When you go on a journey, you usually spend some quality time reading guidebooks or websites, packing and preparing for the best and most meaningful trip. Right now is a time to prepare for the spiritual journey of the Jewish New Year.
Our passport to the New Year is the practice of teshuvah, often translated as“repentance,” but I prefer its literal meaning is return or reconnection. Think of teshuvah as reconnection: returning to other people, returning to God, and returning to our deepest selves.
Here are some ancient and modern practices to help us on our journey (including nature practices of course).
Returning to Others
One of the simplest traditions of this season is sending Shanah Tovah greetings. Remember actual New Year cards? I miss them! But we can broaden that custom. Elul can be a time to reach out to someone we’ve lost touch with, or someone we want to thank. Write a note, make a call, or even send an email.
Elul can also reconnect us with those who came before us. There is a custom of visiting the graves of departed loved ones before the High Holidays. If that isn’t possible, we can simply take time to remember them, do a mitzvah in their honor, or create a little corner in our homes with photographs or memorabilia.
And we connect to the larger community through tzedakah: making an extra donation, or buying and gathering food for our Yom Kippur food drive.
Then there is the harder—and very traditional—work of seeking and granting forgiveness. Jewish tradition teaches that Yom Kippur can bring forgiveness for sins between ourselves and God, but for wrongs committed against another person, we first have to approach that person ourselves.
So Elul is a time for making amends and seeking forgiveness. You can even use this post as your excuse: “rabbi said I had to call you before the holidays!”
(Remember that full teshuvah means more than saying we’re sorry. It means making amends where we can and trying to behave differently in the future.)
Forgiving others is more complicated, and our tradition does not treat forgiveness as one-size-fits-all. There are different levels: mechilah, letting go of a small offense; selichah, a deeper forgiveness that results from compassion for our shared humanity, and kaparah, atonement, reconcilliation—allowing a painful past to be incorporated into a larger story. Like Joseph who was able to forgive his brothers when he learned to see his life from a larger, even Godly, perspective.
Returning to the Divine
Elul is also traditionally understood as a time primed for spiritual closeness: to God, your soul, your inner life.
The Hebrew letters of Elul—אלול are traditionally read as an acronym for a verse from Song of Songs: Ani l’dodi v’dodi li—“I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine.” The relationship between ourselves and the Divine is imagined not primarily through fear, but through love.
There are many traditional practices for cultivating that connection. The shofar is sounded each weekday morning during Elul as a kind of spiritual wake-up call. We begin reciting Psalm 27, with its message of trust and hope. A communal tradition is Selichot, the special penitential prayers offered late at night or early in the morning. Some people also choose a book to accompany them through the season, such as Rabbi Alan Lew’sThis Is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared.
One of my favorite images for Elul is “the King is in the field,” a teaching of Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, the founder of Chabad Hasidism. He compared the High Holidays to the time when a king is in the royal palace. Approaching the throne is formal and intimidating. But before the king reaches the palace, he travels through the countryside. Anyone can approach him there. The point is that during Elul, God is especially accessible, in our everyday lives.
Shofar, JHD
Returning to Ourselves
And finally, Elul invites us to return to ourselves.
One traditional practice is Heshbon HaNefesh—literally, “an accounting of the soul.” It means taking stock of our lives, not simply to judge ourselves but as a springboard for growth.
The Mussar movement developed a methodical approach to this practice. Rabbi Menachem Mendel Leffin’s Heshbon HaNefesh, published in 1812, offered a systematic way of working on our middot, our qualities of character. During Elul, for example, we might spend each week paying special attention to one quality: patience, kindness, generosity, humility, or zerizut—alacrity, the ability to act promptly on our good intentions. You can find modern adaptations of this practice online, such as the Mussar Institute.
But there are many ways to make a Heshbon HaNefesh. You could devote each week of Elul to a different dimension of your life: body, relationships and emotions, mind, and spirit.
There is even a modern version of this called 10Q, and I heartily recommend it. Beginning on Rosh Hashanah, you receive one question a day for ten days. Your answers are then “sealed away” in an online vault and returned to you a year later, giving you an unusual opportunity to see how you—and your life—have changed.
In the Field – returning to Nature
Lately, though, I find myself drawn to practices that help me return not just to my thoughts, but to my body, my senses, my personal relationships, and to acting locally when I feel overwhelmed by all the thinking globally. That can include the very physical pleasures of preparing for the holidays: finding or baking a round challah and honey cake, choosing crisp apples, soft dates, sweet honey, pomegranates and new fruits—even choosing something new to wear for the New Year.
And personally, I love connecting with nature at this time of year.
Remember the teaching that “the King is in the field”? A contemporary Torah teacher, Gavriel Strauss, suggested taking that image literally: go out into an actual field. Go outside and experience the natural world as a place where we can encounter Divine presence.
