The “after the holidays” period begins this year on Wednesday October 19. My friend and teacher Rabbi Lior Engelman sees significance in the fact that the Book of Ecclesiastes is read in shul just a few days before the onset of this period (it is traditionally read in Ashkenazi synagogues on the morning of the Sabbath of Sukkot). Following is a free translation of his remarks.
Addiction. A kind of feeling that grips the whole being, in the body and in the soul, and in what is stronger than the body and deeper than the soul. A feeling that it is impossible without, that there is simply no life without the thing to which we are addicted. Even though the mind knows that it is possible to win, and the heart feels that the time has come to free itself from the addictive thing, still there is no strength to untie the knot. Fruitless attempts only increase the deep feeling that there is no life without, that we can never get out. And no one understands the suffering of his fellow addict, even though there is hardly a person to be found who is not addicted to something.
These small addictions, which create in our souls an apparent dependence on small things, actually cut us off from dependence on the Creator, dependence on the source of life—dependence unrivaled by any freedom. But Judaism’s holidays try to combat our addiction to small things; Our holidays teach us that it is possible to live without. On Passover, we learn to exist without that most basic food, bread; On the night of Shavuot, we forgo sleep for something greater; On Rosh Hashanah, we give up our words in favor of the eerie sounding of the Shofar; On Yom Kippur, we cut ourselves off from the physiological components of life; On Sukkot, we learn to eat, sleep and live outside—without the home to which we are so accustomed.
As we head into “after the holidays,” the words of that wisest of men, King Solomon [whom tradition credits as the author of Ecclesiastes], still echo in our ears: “All is vanity” (Eccl. 1.2). Left on its own, everything that is under heaven is “vanity of vanities”: Addiction to wisdom is vanity and addiction to money is vanity; Addiction to laughter is vanity and even addiction to concern for the next generation is vanity. It is only when we look into the heavens, above the sun, to the eternal and the everlasting, to the source of all goodness and abundance, that everything in the world assumes its rightful place, without exaggeration and without addiction—because “He has made everything beautiful in its time” (Eccl. 3.11).
And now, after the holy days, each person and his profane days, each person and his small and big addictions: The person addicted to cups of coffee and the person addicted to packs of cigarettes; The person addicted to sweets and the person addicted to the applause of those around him; The person addicted to lust, or to honor, to habits, to what is allowed, to what is forbidden, to certain phrases and to petty quarrels, to criticism and to cynicism; The person addicted to work and the person addicted to surfing the internet.
Can we take from this past holiday season, when we were rejuvenated and learned to break burdensome habits, the strength to free ourselves?
As in any rehab, the strength required is mainly willpower: the inner conviction to quit no matter what, and the practical willingness to pay a price, however heavy it may be, in order to re-acquire freedom. R. Zadok HaCohen (1823-1900) put it this way: “The beginning of a person’s entry into the service of God should be in haste; This beginning, which involves detaching oneself from all the desires of this world, must be timed to the instant in which God’s will is awakened in the person, and then great haste must be made to rid oneself of them [the desires]—perhaps he will succeed.” And after that? Then you discover that what seemed impossible is within reach, that life without turns into life with many other meaningful things. And then after that comes real freedom: the freedom to choose without dependence, the freedom to live without addiction, the freedom to be a free person. After the holidays everything is renewed.
By Teddy Weinberger
