Elul

“There are moments when we need to change our lives, even if that means going beyond everything we know”. Rabbi Jill Hammer

Elul is the month of change

where our courage allows us to be lifted and carried

by the storms of summer to new places

on the wings of Shechina, our Beloved.

Teshuva is a time of inward turning to face ourselves,

letting go of memories and past mistakes,

we can be a brand new being in this moment.

Through mindful forgetting and re-creating ourselves,

we renew the consciousness of our Oneness with the Mystery.

The shofar sound is an ecstatic moment of outward turning

in concert with the sweet ripening of summer fruits,

peaches and cherries and figs and melons, a bit of ecstasy

as if we have never tasted these flavors before.

Just as the moon changes shape every night,

so Torah changes us with every reading.

We are about to start a new cycle with Bereshit

and the new month of Tishrei and Rosh Hashana.

Let us gaze into the grandeur of the moon and the sky

and feel our affinity with a vision of the world redeemed.

Aleinu. It is up to us to repair this world.

May simcha be in the foundation of our every gesture, word and deed.