Chodesh Tov - A Great Month!

Today begins the Hebrew month of Elul.  It is the beginning of our High Holy Day Season as we launch into the preparation for a new year.  The Jewish tradition has evolved this tradition to use this time to consider how we will approach a new year.  How will the “reset” of 5774 be meaningful for me?  That is the essential question.  While we know there really are no total clean slates, that memories endure and we grow, sometimes in ways we do not want to, from all of our experiences, there is a sense of cleansing that the Yamim Noraim can provide.  However, it is up to us to engage with this season.  Over the next month, it is my intention to spark a journey for each of us.  I will share a thought, a text or an activity for our engagement.  I hope to bring about discussion, to engender a meaningful beginning to the new year.  Please share your own ideas, texts, thoughts and feedback of any kind and may this journey of engaging with Elul provide all of us a meaningful “reset” for 5774!

Engaging w/ Elul August 7, 2013

I am struck by the connection that our tradition provides between the beginning of Elul and the Torah portion.  We read from the book of Deuteronomy, parashat Shoftim.  Each year when I notice this, I am drawn to a teaching I once heard at a Shabbat lunch table.  I was enjoying a traditional Shabbes lunch with my mother and her neighbor, an orthodox rabbi.  As we learned the portion over our meal, our host, Rabbi Schneor Greenberg, taught me (us) that the shoftim and shotrim (judges and officials - Deut. 16:18) that we are to place at the entrance of our settlements, can be so much more.  Rather than just the physical, or geographic, settlements we inhabit needing judges and officials, we can also understand this as the filters to cover the entrances to our selves, our bodies.  To place "judges" and "officials" to be mindful of what we take into our bodies and especially the words we speak and the behaviors we carry out.  He taught this in the name of Rav DovBer Pinson, a leading Kabbalah teacher of our own age.  Pinson writes that, “Imagery and sound, smell, sensation and taste are closely connected with the way we experience and interact with life, these impressions can either assist us in getting closer to our purpose, or, alternately, create a distance from our authentic self.” (source)  So, as we launch in Elul, as we engage with this preparation, what is that authentic self we yearn for?  What is our authentic approach to our Judaism?

My authentic Judaism is one that honors both my emotions and my intellect.  It is one that invites me to find meaning, even if it is a temporary suspension of rational thinking, in great Torah stories, prayer and ritual, yet always allows space for the reality that is my authentic self.  In thinking about what is just a month away, the High Holy Days, I am confronted with the liturgy of this season.  The text that we hear chanted, recite, read and consider generates an image of the Divine to which I cannot ascribe with my authentic self.  For almost every human experience I have enjoyed teaches me that God does not act in my world.  But, God is what draws me to be with the Jewish people at this season.  God is the authentic me, it is what makes me, me.  God is the ever changing reality that is our created world - the world we inherited simply by being human.  So, when I ask myself what is my authentic Judaism, it is one that gives me a treasure trove of tradition to help me express and articulate this season with action and with prayer.  It is also a Judaism that welcomes women as its leaders and scholars, is open to the non-Jewish family member and is slow to criticize the individual’s choice about his or her authentic Judaism.   

Make Today a Great Day,

Rabbi Evon