Elul Messages 5780

3 Elul 5780 / 23 August 2020

The High Holy Days are not just Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. They are a season of time that begin NOW in the month of Elul and continue through the end of Sukkot and Simchat Torah. Elul is the Hebrew month directly preceding Rosh Hashanah – the last 29 days of the Jewish Year.
 
There is work to be done in Elul. The great journey of turning, repentance and transformation begins NOW with the acknowledgment that we need to make it. We need to prepare ourselves to fully participate in and appreciate Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
 
Our tradition tells us again and again of this requirement: The 16th century rabbi called the Mateh Moshe proclaimed, “Every person must prepare themselves for thirty days beforehand for the day when he will appear in judgment before God on Rosh Hashanah. Therefore, let every person scrutinize their actions with a view to mending them. Let them exclude themselves for one hour every day and examine themselves.” Another great Rabbi called the Maharal of Prague said, “All the month of Elul, before eating and sleeping, a person should look into their soul and search their deeds, that they may make confession.”
 
And I am afraid that many of us will have much to confess about this year. We put on a brave face and we try to stay positive, but it is getting increasingly difficult as we weather the storm of COVID-19. Our experience with a global pandemic has blurred the lines of home and work, personal and private, on and off. We have been pushed to our limits of creativity to find meaning and connection, at the same time feeling like we might be spending too much time together with spouses, children and other family that share our quarantined space. And to make it worse, we are asked to do more and more: be employees, spouses, children, parents, teachers, technology specialists, and even chefs. For many, our capacity seems to have been filled and then some. It reminds me of a story:
 
A poor man lived with his wife and six children in a very small one-room house. They were always getting in each other's way and there was so little space they could hardly breathe! Finally, the man could stand it no more. He talked to his wife and asked her what to do. “Go see the rabbi,” she told him, and after arguing a while, he went.
 
The rabbi greeted him and said, “I see something is troubling you. Whatever it is, you can tell me.” And so the poor man told the rabbi how miserable things were at home with him, his wife, and the six children all eating and living and sleeping in one room. The poor man told the rabbi, “We're even starting to yell and fight with each other. Life couldn't be worse.”
 
The rabbi thought very deeply about the poor man's problem. Then he said, “Do exactly as I tell you and things will get better. Do you promise?”
 
“I promise,” the poor man said.
 
The rabbi then asked the poor man a strange question. “Do you own any animals?”
 
“Yes,” he said. “I have one cow, one goat, and some chickens.”
 
"Good," the rabbi said. “When you get home, take all the animals into your house to live with you.”
 
The poor man was astonished to hear this advice from the rabbi, but he had promised to do exactly what the rabbi said. So he went home and took all the farm animals into the tiny one-room house.
 
The next day the poor man ran back to see the rabbi. “What have you done to me, Rabbi?” he cried. “It's awful. I did what you told me and the animals are all over the house! Rabbi, help me!”
 
The rabbi listened and said calmly, “Now go home and take the chickens back outside.”
 
The poor man did as the rabbi said, but hurried back again the next day. “The chickens are gone, but Rabbi, the goat!” he moaned. “The goat is smashing up all the furniture and eating everything in sight!”
 
The good rabbi said, “Go home and remove the goat and may God bless you.”
 
So the poor man went home and took the goat outside. But he ran back again to see the rabbi, crying and wailing. “What a nightmare you have brought to my house, Rabbi! With the cow it's like living in a stable! Can human beings live with an animal like this?”
 
The rabbi said sweetly, “My friend, you are right. May God bless you. Go home now and take the cow out of your house.” And the poor man went quickly home and took the cow out of the house.

The next day he came running back to the rabbi again. “Oh Rabbi,” he said with a big smile on his face, “we have such a good life now. The animals are all out of the house. The house is so quiet, and we've got room to spare! What a joy!”
 
Judaism’s response to difficulty is not to say, “How can it get worse than this,” but rather to declare loudly, “It could ALWAYS be worse.”
 
This is true of the pandemic as well.  It very well may get worse before it gets better.  And yet, we can also imagine that there might be things we miss when we find stabilization and are able to return to work, school, and the like. The “quiet” and the “room to spare” might be unbearable itself for a while.
 
With that mindset, as we enter the month of Elul, as we did this past week, we can look to the Torah portion for this past Shabbat, Parshat Shoftim. We read: tamim tih’yeh im Adonai Elohecha “You must be wholehearted with the Eternal Your God” (Deut 18:3). But what does tamim (wholehearted) really mean? Only two people in our tradition were referred to as tamim: Noah and Abraham. 
 
In Noah’s case his behavior is contrasted with that of others: “he is righteous in his generation” (Gen. 6:9). His wholeness is derived in comparison to the wickedness of the generation deserving the flood. Noah’s generation was totally corrupt, and so Noah being tamim really stands out. Here, wholeness is understood as bravery: stand up and face the daunting task ahead of you (build the biggest boat anyone has ever seen and save all life on earth), even when it would be easy and understandable not to do so. Even when the rest of the world had given up and succumbed to their baser nature, Noah did not. Noah strove to remain whole in a broken world.
 
In Abraham’s case, tamim came in the form of a command: “Walk before me and be whole” (Gen. 17:1). He receives this command when he is still only Abram, and immediately after this command, he receives the additional letter hey in his name, and becomes Abraham. The tradition teaches that this is no ordinary extra letter, but an addition that signifies that Abraham is whole and complete now that he has entered into partnership with God. Thus, being in a relationship with God, we can gain a spiritual wholeness that may radically change us. Abraham was whole (tamim) because he was willing to be less, to make room, to let God in.
 
And we are told in our parashah, “You must be wholehearted with the Eternal Your God.” Our world is a mess of broken pieces, hearts that are worn and torn, dreams dispossessed rescheduled and canceled, isolation and loneliness abounding, communal burdens shifting to individuals, all amidst sickness and poverty and discord. 
 
Yet we Jews live in two realities, because Judaism is a religion of hope and wholeness. Since we know it could always be worse, we have hope that we can and will remain whole.
 
Our tradition asks, “Which is the higher attainment: greatness or wholeness?” The answer is, “Wholeness!” Here is the proof: if you have two challahs, one large and sliced and one small but whole, you bless the whole one. Thus, wholeness has more value than greatness. So even when you feel small, be brave. Be sound of mind and sound of body. Be tamim, be simple. But most of all, be whole in expressing your truths and needs with God, with those who care about you, and most of all with yourself. Then we can all enter this coming New Year a little more complete then last.
 
Shanah Tovah,
Rabbi Scott Nagel