Preparing for High Holy Days: Elul
The month of Elul affords the time for reflection and soul-searching as we prepare for the enormity and magnificence of the Days of Awe.
Through my Kabbalistic training and its traditions, I’ve learned that this is a period of mystical journey and how we approach it creates a special energy. We choose our thoughts, prayers, and words carefully as we realize that a powerful and angelic presence is close at hand.
As we enter the month of Elul, we offer Selichot, prayers of forgiveness, for both ourselves and our community. While it is those Selichot prayers associated with the High Holy Days with which we are most familiar, which we say when we gather on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, they have a special role in Elul as well.
Teshuva, the act of returning or repentance, starts in Elul.
It continues until the final gate closes at the completion of Yom Kippur. Our thoughtful acts, thoughts, prayers, and words bring us into a review of the ways in which we have lived this past year. We compassionately yet honestly assess how we may have missed our goals while resolving to do better in the year ahead. In doing so we begin the new year with our lives in greatest harmony with our values.
The High Holy Days affords us unique opportunities for self-reflective engagement, to absolve ourselves of guilt, resentments, and ego. As we prepare to sincerely offer amends to those upon whom we have transgressed at the same time we accept compassionately the apologies made by others. We enter this process with loving kindness and empathy for all living things, including ourselves. And thus, we seek a softer, gentler life. In Kabbalism, creation itself is based on this approach.
Study questions for your spiritual accounting:
Who have you been over the last year?
What are the things you feel great about and are proud of?
What are the things you feel not-so-great about, the places where you missed the mark?
How did you affect the lives of others? Are their lives easier or harder because of your behavior? Do you need to ask for forgiveness?
Dive Deeper into Elul:
1. Read, pray, or sing Psalm 27 every day. The psalm maps out the pathway to genuine teshuvah for us; by reciting and understanding it, we are able to travel that path. The Psalm is a cry for, and ultimately a declaration of, belief in the greatness of God and trust in the protection he provides. Consider reading Opening Your Heart with Psalm 27 by Rabbi Debra J Robbins or watch her video: https://vimeo.com/446916290
2. Take a walk and feel God’s presence.
3. Check online resources like the following:
Shofar Project: https://www.jewishspirituality.org/go-deeper/the-shofar-project-5781/
Reform Reflections: https://reflect.reformjudaism.org/
Positive Jewish Living: https://www.facebook.com/PosJewLiv/
4. Listen to the Shofar daily and wake up to life and the work we have to do.
5. Read books like: This is Real and You are Completly Unprepared: The Days of Awe as a Journey of Transformation by Rabbi Alan Lew. and also How Good Do You Have to Be? by Rabbi Harold S. Kushner.
6. Study each week’s Torah Parsha. The Torah stands ready to keep us awake lest we forget and slip back. As we move through Elul, we also move through Deuteronomy and each of the week's Torah readings - Re’eh, Shoftim, Netzvaim, Ki Tetze.
Join me and Rabbi Aryeh Azriel as we lead the High Holy Day services this year for the Jewish Community of Kauai. L’Shanah Tovah!
