Seidemann: Thoughts for the new year

Posted

From the other side of the bench

by David Seidemann

Issue of September 10, 2010/ 2 Tishrei 5771
I did something last week that I should’ve done a long time ago. I actually took a day off from work. After a summer with no vacations and an August spent teaching business law four nights a week at Touro, I needed a breather. I have a friend who owns a 26-foot boat and his invitation to set sail was something I could not resist.

My memory shifted back some 40 years ago when my friend’s father took his son and me on Buckeye Lake in Columbus, Ohio, in a small canoe. We were to spend a few hours fishing in calm waters but nausea was not the problem; I had bigger issues. As soon as we arrived in the middle of the lake, my friend cast his rod towards the back of the boat, where I was sitting. Moments later, he caught an 80-pound 11-year-old named David. I decided, then and there, canoes were not for me.

My memory then drifted back some 20 years when I was single and a friend coerced me into going on a large fishing boat with him. I was nauseous and dizzy for the entire trip and spent the entire 650 hours (or so it seemed) on the floor of the boat begging for someone to throw me overboard. It was then that I decided large fishing boats were also not for me.

But this was different. Cutting through the choppy waves of the Atlantic at 40 mph, wind rushing through my hair and the cool ocean breeze and water dowsing my face, I had one of the most enjoyable days in a very long time.

We set our sights on Fire Island, planned for a dip in the ocean and a walk-through of the famous Fire Island Sunken Forest, one of the most beautiful areas of trees and water you can find.

To our chagrin someone alerted every mosquito in North America of our impending arrival; days later, I look like a raised relief map of Colorado. Bug bites aside, however, part of me that was dormant for way too long came alive on that excursion. I was on a high for two days afterwards and can’t wait to experience the high seas and the Sunken Forest again. People travel the world to discover and encounter G-d’s majestic work. It is not necessary to travel the lengths of the world, as beauty and tranquility exists in our very own backyard.

The Jewish people are compared to sands on the shore and stars in the heaven. Many reasons are given for such comparisons, but after my commune with nature last week, I believe the following explanation is also plausible. We live in a very man-made world. We make children, we make money, and we make homes and businesses. In short, we make “things.” Life becomes measured. If we involve G-d in our lives at all, it’s only in the things we build. From a more theological perspective, life is measured by the amount of Torah we learn, the number of good deeds we perform, the amount of charity we give. “We” become the focus of ourselves.

By G-d comparing us to nature’s beauty, to his other creations, we are reminded to experience G-d through nature and to reconnect to G-d as the creator. We reconnect to He who built us, rather than experiencing G-d through what we have managed to build, laudable as those things may be.

Seeing and experiencing G-d’s beauty in nature recreates us and brings us back to those first moments when G-d breathed into man’s nostrils. Indeed, as the wind was blowing through my hair and on my face a few days ago, I felt as if those initial breaths blown into Adam were being blown into me. I felt as if I was beginning anew, a very appropriate feeling for this time of year. We are a society of steel and glass, but true inner peace comes when we connect to our beginnings, to water, sand and stars.

Rosh Hashanah, the Day of Judgment, is on man’s birthday; when he was created and placed into a world that contained nothing but nature. All that we busy ourselves with these days, from cars to homes to jewelry to cell phones, was created afterward. Oh sure, they might have been spin-offs from the six days of creation and yes, they could not have come into existence unless G-d willed them so, but they are afterthoughts.

G-d, in his purest sense, and man and his purest sense are to be seen in and felt in water and earth. “Adom yesodo may’afar, visofo li afar,” we say in our high holiday prayers — “Man’s source is from dust and he returns to dust.” It sounds morbid but it can also be invigorating. Stripped of the extraneous, man can be as free as the sand on Fire Island and the ocean breeze kissing one’s face.

I felt that freedom and G-dliness for a few hours the other day. On Rosh Hashanah, I hope to hearken back to those feelings as I stand before G-d, not just on man’s birthday but on nature’s birthday as well.

David Seidemann is a partner with the law firm of Seidemann & Mermelstein. He can be reached at (718) 692-1013 and at ds@lawofficesm.com