 | Living with a fully open heart all the time can be uncomfortable – even risky. Anyone reading this probably knows this truth from life experience. Most humans learn to protect their hearts. We learn so well that the feeling of a closed heart can be instinctive, automatic, effortless. We can become so inured that we might not know just how closed our hearts have become. Maybe that's why, precisely now in the Jewish year, Torah calls us to open our hearts wide. |
By Rabbi David Evan Markus
P. Eikev 5786 (2026)
I've been known to watch shellfish.
Tidal pool rocks offer choice clinging spots for mollusks. At high tide, they open their shells to absorb sea-washed nutrients. When the tide goes out, they "clam up": their shells fuse tight.
Hearts can be like that. But hearts aren't mollusks. Hearts don't naturally have shells. They form and harden against hurt like calluses or stone.
So over time, hearts can become less eager to open. After all, safety and certainty can feel better than hurt and risk. And let's face it: the tide has washed in plenty of hurt and risk.
Yet it's precisely now, as the seven-week countdown to Rosh Hashanah begins, that Torah calls us collectively to open our heart wide (Deut. 10:16):
P. Eikev 5786 (2026)
I've been known to watch shellfish.
Tidal pool rocks offer choice clinging spots for mollusks. At high tide, they open their shells to absorb sea-washed nutrients. When the tide goes out, they "clam up": their shells fuse tight.
Hearts can be like that. But hearts aren't mollusks. Hearts don't naturally have shells. They form and harden against hurt like calluses or stone.
So over time, hearts can become less eager to open. After all, safety and certainty can feel better than hurt and risk. And let's face it: the tide has washed in plenty of hurt and risk.
Yet it's precisely now, as the seven-week countdown to Rosh Hashanah begins, that Torah calls us collectively to open our heart wide (Deut. 10:16):
| וּמַלְתֶּ֕ם אֵ֖ת עָרְלַ֣ת לְבַבְכֶ֑ם וְעָרְפְּכֶ֔ם לֹ֥א תַקְשׁ֖וּ עֽוֹד׃ | Circumcise the foreskin of your hearts, and be not stiff-necked anymore. |
One heart, not "hearts." We share one heart.
These words are visceral. We are called to remove the protecting shell over our heart. We are to do so now. We are to do so unconditionally – even if the tide is out, even if we're afraid, even if it might hurt, even if we think we're right. And if it's hard, use a scalpel (figuratively).
What does this mean? Sure, it's partly about not being "stiff-necked" (stubborn), so willful that we refuse to meet people partway (Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed 3:33.2). That's no way to live. But tradition offers far more.
To circumcise the foreskin of the heart means to clear "emotional blocks" (Women's Torah Commentary, Deut. 10:16). Remove "prejudices that afflict the mind and blind it to errors in how we see the world" (Sforno, Deut. 10:16). Remove "inhibitions of personality's full potential" to fully embrace soul and the sacred (Rabbeinu Bahya, Deut. 10:16). Remove "obstruction" to vulnerability and relationship (Siftei Hakhamim, Deut. 10:16). Remove hindrances to receiving the "still small voice" we call God (Tur HaArokh, Deut. 10:16).
The real question is why? If we feel like our lives generally are fine enough, if usually we're comfortable, if the world is difficult enough, then why make such effort to be vulnerable and introspective? Why risk hurt?
Because, teaches Maimonides, we live most of our lives half asleep – partly numb, not fully feeling joys. A heart that hardens against feeling oy tend snot to fully feel joy – or awe, grace or wonder. Even love can feel muted. As Henry David Thoreau put it, under the surface most of us lead "lives of quiet desperation" but barely know it (Walden, 1854).
Or as one midrash quotes God asking Abraham, "Why do you believe you are whole now?" (Midrash Tanhuma, Lekh Lekha 16:13).
The thing is, the world needs us to be whole. Relationships most important to us need us to be whole. Our souls need us to be whole. Our communities and peoplehood need us to be whole. The world's brokenness looks the way it does mainly because of unawareness, because folks live life partly asleep and disconnected. We forget that we share one heart.
Which is why the world needs us to be whole, to wake up, to rouse, to go deep, to feel, to ask, to yearn, to risk. Because only then might each of us, and all of us with our shared heart, ever become whole anew.
Erev Rosh Hashanah 5787 begins September 11, 2026.
These words are visceral. We are called to remove the protecting shell over our heart. We are to do so now. We are to do so unconditionally – even if the tide is out, even if we're afraid, even if it might hurt, even if we think we're right. And if it's hard, use a scalpel (figuratively).
What does this mean? Sure, it's partly about not being "stiff-necked" (stubborn), so willful that we refuse to meet people partway (Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed 3:33.2). That's no way to live. But tradition offers far more.
To circumcise the foreskin of the heart means to clear "emotional blocks" (Women's Torah Commentary, Deut. 10:16). Remove "prejudices that afflict the mind and blind it to errors in how we see the world" (Sforno, Deut. 10:16). Remove "inhibitions of personality's full potential" to fully embrace soul and the sacred (Rabbeinu Bahya, Deut. 10:16). Remove "obstruction" to vulnerability and relationship (Siftei Hakhamim, Deut. 10:16). Remove hindrances to receiving the "still small voice" we call God (Tur HaArokh, Deut. 10:16).
The real question is why? If we feel like our lives generally are fine enough, if usually we're comfortable, if the world is difficult enough, then why make such effort to be vulnerable and introspective? Why risk hurt?
Because, teaches Maimonides, we live most of our lives half asleep – partly numb, not fully feeling joys. A heart that hardens against feeling oy tend snot to fully feel joy – or awe, grace or wonder. Even love can feel muted. As Henry David Thoreau put it, under the surface most of us lead "lives of quiet desperation" but barely know it (Walden, 1854).
Or as one midrash quotes God asking Abraham, "Why do you believe you are whole now?" (Midrash Tanhuma, Lekh Lekha 16:13).
The thing is, the world needs us to be whole. Relationships most important to us need us to be whole. Our souls need us to be whole. Our communities and peoplehood need us to be whole. The world's brokenness looks the way it does mainly because of unawareness, because folks live life partly asleep and disconnected. We forget that we share one heart.
Which is why the world needs us to be whole, to wake up, to rouse, to go deep, to feel, to ask, to yearn, to risk. Because only then might each of us, and all of us with our shared heart, ever become whole anew.
Erev Rosh Hashanah 5787 begins September 11, 2026.
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