Preparing for Kabbalat HaTorah

Parshat Bechukotai

by Rabbi Avi Billet

Every day we say in the last paragraph of our Shmoneh Esrei, 

“My God, guard my tongue from evil and my lips from speaking deceitfully. To those who curse me let my soul be silent. And let my soul be like dust to everyone. Open my heart to your Torah, then my soul will pursue Your commandments. As for all those who design evil against me, speedily nullify their counsel and disrupt their design. Act for Your Name’s sake; act for Your right hand’s sake; act for your sanctity’s sake; act for Your Torah’s sake. That your beloved ones may be given rest; let You, right hand save, and respond to me. 

 May the expressions of my mouth and thoughts of my heart find favor before You Hashem, my Rock and my Redeemer 

He Who makes peace in His heights, may He make peace upon us, and upon all Israel. Now respond, Amen.” 

 The line Open my heart to your Torah, then my soul will pursue Your commandments is one which should be quite compelling at this time of year. After all, next Saturday night we will begin celebrating Shavuos, the holiday of מתן תורתינו, and therefore the gift that is the Torah. 

 Another line we say daily, this is in the final bracha before the morning recitation of Shema: 

“Our Father, the merciful Father, Who acts mercifully, have mercy upon us, instill in our hearts to understand and elucidate, to listen, to learn, to teach, to safeguard, perform and fulfill all the words of Your Torah’s teaching with love. Enlighten our eyes in Your Torah, attach our hearts to Your commandments, and unify our hearts to love and fear Your name…” 

 After the opening verses of the Parsha which speak of certain blessings which will come when we fulfill אם בחקתי תלכו, we read: 10 verses later, we heard the following (translation is from “The Living Torah”): [But this is what will happen] if you do not listen to Me, and do not keep all these commandments. If you come to denigrate My decrees, and grow tired of My laws, then you will not keep all My commandments, and you will have broken My covenant. I will then do the same to you. I will bring upon you feelings of anxiety, along with depression and excitement, destroying your outlook and making life hopeless. [26:14-16] 

 It seems very clear as to what will be causing the bad times. “You will thus be destroyed among the nations. The land of your enemies will consume you. The few of you who survive in your enemies' lands will [realize that] your survival is threatened as a result of your nonobservance. [These few] will also [realize] that their survival has been threatened because of the nonobservance of their fathers. They will then confess their sins and the sins of their fathers for being false and remaining indifferent to Me. [It was for this] that I also remained indifferent to them, and brought them into their enemies' land. But when the time finally comes that their stubborn spirit is humbled, I will forgive their sin. I will remember My covenant with Jacob as well as My covenant with Isaac and My covenant with Abraham. I will remember the land.” [26:38-42] 

These messages from the Torah can remind us that life almost has a very simple goal and formula. For each of us, our task is not to focus on others and what they do. Our goal is in making ourselves the best version of ourselves we can become. We can hopefully find answers to life’s most vexing questions if our focus is on our Avodas Hashem (service of God) and our engaging with His Torah. 

 Which leads to a very simple realization: We have one job. 

Our job is to try to weed out the noise, the distractions, and focus on our relationship with God.  Every single day. 

 This is very hard – after all, we want to be in touch with what’s going on in the world. We certainly don’t want to seem out of touch. But the more we engage with the things which distract us from our mission as עבדי ה', we have failed in our mission. 

 We can enjoy life! Of course we should! As a matter of fact, in Parshas Va’Eschanan, immediately after the Torah gives us the second accounting of the Aseres HaDibros, the version we do not read on Shavuos, Moshe recounts to the people what Hashem had told him at that time. 

 “If only their hearts would always remain this way, where they are in such awe of Me. They would then keep all My commandments for all time, so that it would go well with them and their children forever. 'Go tell them to return to their tents. You, however, must remain here with Me. I will declare to you all the rules and laws that you shall teach them, so they will keep them in the land that I am giving them to occupy.' (Devarim 5:26-28) 

 Netziv writes on the “return to their tents” passage: לחיי בשרים ותענוגות בני האדם כטבע האנושי. To your lives of fleshiness and the kind of pleasures of people, as is human nature. 

 Moshe continues and tells them that “through all that – do not forget to do all that God has commanded, don’t turn to the right or to the left.” (Devarim 5:29) 

 So yes - enjoy life. But also - keep the mitzvos. Don’t just be a decent Jew, or a good Jew, but be an incredible Jew. 

