Teshuvah for the Explicit and Implicit -- Lessons Learned on the First Day of School

Two days ago, my daughter started kindergarten. As we were walking home together, I asked her how the day went.

"OK, Abba," she said cheerily, "but I don't think I learned that much."

"Well," I said, "it was just the first day. But didn't you learn where your classroom is, and who your teacher is, and who the other students in your class are, and how to find the bathroom and the lunchroom, and what to do if the fire alarm goes off?"

"Hmm," she said. "OK, maybe I learned a little."

Everyone who is involved with education knows that teaching includes not only the explicit curriculum -- the lesson-planned, syllabus-ified, expert-reviewed and committee-approved class material -- but also the implicit: the atmospheric, unstated, not-necessarily-obvious principles that dictate how we interact with others and our surroundings.

So too with our worldly behavior. When looking back over the past year in preparation for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur 5773 and considering what we could have done better, perhaps we need to reflect not just on what we said or did, but also the things that we did NOT say or do, yet were essential pieces of the picture of our lives.

Teshuvah / repentance is meant not just for the explicit, but for the implicit as well.  Shanah tovah!

Kavvanah: The Accidental Reset and the Elul Moment

A curious thing happened to me a few nights ago.  I was re-installing some software on my computer, and my media player program suddenly decided that we were back in 2010.  After syncing (I know, that looks funny; do you prefer "synching"?) my mp3 device, I noticed that all of the podcasts were two years old.  I had what you might call an "Elul moment": Where am I?  What year is this?  Am I the same person I was two years ago?  Have I been replaying the same material for all of this time?

After some technical tinkering, I was able to convince my gadget that it was now 2012 (or maybe the end of 5772), and all was right again.  But lingering from the sudden bout of reflection was a kind of gratitude, a reassuring acknowledgment that in fact, no!  I am not who I was two years ago.  I have two more years of growth and change in my internal personnel files.

We grow incrementally, such that we often do not notice the ways in which we have changed.  But that is what the month of Elul is for -- reflection, evaluation, inventory.  How have you changed since last Elul?  Is it for the better?  If not, what can you do about it?


~
Rabbi Seth Adelson

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

Teshuvah Day 6: How much time do you need to change?

"You know," I was saying to myself the other day, "Yom Kippur simply is not long enough.  Muslims fast for a whole month during Ramadan.  That's a whole month of repentance, 30 days of painful introspection and the opportunity to change one's behavior.  We have only one day."

Then I reconsidered.  It is true that there is only one major fast day during the year when we plead our case before God and, according to the Torah, practice self-denial:

וְעִנִּיתֶם אֶת-נַפְשֹׁתֵיכֶם
Ve-initem et nafshoteikhem
You shall afflict your souls (Numbers 29:7).

The tenth day of the month of Tishrei is set aside for suffering, for asking ourselves the really hard questions.

But that's just the Torah.  The rabbis understood that teshuvah / repentance literally can't happen overnight.  As such, we have been sounding the shofar, reciting Psalm 27, and doing heshbon ha-nefesh / inventory of the soul since the beginning of Elul.  Furthermore, the opportunity to ask others for forgiveness continues all the way until Hoshana Rabba, the 7th day of Sukkot.

OK, so it's not fasting every day for a month.  But there are no fewer than 50 days out of the year during which we should be thinking about self-transformation.  If we take this seriously, if we focus our energy on introspection and teshuvah, we have ample opportunity for change.

Gemar hatimah tovah!  May you be sealed for a good year.

Elul 28: Seeking the Right Metaphor for God

Sometimes, the traditional way of understanding God just doesn't work for me.

Although God is not frequently described as a king in the Torah, that image is featured heavily in the Prophetic works and everything that follows.  The ancient rabbis found the concept of God as King appealing, because it spoke to their yearning for a Jewish order in a world where Jews lived only in exile.  The Jewish kingdom was found in the heart and mind, not in the earthly Jerusalem, and the one true King was eternal, everywhere and yet nowhere.

