Back to routine, back to our mission
The back porch looks forlorn and desolate: just plain wooden slats covered in a dusting of fallen leaves. Not so long ago, it sagged under the weight of holiness and joy, feet stamping in the succah and song rising up through bamboo slats to the sky — but now it’s just a deck again.
The whole Cheshvan feels kind of like that: darker, colder, and just kind of empty — was it really just Tishrei? But the Jewish calendar, we know, is not just random stuff happening at intervals, but a process. Each month, each day holds its avodah, and each one connects like puzzle pieces with the days before and after.
There is a custom in Lubavitch dating back to the Rebbe, Rav Sholom Ber, that on Motzaei Simchas Torah, the chassidim call out the words of the pasuk, “V’Yaakov halach l’darko.”
The Jew returns to normal life.
The stuff you were pushing off until after Yom Tov comes at you like an avalanche — emails and applications and bills — and the echoes of Yom Tov start to fade.
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