What happens to us when Elul starts the second week of August? How do we respond to that first call of the shofar? Could it be that we pull our swim dresses a little further over our knees as we sip ice coffee at the pool? Perhaps we are also too busy shuttling kids back and forth to camp or stressing out about how we are going to manage the three weeks of unstructured summer days to notice that it’s Elul. When school starts and we can turn our attention to the serious matter of Yamim Noraim, it is often in the form of the twenty-one multi-course meals we will prepare and the clothes we will buy, along with the associated feelings that accompany this. Somewhere in all of this is the thought of, Oh yeah, hi Hashem. Please can I have a good year with everything I want?
This is not our fault. Women have a complex relationship with Yom Tov. We want to daven, be inspired, and connect to our potential and grow. We also have a multitude of physical and logistical demands to meet, demands that we try to enjoy and meet in a creative and beautiful way.
The good news is that there is no contradiction between this reality and the avodas Hashem of women. The women’s pathway to spiritual development, unlike men, has a more inward rather than outward orientation and does not need to take us away from our “making Yom Tov” efforts. Actually, we may have noticed that there are no shortage of personal development opportunities that arise from the concentration of family dynamics, parenting challenges, social interactions, and financial concerns that arise during the three weeks of our Yom Tov season!
But how do we make this feel like teshuvah? Should we be mekabel something? Make a middos improvement chart? While both ideas are helpful, it is also important to clarify for ourselves what our primary spiritual identity is as women, and the core struggle around it, so we can recognize which behaviors bring us closer to our ideal self to be written in the sefer hachaim.
In the weeks before Rosh Hashanah we read parshas Ki Savo, which opens up with the topic of the bikkurim. The pasuk tells us that we should take from the first (reishis) of our fruits and put them in a basket (teneh) and bring them to Yerushalayim. The Baal Haturim comments on this pasuk that the gematria of teneh equals sixty, which teaches us that the required measurement of bikkurim is 1/60th of the crop. Because of this, the letter samech, which has the numerical value of sixty, is absent from the whole parsha of bikkurim. Rav Moshe Shapiro questions the reason for this. He compares it to another letter samech anomaly in the pasuk that describes the creation of Chava. הנתחת רשב רגסיו ויתועלצמ תחא חקיו – Hashem took one of Adam’s ribs, created Chava, and then sealed the incision with new skin. The midrash on this pasuk says that this is the first appearance of the letter samech in Torah. The letter samech is a reference to the satan, and we learn from here that when Chava was created the satan was created with her.
Rav Moshe Shapiro explains that Hashem created two geometrical structures to represent two approaches to reality: the line and the circle. The line indicates a starting point (reishis) which begins with intention and continues towards a destination. The word reishis is also the first word in Torah, bereishis, for the sake of reishis, Hashem’s will and purpose, was the world created. The line reminds us that everything in creation is here because Hashem wanted it exactly that way. When a yid takes his hard earned produce that he toiled over with intellect and strength, and sets aside 1/60th of it because Hashem asked him to, he affirms his belief that the bracha of these fruits is because Hashem gave them to him, even if he applied his unique abilities in the process. This can be compared to the letter yud, the letter that is straight.
The circle, on the other hand, reflects a different view. Without a starting or ending point, it initiates itself where it wants and continues along the arc of its own will. The circle, or the samech, says “I’ll go the way I want to go”, whereas the line, or the yud, says “I’ll go towards the direction for which I was created.” For this reason, the Baal Haturim explains, we hide the samech in the parsha of bikkurim since it represents a threat to this declaration of the oneness of Hashem.
But wait a second, the basket that Hashem told Klal Yisrael to bring the bikkurim in is a circle! You can’t take away the basket, or the apples will be falling all over the road! Baskets and circular containers that hold the expressions of Hashem’s gifts to us are necessary and valuable, yet potentially misleading if they don’t attribute credit to the source. The takeaway? Lines need circles if they are going to be able to build anything substantial with the gifts Hashem intended for them, and circles need lines to go in the direction they are supposed to and ensure their creative efforts are aligned with Hashem’s will.
This is also the story of boy (line) meets girl (circle). Boys, like the yud, carry the intention and will that Hashem has planned for their family. And boys, like the yud, hover in the air seeking a way to actualize this will in real time, hoping to find a girl who will be excited to receive (like the samech) and connect to this will with her own creativity and uniqueness. And then they live happily ever after. Except for the satan, who doesn’t want things to end here.
That samech that initiates its vision with beauty and desire, but then connects to the starting point of the yud, reflects the bayis ne’eman b’yisrael.
תאז החקל שיאמ יכ השא ארקי תאזל, a woman is called ‘Isha’ because she was taken from an ‘Ish’. A wife’s dreams of what is possible are sourced in the deep potential of her husband. She can choose to see him and the life they have together as the reishis of their shared destiny. Or, a woman can erroneously see her husband as getting in her way, not relevant to her needs, or otherwise falling short of her expectations. How can a woman make such a mistake when we know that women literally come from a bone from a man’s body?
Because Hashem covered up that surgical incision and there are no stitches! How cool would it be if when you are having a bad marriage day, you could just glance at your husband’s rib and see a scar that matched the exact shape of your head? Quick reality check…Ok honey, I guess we are together in this for the long haul. But instead, there is the satan, convincing you that you are way ahead of your husband and he’s cramping your style. The same satan that tells you that humans are the master of the apple orchards, and we don’t need any heavenly help in that department.
Let’s go back to Yom Tov. For three weeks we will spend time confronting all that Hashem has given us, reviewing it, engaging with it, davening about it. As we peer into our baskets, how do we feel? Hopefully grateful, but probably also annoyed, disappointed, smug, and judgmental. Like when Shira, who is appreciative that her husband can be sensitive and thoughtful, but not when he brings home four unidentified men from shul to be guests in their sukkah instead of four identified pieces of jewelry that she has been hinting to. Or, when Chani’s husband magnanimously gives the kids the cotton candy he brought home from the simchas beis hashoeva at bedtime. Shuli gets stressed when her husband keeps going out to learn just when she needs his help, but Leah can’t believe her husband is home to help at suppertime when seder is not over for two more hours.
These feelings of disappointment are not our fault either. It is a present from Chava who initiated our “circle” journey. She had big plans and desires, and a vision for how Adam would bring that about for her, like the samech that seeks the fulfillment of its own intention. Her tikkun, and ours, is to value, seek to understand, align and cooperate with the “line”, the reishis that Hashem has chosen for us. When we allow ourselves to receive the input of Hashem’s gifts (though they may not always feel as such) and apply our own beautiful individuality to it, we are expressing the middah of malchus, the feminine middah that all of Klal Yisrael aims to achieve on Yom HaDin. Women bringing the geulah is no joke. We represent and model “malchiyos” on every day of the year. We declare Hashem King and reishis and make space in our baskets for what He wants to pour in there. This doesn’t mean that it is easy for Dina to embrace her husband’s love of solitude and quiet time when she craves connection and socialization. It is difficult, but when Dina pictures scar tissue just under her husband’s rib with her name written all over it, she’s reminded that Hashem has a customized plan for her. She’s got this. And so too, we’ve got this.
This article was found in Nekuda Tova Nashim Tzidkaniyos 2.