 We can certainly begin in one arena: There is a week before Shavuos. Anyone can start a small learning project and make a siyum on it in honor of Shavuos. 

 Pick an article or a book on Jewish thought. Or Jewish law. A musser book. 

Pick a parsha in the Torah to learn. 

 Read through 20 chapters of Tehillim a day over the next 8 days. 150 chapters. Finish Tehillim. 

 Pick a short mesechet of Mishnayot! The following mesechtot are either relatively easy or relatively shorter. Avot. Bikkurim – which is relevant to a mitzvah surrounding Shavuos. Beitzah. Horayot. Zavim. Chalah. TVul Yom. Yadayim. Megillah. Moed Katan. Makkos. Uktzin. Orlah. Kinnim. Rosh Hashana. Taanis. 

 Many of the books in Trei Asar – the last book of Navi – are short. 

 Yoel, OVadiah, Yonah, Nachum, Chabakuk, Zefaniah, Chaggai, Malachi.

The book of Ruth, which we’ll be reading on Shavuos, is 4 chapters, and it is mostly narrative. Study it with a commentary! 

 You can open Maimonides: The Rambam dedicates 3 chapters to the laws of Milah, 3 chapters to Hilchos Naarah Besulah, 4 chapters on Hilchos Sotah. 5 Chapters on laws of Avodas Yom HaKippurim, 3 chapters to the laws of Tzitzis. 4 chapters to the laws of Krias Shema. 

 Laws of Shofar, Sukkah and Lulav are 8 chapters – but broken down into each of those sections being 2 or 3 chapters. Tefillin Mezuzah and Sefer Torah has 10 chapters, but follows a similar formula in that each topic is presented separately for 3 or 4 chapters. The laws of Talmud Torah – another great topic to prepare for Shavuos! 

 This is what we pray for daily. This is what we pray for weekly.

opefully we all know how to enjoy life in the manner the Netziv was describing. שובו לכם לאהליכם. Return home! ENJOY! 

 But how many of us are prepared to follow the next instruction, “But you stand with me”? True that was given to Moshe. But shouldn’t we be doing the most we can to emulate Moshe? God’s message to him was “I will learn with you.”

 If we mean it when we ask God פתח לבי בתורתך ואחרי מצוותיך תרדף נפשי = Open my heart to your Torah, then my soul will pursue Your commandments and if we mean it when we say ותן בלבנו בינה להבין ולהשכיל לשמוע ללמד וללמד לשמור ולעשות וקיים את כל דברי תלמוד תורתיך באהבה. והאר עינינו בתורתיך ודבק לבנו במצותיך – instill in our hearts to understand and elucidate, to listen, to learn, to teach, to safeguard, perform and fulfill all the words of Your Torah’s teaching with love. Enlighten our eyes in Your Torah, attach our hearts to Your commandments - then we ought to stand by our words. 

 Sometimes we need a reminder. So this is it. 

 May we all take the bracha, and may we all merit to make a siyum on something. All Torah learning is good. Any project undertaken and completed is incredible 

 We have one more week to make a kinyan on Torah in preparation for Matan Torah. May we only be so worthy!

(Re)Defining Redemption

Parshat Behar 

 by Rabbi Avi Billet 

 Lag Ba’Omer having been this past Wednesday night and Thursday, it is hard to believe that a year has gone by since that celebrated day became a tragedy for 45 families directly, and for all of Klal Yisrael in the wake of the event that took so many lives in Meron last year. 

 In his song “Memories” in which he laments how those who survived the Shoah are slowly fading away, Abie Rotenberg wrote “Time has a way of passing by so fast.” That is what Time is and what Time does – it moves on, leaving us all to figure out “what will become of all the memories?” 

Torahs have been written, foundations created, edifices dedicated in memory of those whose lives were cut short on that day. That is all wonderful and appropriate. 

The question we face is “How have we been moved?” It’s a monumental challenge. Every time we hear of a tragedy or a loss, when we contemplate the death of someone we knew or did not know (in the latter case their passing impacted us somehow nonetheless), we often make commitments that we will do something to remember that person, or to emulate a deed that person was known for, or to carry on a chesed that person was committed to, or to continue a legacy a person carried, or to complete a task a person began. 

