CHOCHMAS NASHIM: KI TAVO: WHO DO YOU SEE?
By: Suri Davis
When you look in the mirror, who do you see?
What defines you?
Who are you?
Reflecting on the past year, as we enter the last week of this year, what were the highlights, and what would you like never to repeat, if it is within your power.
Who would you like to be, what powers do you have to accomplish it?
What do you want for yourself in the coming year? What can you do to reach your goals?
What are the obstacles to your goals?
This week, those who learn Daf Yomi, started masechet Meila. Meila is a sin whereby we take something that is holy, sanctified or dedicated to G-d or to the holy temple, and misuse it for ordinary purposes. The rabbis ask how our forefather Jacob, could have used the stones of the future temple altar as a resting place for his head, the issue is that he took those which were dedicated for worship of G-d, as a pillow.
How does this question of misusing that which is dedicated to G-d relate to the questions asked above?
The torah tells us that we are created in G-d’s image from the moment we are born. We have to actualize that G-dliness every day. G-d is holy/pure/dedicated/sanctified, and we are as well. Accordingly, since we were created as holy beings for the service of G-d, we cannot misuse ourselves and our lives for the mundane, material world of exile in which we exist. This would be akin to the sin of Meila, misusing that which is holy and dedicated to G-d.
As Rabbi Y.Y. Jacobson conveyed in his speech in the packed White Shul sanctuary, when we blow the shofar, we say Hayom haras olam/today is the anniversary of the creation of the world. He compared it to Jeremiah’s lament that he wishes that he stayed in his mother’s womb and was never born.
In America we have the concept of “born again” Christians, those who rededicate themselves to G-d, and who up their ante in dedication to G-d and worship.
We are now in the last week of our year, a new year is about to begin and we have a choice. Will we talk about our past, and the gravity which threatens to pull us down, and the exile and the gravity of the exile we are in, as an excuse to never be born or reborn.
Or every day, do we say in our prayers, in memory of the exodus out of Egypt, AT ANY MOMENT WE CAN BE REDEEMED in the blink of an eye. We can work towards redemption, we can get out of the womb and live and give birth to a being which strives to be reborn, and live up to G-d’s image and actualize his potential as beings who are dedicated to G-d, and not misuse ourselves and our lives by denigrating that which was born holy and sanctified. The sin of Meila.
In this week’s torah portion of Ki Tavo, we are about to enter into the land of Israel. We can see the physical enemy and fear the enemy, or we can see the beauty of the land and have faith that G-d is with us, in conquering the land, and opening up new opportunities to observe mitzvoth hitherto not relevant to us outside of the land of Israel. New opportunities to do new mitzvoth, to sanctify G-d’s name and ourselves in the eyes of the nations of the world.
As we meditate and ponder this past year, our past lives, our future opportunities, let us reinvigorate our goals of purity, and keep sanctified that which was born sanctified by availing ourselves of new mitzvoth and new opportunities to do mitzvoth in the coming year.
Shabbat shalom.
-Suri