For me as a nature lover, this is a perfect way to prepare for the Days of Awe. Go outside and notice the subtle change of seasons beginning. Hear the crickets and cicadas. See the echinacea beginning to dry and the first hints of fall foliage. Feel the changing texture of the late-summer air. Open your senses and attention.
If the image of a “King” in the field seems too patriarchal, I sometimes prefer to say, “The Majesty is in the field.” Even more beautifully, the Zohar describes the Shechinah—the feminine, indwelling Divine Presence—with the imagery of a fragrant, verdant field.
Perhaps that is the deepest preparation for the New Year, not trying to become an entirely different person, but learning to return: to one another, to the Divine, to the world around us, and to the deepest part of ourselves.
Consider:
If teshuvah means “return,” what is something you would like to return to this Elul? How will you do that?
L’Shanah Tovah, Tikateyvu! May you be inscribed for a good and sweet New Year! We are about to embark on the Jewish New Year 5785, a day also known as the “birthday of the World,” and so a day to contemplate how to honor and steward our natural environment and all its creatures. Elul, the month leading up to Rosh Hashanah, is a great time to get outside and connect with nature, letting her be your guide. I share here a class that I taught on this subject back in 2021 (approaching Rosh Hashanah 5782). We discuss sauntering in nature and learning from its creatures and living symbols. There are lots of nature photos and questions to ponder, to inspire your own nature connection in the New Year.
Here is my sermon for the Eve of Rosh Hashanah this year, 5781 / 2020. I hope it might be of help or inspiration to some of my Wellsprings of Wisdom readers:
How Jewish Tradition Can Make Us More Resilient , by Rabbi Julie Hilton Danan, Ph.D.
There is a song of the Days of Awe that concludes: “Let the old year and its curses end; let the new year and its blessings begin!” Certainly this year, those words resonate for many.
As I have called and spoken with many of our members over recent months, I learned that some suffered and recovered from COVID, while others sadly lost loved ones. Others have stayed physically well but dealt with anxiety or depression. Some members have lost jobs or economic security. Others are worried about their kids, their young adult children or elders they can’t even visit in person. There is a sense of collective grief over all that has been and may be lost, as well as anxiety over the fissures in our society.
We know that there is no quick solution to the current crisis. Indeed, there is no way out but through, and we don’t even know how long that will take or what the long lasting effects of the pandemic will be. However, we do know that there is one thing we can work on to help see us emerge better in the long run, and that is the inner quality known as resilience.
Psychology and Resilience
Psychologists define resilience as the process of “adapting well in the face of adversity and trauma.” It is not just about survival; it’s about growth. To paraphrase my own rabbi, Reb Zalman, this is about turning the current emergency into an emergence of something greater in ourselves. Or in the words of Sheri Mandel, whose son was killed in a terrorist attack in Israel: “Resilience is about becoming, not overcoming.”
Resilience can help us to grow from every experience, even the difficult ones. Over the past year, I have participated in a memoir writing group, composed of baby boomers like myself. Members of the group have shared stories about sexism, divorce, PTSD, and national traumas like the Vietnam War or 9-11. What emerges again and again is that we have all grown from our difficulties and without our difficulties we would not be the people we are today.
You might not be writing a memoir, but Rosh Hashanah is about writing in the Book of Life. It is a time to remember the past and envision the future. On Rosh Hashanah, we can write a story of resilience, or growth emerging from adversity.
Jewish tradition can help us be resilient
Shofar, JHD
When we think about it, Jewish history and Judaism are all about resilience on a national scale. As a people, we have been through many traumas: exile, persecution, and even genocide. But we have consistently emerged stronger, continuing to inspire the world as a “light to the nations.” It’s much more than the old joke that Jewish holidays are all about, “They tried to kill us; we won, so let’s eat.”
If you look back at Jewish history, every period of struggle was followed by a flowering of creative energy and new beginnings. The destruction of the second temple was followed by the flourishing of rabbinic Judaism. The expulsion from Spain led to the the dissemination of Kabbalah. Even the greatest tragedy of all, the Holocaust, was answered not by despair, but by rebirth with the new State of Israel and by a renaissance of Jewish culture and community in the diaspora.
What is it in Jewish tradition that makes us resilient? And how can that help us now? According to psychologist Dr. John Grych, the recipe for resilience has three primary components: self-regulation, interpersonal relationships, and meaning making. In general, people are most resilient when they can manage their own emotions and actions, find a web of social support, and make meaning from their difficult experiences. It is striking that all three of these elements are present in abundance in Judaism.
Self-Regulation
First, the Jewish way of life gets us to practice self-regulation. Judaism is a religion based on personal practice. In the Orthodox community, even young children learn impulse control when it comes to observing mitzvot like Shabbat and kashrut. But even if you don’t abide by all of those traditions, Judaism has many other ways of helping us manage our emotions and impulses. Our rituals unite body, emotions, mind, and spirit, helping us to integrate our whole selves. Our holidays evoke different emotional states: from the Awe of these High Holy days to the hilarity of Purim, and Shabbat gives us time to pause and reflect, even in the midst of chaos. Another Jewish practice is Mussar; the cultivation of inner qualities such as patience, humility, or gratitude. Once observed primarily in the Orthodox world, Mussar is now popular among Reform and liberal Jews as well, with many programs available online or in person. Together, Jewish practices help us to to manage our own emotions and build our own character.