As such, God's kingship has always resonated especially powerfully on Rosh Hashanah, when we invoke the symbol of God as Sovereign Ruler again and again, implicitly and explicitly.  Not only do we recite ten verses about God's kingship in the Musaf Amidah, but we also physically prostrate ourselves before the King, we chant special piyyutim (intricately-crafted liturgical poems), and we even change certain berakhot in the weekday liturgy during the rest of the Ten Days of Repentance to reflect God's role as King.  And then there is the whole Book of Life overlay, which sees God as dictating the annual verdicts of each of us during this time.

And yet, portraying God as King simply does not inspire me to seek forgiveness or prostrate myself or whatever.  Perhaps this is because, as an American, I have never been the subject of flesh-and-blood royalty.  Somehow, the idea of God as democratically-elected President or Speaker of the House simply doesn't cut it.

Or perhaps it speaks to my general discomfort with traditional theological approaches.  Regardless, it makes my task harder on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, when the liturgy relies so heavily on kingship; I have to find the right metaphor.

Still working on it.  Will let you know.  Meanwhile, if the vision of God as King works for you, use it.  If not, find an image that does.

Elul 26: Selihot as Jewish Blues

When I first considered becoming a cantor, my teacher and mentor Cantor Stephen Berke described hazzanut (cantorial music) as being "like jazz," in the sense that the cantor, like the jazz musician, has a range of motifs at his/her disposal and can use them improvisationally at will.  Some time into my cantorial studies, I discovered that Jewish music and liturgy has its own form of blues.  It's called Selihot, the series of prayers that are recited (in Ashkenazi tradition) from the week before Rosh Hashanah until Yom Kippur.  On Yom Kippur itself, the Selihot segment is recited a total of five times.

Like the blues, Selihot has a particular musical form.  Also like the blues, the liturgical themes are quite limited - seeking forgiveness for our transgressions, praising God and highlighting God's merciful qualities, confessing aloud the things we have done wrong.  And, like the blues, the themes are endlessly variable - not only have payyetanim (Jewish liturgical poets) crafted many Selihot prayers over the centuries, but there is always an opportunity for personal improvisation as well.

While it might be inappropriate to suggest that we prepare for the Aserete Yemei Teshuvah (the Ten Days of Repentance) by listening to scratchy old records of blues rabbis like Robert Johnson or Muddy Waters, it is certainly a good idea to pick up a High Holiday mahzor (prayerbook) and scan through the classics of Selihot: Haneshamah Lakh ("The Soul is Yours), Shema Qoleinu ("Hear our voices"), and that old standby, the Thirteen Attributes of God:

Adonai, Adonai, God, merciful and compassionate, patient, abounding in love and faithfulness, assuring love for thousands of generations, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin, and granting pardon.

Elul 24: Purifying Broken Vessels

Massekhet Kelim, the tractate of the Mishnah devoted to matters of the ritual purity of vessels of various materials, tells us that the only way to purify an earthenware vessel is to break it.  That is, if you have a clay pot that has become somehow contaminated in a way that violates kashrut / dietary laws, it may not be made kosher again unless it is broken and re-manufactured.

Humans are the original earthenware vessels; Bereshit / Genesis tells us that God fashions the first person out of the Earth.  His name, or really his title, is Adam, derived from the Hebrew word for soil, adamah.  Just like the clay pot, we too are only made pure again by metaphorically breaking - hence the multiple comparisons of humanity to earthenware ("Like clay in the hands of the Potter," "Scripture compares us to a broken shard") found in High Holiday liturgy.

The entire enterprise of teshuvah, of collective confession, of fasting and suffering on Yom Kippur, of asking for forgiveness from those we have wronged, particularly in difficult situations, is about purifying our broken souls.  We are resilient creatures, not easily stirred from the comfort of complacency; the Jewish calendar forces us to confront ourselves, to shatter our internal scaffolding and rebuild to code.  Only the one who acknowledges his/her brokenness may properly seek teshuvah.

The recitation of Selihot prayers, those in which we ask for forgiveness in the run-up to Rosh Hashanah, begins Saturday night.


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This post is one in a series of thoughts for Elul, the month before Rosh Hashanah; I am trying to post one every day of the month, except for Shabbat.  Here are links to the previous posts:

Elul 23: Fear and Awe

Elul 21: Transformation as Spiritual Necessity

Elul 20: Just a Spoonful of Humility

Elul 17: Transforming Curses into Blessings

Elul 16: Things to Remember in Elul

Elul 15: New Year of the Soul

Elul 14: Translating the Self

Elul 12: What's Ten Years?

