blogs/brentspodek

This Thursday marks the beginning of the Hebrew month of Elul, which means that Rosh Hashona is just about on month away. 

On a practical level, we will be celebrating the Days of Awe differently this year - services will primarily be online, hopefully with some opportunities to gather safely outside. We will soon share more information about how we plan to celebrate.

While the particulars of how we celebrate will be different this year, the essential work we have to do remains the same. We are called to be in right relationship with the people in our lives, and then, after we have addressed those relationships, turn to address our relationship with the Holy One. 

Martin Buber, a central figure in 20th century Jewish theology, teaches:

We must begin with ourselves, but not end with ourselves. Turning, teshuvah, means something greater than repentance and acts of penance. It means that by reversal of one’s whole being, a person who had been lost in the maze of selfishness where he had set himself as his goal, finds a way to God, that is, a way to fulfill the particular task for which he has been destined by God. Repentance can only be an incentive to such active reversal. Those who go on fretting themselves with repentance, those who torture themselves with the idea that their acts of penance are not sufficient, withhold their best energies from the work of reversal. It is written: “Turn from evil and do good” (Psalm 34:15). You have done wrong? Then counteract it by doing right.

Now, at the beginning of the month of Elul, is the time to focus more intensively on the work of doing teshuva.