There’s an old slogan taken from the title of a play written by two Jewish men sons of European immigrants who humorously suggested that in life “You can’t take it with you.” Not very funny considering how little they took from the age-old values of the “Alte Heim” to the “Goldene Medinah”!

While it’s true that all of us will eventually embark on a journey to a world that requires no luggage in the world we live in currently you can take a lot with you. Material possessions can traverse oceans continents and even atmospheres! On the other hand taking our spiritual possessions through time requires no material cost but requires concentrated effort and mental focus.

We’ve just experienced the whirlwind month of Tishrei. Our spiritual journey has taken us to places of heart-wrenching personal introspection exalted closeness with the Ribono shel Olam and joyous celebration of the culmination of that experience. Yet the rainy (we hope brachah-filled rain for Eretz Yisrael) days and nights of Cheshvan can easily seep into the walls of our souls and can find the cracks in the walls of our emunah ultimately transforming the experiences of Tishrei into old and moldy memories.

We can take it with us! Rather than allowing ourselves to stagnate we must use the Cheshvan experience to heed the message of the coming choref winter. Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch teaches that the word choref is connected to the word cherpah shame. It is a time of retreat into oneself sequestering ourselves behind closed doors wrapping our bodies in layers of concealment. Yet this very process is also a huge opportunity for self-discovery. The path to Cheshvan was blazed by Tishrei and each day of our upcoming year can actualize the messages that travel from Tishrei to Cheshvan.

Testing Grounds

The thrice-intoned Shemoneh Esrei of every day contains a deep plea for forgiveness to Hashem the “Rotzeh bitshuvah — the One Who wants teshuvah.” This is an expression of a message reverberating in our consciousness — we cannot succeed in our teshuvah without His help.

We follow this impassioned cry for return by a prayer of deep regret for the foibles and blunders of our spiritual lives recognizing Hashem as the constant and stable “mochel v’soleach.” Just as we counted on His forgiveness when we felt the gates locking at the end of Yom Kippur we continue to place our trust in the fact that as long as we reach towards Him He will reach back for us.

If we used Tishrei for intense self-discovery and self-improvement Cheshvan can become the testing ground to see if this was a temporary “scared” response. Was our teshuvah like that of Ninvei in Sefer Yonah which is debated by the midrashim as having lasted for forty days or even forty years but ultimately dissipated? During Tishrei we can view the upcoming months as a time ripe for genuine change through slow and sincere striving towards our goals of self-improvement. In Cheshvan we concretize the process.

Finding the Lofty in the Mundane

Exalted lofty and sublime are generally not feelings most of us relate to on a day-to-day basis yet the blast of the shofar after Yom Kippur can catapult us into all of those feelings. Our day of physical abstinence and spiritual indulgence can leave us experiencing the triumph of our eternal souls over the drives of our mortal bodies.

What then can we say about the day-to-day merry-go-round of our hectic lives? As women we often find ourselves so physically spent that we scramble to find even a few minutes to daven over the course of the day and that tefillah is often rushed and garbled.

Only when we examine a day in Cheshvan in a spiritual light will we realize how many details of that day were so carefully orchestrated to our benefit by the Grand Puppeteer above. From our kids to our soups Hashem guides us so that we allow their most delicious flavors to emerge and do not carelessly cause them to spoil.

As the leaves begin to turn fiery orange and deep burgundy we must take notice of our ever-changing world and appreciate how deeply we are affected by the smallest of nuances in our lives. I recently heard that Rav Chazkel Levenstein ztz”l had but one major hakpadah that he enforced in the lives of his children and grandchildren something we would all benefit from: keeping a notebook of daily entries marking the hashgachah pratis in their lives. Doing this is in essence a celebration of our closeness to the Eibeshter every day of our lives.

Cheshvan is the time when we return to the daily grind of our necessary involvement in the outside world. When we hear some unwelcome news from the anarchy-filled world that surrounds us or chance upon someone who represents negative values in our work or the marketplace we can proudly declare “Hashem You did not make us like the nations of lands and You did not place us like the families of the earth!”

It may be a Tishrei-like reminiscence when we exclaim “Vaanachnu korim umishtachavim umodim lifnei Melech malchei hamlachim!” Daily I can celebrate being a Yid who bows only to You and lives with the cognizance that this is what motivates and empowers every day in my Cheshvan-like life. How exalted lofty and sublime that is!

The Fruits of our Tefillah

The month of Cheshvan is called “Mar” meaning bitter. The mar is added to Cheshvan’s title to mark it being a month barren of Jewish holidays with no cause to celebrate. It is a bitter reality check after the high of Succos culminating in the euphoric celebration of Simchas Torah.

Having taught elementary school and having once upon a time attended elementary school I have an image in my mind of the bulletin board for Cheshvan: I see a little girl standing under a dripping umbrella wearing a shiny raincoat standing in a puddle that does justice to her rubber boots. Somewhere in this display is emblazoned the words “Mashiv haruach umorid hageshem — He brings back the wind and brings down the rain.” The little girl looks cold like she wishes she could go back inside. Hardly a joyous celebration of the month.

Imagine that same little girl walking home from school puffing up the hills of Yerushalayim when all of a sudden the skies open up and the rain comes falling down. She runs to her house. “Ima Ima geshem yored! The rain we have been davening for is here!” She quickly gathers her siblings they run out of the house sans coats and together they frolic in the awesome wetness of Hashem’s strength — gevuras geshamim! When they return inside now wet and cold Ima offers them hot cocoa and they laugh together as they watch the rain dripping down their windowpane   how incredibly joyous!

The potential for anything to grow in our world began with an early lesson to Adam haRishon. In the second perek of Bereishis Rashi describes a world covered with grass that was lying dormant under its surface. The midrash explains that a man was needed to daven for the rain that would bring out those blades of grass creating a lush carpet all over the earth. This is our avodah of Cheshvan — to rejoice in the results of our tefillos.

My tefillah for Cheshvan is that all of the tefillos of Tishrei will be met with lush fruition. That one by one each blade of grass whether it is a prayer for health parnassah shidduchim children shalom or any other hope or aspiration grow strong. And that will carry us into the winter and towards a year of blessing.