Elul 10: Teshuvah Three-Step

Elul 9: Vidui and the "Jewish Science"

Elul 8: The Two Types of Forgiveness

Elul 7: The Sounds of Elul

Elul 6: If you had only one request from God

Elul 5: High Stakes Accounting

Elul 3: Teshuvah Inventory Questions

Elul 2: The Spaces In-Between

Elul 1: Resonances of the Shofar

Rosh Hodesh Elul: What's more important than electricity?


Follow these and many other daily posts on Twitter with the hashtag #BlogElul.

Elul 23: Fear and Awe

The Hebrew term for the High Holidays is "haYamim haNora'im," which is frequently translated as "the Days of Awe."  The word "nora," however, comes from the shoresh / root y-r-' (yod-resh-alef), meaning "fear."  A better translation of haYamim haNora'im is "the Fearful Days."

There is a well-known teaching of the Hasidic Rabbi Nachman of Breslov that we sing in a popular song:

כל העולם כולו גשר צר מאוד 
Kol ha'olam kulo gesher tzar me-od
והעיקר לא לפחד כלל
Veha'ikar lo lefahed kelal.

The whole world is a very narrow bridge
And the most important thing is not to fear at all

This metaphor obtains in particular during the Aseret Yemei Teshuvah, the Ten Days of Repentance that include Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, since during this time we understand our lives as hanging in the balance.  We are walking a narrow bridge and trying not to fall off.

But there is a reason that we call them the Days of Awe and not the Fearful Days (nor, for that matter, the Awful Days): because we know that (א) we are all walking this bridge together as one people, and (ב) that God is with us as we cross.  We should be filled with awe, but not with fear.

Elul 20: Just a Spoonful of Humility

As we prepare for Rosh Hashanah and the opportunity to seek forgiveness, it might be helpful to access our humility.

Sometimes the key to finding our own humility is to remind ourselves of the fragility of human life, of how insignificant and ephemeral our individual existence is.  There is a moment during the tefillot / services of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur when we recite a litany of biblical similes that speak to the temporary nature of our time on Earth.  It comes during the latter half of the Untaneh Toqef segment of the Musaf Amidah, arguably the central holy moment of the holiday:


אָדָם יְסודו מֵעָפָר, וְסופו לֶעָפָר
Each person's origin is dust and end is dust
בְּנַפְשׁו יָבִיא לַחְמו
We spend our lives seeking sustenance
מָשׁוּל כְּחֶרֶס הַנִּשְׁבָּר
Scripture compares humans to a broken shard,
כְּחָצִיר יָבֵשׁ וּכְצִיץ נובֵל
withering grass and a shriveled flower,
כְּצֵל עובֵר וּכְעָנָן כָּלָה
a passing shadow and a fading cloud,
וּכְרוּחַ נושָׁבֶת וּכְאָבָק פּורֵחַ
a fleeting breeze and scattered dust,
וְכַחֲלום יָעוּף.
and a vanishing dream.


The images are drawn from various places in the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Psalms, and Job, and they agree on the following point: we walk this Earth for a short time, while God is eternal.  As such, this passage paints a poetic picture that helps us swallow our pride and ask for forgiveness.


Rosh Hashanah is ten days away.  Think humble!

Elul 17: Transforming Curses into Blessings

Have you ever paused to consider the blessings and curses in your life? Read this sentence, and then close your eyes for 30 seconds to do so. Go ahead, try it!

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We all have things that we appreciate, and circumstances that we could do without. Parashat Ki Tavo, which we are reading this week in the Torah, delineates in alternatively abundant delight and horrific despair the good things that will happen to us if we follow God's mitzvot / commandments, and the terrible things that will ensue if we do not. It is in fact notable that there is no middle ground - it seems to be all or none.

The reality, however, is that we all have a share of blessings and curses in our lives, often (but not always) independent of our behavior. The Torah's theological stance does not necessarily align with contemporary ways of understanding God and our lives.

Nonetheless, we are now in the latter half of the month of Elul, leading up to Rosh Hashanah. This is the month of heshbon ha-nefesh, self-reflection with an eye toward spiritual inventory. Perhaps the essential question of Elul is, how can I transform myself such that some of the curses in my life become blessings?

