As you read this, the door has closed on the three-week period known to Jews worldwide as the High Holy Days. In Israel, they are referred to simply as the chagim, or holidays.
Most people have heard of Rosh HaShanah, the Jewish New Year, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, ten days later. Not everyone knows that the holidays continue for another two weeks after that, with three distinct phases – the week-long celebration of Sukkot, or Tabernacles, followed by Shmini Atzeret, the Eighth Day of Assembly, and Simchat Torah, when we celebrate finishing one yearlong cycle of Torah reading and begin anew with the story of Creation.
I like to tell my non-Jewish friends to imagine a month of Christmas, and enjoy the horrified look on their faces. While the holidays are a joyful time, they are also exhausting. In my family, university students have to negotiate time off classes and reschedule assignments and tests, and as the principal Torah reader at my synagogue, I put in a lot of hours on my feet, especially during Simchat Torah, when we take all the scrolls out of the ark and dance around the sanctuary with them.
In Israel, where I grew up, this time is both simpler and more complicated. Schools, universities and workplaces are closed, and the dilemmas faced by Diaspora Jews such as myself are avoided. On the other hand, this means that life pretty much grinds to a halt during those three weeks. If you need work done on your car or your plumbing, you are likely to be met with an apologetic shrug and the promise that they will get to you acharei hachagim, after the holidays.
There is something mythical about that time, when all the celebrations will be done and everything will be put away until next year, when all the plumbers and auto mechanics and other people that we need to help us through life will be magically available again. In the meantime, we can be in limbo – well, nothing can really be done until acharei hachagim, so we might as well not bother to do anything else. The holidays are so exhausting, anyway.
It’s very tempting to give way to this mindset, to put all ambition and plans aside, whether it’s for the Jewish holidays, for the summer, or for the majority culture holiday season that starts around Halloween and continues until early January. It can seems so much easier to let everything go until that mythical time – after whatever it is.
But you don’t have to.
If you have a vision that haunts your dreams and demands that you follow it, you are not going to let it go like that. You will find ways to get your work done, for your business or your charity or whatever is tugging on your heart. Whether you are a political activist or a climate warrior, you aren’t about to go to sleep for three weeks or three months.
Do you have a reason to keep going, even when it’s a tough slog and you are surrounded by many other calls on your time? If not, why do you do what you do? As I once heard Jesse Itzler ask Susan Sly on a podcast, if it doesn’t move the needle, why are you doing it?
We are approaching the time of year that often lends itself to introspection – we look back on the year that is almost gone, and we consider the resolutions that we want to make for the coming year.
It’s a good time to think about why we do what we do, and maybe, just maybe, consider doing something else. If you don’t follow your heart now, when will you do it?
To quote the great sage Hillel the Elder, if I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?
P.S. If you are local to me, come visit me for my next event on November 3, 2019, 1 – 3 pm, at 89 Creek Bend Road, Winnipeg. We will be tasting products, telling success stories and answering questions. It will be fun!