“Sweetheart! I’ll be with you soon. You’re going to have to just wait for 5 minutes.” That was me. The child thought about this, crossed his arms, and then responded in all earnestness.  “Mummy! Do you have any idea how long 5 minutes is to a five year old?” 

And that anecdote made its way into our family archives of good stories. For little children, time works differently. It’s much slower. Remember the feeling of the day after your birthday? It’s a whole gigantic year until the next one. Forever and a year are the same when you’re eight. 

So I kind of regret that I started attending Yom Kippur services from such a young age because I still associate Yom Kippur with forever, And Kol Nidrei doesn’t help. As a kid, you look ahead at the start of the services to see when the end of maariv is. You count the pages, and you think, it’s not so bad! It won’t take that long, surely. 

Until the chazan starts. Aha. Aha. Aha. And again. Aha aha, aha. If we’re not even going to start the words, for 5 minutes, this is going to take longer than I thought. Kol Nidrei. And we’re on. Okay, I can do this. But then they do it again!  You can’t also aha, also repeat and expect this to ever finish…

And then we grow up. Time starts moving faster. We’re back in shul. But there’s a child in us with our finger holding the page at the end of the service. So how do we remain in adult mode? 

You know, life is a struggle. Constant battle. We Jews believe in struggle. We are soldiers on a battlefield, each with our own enormous battle. For some, it’s a battle with the body. I want to eat more. I want to sleep more. I crave the things that are strictly forbidden by Jewish law. I have overwhelming desires that well up in me that I must treat like the Tree of Knowledge, yet there are snakes and serpents in my mind rationalizing, seducing, tempting, luring me without relent.

For others, it’s an emotional battle. With what koach do I fight off depression and despair when the depression has sapped me of all and any koach? Why should I believe the voice that tells me I’m worth something, when any voice that’s mine has no credit in my eyes, because I deeply believe I’m worthless? How can I battle the anger that has lost me the respect of my community and family when I can’t hear the voice of calm through my own shoutings and tantrums? How can I regain a temper that was lost before I saw it escaping? 

For some of us, it’s philosophical. Our innate emunah seems to us naive and brainwashed in the face of the questions and cynicism that we’ve adopted. Cynicism and doubt that cast a cloud over every pathetic good deed we still sheepishly attempt. 

Those of us for whom ego is the issue, we don’t even know we’re in a battle against ourselves. We’re so busy power struggling with G-d, or fighting to get kavod from those around us that we have truly come to believe that our battles are with others and not with ourselves.

I’m sorry if I’ve omitted you. Don’t think it’s because you’re so terrible that your battle is unmentionable. Every demon is designed to challenge its owner. I guarantee that I would do a better job of fighting your demon than you, because it’s not my demon. But I’m also just as convinced that you would slay mine in an instant. I only missed omitting your battle because I’m limited in words here. 

The Good Struggle

We can’t judge anyone’s battle. They are ours, and they pursue us without mercy. It’s a constant and relentless struggle.  It’s the struggle that shows we’re alive. It’s the struggle that we’re put on this earth for. It’s a good thing. Our great self lies beyond every victory. And just as the struggle is designed for us, so we are designed to win. If you’re fighting a fight you cannot win, it’s probably not your fight. And if you’re finding that your struggling is unmanageable, then it could be that your victory is hiding in the surrender to G-d for help with it. But as long as we’re alive, we will struggle.

We don’t get much of a break. But we do get a yearly reprieve. It’s only one day. But it’s a day where we remove ourselves from our battles. The body takes a break from all things physical. 

The mind has a full itinerary of focus designed by the wise men who wrote the script. Our emotions are directed towards a mantra of asking for and receiving blessed forgiveness. We leave our ego at the door as we join our community in prostration to a loving G-d who is welcoming us with open arms, eager to grant us a clean slate. There’s no food, no money, no conversation, no nothing. Inward focus. Abstention from nisayon. A quiet day between our soul and our creator. A day unencumbered by the body. If you like, it’s our one day off in the whole year. 

When you look at it that way, one day doesn’t seem long enough. 

( Inspired by the teachings of Rav Y. Berkowitz)