Actually, there are even more, because, of course, we can always argue with ourselves when there's nobody else around! One Jew, two opinions. For me, personally, the holidays were all of the above and more.
But one thing is clear. There are a ton of holidays in the Hebrew month of Tishrei, and there are none in the Hebrew month of Cheshvan.
Now what are we supposed to learn from that?
To my mind, it has a lot to do with what it means to be a "religious" person. There's a lot of confusion about this. Some think that if you look like you just got of the boat from Europe, you must be religious. And for others, it's "orthopraxis" - doing things like keeping kosher and keeping shabbat. And for others, it's being a morally exemplary person, and so on.
But after a moment's reflection, we can see that these definitions are inadequate. "Traditional" appearance may be an ethnic marker that somebody is Jewish. You don't see many Eskimos wearing a shtreime these days but, that tells us nothing about a person's spiritual life. Halachic behavior tells us about what a person does with their body. What's going on in their soul remains a mystery. And we all know people who are very decent and wonderful to be with, but who do not perceive themselves as being "religious" at all.
So what does it mean to be religious, and what do the holidays, or lack thereof, have to do with it?
It appears to me that we are meant to learn something from the contrast between the enormous intensity of the holidays, and the "normality" of the time after the holidays. Our lives are extremely "event" oriented. Our calendars are overfull, and we run from one appointment to another, filling our days with one "thing" after another. If any particular event is uniquely powerful, perhaps even transformative, we don't even have time to notice because we're too busy rushing to the next thing. And, naturally, we're already late.
And on the rare occasions when we have "nothing" to do, we literally don't know what to do with ourselves.
So during Tishrei we hardly have time to breathe, since there's so much going on. And then, during Cheshvan, our Jewish life lapses into routine (a.k.a. carpool tunnel syndrome) or, worse, collapses altogether.
But from the perspective of a religious Jew, there really isn't any spiritual difference between Tishrei and Cheshvan. On the 10th of Tishrei, Yom Kippur, we live in a world of Torah and mitzvot. Every action is under scrutiny. Every action links us with all of the Jews who came before, and all who will come after. Every action is an opportunity to feel the closeness of G-d. Everything we do helps us achieve atonement and at-one-ment.
A month later, on the 10th of Cheshvan, we still live in a world of Torah and mitzvot. Every action is under scrutiny. Every action links us with all of the Jews who came before, and all who will come after. Every action is an opportunity to feel the closeness of G-d. Everything we do helps us achieve atonement and at-one-ment.
Put in another way, for the religious person, something is obvious that is not obvious to everyone. It is, in the words of Alan Jones, that "everyday events are the means by which G-d tries to reach us," and, consequently, it is through our everyday actions that we can try to reach G-d.
We could even say that, as important as the 10th of Tishrei was, the 10th of Cheshvan is even more important. We all know where to find G-d on the 10th of Tishrei. The 10th of Cheshvan reminds us that, in the words of our father Jacob, "G-d was in this place, and I didn't know it." And that is the essence of becoming a religious Jew.
Wishing you a happy no-holiday,
Rabbi Robert L. Wolkoff
Shalom,
Rabbi Robert L. Wolkoff
