Starting the Year off Right
Years before I’d even heard of emuna or hitbodedut, I remember reading something about a group of crazies who had a tradition of visiting their dead Rebbe every Rosh Hashana...
Many years ago, before I’d even so much as heard of ‘emuna’ or ‘hitbodedut’ or ‘Uman’, I remember reading something about a group of crazy Chassidim who 1) didn’t have a ‘live’ Rebbe and 2) had a tradition of visiting their dead Rebbe every Rosh Hashanah.
I read it, thought ‘what a bunch of weirdos’, and then didn’t think about it again for over a decade. Well, now G-d is chuckling away up in heaven, because my husband and I have happily joined that bunch of weirdos.
This is the third year that, Bezrat Hashem, my husband will have the privilege of going to Uman for Rosh Hashanah, to be with our Rabbi, his Rabbi and their Rebbe. Uman is not a lot of ‘fun’ in the accepted sense of the word, especially if you go on a charter flight.
It’s full of overt antisemitism and obvious antisemites – everywhere you go, big strapping Russians whose ancestors were only too pleased to forcibly convert Jews; torture Jews to death; kills Jews by the thousands, etc. And even now, you get the distinct feeling that it wouldn’t take much for that to happen again – except the Ukrainian government won’t let them try it. Uman is too important a source of ‘tourism’ and foreign currency.
But that doesn’t stop a lot of the locals glaring at you, swearing at you, shouting at you.
Then there are the accommodations – basic, at best. If you’re lucky, you’ll take a trip with the ‘Uman Experience’ and have a comfortable bed, good food and great company. If not, you could be camping out in the forest with a few hundred fellow Jews, eating pot noodles and tins of tuna.
So why do people go? Perhaps even more perplexing, why do they go back, year after year? What is the ‘pull’ of Uman on Rosh Hashanah?
Each person will have their own explanation; but for me and my husband, it’s all about starting the year off right.
The first year my husband went to Uman for Rosh Hashanah, he wasn’t that keen to go. Yes, we’d been learning a lot more about Breslev chassidut; about talking to Hashem; about developing a genuine spiritual connection with the Almighty. But going to Uman for Rosh Hashanah – to antisemitic, backwards Ukraine instead of being with the family in our familiar surroundings – that was something else altogether.But something pushed me to push him to go. If I’m honest, that first time it could have been the hope that going to Uman would unlock something in relation to us having more kids. But whatever it was, he was getting on the plane.
We hadn’t planned on him going to Uman, so pulling the money together for it was pretty hard. What’s more, my husband had no idea about how anything would be when he actually got there: Where would he stay? Where would he pray? What would he eat?
But to his credit, he still booked the ticket. A few weeks’ before the flight, Rabbi Brody posted something about having a few spaces available in his rented accommodations – and my husband jumped at the chance to be with a familiar face in a very unfamiliar place.
That first trip to Uman was ‘OK’. He didn’t come back on the spiritual high I’d expected; it was all too new and confusing to really be enjoyable; he’d stood up in shul for six hours straight because he didn’t have a seat; it was a miracle he actually made it back on the charter plane; I didn’t get pregnant that year…
There weren’t many compelling reasons pushing us to repeat the experiment the following year. But there was one: spiritually speaking, we’d had an amazing year. Both of us had grown in leaps and bounds, albeit that other things were as up in the air and unresolved as before.
A few months before Rosh Hashanah number two, we were discussing it, and both of us were inclined to say ‘forget it’. ‘Been there, done that’. But yet again, something pushed me to push him to go back. “At least you’ll be with our Rabbi for Rosh Hashanah, and for that reason alone, you should go.”
So he went. And this time, he had an absolutely amazing trip. He hooked up with a friend who found a much more comfortable flight; he was back in the house with the ‘Uman Experience’ so physically, he was taken care of; he found a much more suitable place to daven; he met a bunch of really interesting people – and he came back glowing.
It’s not easy sending my husband away for the chagim. This year, he’ll be away for 6 days, because it’s a three day yom tov. The first year, I went a bit bonkers trying to sort the kids out by myself, alone in the house without any adult conversation.
Last year was much better; I invited my cousin to come and stay, which meant I had another grown up in the house, and we didn’t go out for every meal, but had a nice mix of home and away.
I still missed him; of course I missed him. And I hate for him to be out of Eretz Yisrael for any reason, even a spiritual one. But I knew that he was davening for us to have a good year and to be sealed in the book of life, and that he was doing it in a place where there was an absolute ton of kavana and kedusha. The prayers go straight up.
So this year, it was a foregone conclusion: if Mashiach hasn’t shown up before then, he’s going back to Uman for Rosh Hashanah. Yes, it’s expensive, it’s a hassle and I get lonely without him. But it’s an investment in the rest of the year, and as we are taught time and again in yiddishkeit, when the beginning is good, the rest follows suite.
9/06/2010
Uman What can I say? This article came at the perfect time. My husband has booked to go to Uman for the first time this year and I had my doubts! Being alone with the kids a whole new foreign concept, here where I live it’s practically the talk of town but now I definately feel a whole lot better about him going and hope that like you say it will be beneficial to all of us for the coming year. Thanks to you. Wishing you a Kesiva V’Chasima Tovah and a sweet new year.
9/06/2010
What can I say? This article came at the perfect time. My husband has booked to go to Uman for the first time this year and I had my doubts! Being alone with the kids a whole new foreign concept, here where I live it’s practically the talk of town but now I definately feel a whole lot better about him going and hope that like you say it will be beneficial to all of us for the coming year. Thanks to you. Wishing you a Kesiva V’Chasima Tovah and a sweet new year.