It’s very hard to remember all the things we’ve taken on in this way, all the people we had planned to memorialize in our own choices of behavior and deed, and even more challenging to keep up the things that were so defining of those we remember, but may be against our nature, and not the kinds of things we were able to truly make our own. 

Perhaps we need a redemption from our undertakings, or at the very least a redemption from all the pain! 

 There are two words for redemption that generally come to mind when we think in terms of Biblical Hebrew. One appears in the phrase “Pidyon HaBen” (and similar cash redemptions) in which the subject is redeemed for money (or some equivalent) through the agency of a Kohen. פדה, פדיון, פדות

 The other word for redemption is גאולה, which is often used to describe the FINAL Redemption in the Messianic Era. How many speeches have we heard which conclude with some message that we should merit to experience “the Geulah Shleimah?” 

So let us do a quick Search of the word גאולה/גאלה in Tanach to see how often this most important concept is touched upon, and what it means. As it turns out the word GEULAH (read that way) appears three times in the Torah, two times in Navi (the Prophets) and once in Ketuvim (Writings). All three Torah appearances are in our Parsha, the Navi ones are both in Yirmiyahu, and the Ketuvim one in the book of Ruth. ALL of these refer to a redemption of land going back to its original owner, and in the case of our Parsha, it refers to what takes place in the Yovel (Biblical Jubilee) year with respect to property rights as described. (In the Torah, the root גאל appears 44 times, with 31 of those appearances being in בהר and בחקותי – all related to financial redemption of property. Nine of the remaining times refer to the avenging relative of the victim of an accidental homicide – the גאל הדם.) 

Put another way, “Geulah” means a return to what was in the past. Even the two times that the root word appear in the context of the Exodus can be easily understood to mean that God is returning the Israelites to the status they had been in before, namely free people. 

 When we consider the kinds of redemption we seek, we often think of a future of unknowable quality and caliber. We don’t know what the future will bring, and what it will look like, because so much of our world and understanding of it is informed by our experience, and not by what once was – for which we have minimal to no frame of reference. 

When it comes to redemption from pain, perhaps what would make us happiest would be a turning back of a more recent clock, to undo the pain of losses, to undo the difficulties of previous months or years, to undo that which has brought outcomes that we didn’t want or don’t understand or appreciate, to at least bring us to a place of equilibrium, where we are at peace with the world we experience. 

 Unfortunately that is not reality. We can’t undo the past, and there are too many parts in the world going forward that are beyond our control that expecting things to go back to how they were is perhaps naïve or foolish or a pipedream or even a dream that may be possible in one form or another, and yet still only a dream. 

What we yearn for is Geulah – a redemption that brings us peace with a vision going forward, what to live for in our service of God, what to live for even in the frail and fleeting human existence we each experience, and what to live for as a collective group under the sheltering wings of the Divine. 

 The most significant interpretation of the blessing of Geulah, the 7th blessing in the weekday Shmoneh Esrei, is a blessing for a healing of the mind or soul, that a person be healed of the pains and difficulties one experiences beyond the realm of an ailing body (Piskei Teshuos Orach Chaim 115, and see Rashi on Megillah 17b, s’v אתחלתא דגאולה היא). The 8th blessing (רפאנו) is a blessing requesting a healing of the body – a רפואת הגוף. But as we often pray for a full healing, the prayer for the healing of the body is often preceded by a prayer for רפואת הנפש (a healing of the soul), and that is what the blessing of ראה נא וענינו וריבה ריבנו וגאלנו מהרה למען שמך – the blessing of “redemption” - is all about (see the book שיח יום, and the note in Yalkut Yosef II:116:4:4) (see the comments after this article). 

 Why would we pray for that? Because the implication of praying for a “healing” is that there was a time before the current situation, a time before the current circumstance of a certain someone being so troubled in the mind. We remember a time when we or they were “normal,” and when things were OK. (This is also implied in Kuzari 3:19) 

 While it is impossible to tell anyone who has suffered any kind of loss to “move on,” it is a great blessing for anyone who has gone through the most difficult and tragic circumstances to “find peace.” It won’t be the same as it was before, as in most cases of traumatic events (barring a miraculous healing and recovery) there is no returning to how things were because in most of those cases there is a hole in the heart, an empty space at a table, an empty bed, but we are designed to be able to have resilience and to forge a path forward, with and despite the pain. 

