Yeridah l'tzorech aliyah

Doing the hard work, and reaping the rewards

Shabbat shalom.

From Monday night to Wednesday sundown this past week we celebrated and marked Rosh Chodesh Tevet, or the arrival of the new month, and new moon, of the Hebrew month Tevet. And although Tevet contains two holidays - the end of Chanukah and the fast day of Asara B’Tevet – for the kabbalists and hasids, it is often considered a darker time, a month that carries some negativity or forces of destruction for the Jewish people.

The Zohar, the foundational book of Kabbalah, suggests that there are three months of the Hebrew calendar that have woven through them a sense of contraction or difficulty. These are the months of Tevet, which we just entered to, Av and Tammuz. And, the Zohar explains, these months are also the months in which Moses’ mother hid him so that he would not be killed by the Egyptians. Now, if you’re familiar with the Jewish calendar you might have noticed that these months are traditionally associated with destruction – Tisha B’Av falls in Av, and mourns the destruction of the temples, Tevet of course has the upcoming fast day, Tammuz has the 17^th on which we mark the breaching of the walls of Jerusalem by the Romans that resulted in the destruction of the temple.

But if you know the order of the Jewish calendar, you’ll also know that these three months – Tammuz, Av and Tevet, are not consecutive. So what does it mean that Moses’ mother hid him for those months? Well, explain the kabbalists, it’s not a literal understanding of Moses’ hiddenness, but a mystical one, which, according to Rabbi Sarah Bracha Gershuny, is that the “force of Moses’ mother means that she was able to prevent him from being born during one of these three months.” Moses mother chose not to give birth to him in these times, because she knew, because of their darker, and constrictive nature, that it would have been harder for Moses to succeed in his mission had he been born during an inauspicious time.

Likewise, according to Rabbi Gershuny, “Tevet is a month in which we [also] need to struggle with forces that might disrupt us, or make it hard for us to fulfill our vision [and goals]…[and] in general, there’s the idea that the Jewish calendar has its ups and downs. So just as we start the year with [the month of] Tishrei… [which contains] Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur [and] is the month for setting our intentions…Tishrei is considered an up month, a month of great spiritual elevation. And it is followed by the month of Cheshvan, [a time seen] as being a month of hard, focused, dedicated work as we begin to put those intentions into practice. [And then again] we have an up month, the month of Kislev, which we just ended, the month of vision and expansion, and now we’re once again going down -- into the month of Tevet.”

So what are we to make of all of this, this up and down nature of the Jewish calendar? Well, Rabbi Gershuny explains, there’s a concept in Hasidic literature known as yeridah l’tzorech aliyah – which means that every descent is for the sake of ascent. And every time we go down to do hard spiritual work it is for the sake of being able to attain even greater spiritual heights. And it is only this combination of the down and up, as it were, that allows us to evolve spiritually, and to grow.

And so, with apologies for using more workout metaphors, but if you’re an athlete of any kind, you know that it is often the workouts that are perceived as the hardest that are where you are actually expanding your body’s cardiac or strength capacity. Or, another example may be found in meditation – where neuroscientists discovered that the gains of meditation, and the brain’s transformation, actually happens not in the moments when you’re blissed out and focused fully on the present moment, but that transformation happens in those moments when we realize our attention has been distracted, and bring ourselves back to the intended object of our attention (like the breath). That’s where the gains, and the growth, happen. And therefore muddling through the down months, the dark months, and the dark times, is where we grow and stretch and change. And not just grow, but learn. And, to quote Rabbi Gershuny, it’s often when we lean into the downs that we can really appreciate the ups.

So what does this mean for us? Well, earlier this week we marked the Gregorian, or secular new year. And, as we did on Rosh HaShanah, many of us made New Year’s resolutions to exercise more or eat better or be nicer to our spouses or children, etc. And we did this with great conviction and the best of intentions. But setting intentions is only the beginning. Because, according to researchers and neuroscientists, new habits take 6 weeks to form until they become automatic and instinctive. 6 weeks until you wake up in the morning and feel off if you *don’t* exercise, or *don’t* meditate or *don’t* turn off your phone for shabbat or *don’t* speak kindly to and about others. And so we might think of those weeks as the yeridah – the descent, to hard work, and accountability, and struggle, which ultimately result in the ascent – the Aliyah, where we naturally and easily transcend ourselves .

For me personally, this month of Tevet, and my work of yeridah, or descent, is the commitment to observe shabbat more meaningfully. That is, for the next month I’m going to do my best to stay off my phone and email and away from my electronics, avoid social media and doomscrolling, and spend the day with books and friends and good food and walks, and even, perhaps, some nice naps.

So this shabbat, and this week, what intentions will you set for yourself? What yeridah, what hard work will you commit to during this month of Tevet, so that, come the month of Shevat, you are ready to ascend to even greater heights? What yeridah l’tzorech Aliyah will you do?

Shabbat shalom.

(Want to learn more about the Hebrew calendar and Kabbalah, from Rabbi Sarah Bracha Gershuny - my beloved hevruta? She’s teaching an online class at My Jewish Learning dot com. Click here to learn more and sign up! )