Ritual Repetitiveness/Rinse Repeat
No one likes to rinse and repeat anymore. It’s almost looked down upon. Boring people are stuck in routines. Exciting progressive people are always doing something different, something new.
Millennials are the “job hopping generation”.
While it is definitely understandable not wanting to get bored in your routine, there is something to be said about routine and its amazing positive spiritual and physical benefits.
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In this week’s Torah portion we read about the gift of the Nesiim, the leaders of the Tribes to the Mishkan, the portable synagogue that accompanied the Jews in the desert.
The Torah repeats the exact same gift 12 times! The Torah could have summarized by saying this was the gift that was given by the leaders. The Torah is particular about every letter, chose to repeat the entire gift each time with all of its details.
As my kids would say “what up”?!
Indeed the Chasidic Masters tell us that the Torah is telling us that the same act carries an entirely different energy at each occurrence.
You are not the same person tomorrow as you are today.
Your attention to task and action as a different person is different than it was.
Each day, the world is created anew, each day we are given new life, each day G-d is saying to us, the actions you do today are important to me today!
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This Sunday and Monday we relived the Revelation at Sinai, the Torah has been given to us anew.
Today, tomorrow and the next day are our opportunity to engage in the same actions of the past as entirely new beings. To bring a different experience to the same events.
Think about this as you awake tomorrow morning and say Modeh Ani and thank G-d for restoring your soul. Same actions, different day, an entirely different event!
Shabbat Shalom!