In this final week of the Omer, as we prepare to celebrate Shavuot together beginning on Sunday, May 16, we are honored to offer voices from the Wise community to reflect on Torah, prayer, and their relationship with the Divine.
Today is the 44th day of the Omer.
During a recent Torah study I attended, the rabbi contrasted the yearly cycle of our readings with the more linear way that we humans tend to look at our lives, at whatever age. Torah reading is a cycle, returning to the parshiot again and again, while we think of our lives more like the 405—with milestones and phases of life as the markers. Mulling this over later, and looking back at my current count of 66 laps around the Torah, I quickly divided them into two groups: the first 60 or so, where I usually felt as if I felt forced (often, without any perceived benefit) to pull and drag myself and my relationship with Torah around and through the commandments and observances that show up, like clockwork, on our Jewish calendar, and the past five or so, where I sense increasingly that it is me who is being—and has all along been—carried and guided by Torah.
So, what changed? Well, I’d attribute part to now having—and taking advantage of—more time for prayer, study, and reflection than during the years I was, with my wife Trish, nurturing and supporting our children (aka, working). The bigger change, however, is my daily practice of Mussar which I began a few years ago (as always, credit Trish). I now see that Mussar (a traditional Jewish path of spiritual development that leads to awareness, wisdom, and transformation through the constant balancing of “Middot” or soul traits, such as gratitude, willingness and patience) is the GPS for my yearly circumnavigation of and engagement with our Jewish calendar, the sum total of which laps of Torah and what is progressively revealed to and by me along the way being the pathway of my life.
I am enjoying this current trip around and looking forward to many more.
— Jared Goldin