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Inner Dimensions:
The Neurology of Time
Based on the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M.
Schneerson


On Rosh Hashanah it is inscribed, and on Yom Kippur it is sealed: how
many shall pass on, and how many shall be born; who shall live, and who
shall die ... who shall rest, and who shall wander ... who shall be
impoverished, and who shall be enriched; who shall fall and who shall
rise...

From the Musaf prayer for Rosh Hashanah

"It's all in the head," is a fairly accurate description of every man's
reality. If you stub your toe, the event has significance to you only
because it has been detected by your brain; if you cry out in pain, it
is only because your brain has so chosen to so react to the experience.
Everything you sense, know and feel relates to the universe between your
ears; any action you take is first conceived, considered and executed
inside the head.

And whatever occurs within the head has a profound effect upon the
external person: an injury to the brain, G-d forbid, or the alteration
of its chemical constitution, will affect the function and behavior of
the body, even if there is no discernible change in the external organ
or limb. Neurologists have even learned to evoke certain external
responses, or improve the function of a certain faculty, by stimulating
the corresponding area of the brain.

What is true of the human being is also true of another of G-d's
creations: time. Time, too, has a body and a brain, a persona and a
mind.

We are accustomed to regarding time as a string of segments: second
follows second, hour follows hour, Monday follows Sunday. Special
days--Shabbat, Rosh Hashanah, Passover--each have their place in the
sequence of days and months portrayed by our calendar, preceded and
followed by the "ordinary" days that separate them. This, however, is a
most perfunctory perception of time, just as a description of the human
body in purely physical terms--hair, skin, bone, blood, flesh, sinew and
brain tissue classified solely by their spatial juxtaposition to each
other--is a most superficial vision of man.

Time is a complex organism whose various organs and faculties interact
with each other, each fulfilling its individual function and imparting
its effect upon the whole. G-d created the whole of time--every age,
millennium, century, year and second of it--as a single, multifaceted
body. It is only that we, finite and temporal creatures that we are,
encounter its "limbs," "organs" and "cells" one at a time, regarding the
past as passed because we have passed through it, and the future as yet
to be because we have yet to experience it.

Just as time, as a whole, consitutes a integral organism, so it is with
the various time-bodies--the day, the week, the month, the year,
etc.--designed by the Creator of time as distinct components of the
universal time-body. Each of these has its own "head," a neurological
center which generates, processes and controls the stimuli and
experiences of its "body."

So if we learn to be sensitive to the structure of time, we can
transcend the "sequential" timeline of our lives. If, upon entering the
"head" of a particular time-body, we imbue it with a certain quality and
stimulate its potential in a certain way, we can profoundly affect the
days and experiences of that entire time-body, whether they lie in our
"future" or our "past."

Forty-Eight Hours

The two days of Rosh Hashanah, the "Head of the Year," are forty-eight
hours that embody an entire year.

On Rosh Hashanah we recommit ourselves to our mission in life,
reiterating Adam's crowning of G-d as king of the universe--a commitment
that becomes the foundation for our service of G-d throughout the year.
Rosh HaShanah also commences the "Ten Days of Teshuvah" which culminate
in Yom Kippur, days for soul-searching and undertaking new initiatives;
resolutions made on these "neurological" days of the year are far more
effective--having stimulated the brain, the body readily follows suit.
On Rosh Hashanah, we also pray for life, health and sustenance for the
year to come; for this, the head of the year, is the day on which the
deeds of man are weighed and his sustenance for the year allotted by the
supernal Judge and Provider.

It's all in the head. On Rosh Hashanah we enter into the mind of the
year; our every thought, word and deed on this day resonates throughout
its entire body.


Based on the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe; adapted by Yanki Tauber