Creating the Jewels of Elul

As a world community, we just finished watching the Olympic Games.  (And I am so glad they have finished, because it means I no longer have to stay up late to watch the decathlon finals or amazing diving or gymnastic glory). In a flash of triumph – even those who just made it to the track or swimming pool – created a lifetime’s worth of memories that should make each athlete proud.  Not everyone can say he or she was an Olympic athlete.  Absent from these brief moments of splendor that we witnessed, however, were all the reps and training and practice and trials that each individual had to go through in order to make it to this highest stage of athletic competition.

            This weekend, we enter the month of Elul – the season that leads us to the High Holy Days.  It is traditionally the time in which we start preparing ourselves for the potential to be spiritually transformed during our time between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur – cleansed of the baggage of this past year and lightened as we take on the challenges and opportunities to face us in this next.  We strive to have our own moments of glory as we stand before God and, perhaps even more importantly, ourselves, and declare, “I have done all I can to put last year behind me, let me approach this year with a clean slate.” 

                       

Our scholars remind us that this is the time of year for us to do the hard work that allows us to have a meaningful High Holy Day experience.  Now is the time to reach out to those we love and ask forgiveness, to confront issues that are hanging over us and move beyond them.  Now is the time to notice the ways in which our world is unjust and how we as individuals are contributing to the problems that plague our communities, so we can begin to shift our patterns.  Now is the time to deeply ask ourselves if we are living up to our own expectations for who we want to be and start re-aligning our choices and commitments to bring us closer to our ideals. 

It amazes me how quickly summer can fly past us.  In a blink of an eye, at TBO, we have gone from the last day of religious school past the Olympic games and back into the very exciting time of getting ready to welcome back all our wonderful youth whom we’ve missed over these past few months.  Blink again, and Yom Kippur will be over. Let us not just fly through on autopilot, living out what life gives us instead of setting out each day with intention.  No athlete accidentally ended up on an Olympic team.  May we each put the time and efforts now to discover the Jewels of Elul,* being able to have our own moving ceremonies during this High Holy Day season – may they be holidays of gold for us all.

-          Rabbi Ari N. Margolis

Parashat R’eih

* To help us with our Elul efforts, click the link above to find daily inspirational thoughts or subscribe to daily emails that will help lead us into our High Holy Days.