Elul 5-6 5781

 Elul 5-6, 5781/August 13-14, 2021

Every Friday we offer a double portion of Elul Thoughts so that those who choose not to be on the internet over Shabbat can read Saturday’s offering in advance. Shabbat Shalom!

Rabbi Laurence Malinger

A Time to Heal

If this season is going to bring healing, we have to open up our hearts and share our pain with God and with others. The opposite course of action, denying our pain and keeping it to ourselves, only creates distance between us. We all carry pain through the course of our lives – the kind of pain that we keep well hidden, sometimes too well. If we yearn for the closeness of God, we have to acknowledge our pain and allow ourselves the opportunity to heal.

Life is unfair. Sometimes it hurts, really hurts, but it often is in the depth and the agony of the hurt that we find our way. This enables us to have the power to heal – to heal ourselves and to help others heal. 

This season encourages us to feel our hearts, as we hear the haunting words and melodies of the liturgy as they penetrate our souls.  We begin the process of healing when we allow ourselves to feel the warmth of our being, for the heart and soul of every Jew is warm with life. 

Thus, every Jew, no matter how despondent or removed he or she may be, can be healed with strength of hope. Let’s allow the healing hand of this season to feel our hearts and touch our souls, so that our spirits, our bodies and our minds may be revived and refreshed — ready to take on the challenges of a new year with energy, compassion and love.

Rabbi Benjamin Sharff

This summer I took the opportunity to watch ESPN and Netflix’s documentary, The Last Dance, about the Bulls final championship run in 1998. As a big NBA fan in the 80s and 90s, I can remember so many of the incredible moments depicted in the docuseries. However, it was the end of 10 episodes that really struck me as it focused on the last time players like Jordan, Pippen, Kerr, Rodman, and the others would ever play together.

At the end of the series (spoiler alert), when the Bulls had defeated the Utah Jazz for the second consecutive NBA finals, the Bulls’ coach, Phil Jackson gathered all the players together to say farewell. Each of the players wrote something meaningful about the run to them and then placed it in a can that was then lit on fire.

I’ve been thinking about that moment in reflecting upon the theme of transition. As we are transitioning to a new world, a new life, a “new normal,” it is incumbent upon us to create rituals for this transition. What has this past year and a half meant? How did it hurt? Who did we lose? What did we gain? What did we learn? What do we hope to take with us? What do we hope to leave behind?

So many of our hopes and dreams have been challenged and changed, some for the worse and some for the better. In this time of Elul, we ask ourselves, what can we do to get ready? And what can we light on fire to let go, so we can transition into a better tomorrow?