Translation by Yehoshua Siskin
I am now getting ready for Sukkot and Simchat Torah, while searching for unique insights regarding "after the holidays." Why, you ask, should this be on my agenda in the middle of Elul? Well, my weekly shows on Channel 12 for the upcoming holidays are being filmed now. There will be 13 presentations, one for each Erev Shabbat and Erev Chag. (Who would believe that the Keshet Media Group would inspire me to learn so much Torah...)
This is a fascinating challenge that wearies the brain: to prepare a presentation now as if it's already Erev Rosh Hashanah, and then to speak into the camera a short time later as if Erev Yom Kippur is upon us, and still later the same day to give a presentation on the end of the holidays and starting over again as we read parashat Bereishit.
But as I left the TV studio I suddenly understood something about the inherent holiness in time. Only now had I finished a broadcast about preparation for hearing the shofar on Rosh Hashanah, while outside it was just another Wednesday in Elul. It's possible to pretend that the holidays have already arrived but, in the end, the holiness, the mitzvah, the unparalleled experience of Rosh Hashanah, or any other holiday, can only be fully appreciated on the day itself.
Rav Kook (1865-1935), Israel's first chief rabbi, wrote about this once as follows: "Each time shines in a different way." In other words, each day has its own special quality. Just as different people are characterized by different qualities -- whether kindness, generosity, or courage -- so too each time is characterized by its own special quality: Pesach is the time of our deliverance from slavery to freedom, Tisha B'Av evokes the destructiveness of baseless hatred and its antidote of baseless love, while the current month of Elul is a time of soul-searching and renewal as we approach the new year. Tishrei? Cheshvan? Those months have completely different qualities, but it's not our concern to experience them now.
May we merit to live with the times. Have a joyful and meaningful Elul.
