In the Torah reading of Netzavim, read every year on the Shabbos before Rosh Hashanah, there’s a line about “circumcising our hearts.” This isn’t a physical procedure like the better known circumfusion, rather an effort (that will ultimately be done by G-d in the final Redemption, but we work towards that in our lives today) to peel away at some of the layers and coverings of our emotions, to let ourselves be a little more vulnerable, open.
Too often, subconsciously or consciously, we often put up walls and barriers, layering our emotions and mental space, protecting them. We keep our guard up. We’re afraid of being vulnerable. We’re resistant to change.
The high holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are much more than singing songs and repeating words, and reading the many long pages of a Machzor. For these holidays to have their desired effect, to maximize the spiritual and emotional benefits and opportunities they offer – we have to open up a little. If we’re closed too tight, there will be no way in.
Chassidus has a helpful beautiful visual parable for this titled “The Disintegration of the Seed” (usually used to explain the concept of “Bittul” – a key Chassidic concept):
Most plants and fruits grow from seed. The remarkable thing is that you can take a single tiny seed and if properly germinated and planted properly it can grow into a plant or tree that can yield hundreds or thousands of seeds. The growth of a seed is exponential!
But for a seed to grow it has to first fall apart. An intact seed will never grow anything. Only when its outer layers peel or rot away, can its inner nutrients be exposed to soil and begin a plant’s growth. The seed has to disintegrate to grow.
But it can’t just fall apart anywhere. If a seed were to fall apart on a dining room table or inside a tool box – it would just rot and nothing would grow. The ideal optimum is for it to fall apart within a supportive, nurturing environment, like soil, where it can fall apart with the trust that it will bring out the best in it.
This is why failure is often a catalyst for greater growth. But not when failure leads to despondency or depression. If failure is supported, and the exposed is cultivated, amazing things can come from it.
The high holidays is an optimum time for personal change and transformation, its an opportunity connect with that which is higher than ourselves – if we’re open to it, even a little, then a lot of growth can happen!