The State of My Union
Special to The Malibu Times
It feels as if we are ending the longest year in our country’s history. But it was only last year at this time that the mighty financial systems in our country-in the world-began their crumble.
All around us, we see families who are in economic pain. They are our neighbors, our friends; they may even be the families we see when we look in the mirror-our own.
And just as we hold our political leaders accountable for our nation’s dire economic straits, we must also hold ourselves accountable for how we respond to what we see and hear and what we know. The great Chassidic master of the 17th century, the Baal Shemtov, teaches that Divine Providence means that we have a direct relationship with everything we hear, see and experience. When we learn of someone’s hardship, we have been provided with a spiritual opportunity to help fix it, otherwise it would not have come before us. When we learn of someone’s problem, we are being called upon to help mend, to fix, to heal, to do whatever we can to help. And the good news is that the same Divine Providence that brought the problem before us, has given us the formula and extra strength to address it.
This puts an additional obligation on each of us this Rosh Hashona season. Rosh Hashona-the day recorded as Adam and Eve’s creation-is the time when we traditionally reflect on the state of our personal lives and where we would like to make changes. It is our own State of the Union. We use this time to think about why we are here, how we conducted ourselves in the previous 12 months; we hold ourselves up under the microscope of brutal honesty and examine our actions, large and small, all for the purpose of generating light for the oncoming year. And as we move forward into the New Year, we are essentially writing a blueprint for our lives based on what we learned from that examination and reflection.
This year, we must go one step further: On top of all else, we must hold ourselves up to the looking glass and examine what more we could have done for those who lost jobs, lost homes, lost hope.
When I think about my own past 12 months, I am overwhelmed by the number of people I encountered who are suffering.
I am grateful for my own blessings. I have a wonderful wife/partner and gracious happy children, a great community through whom I get to experience the miracle of life every single day. But I must ask myself, “Am I making the most of it?”
I am healthy enough to be there for those who are suffering, but again, I must ask myself, “Am I always truly there for them?” Do I really listen? Do I really hear them?
And of the many people who have come to me this past year seeking help because of unanticipated economic hardship, I must ask myself, “What of all the others who also feel that pain, but are too embarrassed to ask for assistance? What have I done for them, the mother who keeps smiling for her children while she expects the bank to foreclose on her home, the father too proud to step forward and admit he needs help finding work.”
The blessings of life mustn’t wait for loss to be appreciated. We don’t need to be stripped of our blessings to wake us up and realize who we are and how much more we can be doing. It takes only the clear possibility of such losses.
And we don’t need wake up calls to become the best that we can be. If we can simply awaken ourselves to the great possibilities that exist within us right here and right now, we can surely make our lives more fulfilling. Wake up calls don’t need to be wasted on people who are already awake.
The call of the Shofar resembles the wake up call that comes from within. It is the stirring of our soul that asks us to be more alert, to truly be alive by being more aware of our infinite possibilities.
We are here for a purpose and that purpose requires that we constantly go outside ourselves and be there for others in very giving ways.
And just as in our country’s annual State of the Union where awareness of a leader’s mistakes can become the fuel of true change, the Rosh Hashona reflection that we are called upon to do-our own State of the Union-will become the fuel of personal growth and change taking the sorrow and turning it into love. God willing.
Rabbi Levi Cunin will be leading Rosh Hashana services at Chabad of Malibu. For more information visit www.jewishmalibu.com