I'm not ashamed that I left my family at home and went to Rosh Hashanah in Uman.

September 13, 2018   

1. The breaking point was in the shower. Before the flight, I checked carefully whether the hostel in Uman had towels. Everything was very organized. I booked a place a few weeks in advance. I didn't want to sleep on a mattress in a chicken coop in some Ivan's backyard. I checked everything, and they told me unequivocally that there were towels. And there really were towels. One thing I forgot to check: whether there would be water. There were five other adults in the room besides me, in three bunk beds. After an all-night journey from Israel to Uman, and carrying luggage several blocks on foot, and climbing six flights of stairs, I got into the shower, which looked like a shower that five adults had showered in, turned on the faucet - and no water came out. I'm not talking about hot water, I'm talking about water. At any temperature. The faucet simply fell silent. It didn't even make that gurgling sound that faucets usually make in the first moments of a water cut. Complete silence. I mean, total noise, the faucet didn't make a sound, but the crazy speakers with the trance-Nahman music of the holy vendors on the main street were clearly audible. Later I realized that this was really an indulgent demand. Water near the start of the holiday in Uman? Maybe even a limousine to take me to the grave? After all, these are the moments when everyone gets into the shower, which causes Uman's primitive plumbing, which was probably used by Rabbi Nachman himself, to become unusable. So I got out of the shower, aware that I was now going to enter the two-day holiday dirty. It was at a point where it was no longer possible to return home, or to travel to any other destination in Europe. I tried to console myself that I was probably going to have a very good year. After all, the Sages already said in the tractate Rosh Hashanah, "Every year that is rooted at the beginning, becomes rich at the end." And in the yeshiva, I grew up on the founding letter of the mashgih, Rabbi Chaim Friedlander, who says that during the high holidays, a person should live with the awareness that he has nothing, even if he has everything, because in fact now we are discussing whether to continue his abundance next year. Therefore, he said, the advice to earn justice is to recognize goodness and pray from the bottom of our hearts even for what we have and seem to take for granted. Oh, how I prayed there under the silent faucet for a drop of water. Friends of the circle. 2. This column was not written for those who have never, ever, left the country. Congratulations to you. This column was also not written for those who have a rabbi or a prominent rabbi that they are privileged to connect with all year round, or even just during the prayers of the High Holy Days. You will stay here. God forbid you leave the Holy Land. And even within the country, why should you seek thrills? Don't move. You have a rabbi, you have a beit midrash, you have a prayer that you are connected to – excellent. Blessed are you. May your prayers be accepted as desired before the Lord of all. This column was written for those who were in the Austrian Alps in the summer and will be away from home for a few days in the winter because they were sent by work to some conference of researchers or managers or investors, and this week dared to raise an eyebrow when I told him that I was going to Uman, and to say: You? You fell too? I thought you were more sophisticated. And aren't you ashamed? Leaving your wife and children like that? So no, I'm not ashamed, and I'll tell you something? I'm even proud. I don't want to be too aggressive on the eve of Yom Kippur, and especially since our rabbi talked so much about this point of judging everyone's merits (Stam, calm down, I'm not calling him "our rabbi"). But it's a bit difficult for me to judge the merits of people who, for some complicated conference or exhibition in Madrid, or even not complicated at all, leave their family and children. Who, for the sake of raising money for a startup that is highly doubtful will ever come to fruition, leave their home for entire days. And the truth? Even when they're in Israel, they're not exactly at home, but suddenly when it comes to the most important thing in life, the thing that has the most impact on everything (including that startup), isn't it Rosh Hashanah, the day when everything is decided, they suddenly become sensitive family members to me who can't leave their child for a moment. 3. Come on, stop being a demagogue, you tell me. It's not just a trip abroad in November, as a departure from the family on such an important holiday as Rosh Hashanah. What's the next step, a men's seder at the tomb of the Golem from Prague as a virtue for livelihood? The answer is: no, I'm not a demagogue. I'm simply trying to understand the essence of the holiday. On seder night, the issue is family, and you told your son, what has changed? On Rosh Hashanah, the story is the prayers. Of course, even in prayers, as in every mitzvah, there is the educational issue, how will a child know how to pray on Rosh Hashanah if his father is not with him? So first of all, let's start with his father being with him in prayers and education on the other Shabbats and weekdays (and I explicitly say this to myself as well). And besides, that's exactly why every year in Uman there are thousands of children whose parents bring them with them to Rosh Hashanah, including my happy child. He really had an experience that won't be forgotten soon (I hope). And by the way, sometimes taking one child away from home for a day or two changes the family structure for the better, and everyone enjoys it. Who Who travels, even those who stay. But what, you say, after all, did you leave a wife and a few children at home for a holiday meal without a father? Well, you're right. It's really a bit sad, even though my brother-in-law and sister-in-law came to us (thank you very much!), but the children understood, I hope, that their father went to great lengths to travel to a place where they pray well on Rosh Hashanah. So besides the prayer itself, we gained an educational interest here. And yes, this year it could outweigh the value of a family meal of Rubia together. 