Elul 12-13 5781

 Elul 12-13, 5781/August 20-21, 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 David N. Young

Dr. Betsy Stone, retired psychologist and adjunct lecturer at Hebrew Union College, reminds us that dealing with the past year has had the same effect on our minds and bodies as any other trauma. According to Dr. Stone at a lecture I attended in June, adults have gained an average of 13 lbs in the past year; Americans have bought more junk food, alcohol, and firearms during the last year than any other prior year on record; addiction is on the rise--to alcohol, drugs, food, and technology.

Every year on the High Holy Days we have the opportunity to take stock and work on fixing our bad habits from the past. This year it seems very likely we have picked up some extra bad habits along the way. The process of Tshuvah is more difficult some years than others, and this year more difficult than most. So as we move from a traumatic year to a year that is still unknown, it is important to forgive the most important people we should have on our list--ourselves.

Try looking in the mirror, right into your own eyes, and say, “I forgive you.” Say it out loud or silently, but mean it. Once we forgive ourselves, transitioning to forgiving others can be much easier.

Rabbi Erin Boxt

Transitions, 5781

It may have seemed like we were traversing in the desert, or BaMidbar. As we have moved from one day to the next, from one month to the next, we have been faced with decisions regarding our health, our safety and what the new normal would look like or feel like.  As more and more people have become vaccinated, many of us have felt confused, unsure, or just terrified of what it would mean to gather again outside.  And, yet some are overjoyed to take their lives back into their own hands and move forward, never looking back.  As our ancestors traveled from Egypt to Eretz Yisrael, they had their own transitions to work through.  There were many decisions that had to be made to ensure the Children of Israel would have a future and that future generations would prosper.  Each and every day of Elul, the month leading up to our yearly Transition, the High Holy Days, we must look back upon the previous year, reflect on who we were and where we came from.  We move forward each day by learning from any mistakes we made along the way.  Each step takes us further into BaMidbar and also one step closer to Eretz Yisrael.  The changes we make today will lead us to a better and newer tomorrow; do not forget the past…live in the present and make room for the future.

Elul 11 5781

 Elul 11, 5781/August 19, 2021

Rabbi Michael Birnholz

Sometimes it is worth taking Jewish wisdom literally. As we enter this month of Elul and are called to do Cheshbon Nefesh, we do acts of reflection as part of the accounting of our soul. I am challenging myself to, quite literally, take out a mirror.  This act of reflection will happen in two dimensions.  I will set aside the same time each day and then one day during the month where the reflection will happen at the top of each hour.  This act of physical self-reflection will be a challenge to look at myself and around myself.  What is the quality of light?  Where is the place that I am sitting? In this mirror I can identify things I don’t like or elements of my appearance that I am proud of. Something I can change? Something that is permanent? As I consider appearance, I will try holding the mirror at a different angle. Does that impact my perception?

Many of us journal or leave notes behind so we can see how we have changed in the past year.   I feel like it is easy to go to the extremes of dismissing one’s appearance or being too harsh.  In this month of Elul, I seek to make the image of my appearance into a path of soul reflection and transcendent connection.

Baruch atah Adonai, sheasani b'tzelem Elohim... Praised to You, Eternal One, as we seek You in our reflection….

Elul 10 5781

 Elul 10, 5781/August 18, 2021

Rabbi Eric Linder

We are Never Closed

Here in Athens, our building was closed for a good portion of this last year. I imagine that many of you can relate, as services and life-cycle events have been (and perhaps still are) attended virtually. 

From the beginning of our closure, I was clear that although our building is closed, our community doors are wide open. The warmth and open-ness of a community does not depend on a physical structure. Our synagogues are not the highlights of our Jewish lives - our synagogue communities are. 

During this past year, we all found creative and meaningful ways to be in each others lives without the ability to be physically proximate. As Judaism teaches us that Kol Yisrael aravim zeh ba zeh, “Each Jew is responsible for   the other,” we know that caring does not depend on geographical nearness.

