Investing in your relationship with God

Is your relationship with God business or personal? Do you look to “check off the boxes” in your Jewish life or are you interested in a personal relationship with God? I will tell you why I am asking myself and others this question on the eve of this specific new year of 5782.

This coming new year is a Sabbatical year, the final year of the seven-year cycle described in the Torah. Many people are aware that the Sabbatical year is a year of agricultural rest for Jewish farmers in the Land of Israel.

Less well known is that it is also a year of relinquishing monetary debts, as it is written (Deut. 15:1-2) “At the end of seven years you will make a release... to release the hand of every creditor from what he lent his friend; he shall not exact from his friend or his brother, because the time of the release for the Lord has arrived.” 

This aspect of the seventh year is known as shemitat kesafim, “release of money [debts]” which means that at the very end of the seventh year, the last moment of it, monetary debts between a Jewish creditor and debtor are automatically waived.

There is however a halachic mechanism known as a prozbol which one may use to protect debts owed to him by filing the debts with a rabbinic court. Because only debts owed to individuals are released, a debt held by a court is protected.

Everything in Judaism operates on a physical plane as well as a spiritual plane. Therefore, every detail of practical observance has a corresponding spiritual truth. The laws of releasing debts are no exception.

I want to share with you a teaching of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson of blessed memory who explained these laws according to their spiritual meaning as applicable to each of us.

In our relationship with God, we are debtors and He is the Creditor. He blesses us “on credit” and in His goodness allows us to pay Him back so desires rather than having the shame of accepting these blessings as charity. 

The repayment we make to God for His blessings are in keeping with the nature of the blessings. For the blessing of children, we pay God back by bringing them up in Torah-true tradition; for the blessing of life, we pay God back by leading a Torah-true life; for the blessing of material sustenance we pay God back by giving a part of our earnings (10 to 20 percent at least) to tzedakah.

However, we the debtors may at times be negligent in repaying our debt to God. Aware of human weakness, the merciful God instituted a Shemittah, which automatically wipes out debts in heaven just as it does on earth.

But if you remember, this only works with personal debts, not debts held by the court. How do we prevent God from filing our debts with the Heavenly Court, so to speak? How do we make sure that the debt remains a personal debt so that it will be released?

God mirrors to us the same relationship that we choose to have with Him. We can choose whether to have a business-like relationship with Hashem or to have a personal relationship where we actually want to bring pleasure to Him through our actions. 

And this is why I am asking this question today. Do we view religion as a formality, a technical duty, even a burden? Or is Judaism deeply personal to us? Is it something that we put our hearts into? Is it something we think about more than three days a year or at life cycle events? It’s entirely our decision. 

This year I want to encourage each of us to deepen our personal connection with Hashem and His Torah by taking a moment prior to this Rosh Hashanah to reflect on our lives and God’s constant presence with us.

May you be inscribed for a healthy, happy, sweet new year.

Rabbi Zalman Wolowik is the director of the Chabad of the Five Towns in Cedarhurst.