4. Wait, but how did I suddenly become a travel agent for "Derech Tzaddikim"? We started with the fact that I wanted to go home, if only I could, on the eve of the holiday. And in general, where did the whole premise come from that if Rosh Hashanah is a day of prayers then the place for prayers is Uman? Who invented this thing? The place for prayers is the Western Wall, Rachel's Tomb, the Tomb of the Patriarchs or any synagogue in the neighborhood of Moshav in any city in the Land of Israel, which is much holier than the impure land of Ukraine. And what did I find so great in the prayer of a group of jumping Nachmans? Well, first of all, if there is a place in the world where Nachmans are not on Rosh Hashanah, it is Uman. They would even like to move the grave of Rabbi Nachman to the land. But let's get back to stopping the rain in the shower. After I left the shabby room with the bunk beds that suddenly seemed to me like a cell for security prisoners in a Shatta prison, the holiday came and it was no longer possible to escape anywhere. I went to evening prayers in one of the hundreds of minyanim that operate in Uman, and I met thousands, literally thousands, like me. Some didn't shower, some showered but their robes turned gray at the beginning of the holiday from the puddles and mud on the neglected and ugly streets of Uman, some simply missed home and didn't understand why they had done this foolish thing, many of them weren't even sure where they would eat their holiday meal tonight - but the feeling was that they had come here to fight for their lives. They paid hundreds of dollars, they gave up a pleasant bourgeois holiday, and traveled to some ugly city in Ukraine, and all with complete faith that this was the time and place. Why this was the time? It's clear, Rosh Hashanah. And as for the place, I assume that some of them came because of Rabbi Nachman's great promises to those who would come to him for Rosh Hashanah. But most of them, like me, didn't even need this promise from the holy Rabbi Nachman. They came because Uman is today the place with the most meaningful prayers in the world. Why? I don't know. I admit, I have no rational explanation, but it's just the way it is. Here's a dry press report: When the prayer in my minyan ended, I went on a short prayer tour. I went from minyan to minyan. From Satmar Hasidim, to Chabad Hasidim, to the national-religious complex ("Neher-De'ah" together with "Ruach Acheret"), to the original Breslav complex ("HaKloiz"), to the wealthy Americans ("Shiner"), to the "Kisupim" complex with Rabbi Gebirtzman's lessons, to the Tel Aviv-based "Ashira" complex for the repentant, to a Moroccan minyan and from there to several more Yemenite minyans whose differences I haven't yet understood, and I testify: I have never encountered a place in my life where the heart opens to prayer, supplication, crying and joy like in Uman. It just happens there. It's a fact. What does the campaign say? "Uman - come. Feel. Understand.". 5. ""Knowing nothing, understanding nothing of anything, we find ourselves getting up and leaving the house," opens Bini Landau's "Light of the Path," the song that always gave me chills, no matter how many times I heard it. Strange. It was precisely when it was played on the public address system in all the speakers in Uman that it moved me less. Why? Because I suddenly realized that it wasn't so accurate. It's true that we left the house knowing nothing, understanding nothing of anything. But after Rosh Hashanah in Uman, we learned so many things about ourselves. We know a great deal. And so, next year, too, so many Jews will find themselves getting up and leaving the house, and the wife and the children, and yes, even the shower. 6. So cynics might say, neither Rabbi Nachman nor shoes, it's very simple: if tens of thousands come to a square kilometer and start singing and praying, then probably something from the energy captures those in the area. You know what? I flow with you. I don't care so much about the reason. I look at the result. And the result is felt by the tens of thousands who were in Uman this year. As someone there said to me after the prayer (and I'm sorry I don't remember who, so many people there said significant things to me): "In Uman I feel like I'm in a car wash. You go in, you go into neutral mode, and it just happens, you come out new." The truth is that I can also testify about myself: how difficult it is for me with the prayers of the High Holy Days, how long, heavy, scary it is, today is world-destroying, and how suddenly in Uman you discover in yourself the powers of prayer that you didn't know. Do you know the young Americans who come to Israel on a journey of discovery? They take them here for a few days, to instill in them a maximum of Jewish and Zionist identity in a minimum of time. And it really works. After the tour of the Western Wall, Yad Vashem, even in Mahane Yehuda on Friday, a certain number of immigrants come to Israel, and even those who don't, connect much more to their Judaism. They won't assimilate so quickly. That's how I felt in Uman. A kind of journey of discovery, of the soul. We saw for two days what wonderful places we can go to. • The column is published in the newspaper 'Besheva'"