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Preparing for Elul I write to you from a very quiet, peaceful place. Hornby Island is located just off the west coast of Canada, shielded from the open Pacific Ocean by the bulk of Vancouver Island. No bank or pharmacy here, not even a traffic signal. The busyness of life on this island consists of forests growing, waves lapping on the beach, eagles soaring and seals slapping their presence on the waters. From the midst of this quiet place, I lift my eyes and look ahead across the terrain of the calendar, and there looms Rosh Hashanah, only weeks away. In my imagination I conceive of what it will be like to be in synagogue for Rosh Hashanah. Under my tallis, amid friends and strangers all gathered with a common purpose, machzor in hand, many words, many prayers, many hours. Rosh Hashanah and the entire period of the Days of Awe appear to me as an extraordinary gift and opportunity. Many levels of religious and ritual structure have been built onto these days, but peel back these layers and the central impulse for this holy period emerges. It all boils down to something simple: Take stock now, and make course corrections to your life. I feel enormous gratitude to our ancestors for planting a season such as this on the annual calendar, because I know that if I were left to my own devices and motivation, I doubt I would ever slow down enough to assess where I am right now in the big sweep of my life, and to get clear on where I really ought to be, and to consider how I might get there from here. And I wonder to myself, what preparation can I do now—with Rosh Hashanah still weeks away—to ready myself to make the most of the opportunity that the calendar and the tradition are offering me? A person who shows up at synagogue for Rosh Hashanah who has not prepared himself or herself for the introspective processes of that day should not be surprised to walk away feeling that a single day of prayer and reflection has had little or no impact whatsoever. Preparation is the key to making the Days of Awe work for you as intended. Just such a course of preparation was emphasized in the Mussar yeshivas of 19th and 20th century Europe. The entire month of Elul that precedes the holy days was given over to preparing the soul for the encounter with Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Rabbi Tzvi Kaplan described Elul in the Chevron yeshiva in 1953: “It is enough to say this word, Elul, and you are already raised above the everyday world, feeling that you are in an atmosphere filled with a longing to be uplifted. Enter the yeshiva on one of the days of Elul, and you will immediately sense ‘Elul’ in the air. The climax of the day comes toward evening, during the Mussar session. Each student sits in his place alone, bent over prayer stands, dressed in the yeshiva uniform of suit and hat, and reads aloud, slowly and tunefully, from the Mussar book.” Similarly in the Be’er Yaakov yeshiva, “the atmosphere in Elul was different from the whole year—serious and genuine. There were two sessions of Mussar. The Mashgiach [Mussar supervisor] delivered talks three times a week, usually on the theme for the entire month of Elul. He would develop the topic, going into it deeply and expanding it. His fundamental lesson was that the Day of Judgment focuses on every individual's relationship with the broader community. What is he contributing to the community? How does he relate to the wider group? Is he a person ‘whom the group needs’ — ‘life for Your sake, Hashem’?” Most of us do not live connected to such an intense, supportive spiritual environment that offers to carry us deeply into the preparations of Elul, to ready ourselves for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Even more, then, is it up to us to take steps to prepare for the Days of Awe. What can we begin to do now so we will be ready then? The island where I am writing teaches me one lesson that is very helpful for laying the groundwork for introspection and course correction that I aim to do on the coming holy days. In the forest, by the sea and on the mountain, I find the earth offering lessons in how to be silent. The longer I am silent, the wider opens within me a sensitive inner space in which to think and feel clear thought. Silence thus sets the stage for the processes of accounting and resolving that lie ahead. “Some silence means cessation of speech,” writes Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook. “Another silence means cessation of thought. That silence arrives together with the most hidden, beautiful and exalted thought” (Orot Hakodesh, III, 273). Is it a paradox that inner silence gives rise to exalted thoughts? Not at all. Ordinarily, our inner world is so full of noise and endless practical concerns that there is nowhere for spiritually elevated inspirations to alight. “Only if you can be quiet inside yourself,” said Rabbi Perr, my Mussar teacher, “can you hear the thoughts that come to you min ha’shamayim”—from heaven. Settle into silence and thoughts will come to you from heaven. We need those thoughts that come from heaven on Rosh Hashanah, and Elul is when we prepare ourselves to receive them. Our own minds are so enmeshed in our lives that they can’t possibly give us an accurate reading of where we stand today. How can we possibly come up with new directions for our lives when we have no perspective from which to see the road ahead? On our own, we are lost. Only thoughts from heaven will give us the insights and the guidance we need. A period of silence every day from today until Rosh Hashanah is what you can do to open up a quiet inner space into which thoughts from heaven can arise. I can’t predict what those thoughts will be, but I can assure you that they will be just the thoughts you need to assess where you are in your life today, and the steps you can take to bring rectification and more purity and elevation into your life. Commit to silence every day—even for five or ten minutes—and you will experience a Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur like no other. |
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