Reflections from Our Senior Scholar-in-Residence:

The month of Elul, and in particular the week leading up to Rosh Hashanah, is a period of active reflection and thoughtful contemplation. It is a time of resolution, moments in which past commitments are revisited and new beginnings are embraced and reaffirmed. We know that enduring change—be it social, spiritual, or personal—is rarely instantaneous, and the time of Elul and indeed the High Holidays themselves are an opportunity for slow, sustained incremental transformation. 

At the same time, we need to resist the temptations of self-satisfaction, of gathering moss in our journeys. Each rung or moment of attainment ought to become a launching pad for further ascent—or depth—in the project of endless growth. This careful balance rests at the heart of Psalm 27, a liturgy recited twice a day during this holiday season. In the words of Rabbi Levi of Barditshev, an eighteenth-century Hasidic leader:

I have heard in the name of the holy Rabbi Yeḥiel Mikhl of Zlotshov this explanation of the following verse: “One thing I have asked of God, it shall I seek. To gaze upon the pleasantness of God and to visit the divine palace.” (Ps. 27:4). 

That is, I have asked to gaze upon God’s majesty, and will seek it eternally, knowing that there are always higher and higher levels…This quest is endless.

The Psalmist’s “one thing” is has been expansively redefined as the search for the next stage of religious understanding; rather than sinking into complacency or becoming struck into indecision by the magnitude of our journey, we are encouraged to constantly look for that “one” next rung.

Now the Ba’al Shem Tov explained the verse “He leads us onward eternally” (Ps. 48:15) with a parable of a parent who is teaching his small child to walk. Sometimes the child walks two or three paces toward his parent, who then steps back in order to force the child walk farther. After the child moves closer, the parent moves a bit more. (Kedushat Levi, shemot, 1:144.)

Homiletically linking the Aramaic term for “child” (‘alumaya) to the word “eternally” (‘almut), the Besht is said to have compared the worshipper’s search for God to the strivings of a youngster learning to become independently mobile. We must all take these steps as part of a quest for the perpetually hidden Divine; just as a parent tenderly leads a child toward independence, the worshipper is gingerly but constantly guided along the eternal religious path by God’s love in the form of concealment.

Such teachings underscore that it is commitment to the quest which propels us along the path. The spiritual realizations and encounters with the Divine that transpire along the way, while always complete, are powerful indeed. God’s presence in the quest—or at least, our perception of that presence—cannot be assumed. Reflecting this concern, a homily from Rabbi Binyamin of Zalocze transforms a petition for God to answer our prayers into a powerful declaration of yearning:

In the Selihot liturgy we recite, “present us with our request” (himmatsei lanu be-va-qashatenu). This is related to the verse “And from there you shall seek [the Eternal, your God], and you shall find Him” (Deuteronomy 4:29)... What does “with our request” (be-vakashatenu) mean? It could have said, “Present our request (baqashatenu) to us.” 

The answer is as follows. We are asking that God be present with us in our quest, that our mouths [intoning the prayer] become a sanctum for the source of all Being. This is the meaning of “with our request”—within our request. We are not asking for our entreaty to be answered, but rather that God be made present within the quest . . . (Binyanim of Zalocze, Torei Zahav (Jerusalem: 1989), pp. 250–251)

Rather than beseeching God for a specific result, we are called to pray in order to encounter the Divine in the endless quest for meaning, to hear God’s voice through the act of worship itself. Prayer is a path in which the goal is not—or not simply—a divine response, but a quest in which the search has become more important than the answer. The liturgical phrase “present us with our request,” seemingly goal-oriented and focused upon a clear answer, is thus reinterpreted as a soulful entreaty that God be “present within our request”— we seek divinity, claims Rabbi Binyamin, that is revealed from within the yearnings of the journey itself. 

It is easy to become discouraged in the work of activism and scholarship, or in the fight for social transformation. Change often appears to happen in slow-motion, if at all, and the work can feel dishearteningly endless. But we must remember: this is a feature, not a bug. Our capacity for transformation is boundless, infinite, and now is the time to get started! Unlike questions, our quests for transformation have no easy or dispositive answers—only commitment to hard work, to the power of the journey itself. 

Wishing each and every one of a year of blessings, joy, illumination, and learning. May you be signed and sealed for a good, healthy and sweet New Year!