heart, and an open ear. In this week’s parsha, Shoftim (Judges), HaShem reveals a law of the nature of human beings. It says that a judge that has been given anything by either the plaintiff or the defender (is that what they’re called? I don’t really know these things), is not capable of making an unbiased decision because even if he is righteous and can be sure of a certain verdict, receiving something from one side connects him to that side and his subconscious wants to support that connection.Basically, when we receive from someone, we become connected to them. This month of Elul is about reexamining our habits (leaving our homes) and choosing a few things to work on that we would like to cultivate in our lives (harvesting the field). And all of this gathering in the field, picking up new and better habits along the way, is in order to redistribute the wealth. We are investing in our future, and therefore the future of all of those that we come in contact with, whether we are already connected or have yet to be connected. And this is a form of giving. And therefore, by actively choosing to let go and make space for newer and better, we are giving to ourselves and our community, and therefore strengthening the connection between us and ourselves, us and our surroundings, and us and our creator. That was super rushed. I hope it made sense. May we all be blessed to really meet the King in the field.
Posted on: Fri, 09 Aug 2013 15:39:52 +0000
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