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TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE (Likoi Hachamah)!

 <A Contemplation of Being Tamim with Hashem Through Reconnecting with His Torah Temimah>

By

Rabbi Hillel L. Yarmove © 

April 8 seems so very long ago. And the total solar eclipse that so many of us were zocheh to witness seems relegated to the distant past.

Truth to tell, I learned a very powerful lesson from the total eclipse, and—guess what!—I didn’t even see it. I got to see only about 90% of the eclipse. But friends of mine actually observed it in its totality—and they were still in awe of the event weeks later when I spoke to them about it over the Pesach holiday.

In fact, one of them said to me (rather innocently, I believe) when I averred that I had actually seen nine-tenths of the eclipse, “ Well, you really can’t compare a solar eclipse at even 99% to an all-encompassing, 100%, total solar eclipse!” Apparently, the changes which my friends had observed were breathtakingly instant, immediate, and astonishing: the blackness of the sky, the reaction of the animals , the amazed shock of the onlookers, and the plunge in the ambient temperature as the moon blocked out all but the corona of our nearest star.

Wow, is that so?! So you really can’t compare a 99% eclipse to a 100% total eclipse? Well, I for one am not the least surprised.

Why not?

In Parashas Shoftim, Moshe Rabbeinu tells K’lal Yisroel that each person has to be “tamim [totally complete] with Hashem your G-d” [Devorim 18:13].” And Dovid Hamelech, the Sweet Singer of Israel, informs us that “the Torah of Hashem is temimah [totally complete], refreshing the soul. . .” [Tehillim 19:8]. Now, we are not being instructed in the first case to be 99% complete with Hashem, nor are we being told in the second instance that the Torah is almost the total truth. Indeed, totality is the sole name of the game, both in regard to reaching our own personal goals as faithful, Torah-abiding Jews and  as regards the acquisition of an enhanced appreciation of our holy Torah.

It turns out, then, that Shavuos is the perfect time to reconnect with our inner selves and with the Torah. Are we at least setting for ourselves the goal of 100% adherence to our 100% Torah, insofar as we are capable of doing so?

For in these matters, as with a solar eclipse, 99% just won’t fit the bill.

But 100% will!

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A meaningfully edifying and simchah-filled Shavuos, dear readers!