Dear Readers,
I love this time of year. I didn't really understand the opportunities we are given during the time period of Rosh Hashana-The Jewish New Year, Aseret Yimay Teshuva-The Ten Days of Repentance, Yom Kippur-The Day of Atonement, and Sukkot-The Festival of Booths, before I attended Midreshet Harova five years ago. There, they introduced us to the beauty of the selichot-prayers of repentance, taught us what self-introspection really means, and the pure enjoyment of the holiday of Sukkot-Zman Simchateinu-the designated "time of happiness" in the Jewish Calendar, that follows the intense, serious, and awesome High Holy days. Since my time at Midreshet Harova, this time of the year has been very helpful in mapping out my goals for the coming year and figuring out what I need to work on.
Because I had the privilege of being an advisor on NCSY JOLT(Jewish Overseas Leadership Training) this past summer, my preparation for the time period we are in now, started during my learning experiences in Poland, Austria, and Israel where I was surrounded by incredible individuals with big ideas, who were both serious about life and Judaism. Being back in the throes of real life can be hard after being in a certain utopia like environment for a summer, but it is much easier to do the mundane things in life when you are grounded in values and have a plan of where you want to be going. Having at least a sketch of a plan puts you on a road to somewhere. The uncertainty of not knowing where you are going can be stressful and emotionally draining but this is the time of the year to figure it out.
My father directed me to an article written by Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm which is the first article that appears in the Yeshiva University Torah Rosh Hashana To-Go packet. I am attaching a link. http://www.yutorah.org/togo/roshhashana/articles/Rosh_Hashanah_To-Go_-_5772_Rabbi_Lamm.pdf. It is worth reading. What is remarkable about the writing is that it was written in 1961 and I deeply connect to the issues he was describing that are still issues today in different forms. For example, Rabbi Lamm writes,
"Confusion is, indeed, the hallmark of our times. We are confused by the daily anxieties of existence, the senseless anguish and the seeming emptiness of life all about us. We are confused by the apparently suicidal inclinations of world leaders who explode atom bombs with no thought to the irreparable damage inflicted upon generations unborn. We are confused by the conflicting claims pressed upon us by the differ in interpretations of Judaism, both those to the right and to the left of us. We are confused by the clash of religionists and secularists in the State of Israel. We are confused by the strange kind of world in which our children are growing up-indeed, by our children themselves, their dreams and ambitions, their fears and piques, their paradoxical, ambivalent attitudes towards us: rebelliousness on the one hand, love on the other."
Another part I wanted to emphasize was a very hopeful section of the speech. He writes,
"On Yom Kippur we confess to the sin of confusion: al cheit shechatanu lefanekha betimahon levav. And R. David Kimhi, the great grammarian, tells us that the world l'arbev, to confuse, is related to the word erev, evening or nighttime, because then all is confused and dim. "Confusion is surely, a darkness of the mind and heart. And yet the person gripped in confusion ought not to despair. The fact that it is regarded as a sin means that it can be avoided or voided and banished. Confusion is often a necessary prelude to clarity and creativity. Before the world took the form its Creator ordained for it, it was tohu vavohu-void and chaotic, all confusion. Only afterwards, after the darkness on the face of the deep, the erev of irbuv, did G-d command yehi ore- let there be light-and there was light. Creative thinkers or writers or artists know that immediately before the stroke of inspiration there must be a period of tohu vavohu, of true confusion."
The words speak for themselves. I hope you learn as much from Rabbi Lamm's words as I did.
The other person who motivated me to write today was Steve Jobs. I found my daily New York Times alert sitting in my inbox. The subject was "founder of Apple dies at 56." I did a little research and found out that he had unfortunately passed away from cancer. My friend then sent me a commencement speech that he had given at Stanford University in 2005. He was very well spoken, and obviously intelligent, but most importantly he seemed very humble and kind. You could get that sense from the way he gave over his advice at Stanford. I am attaching the link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc.
I wanted to share with you my favorite parts if you don't get a chance to listen or read through the whole thing. But I highly suggest taking some time to listen to it.
And now for the words of Steve Jobs...
"Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something-your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life."
"During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the world's first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have wonderful family together."
"I am pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle."
"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma-which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinion drown out your own inner voice, And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
"When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog...on the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words, "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish."
I was really touched and motivated by this speech. I admire Steve Jobs and he will always be remembered by not only his accomplishments that have enhanced our quality of life but he will be remembered by his family who loves him, and for his humble nature that came across so well in his speech.
I learn from people like Steve Jobs and try my hardest to be like them; to work hard in what I am passionate about, to be a family person, and act humbly in everything that I do and accomplish. I will never be perfect at it because it is a life-long learning process but I am thankful that I have the opportunity every year to think about my ways and how I can better them through the process of Rosh Hashana, Aseret Yimay Teshuva, Yom Kippur, and finally our Zman Simchateinu, our time of pure happiness, Sukkot.
Thank G-d for another year. And in Steve Job's words, let us "stay hungry" so that that our individual and collective dreams can be actualized in the year 5772.
