It looks like these tragic days everyone is thinking about time and age. Time that we live, hopefully in peace, and age that our children learn about war. Time that flies away, and age that deepens
the scars.

To me, the concept of one’s age is a changing one depending on my mood, experience,
and overall outlook on life at a certain moment. Age, it seems to me, is not at all the number of years that is indicated in one’s passport. Age is a concept of one’s spirit, knowledge, and wisdom to go on.

While I am now dangerously close to the big ’60’, I feel younger both in body and spirit than I felt years ago. Thankfully, my life turned around (or was it really me who turned it around with blood,
sweat, and tears, as they say?), and I am so happy to be feeling this way.

This school year time was both going slow and fast for me as during its course I was again reminded of the fact that life can make unexpected turns and bring you from the American high-rise to a small house in an Eastern European shtetl in a blink of an eye. This year I was lucky to experience this blink every week. This year made me understand that my ancestral ties were holding me much tighter than I expected. These ties are the ones of my Chasidic ancestry.

I have joined a class on Chasidut this year with R. Dr. Erin Smokler more out of polite reverence to my late father’s family that I never met because they were killed during the World War II in a tiny shtetl of Talne, than a deep desire to learn Chasidut. I thought that I would honor their memory this way. Little did I know that the thoughts of Kedushat Levi, Levi Yitzchok of Berditchev, the holy Berdichever, would touch my heart so deeply. Speaking of time and age, I would say his ideas are both timeless and ageless.

Let us remember that Kedushat Levi lived at a time of great Jewish suffering. The whole idea of Chasidut, I believe was born from a deep desire of common Jewish folk to be connected to Gd while feeling as outsiders for the plain lack of time to study. Most Jews at the time living within the Russian Empire were extremely poor and needed to spend most of the time working very hard to feed the children at home. Men simply did not have time to study much if at all.  While learned Jews that were lucky to have money, hence devote time to the noble pursuit of Talmud Torah looked down on their am Haaretz brethren, the first leaders of Chasidim specifically tried to advocate for the spiritual domain that is in everyone’s soul.

Kedushat Levi, it seems to me is in constant pursuit of bringing these people closer to Gd despite their lack of learning and bringing Gd closer to the people despite His desire to see the people as ‘holy.’ No wonder that he is trying to make people feel better by saying that Gd ‘needs’ our prayers and good deeds:

Man’s deeds ‎have one purpose and one purpose only, to provide satisfaction ‎for the Creator who gave him life. When man prays (utters ‎requests), he thereby turns himself into a “recipient.” When ‎someone wishes to receive something, he extends his hand ‎heavenwards and the back of his hand earthward. When he prays ‎intending to provide his Creator with satisfaction, instead of ‎being a petitioner he turns himself into a “donor.”‎
(Kedushat Levi on Parshat Nasso)

From the perspective of Kedushat Levi Gd wants to shower Israel with good, but He ‘cannot’ do it without the initiation from Bnej Israel, hence He yearns for the people from below to connect with the Divine goodness coming from above. By putting it this way, Kedushat Levi allows us, mere humans to see ourselves as true partners in everyday creation process.

The two beautiful concepts that I have learned this year – the one of  אתרתא דלתתא  (Arousal from Below) and  אתערותא דלעילא (Arousal from Above) seem to be always joined in Kedushat Levi’s explanations bringing people and their Gd together.

Coming back to age – these days, when we live running without realizing that we need to stop at least once in a while to think about what arouses us to come closer to The Divine and our fellow human beings, it feels that we need to look at time, age, and every single day with this type of a perspective, asking ourselves – how can I bring these two worlds together if not to stop time, but
at least to give it a deeper meaning?

I would like to bring a full poem of Kedushat Levi here. It is called The Kadish of Levi Yitsḥaq, and sometimes A Lawsuit with Gd. This poem underlines for me the concept of time, or even timelessness, when he says:

“From my stand I will not waver,
And from my place I shall not move
Until there be an end to all this.
Until there be an end to the exile!
Yisgadal v’yisqadash shmei rabo
‘Magnified and sanctified is only your Name!

To me it is as if time stands still ‘glued’ under the feet of the Holy Berdichever and waits for the two powers – those of humans and Gd to meet.

Today, when my official birthday period between my Hebrew and secular birthdays comes to an end, I am wishing all of us to be able to savor the moment when both ‘arousals’ meet even if that is only for a fleeting moment. I hope we can stay as firm as Kedushat Levi did in our pursuit of good for every single person as well as all humanity.