To Return To That Which Was

...knowing you'll never get there

here-eyth

I love words from other languages that are untranslatable into English. Hiraeth is my latest obsession, perhaps because it resonates so strongly with my overall nature and also for its connection to this time of the year in the Jewish calendar.

From a helpful BBC article, hiraeth

combines elements of homesickness, nostalgia and longing. Interlaced, however, is the subtle acknowledgment of an irretrievable loss – a unique blend of place, time and people that can never be recreated. This unreachable nature adds an element of grief, but somehow it is not entirely unwelcome¹

We all are familiar with nostalgia, but this longing is different as it alludes to a yearning for something which we’ll never return to. Yet, it has a positive association. Even though you’ll never return to that thing, the existence of the emotions behind hiraeth allow you to carve out spaces that propel you to get back there, and sometimes that push is healing. It can help you keep something alive even if you’ll never fully return.

Return is the word of the season in the Jewish calendar. Teshuvah, a return to our best selves is in many ways the leitmotif of the high holiday season. In chasidic literature, the Rabbis often talk about the season of teshuvah beginning in the Hebrew month of Tamuz which corresponds to the heart of the summer time. In other words, the time for return has begun. And yet, the current Rabbi of the Slonim chasidic dynasty, Shmuel Berezovky (also known as the Darche Noam) in his treatise on the high holidays asks the following penetrating question:

Every year we can look back at the work we did at the previous Rosh Hashanah only to see how we fell off the path right afterward. Can we ever possibly do teshuvah when its pathways seem so locked to us because of our constant foibles?

It’s the question lurking behind every high holiday season. Year in and year out, we return to this period, going through the same motions, paying lip service to words that never seem to fully pierce our deepest parts. Can we really achieve this work we set out to do?

That’s what connected me to hiraeth in this case. It’s a state of living life trying to return to something you acknowledge you can probably never get back to and yet, you try. I think something similar happens with teshuvah.

As the Darche Noam alludes, there’s something sisyphean about teshuvah. We come at it earnestly each year and we also know full well that we probably won’t achieve it. We desire to be this different version of ourselves, perhaps returning to something that once was or aspiring to a level that will be and yet, it remains just out of reach, but that’s ok.

Because, as he alludes to in a different section, we are born with immense spiritual power to change ourselves. From birth, the world around us and our own proclivities diminish that power. Each high holiday season affords us an opportunity to regain some of it, not to achieve some ultimate goal of completing full return but to:

find the belief within ourselves that we can do teshuvah. This is why the preparation process begins so far in advance. We are in a battle in this season against the forces that attempt to sway us in our belief. It’s immensely hard work to instill within ourselves that we can do teshuvah and create a spiritual revolution in our lives.

In the best way possible, he moves the goalposts. No longer is teshuvah about a full scale change in our lives. It simply becomes a matter of belief within ourselves. We start with that and then deal with whatever comes.

That, to me, is a powerful reminder about all of our longings and nostalgias or the even deeper hiraeth that we all feel. Outside of this season of the year, we all have things, people, or places that we’re longing to return to but maybe in our heart of hearts, we know we never will.

What if we reminded ourselves that it’s never been about fully returning back to that actual place?

But rather it’s simply reminding ourselves that we have the ability to even think it’s possible?

That is buoying me in this season and my life overall. I hope that it provides something grounding and healing for you too.

Shabbat Shalom and Happy Weekend!

1. http://bbc.com/travel/article/20210214-the-welsh-word-you-cant-translate