Keep the Change!
Once, a Zen master in New York City approached a hot dog vender and ordered a hotdog with all the toppings.
The vendor fixed a hot dog and handed it to the Zen master, who paid with a 20 dollar bill.
The vendor put the bill in the cash box and closed it. "Excuse me," said the Zen master: "Where is my change?"
Without missing a beat the vender replied: "Change must come from within."
All jokes aside, I often wonder about the great dynamic of change and transformation.
Particularly during this season as we prepare for the High Holidays, there’s a ‘self-improvement’ energy in the air. The big buzz word is: ‘Teshuvah’ which is commonly translated to mean Repentance, and implies – change, fixing, and ‘time to shape up’.
But how realistic is this notion of transformation? Are we meant to reinvent ourselves on a yearly basis?
I don’t think so. But it would be helpful to properly define the word Teshuvah, which literally means ‘to return’.
And ‘returning’ (not reinventing) is what it’s really all about!
The High Holidays afford us these incredible opportunities where we can return to our core essence, to our truest selves. When we do that, and dig past the surface of life’s daily dramas and tune into our Jewish soul, something magical happens.
We suddenly realize that no transformation is necessary, because indeed all the answers and greatest potentials are right there, at our core - fueled by the divine spark, inside each of us!
So really, none of us needs to change (phew...), we just need to return to our essential selves and unleash the greatness that is already there.
From this perspective, our past shortcomings are not a reflection of our fundamental identity and by returning to our innate, core G-dly self, we are empowered further.
This perspective can actually be quite a paradigm shift, as reflected in the following story:
Years ago, a supporter of Chabad traveled to Brooklyn, NY to meet the Lubavitcher Rebbe. When he approached the Rebbe he said: “I came here to find some Yiddishkeit (Jewish connection).” The Rebbe replied: “For some Yiddishkeit, you didn’t need to come here, you only need to uncover what lies deep in your heart and you will find it”.
So this year, keep the change - only ‘returns’ allowed!
L’shana Tova from Bellaire,
Rabbi Yossi Zaklikofsky