On Monday night, November 4, Holliswood Jewish Center hosted a virtual women’s Rosh Chodesh shiur featuring Rebbetzin Esti Hamilton, spiritual mentor, teacher, and renowned international speaker.
Rebbetzin Hamilton shared how people want to bring all that spirituality of Rosh HaShanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkos, and Simchas Torah into the rest of the year. She quoted Rav Wolbe, who shared with Rabbi Kellerman how to bring the inspiration of Tishrei into the rest of the year. Rav Wolbe said to put up a trellis. The month of Tishrei has no set schedule. We take ourselves out of routine in order to recalibrate and to grow and think about things from a different perspective.
Rav Wolbe told Rabbi Kellerman to plant a vine on his terrace. The vine grew in all different directions. Then Rav Wolbe told him to put up a trellis. The vine then grabbed onto the trellis and shot upward. The idea is that the whole month of Tishrei we are growing all over the place in different ways with the avodah of each Yom Tov. These are all microcosms. During the month of Cheshvan, we put up the trellis and we have structure and routine. We take this growth and see how to place it into our ordinary week. We have to think how we will implement t’shuvah, introspection, and serving Hashem with joy into our everyday life so we can grow upwards.
She shared how we don’t have to worry about the election because Hashem is the ultimate power. We know all decisions are made by Hashem. We’ve lived through a year of tragedy and there is still war in Israel. Simchas Torah was different this year. We cannot define ourselves by people who want to destroy us! Nationally and individually, we are a stubborn people connected to Hashem, to Israel, and to each other. So, they cannot destroy us.
We have to remember that we are in Hashem’s arms and not in anyone else’s. Cheshvan is the beginning of the ordinary year. We need to ask ourselves how we can redirect and realign ourselves. She shared an analogy of a boiling pot. When you see that the pot that is on the stovetop is boiling, we can’t see how full it is; we are the boiling pot. When we take ourselves off the stovetop, we see how much is our resolve and commitment that we have in our lives. Ask yourself: Did I go through Yom Tov or did Yom Tov go through me? Do I remember that my life is always in Hashem’s hands every moment?
She added that we are now bereft of Yom Tov for a while, but we still have Shabbos. “More than the Jews have kept Shabbos, Shabbos has kept the Jews.”
She then spoke about the sefer Chovos HaL’vavos, which teaches the obligations of the heart. The author shares two categories of mitzvos: those that we perform with our body and those that we perform with our heart and mind. It was written 1,000 years ago by Rabbeinu Bachya, and he started the genre of sifrei musar.
Rebbetzin Hamilton has 68 free classes on M’silas Y’sharim on TorahAnytime and she recommended that everyone should listen to them.
She shared how it’s easier to do actions than to think deeply about what we are doing. Our intention to draw closer to Hashem is the point of the mitzvos. Mitzvos without proper intention won’t take us where we want to go.
The Ramban taught that the amount of effort you put into mitzvos is the amount you will get out of the mitzvah. The highest level is doing a mitzvah because Hashem said to do it. A nisayon can help us to align our lifestyle with our beliefs.
She then spoke about the meaning of a paradigm shift. She shared a story from Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Children are noisy and running around on a subway train. People are on the way home from work and they grow annoyed at all the noise and ruckus. Finally, someone asks the father to control the children. The father apologizes and says his wife was the one who knew how to do it better. They were just coming from the hospital as she just died.
The people on the train have a paradigm shift.
Instead of anger and annoyance, they feel sympathy for the father and the children. Nothing changed physically. The situation was the same, but now the people saw everything in a different perspective. Growth is about embracing a paradigm shift. We have an obligation to change our hearts and our minds.
One of the gates in Chovos HaL’vavos teaches that everything you do can be in the service of Hashem if you create a paradigm shift to this idea in your heart and mind.
She concluded that this is what we need to do in Cheshvan, so we don’t lose the ruchniyus of Tishrei. Think that everything you do is for the honor of Hashem.
We can have moments in our lives that are very spiritual. Spirituality is not about quantity but rather about quality. These moments have eternal value. We should see mitzvos as an opportunity for this paradigm shift. I get to daven Minchah instead of “I have to daven Minchah.”
We came into Cheshvan with a treasure trove of all the mitzvos we performed in Tishrei. We want to continue to change our mindset in Cheshvan. If we connect to mitzvos, it will connect us to Hashem. She added that the best way to do this is by learning musar.
Thank you to The Holliswood Jewish Center for this incredibly inspiring shiur!
By Susie Garber
