Tishrei Must Be Fast Approaching

My good friend Ilán in Buenos Aires sent me an e-mail last Monday inquiring whether he will get a chance to meet me in Uman for Rosh Hashanah. Just a few days before, Chabakuk Elisha told me that he was planning to take his sons along with him to Uman as well.

I replied to both Ilán and Chabakuk Elisha that unfortunately I would not be going this year since I could not leave my wife behind with our new baby and two small children. I realize that this is precisely what everyone else does when they go; they overcome obstacles. Quite honestly, however, I believe that my going to Uman at this stage in my life would display a bit of spiritual selfishness.

G-d willing, one day, I will be able to go with my son. From the pictures I have seen and all the accounts that I have read, I can only imagine what an amazing and uplifting experience it must be. It seems like an experience so powerful that you do not return the same person who left.

Uman calls out for me, and I am still longing to return.

For those of you who have been to Uman for Rosh Hashanah, do you now find it difficult to be anywhere else? Please leave a comment and tell me about your experiences there.

(Picture courtesy of AP)

UPDATE: Rabbi Dovid Sears replied:

I have had some very powerful experiences in Uman.

But I always try to tell people that Uman is not about "experiences" or spiritual highs, although they may happen. It is all about emunas chakhomim and tikkun ha-neshamos, and therefore transcends what we know and experience. My friend Dovid Steinberg once told someone "You won't even begin to know what happened to you in Uman for six months!"