Social Support
Second there is social support. This may be Judaism’s strongest contributor to resilience. Judaism is truly a religion of community. We can only pray all of our prayers with a minyan, a quorum of ten. We gather in community for every lifecycle event. Social support is particularly strong when someone suffers a loss, and friends and family surround them with love, food, and prayer. Our traditions of tzedakah and deeds of kindness lend support to the vulnerable among us. Even on these Days of Awe, we say our confessions not in the singular, but in the plural, taking responsibility for the acts of the community. In these days of COVID, we are largely unable to gather in person. BUT at the same time, I’ve seen how we continue to support one another. I’ve watched our members checking on others, shopping for others, cooking for others, sewing PPE for others, and much more.
Meaning Making
Finally, there is meaning making. Dr. Viktor Frankl was a psychologist who survived the Holocaust and created the school of Logotherapy, based on the idea that the human search for meaning is our prime motivator in life. Meaning making involves the ways that we frame and reframe our experience, often evoking our spirituality. And here again, Judaism is strong. Our sacred texts, our rituals, our holidays, even our arguments are centered around creating meaning, even or especially in difficult experiences.
Of course, the meaning making that emerges this pandemic will be different for each person. For some, it has been a time to clarify our values and realize the importance of family and community. Others have been energized to work for social justice. Each week as we gather for our Kabbalat Shabbat and Torah Study, I ask questions that get people to think and talk about how our ancient texts relate to the meaning that we need right now.
We are all going through a difficult time, though each is affected in different ways. It makes sense to lower our goals and be happy just to get through this time. But we can also keep in mind that we may actually come out stronger, that our society, while damaged, may also be able to build back better. Judaism can contribute to our resilience by helping us manage our emotions, find community, and make meaning. Over this holiday season and the year ahead, I invite you to avail yourself of what our community and our tradition have to offer in all these areas.
May we be blessed to emerge from this time stronger than before, knowing our values and working to support them.
This sermon was offered on (Zoom) Rosh Hashanah Eve Services for Pleasantville Community Synagogue, September 18, 2020 (Rpsh Hashanah 5781)
Image: Leaf with Heart for a “nature Tashlich” at Rockefeller State Park Preseve, Julie H. Danan
In the month of Elul, leading up the Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, it is traditional to blow the shofar daily (except Shabbat). Here Rabbi Sarah Leah Grafstein sounds the ram’s horn in the awesome setting of the Grand Canyon. Theshofarcalls us to awaken, arise, return to our true nature and mission in life. This is also a time to prepare for the new year by giving tzedakah (charity, righteous giving), mending relationships, remembering the departed, and doing an “accounting of the soul” (cheshbon hanefesh), meaning self-reflection in preparation for the New Year.
It is traditional to read Psalm 27 daily to build our faith and confidence. Here is a wonderful translation by my teacher, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi of blessed memory. And here is a recording of him reading it.
Breath and wind are instrumental in playing the sacred instrument, the Shofar, or ram’s horn (or sometimes an antelope horn) that is blown on Rosh Hashanah and at the end of Yom Kippur as a call to repentance, a spiritual wake-up. The word shofar is from the root of sha-per, to improve. Its hollow nature, open to the life breath of the blower, encourages us to open ourselves to the divine spirit operating through us. (more…)
I treasure the late summer, just before the Jewish New Year, as a wonderful time to get out in nature, and I relate it to a Hasidic teaching. “The King is in the Field,” is a parable of Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi (1745-1812), founder of Chabad Hasidism. He likened Rosh Hashanah and the Awesome Days through Yom Kippur to a time when a king is in the palace and it is very formal act to approach the throne.. But when the king is traveling to the palace anyone can approach him as he travels through the fields.
I stroll often in a nearby park —
old trees wildly overgrown,
bushes and flowers blooming all four seasons,
a creek babbling childishly over pebbles,
a small bridge with rough-hewn railings–
this is my little park. (more…)
Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi taught a parable of a king on the way to the palace, who can be approached by everyone in the countryside with ease. His expression, “the King is in the field,” characterized the late summer month of Elul prior to the New Year, as a time when it is easier to access our connection to the divine within. Contemporary Torah teacher Gavriel Strauss, suggests that at this time of year we literally go out in nature, to a meadow or field, as a wonderful way to feel that spiritual closeness. Click on the featured photo above to activate the gallery, a photo series scenes at Otter Creek Preserve, Mamaroneck, and Rockefeller State Park Preserve, Pleasantville, New York (the second Egret in Fairfield, Connecticut). Photos by Rabbi Julie Hilton Danan.
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