CHESHVAN HOLIDAYS 5784
Cheshvan is the only month in the Hebrew Calendar where there are no holidays. There is a teaching that it is called Mar Cheshvan or bitter Cheshvan because of the absence of holidays (Maarechet Chatan V'Kallah 23) But I don’t think that is right at all. I want to suggest some core ways to appreciate the absence of any holidays.
Why are there no holidays? After the craziness of Tishrei, we need a break. All beings have a certain rhythm in their lives. Predators expend enormous energy chasing prey. If they catch something, they sit down to eat and then sleep. If they don’t catch anything, they sit down and sleep. Squirrels busily collect nuts in the fall, and then spend a lot of the winter wrapped around each other out of the wind, keeping warm. Birds who are pictures of motion on warm days eating 3x their body weight are still, preserving energy when it gets cold. Trees leaf out like crazy, pull energy down into their roots, lose their leaves, hibernate for the winter. Mountains experience this crazy upthrust that leaves them towering over the surrounding land and then, over the centuries, wear away bit by bit by bit. Breathe in and breathe out, there is a rhythm to life. After exertion, rest.
This rest does not mean that we go to a resort in the Caribbean and sip mai tais on the beach. I think what it means is that we have an opportunity to digest what we have learned during Elul and Tishrei. Here we have done all of this introspection, taken a thorough inventory of our souls, repaired what we can with our fellow humans, the divine and the more than human world. We have made commitments to do better, to change our ways. And starting in Cheshvan and our return to more ordinary space and time, we are faced with the challenge of implementation. Did we really mean what we said in those waning hours of Yom Kippur? Did we really mean what came to us as we poured our hearts out during Hoshanna Rabbah, praying for rain?
If you think about vision quests in the Native American tradition, there’s a tendency to focus on the days that the adolescent spends alone on the mountain top, crying for a vision. But the vision means nothing without the interpretation of the elders that is part of his/her return to the community. And the commitment to the lessons s/he has learned makes the difference between a quest that is a really nice high and the quest that makes a true difference in their lives.
Elders play a crucial role in assessing the visions. The visions are like the raw data, akin to the cry of the heart when the gates are about to close at the end of Yom Kippur, or nearing the end of the circles made around the altar during the great pleading of Sukkot. But what does it all mean? Visions aren’t always clear linear statements of do this or do that.
We are sorely missing elders in our society. So I would encourage everyone to expand their sense of who might be an elder. There’s mentors of course, and I think we should expand our sense of elderhood to include human ancestors and the more than human world. For instance, I regard Hans Georg Gadamer, a German philosopher, as a mentor and I sometimes ask myself what he would say about something. I think of my garden as a whole as a teacher—this year I learned a lesson about the need for diversification, and also about picking varieties that are suited to my climate. Choose teachers/elders, inquire of them on how to proceed and listen to their wisdom.
The absence of something (holidays) is not nothing, it isn’t merely an absence. I’m going to wax philosophical for a minute, so bear with me or skip it. I studied and wrote my bachelor’s thesis on Jean Paul Sartre, a French Existentialist philosopher who was a big deal when he was alive. I’m no longer a follower of his at all, but one thing he said in his magnificent work, Being and Nothingness is that nothingness has a presence—it isn’t mere absence. Somebody, to use his example, who is absent in your life e.g. a missing love one, still makes an impact in your life, they have being in your life, they are not nothing.
Holidays in Cheshvan aren’t merely absent; the lack of holidays in the month makes the holidays from the previous month of Tishrei more present. The absence of holidays makes Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot linger so that we can learn their lessons.
QUESTIONS
What commitments, if any, did you make during Elul and Tishrei towards your fellow humans, the divine or the more than human world?
What is your structure, if any, to support you following through on those commitments?
Did you have any elders support you in formulating these commitments or in making the plans to implement them? Can you recruit some elders to assist you?