Shabbat Shalom and Shanah Tovah!

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This post is one in a series of thoughts for Elul, the month before Rosh Hashanah; I am trying to post one every day of the month, except for Shabbat Here are links to the previous posts:

Elul 16: Things to Remember in Elul

Elul 15: New Year of the Soul

Elul 14: Translating the Self

Elul 12: What's Ten Years?

Elul 10: Teshuvah Three-Step

Elul 9: Vidui and the "Jewish Science"

Elul 8: The Two Types of Forgiveness

Elul 7: The Sounds of Elul

Elul 6: If you had only one request from God

Elul 5: High Stakes Accounting

Elul 3: Teshuvah Inventory Questions

Elul 2: The Spaces In-Between

Elul 1: Resonances of the Shofar

Rosh Hodesh Elul: What's more important than electricity?


Follow these and many other daily posts on Twitter with the hashtag #BlogElul.

Elul 16: Things to Remember in Elul

Another name for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year is Yom ha-Zikaron, the day of remembrance, as remembering is one of the major themes of the holiday. On those days, we try to remember God, and we hope that God remembers us.

Doesn't it make sense, however, to start remembering the important things now, as a sort of warm-up? We are now half-way through the month of Elul, and we have been blowing the shofar every morning to help awaken our memories.

As such, here are a few things to recall as Elul heads into the final stretch:

Synagogue sounds from the High Holidays - the melodies, the shofar, the mumbling of prayers, the silent, holy moments, the qol demamah daqqah (still, small voice).

Gathering of family for holiday meals, attending synagogue, and so forth.

The particular heft of the High Holiday mahzor / prayerbook.

The Torah readings of the day, including the story of the Aqedah, the binding and near-sacrifice of Isaac at the hands of his father, Abraham.

The custom of throwing away our sins at the tashlikh ceremony.

And, of course, there are the good and not-so-good things we have done in the past year, of which we should also be taking note. Perhaps these remembrances will help us to remember two weeks from now, when it counts.

Elul 15: New Year of the Soul

While the secular New Year falls in the middle of winter (well, in the Northern Hemisphere anyway), when the earth resets itself, the Jewish New Year comes in the fall, just before the traditional harvest time. People come home from summer vacations, school starts up again, and wham! We're hit with the Ten Days of Repentance. Perfect timing, I think.

Now is the time, as we are preparing for what most of us think of as "the year," that we need introspective moments. Vacation is over, and it's back to the grindstone; what better time to take stock, to engage in heshbon ha-nefesh (accounting of the soul), to examine our relationships. The next big vacation is ten months from now, and from this point to that will be a blur of activity. Better to enter it with some deep, probing consideration.

January 1 may be a new year of the Earth, but Rosh Hashanah is more a New Year of the soul.

Elul 14: Translating the Self

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel once penned the following (in Man's Quest for God):

"Ultimately the goal of prayer is not to translate a word but to translate the self; not to render an ancient vocabulary in modern terminology, but to transform our lives into prayers."

Tefillah is meant to be a transformative experience. All the more so during the month of Elul, as we introspectively prepare for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the words of prayer should help us judge ourselves and translate the teshuvah / repentance process into words.

Elul 12: What's Ten Years?

Ten years does not mean anything in particular. It’s an arbitrary figure, perhaps more related to the number of fingers on the human hand than anything else. Furthermore, it's just not that long.

My memories of 9/11/01 are unremarkable, but they are crystal-clear. Ten years ago today, I left my conducting class at the Jewish Theological Seminary, just as the world was turning upside-down.

I remember the panicked looks, the people rushing down the street with their phones out, trying to get in touch with loved ones.

I remember the hastily-gathered school assembly, the anxious expressions of friends and colleagues around the room, the collective never-before-felt uncertainty about the world, the future.

In the afternoon, I walked down to the 72nd St. pier on the Hudson just to watch, with my mouth open, with what must have been hundreds of others.

For several weeks, it seemed, you couldn’t think too long about anything before coming back to this. Just a few days after was Rosh Hashanah; I took a bus to my first High Holiday pulpit as a cantorial student, in Old Bridge, New Jersey. There was still smoke coming off the pile.