Perhaps this is why the healing from suffering is referred to as “Geulah.” Pain can destroy a person. It is likely that some of us know people who live with pain of a loss, and mourn a loved one, or a life that “was,” and carry that burden for months, if not years, if not decades. Those who see the living person in this sorry state may pray that the person we’ve watched deteriorate in this way find a רפואת הנפש, because we know that without it, the life this person continues to live is a life not reaching its potential. 

 Especially when living a life dedicated to perpetuating the memory of a loved one, we owe it to them (the deceased) and to ourselves to not let the pain we feel swallow us alive leaving us as people in need of a personal redemption. We must live in a way that demonstrates a path forward, in which we have taken care of our emotional health, our physical health, our spiritual health, so that we are living our best lives despite the pain, because that is our task. We read the famous teaching of Rabbi Tarfon in Avos (2:16) a few weeks ago, “It is not for you to finish the task, but neither are you free to exempt yourself from it…” This is the answer to the opening question of how we have been moved - we have a responsibility in this world and in this life to make the very best of even the most difficult circumstances. 

 We get one chance at this life. Sometimes very difficult curveballs and even minefields aim to put us away from the right path. True redemption is when none of that is able to break us from finding joy when appropriate, laughing when appropriate, and continuing to have a relationship with the Almighty even when we don’t understand His ways. 

May those who need one be granted a Geulah we call Refuat HaNefesh (healing of the soul, freedom from suffering), and may we all experience a Geulah Shleimah.

Reservations on Tumah + an Ode to Joy

Parshat Emor 

by Rabbi Avi Billet

Considering all the talk of Kedusha and the attainment of holiness that was the focus of the last few parshas, one wonders what Parshas Emor, which focuses on specifics that Kohanim, those ordained to serve in the Mishkan/Mikdash, will bring in terms of alerting Kohanim as to how to achieve and maintain such a holy status. 

 In fact, the opening verse says “And the Lord said to Moshe ‘Say to the Kohanim, Sons of Aharon, and say to them not to become tameh (spiritually impure/defiled) through coming in contact with a soul [i.e. a dead body]’” (21:1). 

One might expect a focus on purity, on spirituality, on prayer, on meditation, on focusing on the task at hand! But the first rule is listed in the negative – Don’t become impure. 

This is not to suggest that such an instruction is unimportant. To be sure, a Kohen who is tameh may not serve in the Mishkan/Mikdash and thus removes himself for a spell from serving the people in their attempts to get closer to God through the Kohen’s agency in the Mishkan/Mikdash. In this light, perhaps it is important as a starting space for the Kohen to know what not to do, to avoid disqualifying himself from his important role.

And yet it still seems odd that this would be the first instruction given. 

Some argue that the first thing they were in fact told was “Sons of Aharon!” Note how the verse has God telling Moshe “Say to the Kohanim” as well as “and say to them” implying two different things to tell them. In this light, the approach (championed by Yalkut HeGershuni, Ibn Ezra and others) is that the Kohanim must first remember that their calling is as the sons of Aharon. They must emulate their holy father who demonstrates his fear of God, who demonstrates humility, who demonstrates and lives by the dictum of loving every Jew. 

 After all, if they will not come in contact with the dead, how will they be reminded of the fragility of life? If they are first reminded that they are the sons of Aharon, and perhaps the sons of Aharon who lived while their brothers died, they will always remember that people are human, fallible, and can die. Thus the role of the Sons of Aharon becomes heavily emphasized to them as a role to take seriously, with trepidation, and with focus on why we have to do what we have to do. 

 In a different way, they need to embody the words of Malachi from chapter 2, especially the last verse quoted below. 

4 And you shall know that I have sent you this commandment, that My covenant be with Levi, says the Lord of Hosts. דוִֽידַעְתֶּ֕ם כִּי שִׁלַּ֣חְתִּי אֲלֵיכֶ֔ם אֵ֖ת הַמִּצְוָ֣ה הַזֹּ֑את לִֽהְי֚וֹת בְּרִיתִי֙ אֶת־לֵוִ֔י אָמַ֖ר ה' צְבָאֽוֹת:

5 My covenant was with him, life and peace, and I gave them to him [with] fear; and he feared Me, and because of My Name, he was over-awed. הבְּרִיתִ֣י | הָֽיְתָ֣ה אִתּ֗וֹ הַֽחַיִּים֙ וְהַשָּׁל֔וֹם וָֽאֶתְּנֵם־ל֥וֹ מוֹרָ֖א וַיִּֽירָאֵ֑נִי וּמִפְּנֵ֥י שְׁמִ֖י נִחַ֥ת הֽוּא: 

