Hear that? It is silence.

The shofar isn’t blowing, the guests have left, and the celebrations have quieted down.

Here we are. It is Cheshvan.

There is not a lot that is marked in the month of Cheshvan, but one thing that is commemorated is the mabul, the Great Flood that began in this month. A year later also in this month, the flood finally ended, the waters receded, the land dried, and it was once again safe for Noah and his family to leave the ark. But Noah didn’t want to. Today, we all know the deep struggle that comes from isolation and being holed up in one place for a long time. We know what it feels like to see the same walls every day—to be surrounded by your family, and only your family, for days on end. Noah is holed up in a ship for an entire year, and when he is finally told that it is safe to emerge, he resists. He wants to stay. It gets to the point that G‑d must specifically command Noah to leave the ship.

Why was Noah so resistant?

This is something I can relate to as well. While at the start of the COVID-19 lockdowns, I struggled to accept that we truly could not emerge from our homes, when it finally became safe to leave, it wasn’t an easy step to take. The world was different; home had become a beacon of safety, there was a deep sense of ease in my life, and the pressure and complications of real-world living had slowed. The world seemed too much to step back into—overwhelming, overstimulating, complex and demanding. I wasn’t all that interested in getting back out there.

Noah had just spent a year on a ship, safe from floodwaters and ruin, where nature was not in play. Every species on the planet had just lived together for a year in small quarters and thrived. Noah wanted to stay where nature did not have a role, where nature did not make things practical, realistic and dangerous. But G‑d had to tell Noah a painful truth: The purpose of the world was waiting. The purpose of the world is not to live with miracles, above nature. It is to meet the world within its nature, to work with the world in its natural state.

In the month of Tishrei, we took off work, we prayed, we celebrated, and we were busy with higher purpose and holiness. If we were clever, we made sure to harness the inspiration to trickle down into the rest of the year. And now we are here. The rest of the year has begun, and we begin with a month that is empty of holidays, a month that is quiet. A month full of workdays and schooldays—run-of-the-mill, real, daily living.

And it’s not just when we start our countdown to Chanukah. It is the time that we were created for. A time that G‑d always intended for us. It is a time that exemplifies the real purpose of living—making Torah practical and real in our everyday lives, working with the people around us without the spiritual high.

Where do we see what it means to bring the spiritual into our everyday reality? Through the prayer for rain.

Half of Israel is a desert, and after a scorching summer, it desperately needs rain. The good news is that the rainy season begins as the holiday ends. Yet the prayer for rain is delayed by 15 days after the holidays (and even longer in the Diaspora). What possible reason would lead people living in a scorched, thirsty desert to delay their prayer? It is in consideration for those traveling away from Jerusalem after the holiday. It would take 15 days for the Jew that lived farthest away to return home safely. Then, Israel begins to pray for rain.

How much more practical can you get? Delaying a prayer for the sake of the physical comfort of another Jew. This is Cheshvan. Noticing what it means to be a Jew, practically. Putting the spiritual into practice on a day-to-day level. The rain, the desert, our traveling brethren; it is all part of our service to G‑d. Our strength in Cheshvan is that it is quiet, it is routine, and it is life in its essence. This Cheshvan, we have the power to take what seems mundane and reveal the true holiness hidden within nature.1

It is not our human limitations that make us unworthy of G‑d’s presence; it is those inherent limitations that make us the perfect conduits to heal the world.

Meditation

What did you do today?

Think through the moments from waking up until now. The little, mundane, boring things you did today. Did you make breakfast? Did you brew coffee? Did you look for your keys? Drive or walk to work? Talk to a friend or a stranger? Eat meals, write things down, yawn, stretch, cry?

When you interact with your natural reality around you, you can be interacting with G‑d.

Is there a challenge you are facing, a person you are struggling with, a reality you are not happy with? This is holy work. This is the work you were created for. This is G‑dliness.

Tap into it. Explore it. Find where you can be a healer in your day-to-day life. There is no need to run from physicality; our struggles and limitations are where the beauty of creation is. We are not meant to be angels; we were built to be humans.

Breathe in. Envision your breath spreading to all the parts of your body, giving it the strength to face reality.

Breathe out. Release the beliefs that you do not have what you need, that you are not a good-enough Jew, and that your limitations can somehow stop you from being exactly who G‑d seeks for you to be.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.