I have to recall the words intoned by Rabbi Bill Lebeau, then the dean of the Rabbinical School, at morning minyan at JTS the day after, Wednesday, 9/12/01. This is from the psalm that is customarily recited on Wednesday mornings:

עַד-מָתַי רְשָׁעִים יְהוָה: עַד-מָתַי, רְשָׁעִים יַעֲלֹזוּ
Ad matai resha’im Adonai, at matai resha’im ya’alozu.
How long, Adonai, how long shall the wicked exult? (Psalm 94:3)

Just a month ago, we marked Tish'ah Be'Av, the day we recall the destruction (twice) of the Temple in Jerusalem nearly 2000 years ago; the ascent from mourning to rejoicing at Rosh Hashanah, the New Year, takes seven short weeks. This is a healing process that the Jewish calendar forces us into every year. As Jews we are still fundamentally incomplete, two millennia after this loss.

What's ten years?

Elul 10: Teshuvah Three-Step

According to Maimonides, there are three steps to teshuvah / repentance. Rabbi Yitz Greenberg frames them in his book about the holidays, The Jewish Way, as the "Three R's":

1. Regret - One who seeks teshuvah must first admit that he or she has erred. This may very well be the most difficult part of the process, as most of have a great talent for self-justification. Part of the process of regret is the Vidui, the confessional prayer that we recite publicly on Yom Kippur.

2. Rejection - We cannot continue the offending behavior and expect to achieve teshuvah. As in many cases in Jewish law, intent matters here. Rejecting one's past wrong choices is an essential part of teshuvah.

3. Resolution - Here is where one's willpower is crucial. To complete the process of teshuvah, we must be resolved not to make the same choice again, given the opportunity. Our habits are very strong, and to change the ones that should be changed requires steely resolve.

Of course, true teshuvah is an ongoing process. Perhaps the first two steps can be accomplished during the Aseret Yemei Teshuvah, the Ten Days of Repentance that are bracketed by Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. But truly changing one's behavior requires vigilance that applies not only to those days, but to the rest of the year as well.

Good luck! Shanah tovah!

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This post is one in a series of thoughts for Elul, the month before Rosh Hashanah; I am trying to post one every day of the month, except for Shabbat Here are links to the previous posts:


Elul 9: Vidui and the "Jewish Science"

Elul 8: The Two Types of Forgiveness

Elul 7: The Sounds of Elul

Elul 6: If you had only one request from God

Elul 5: High Stakes Accounting

Elul 3: Teshuvah Inventory Questions

Elul 2: The Spaces In-Between

Elul 1: Resonances of the Shofar

Rosh Hodesh Elul: What's more important than electricity?


Follow these and many other daily posts on Twitter with the hashtag #BlogElul.

Elul 9: Vidui and The "Jewish Science"

Some of us pay professionals to listen to us because it helps us get in touch with ourselves and find ways to change our behavior. However, this is how Jews have approached teshuvah for hundreds of years.

Some have referred to psychoanalysis as "the Jewish science." And there is a good, historical reason for this, independent of the fact that it was pioneered by a Jewish doctor from Vienna, Sigmund Freud.

One of the things that we do, beginning with the recitation of the Selihot prayers during the week before Rosh Hashanah and most notably on Yom Kippur, is to confess our transgressions in public, aloud, together, with the words of the Vidui confessional prayer. Since I was very young, I have always been fascinated by this - beating our breasts, reciting out loud in public a litany of sins that few of us can claim to have personally committed (while assuming that SOMEBODY in the room has) in first-person plural forms: we have been guilty, we have cheated, we have stolen, etc. My Catholic friends might do this in private, but not the Jews! We're a community that runs on collective admission of guilt.

Freud himself was a secular Jew, but there is no question in my mind that having the patient speak to an unseen analyst echoes the Vidui experience. It is the oldest form of psychotherapy.

Elul 8: The Two Types of Forgiveness

During the month of Elul, prior to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, we prepare to seek forgiveness.

Forgiveness is divided into two distinct varieties: forgiveness from God and forgiveness from other people. These reflect the two basic types of mitzvot / commandments that we may have, shall we say, missed out on:

1. Mitzvot bein adam la-Maqom / mitzvot that relate to God

2. Mitzvot bein adam le-havero / mitzvot that relate to others

God can forgive us for those transgressions in the first category; that's what Yom Kippur is for. We atone for times when we have failed to meet God's expectations, but do not affect our relationships with others, like violating the principles of Shabbat or kashrut (dietary laws).

