From the heart of Jerusalem: Dances with G-d

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The festival of Sukkot was around the corner, and I realized I had no way to get a set of four species (arbah minim) in time for the festival. We were actually in Lebanon at the time, and as the only kippah-wearing soldier on the base, I knew I was on my own, and the thought of having no set of ‘arbah minim’ was really depressing.
With so many patrols and duties (we were in a hot zone) the possibility of taking off time to get somewhere to buy a set was pretty remote, but I managed to re-arrange the officers’ duty-roster leaving me an eighteen-hour window, and convinced my C.O. I could make it to Jerusalem and back in time to cover the next patrol.
This was no easy feat, as it usually took a good eight hours to get all the way down, but the thought of being in civilization even for just an hour, was more than I could resist.
All told, I ended up in Jerusalem for about three hours, which was enough to pick up a beautiful set of ‘ arbah minim’, and ended up spending a good fifteen hours in travel. The challenge of keeping my Lulav intact and kosher while hitchhiking in a variety of small cars was not simple, but I made it back to base with my ‘arbah minim’ intact.
All of which gave me a whole different level of appreciation for the mitzvah that particular year.
So on the morning of Sukkot, just back from a patrol, I found myself all alone in what passed for the synagogue on our base.
It was too hot to pray inside, so I stepped outside and, facing south towards Jerusalem continued my prayers. There is a point in the Hallel prayers which really hit me:
“Ma’ ashiv la’Hashem?” “What have I to give back to G-d?”
There are certain moments in life, when you appreciate the gifts you have been given. In the middle of a war zone, with men getting killed or injured every day, and the number of close calls and near misses too many to count, you realize that life is a gift and you wonder why you are lucky enough to still be here, and, in silent gratitude, you pray yet again that you will succeed in making the life you have been given worth living.
And in the midst of all these thoughts, deep in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, with the Shouf Mountain Range rising up above, a niggun just popped into my head and I began to sing. And pretty soon, lost in the moment, I actually began to dance.
It was a pretty powerful experience, until in the course of my experience I turned around and realized I was not alone. Standing about twenty feet behind me were the base cook and a couple of soldiers on kitchen detail, including one of my men.
Judging by the expressions on their faces, they must have thought I was absolutely mad. And who could blame them?
It was for me a deeply spiritual moment, which of course begs the question: What is spirituality, and how do we experience it in our lives? This week I was privileged to attend an incredible conference, run by the Center for the Jewish Future of Yeshiva University, one of whose themes was the challenge of infusing Jewish life with spirituality. Four hundred Jewish leaders from all over the world came together with an eye towards exploring the needs of the Jewish people going forward, one of which is a deep sense that people yearn for a more spiritual Jewish experience. So what is spirituality and how do we make it part of our lives?
Obviously, spirituality is an experience that touches and connects us to our spirit or soul; what we refer to in Hebrew as the neshama. And the common perception is that we are looking for a soul experience, but we don’t often discuss just how to accomplish this lofty goal.
The truth is, we don’t need to access our souls; we are souls ; we simply need to learn how to get out of the way. And if the essence of a person’s soul is that it represents the meaning and purpose of why we are here, then a soulful a.k.a. spiritual experience, is one that it allows us to connect to what we think our purpose in this world really is. And of course, in order to connect to why we are here, we need to connect to the source of what we are about here; we need to connect to G-d. Indeed, a spiritual experience is an opportunity to have a meaningful connection, a relationship with G-d. But most of us never take the time, nor do we discuss just how one does this. How does one connect to G-d? How do we have a meaningful, and even a loving relationship with Hashem, our creator? In effect, how can we (do we even want to) actually fall in love… with G-d?
Judaism suggests that love is all about giving. The Hebrew term for love, ahavah, is related to the ancient Aramaic term ‘hav’ which means to give. Love is all about giving, which is what makes it so different from lust which is all about taking. And of course, the more you give to anything the more you love it. That is why we love our children so much, because we give them everything, and it is also why sometimes our (especially teenage) children have difficulty loving us, if they don’t feel (or we don’t allow them to feel) they have much to give us. In fact if you want to love something more, just practice giving to it. Maybe that is why some of us so deeply love the land of Israel; because we have given up so much for it.
So how does one love G-d? Simply by giving to G-d.
And how does one actually give to G-d who is perfection? If Hashem creates us with a purpose, and we can figure (or at least think we figure) out what that purpose is, then maybe we give back to G-d by living up to that purpose. If in whatever we are doing, we feel we are living up to the reason we are here then that allows for a deep soul connection; or, for those of us interested in a deeper connection with G-d, allows us to literally, fall in love with G-d.
And whether we are picking up a piece of litter on a NYC street, helping a neighbor with groceries, lighting Shabbat candles, or even dancing in Lebanon, if in that moment we allow ourselves to experience, for even a moment, a sense of ‘for this, perhaps, the world has become a little better with me in it; for this was I created’; then we will allow ourselves the spiritual windows that make life worth living.
Maybe it is time, because we so need it, to share with our communities, and especially our youth a more G-d conscious curriculum, and a more G-d conscious life.
For an excellent treatment of this topic see Rabbi David Aaron’s Endless Light and Secret Life of G-d , two excellent books that explore what G-d really is, and how we can create a deeper and more meaningful relationship with G-d.

Rav Binny Freedman, Rosh Yeshivat Orayta in Jerusalem’s Old City is a Company Commander in the IDF reserves, and lives in Efrat with his wife Doreet and their four children. His  weekly Internet ‘Parsha Bytes’ can be found at www.orayta.org