As this time of COVID hopefully continues to transition toward a time of herd immunity and health, I pray that we remember that our buildings and sanctuaries and offices are there to serve a higher purpose; namely, to support and care for one another, and to continue strengthening the bonds that enable our communities to remain being fully “open."

Elul 9 5781

 Elul 9, 5781/August 17, 2021

Rabbi Simone Schicker

“God called the light Day, and the darkness God called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, a first day.”

Our tradition chose to follow these words, and therefore each time the sun sets a new day is born.  It is one of the more confusing things for those who are not part of the Jewish community to understand, but I find it beautiful to trace the tradition of welcoming a new day from darkness to light to the very beginning.

Transitions, from day to day, month to month, year to year are all marked through our tradition. Every significant moment, from the birth of a baby, to Shabbat, Rosh Hodesh (New Moon) and Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), to a Yahrzeit is marked. Each one a transition of some kind – some personal, some communal.

Each transition comes with guidelines for how to mark it. And each one gives us the opportunity to change how we envision transition. How we take the rituals and guidelines given to us by our ancestors and make them new again for us and for those in our communities.

As our communities transition into a new reality, having experienced so many transitions over the past eighteen months, let us each take this opportunity to bring a little of what we have learned and loved into our new realities. Let each of us contemplate what we would like to bring with us into the New Year and what we would like to leave behind.

Elul 8 5781

 Elul 8, 5781/August 16, 2021

Rabbi Neal Katz

In Numbers 24:5, we read: Ma Tovu Ohalecha Yaakov, Mishkenotecha Yisrael - “How lovely are your tents, Jacob - your dwelling places, Israel.”

The text is a curse-turned-blessing and Jews recite this blessing every day in the morning service. These six simple Hebrew words offer a powerful lesson during Elul.

We notice that the biblical patriarch Jacob is associated with “tents,” and his later identity, “Israel,” is associated with “dwelling places.” Follow the growth. 

Tents are flimsy, portable, open, and vulnerable to the weather.  We contrast this with the next stitch which says, “dwelling places.”  A dwelling place is a house, a home, permanent, built upon a strong foundation, and in our dwelling places, we are not vulnerable to the elements.  

Jacob is a character that is beset by many flaws and trickery during his life. Jacob is likened to these “tents,” - weak, flimsy, deceitful, portable, and vulnerable to retribution from those he deceived.

 

But he becomes Israel - a stronger, more resolute character – making peace with his family, buying land, and renewing the covenant. While not always perfect, Israel resembles a more stable, permanent, stronger person. Israel resembles a “dwelling place.”

 

We all move – from tents to dwelling places.  We start out as Jacob and strive to become Israel.  From youth to old age, from confusion to understanding, and from immaturity to maturity. In this season of Elul, let us hear the words of Mah Tovu as a call to become better versions of ourselves.

Elul 7 5781

 Elul 7, 5781/August 15, 2021

Rabbi Stephen Wise

We have heard the word resiliency used a lot this past year, the ability to adapt to new circumstances and then go back to where we were, like a giant elastic band.  This might have been more helpful had the pandemic lasted a few weeks or months.  But a year and a half later, we are not likely to go back to March 2020.  We are in a new world, and it is time to examine how we have adapted to the new reality and that this is the new normal.  We might always be more aware of our health and how it affects others and actually stay home when sick.  We might always mask in public places and keep more physical distance.  But what about our new Jewish reality? We found new ways to pray and learn with community online, zooming to Jewish places we never thought we could see, studying with incredible teachers all over the world, and praying among rows of digital faces. But nothing replicates being together with people for the spiritual highs of our life.  Moses had incredibly powerful moments alone – think about him floating down the river as a baby alone, facing the Egyptian taskmaster alone, standing before the burning bush alone and encountering the divine.  But eventually he used all those experiences to build up towards the greatest communal moment in the history of the Jewish people – when we all stood together shoulder to shoulder to receive Torah at Mount Sinai.  I hope and pray we can find that balance in our new world, health and happiness, alone and together time, doing Jewish virtually and also praying, celebrating and living Judaism in the flesh, side by side, united as one community. 

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?