But God cannot forgive us for those ways in which we have mis-handled our obligations to others, like being deceitful or judging others unfairly or spreading gossip. To achieve forgiveness for these transgressions, we must ask the person whom we have wronged.

Elul 7: The Sounds of Elul

The primary sound of Elul is the shofar, which we blow every morning this month to herald the coming of the New Year.

The next sound is that of Psalm 27, which we recite every morning and evening to help us with heshbon ha-nefesh.

There are two widespread melodies for the fourth verse of this Psalm, Ahat sha-alti. One is upbeat, joyous, and a bit silly. The other is somber, reflective, and pleading. What's wrong with this picture?

Is Elul a month of celebration or introspection? Joy or sadness?

Perhaps it's both. On the one hand, we are gearing up emotionally for the Aseret Yemei Teshuvah, the Ten Days of Repentance that include Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, by cautiously taking spiritual inventory, by weighing our deeds, by reviewing our behavior. On the other, we are looking forward optimistically to being given that seat in God's palace, to celebrating Sukkot, the most joyous holiday of the Jewish calendar, with abandon.

So yes, the sense is that lives hang in the balance, and so we chant with heavy hearts and minds. But we are also hoping for the best, and singing joyously about the reward - the cleansing that comes with teshuvah / repentance.

We should sing both melodies, joyous and mournful, with a full heart.

Elul 6: If you only had one request from God

If you had only one request from God, what would it be?

To help us with our introspection during the month of Elul, we recite Psalm 27 twice daily, morning and evening, from now until the end of Sukkot:

אַחַת שָׁאַלְתִּי מֵאֵת-יְהוָה-- אוֹתָהּ אֲבַקֵּשׁ
שִׁבְתִּי בְּבֵית-יְהוָה, כָּל-יְמֵי חַיַּי;
לַחֲזוֹת בְּנֹעַם-יְהוָה, וּלְבַקֵּר בְּהֵיכָלוֹ

Ahat sha'alti me'et Adonai, otah avaqesh:
Shivti beveit Adonai, kol yemei hayay
Lahazot beno'am Adonai, ulvaqer beheikhalo.

One thing I ask of God, one thing I request:
To dwell in the house of God all the days of my life
To behold God's graciousness, and to visit in His palace. (Psalm 27:4)


The Psalmist's single request is curious. What does it mean to "dwell in the house of God"? Wouldn't it have been better to ask for something more, well, tangible? Or universal? Or achievable?

The point is two-fold, and tailored to Elul:
1. The process of heshbon na-nefesh, accounting of the soul, is deeply personal. Hence the request is for "me" rather than "us."
2. Our ultimate goal is to reconcile with God, which we hope to do in advance of Rosh Hashanah, so that we will be inscribed in the Book of Life for a good year. As such, the vision of being favored by God with permanent residence in "God's palace" is front and center during this month.

What would you ask for?

Elul 5: High-Stakes Accounting

The month of Elul is a period of heshbon ha-nefesh, literally, accounting of the soul.

One rabbinic tradition says that the forty days from the beginning of the month of Elul until Yom Kippur mark the period that Moses was on Mt. Sinai a second time, receiving the second set of tablets. The first forty-day period ended disastrously when Moses came down from the mountain to find the Israelites dancing around a molten calf*, and destroyed the first tablets in anger.

The stakes were even higher for this second round, since God had only agreed not to destroy the Israelites after Moses interceded on their behalf. You can imagine them waiting at the bottom of the mountain the second time, feeling relieved, guilty, and more than a little nervous.

As such, this is a time that we should be all the more aware of what we do and how we prepare for the Aseret Yemei Teshuvah, the Ten Days of Repentance that are bracketed by Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

Now is the time. The stakes are higher now, as we account our souls in preparation to plead for life once again.

(For a list of questions to ask yourself in the month of Elul, click here.)



* Often referred to as the "golden" calf, the Hebrew "egel masekhah" literally means "molten calf," since it was produced by melting down the Israelites' gold and re-casting it.