6 True teaching was in his mouth, and injustice was not found on his lips. In peace and equity he went with Me, and he brought back many from iniquity. ותּוֹרַ֚ת אֱמֶת֙ הָֽיְתָ֣ה בְּפִ֔יהוּ וְעַוְלָ֖ה לֹֽא־נִמְצָ֣א בִשְׂפָתָ֑יו בְּשָׁל֚וֹם וּבְמִישׁוֹר֙ הָלַ֣ךְ אִתִּ֔י וְרַבִּ֖ים הֵשִׁ֥יב מֵֽעָו‍ֹֽן:

7 For a priest's lips shall guard knowledge, and teaching should be sought from his mouth, for he is a messenger of the Lord of Hosts. זכִּֽי־שִׂפְתֵ֚י כֹהֵן֙ יִשְׁמְרוּ־דַ֔עַת וְתוֹרָ֖ה יְבַקְשׁ֣וּ מִפִּ֑יהוּ כִּ֛י מַלְאַ֥ךְ ה'־צְבָא֖וֹת הֽוּא: 

Another perspective is offered by the Midrash Aggadah, which presents an Aggadic tale as follows: 

 “Why are there two instructions (אמירות) given to the Kohanim? The first is not to become tameh to a dead body, and the second is that even though I told them not to become tameh, they may become tameh to a Mes Mitzvah (an abandoned corpse) as well as to tsaddikim, for the righteous, in their death, are חיים (living).” 

Whether this is followed in practice in halakha is certainly up for debate – how, for example, do we define a tsaddik? – the Midrash Aggadah proceeds to share a tale, which includes an appearance by Eliyahu HaNavi (as Aggadot often do), who happened to be a Kohen. 

“Rabbi Akiva was imprisoned and Rabbi Yehoshua HaGarsi would tend to him. When it was Yom Kippur, Rabbi Yehoshua begged leave of Rabbi Akiva and went home. Eliyahu came and knocked on his door. Who are you? I’m Eliyahu. And what do you want? I came to tell you that your Rebbe, Rabbi Akiva, has died. The two of them went through the night until they arrived at the prison only to find the prison open, the warden sleeping along with everyone else (also sleeping). Eliyahu got to the cell and the door opened. Eliyahu began dealing with [Rabbi Akiva]. Rabbi Yehoshua said to him, but aren’t you a Kohen? He said, My son, there is no tumah when it comes to tsaddikim and Hakhamim. When they left the prison [carrying Rabbi Akiva], angels approached them saying ‘the righteousness of God has been done’ as the path before them was illuminated like a shining firmament. When they got to the palace of the Caesar, they went down three steps and then up three steps only to find a cave which had a bed (bier), chair, and candelabra. They put him on the bier and were leaving, when Rabbi Yehoshua looked around and saw an even more elaborate bier in the cave. They were leaving, but Rabbi Yehoshua said I will not leave until you tell me for whom is that bier. [Eliyahu] told him it is for the wife of the wicked Titus, [rewarded] because of all the good she did for Rabbi Akiva while he was imprisoned… After they left, Eliyahu turned to Rabbi Yehoshua and told him, Go tell the Hakhamim to teach their students that there is no tumah on the tsaddikim.” 

This, the Midrash concludes, is what Moshe was telling the Kohanim. Do not become tameh to just anyone. But for a mes mitzvah, for tsaddikim, and for Hakhamim there is no tumah! 

This approach in the Midrash focuses on the concept of tumah as something the Kohanim are meant to avoid in general, with the three exceptions as noted. The verses also note that for all Kohanim except the Kohen Gadol (High Priest) there are exceptions as well for close family. 

 But there is another perspective that I recently learned in a teaching from Rabbi Meir Shapiro Z”L. In the context of explaining how he managed to suffer through the travails and financial woes of sustaining the Great Yeshivas Hakhmei Lublin and still come across as being happy and living b’simcha, he noted that he took notes from Kohanim who were not allowed to participate in funerals. 

 His explanation for their restriction with becoming tameh was less focused on their becoming unable to serve in the Mikdash, and more on how if they were to become regularly habituated to attending funerals, they would be saddened and less capable of fulfilling the dictum of עבדו את ה' בשמחה, serve God with joy. 

