Cheshvan 5786 חשוון

Thursday, October 23.  Wet, dark and cold – we bundled up and weathered the rain, reminded that winter – the six months of cold and darkness we have in the Great Lakes – is upon us. At Sukkot, just a week or so ago, we replaced our liturgy’s prayers for summer dew with the prayers for winter rain. In the Middle East, there are also summer and winter – very different from here, but still marking the rhythm of the seasons.  Harvest gives way to resting the soil this month, praying for rejuvenating rain.

As in Scandinavian “mys”, or “hygge”, it’s a time for nesting in warm homes with a fire and a good book.  Cocooning, you might say – which is entirely appropriate for our return to Genesis this month, and the story of Noach, who with his family and a host of fauna, survived the Great Flood in a “cocoon” of an ark.  We talked of the destruction of a moth or butterfly in its cocoon, turning to liquid nothing, and then re-forming into a fully rebuilt and beautiful creature.  So a world, according to our sages, a world of moral decay, was destroyed in the Great Flood, so it could be rebuilt.  Rav Sholom Noach Berezovsky, a Chasidic rebbe and scholar of post-holocaust times, noted however that the source of destruction was not G-d, but the world itself.  G-d merely stepped back, and the world imploded on itself with a force of water from above and below, a consequence of its own depravity.[1] Only then could the world be rebuilt in love for a new and beautiful era.

So we  understand perhaps the destruction that is happening around us, and see in it hope for a better world. Cheshvan is a month without holidays, the beginning of the darkness of winter, a time for introspection and cocooning.  May we use it to regroup, come close to G-d and family, and restore our inner hope and resolve to build a better world. Chodesh tov! —K. Miriam

Our next walking meditation will honor the month of Kislev, Friday, November 21, 8:30 am, rain or snow or shine!  Contact us for location.

[1] See R. Sholom Noach Berezovsky, Netivot Shalom, https://korenpub.com