Focus On The Soul: Put On Your Elul Glasses

Looking around the chapel this morning at shaharit / the morning service, I noticed that ten of the eleven people present were wearing eyeglasses.  A simple technology that has been in use for hundreds of years, glasses perform an amazing feat: they bring what is not clear into focus.

If only there were something so simple to slip on over your head that would help us bring our daily choices into focus, a sort of mind-glass, such that we could perceive clearly and always do the right thing!  Alas, such a device does not yet exist.

But now that we are in the month of Elul, and the Ten Days of Teshuvah / repentance (bookended by Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur) are a mere three-and-a-half weeks away, the time has come to look back over the past year and consider which of our deeds, our words, and our thoughts were out-of-focus.  Put on those Elul glasses!  The time for teshuvah is rapidly approaching.


~
Rabbi Seth Adelson