Kohanim, he argued, have an added mitzvah to bring joy to Judaism and to the task of serving the Almighty. While he wasn’t a Kohen, Rabbi Shapiro felt that in his role as Rabbi of communities and teacher of hundreds of Talmidim (students), he needed to be b’Simcha (have a positive outlook) in his life dedicated to teaching and inspiring, so he took a page from the Kohen playbook. 

This perspective offers a keen insight to Kohanim specifically, and to all of us in general, as to what a goal in life can be. It is not that life doesn’t have its complicated moments and difficult times. But our challenge is to weed through it to find not only reasons to be happy, but to present ourselves as b’simcha as much as possible. 

It is sometimes difficult, and sometimes seemingly impossible. But our challenge in life is to challenge ourselves to be the best version of us that we can be, as often as possible.

Free Will to Serve God - Because We Want To

Parshat Kedoshim 

by Rabbi Avi Billet 

 In the days pre COVID and hospitals having their restrictive rules on visitors, whenever I’d visit someone in the hospital or a nursing home facility, patients or residents would see my kippah and ask one of two things. “Is it Shabbos?” or “Rabbi, can you say a prayer for me?” 

 Understandably it was never Shabbos – so that one was an easy No, often followed by an explanation that I wear this all the time irrespective of the day of the week. 

 To the second question the answer is of course Yes, but I’d follow it with a reminder “You know, you are allowed to pray for yourself! In fact, that may be a better prayer than mine, because you know exactly what you need and what you would like to see happen.” 

 The point is simply that you need to do what you want to do, for yourself, rather than pawning it off to someone else. “Pawning” is not the right word – but the idea that some random person who doesn’t know you has more power in Tefillah than you do is not true, and trying to push that responsibility onto someone else to the detriment of one’s own abilities is, in a way, tragic. And while we sometimes ascribe great power to the meritorious tsaddikim who are often enough asked to pray for others, there is no greater example of God hearing the prayer of an individual praying for himself than our Torah reading on the first day of Rosh Hashana, when we hearing of the ill Yishmael crying out to God on his own behalf. 

 While it’s not exactly the same, this memory came to mind when reading the verse (19:5) “On the day when you bring an offering, it should be of your own will” and the commentary of R Yosef Bchor Shor on that verse. He writes, 

“Put all of your desire into it. Don’t have any negativity towards what you are bringing as an offering before the Almighty. There are people who make an offering before the Almighty, but it is difficult for them (i.e. they don’t really want to do it). Yet [since] they see others who are doing so, they feel embarrassed not to follow suit. This (kind of offering) has no value, because God knows what is in the hearts of people. As Koheles said: And I saw all the toil and all the excellence of work, which is a man's envy of his friend; this too is vanity and frustration.” 

 It’s a very simple challenge that R Bchor Shor is placing before us. How much are we defined by the Joneses? How much of what we do are we doing because others are doing it? Do we serve God in any way or capacity because it is socially approved in our little circles? What if it weren’t approved in our circles? Would we still do so? 

 Do we have any hesitation or reticence about our service of God? Our desire to perform Mitzvos and fulfill His will? Do we do anything with reluctance? Prayer? Give tzedakah? Chesed? Speak kindly to others? Hold back from the juicy gossip? Embrace holiday seasons? Engage in Torah study? Listen attentively when someone is teaching us Torah thoughts? Look askance at certain restrictive Kosher measures? 

 Using a very simple example from our Parsha, R Bchor Shor is reminding us that in terms of our commitment to God and Torah, we should be “All in” at all times. We have our difficult moments and difficult days – that may be true. But the real question driving everything is what grounds me and what drives me? If each of us is committed at the deepest levels of our hearts and minds, then we are in a great space and a great place. We know what we want in this life, and we know that much of the outcomes we anticipate are driven by our input and output. 

 When we approach our observant lives through a lens of confidence in our life choices and decisions, as well as gratitude for those who came before us who carried and passed on the torch to us, we are in a great space. 

 Would we have chosen this life if it weren’t handed to us? We all know people who have chosen this life that was not handed to them – either through making changes in their already Jewish life, or through converting to Judaism. 

 All of us could make a similar thought process into a reality when we actively choose this life through going beyond a familiar routine, and elevating all of our experiences into partially spiritual endeavors, guided by the excitement of a meaningful life being lived under the wings of the Divine.