1 Elul 5784

Rabbi Aviva Kipen

Progressive Judaism Victoria

The idea of being ready for 5785
Our 2024 Reflections series has been planned by the rabbis of the region since our conference in Newcastle, last November 2023. In December, Melbourne journalist Lorin Clarke wrote a seasonal message in The Big Issue (which makes an appearance in Rabbi Morgan’s coming Reflection). Her message can be adapted creatively for all of us embarking on the Elul journey, “This is a gift for you, from Me.” Had those been God’s words, we would not have been surprised. Elul is the gift, the start of our journey that ends with our ability to imagine the judgment that Heaven might place upon us, what the judgment might be and what impact that prospect offers for repentance and reorientation in our lives.

Challenging the present-giving-consumerism of December, Clarke informed eager readers that the gift being provided, “is nothing. It’s the idea of something.” The events of October 7, 2023, have prompted deliberate engagement with unexpected, glorious, terrible, frightening reminders of the worldly impacts our spirituality every day. Certainly, the ways we live and the environments to which we contribute for good and ill, determine the outcomes for us and each other. The invitation of Elul is to audit all those departments of our individual and collective lives, to seek out the Gifts of Life we have received, find ways to appreciate them more and receive forgiveness, to enable us to relinquish the burdens of the past.

Some of these strategies may open new pathways to harmony and wholeness.

• If asking forgiveness is really impossible, do it anyway: write a letter to someone whose forgiveness you would love to have had, then tear it up and cast it away like a tashlich.
• Seek an appointment with your spiritual guide and revisit the pain you carry, so as to find ways to let go and heal.
• Study some of the passages that will appear in these reflections throughout Elul and express appreciation for what is helpful.
• Write your own spiritual diary as a kavanah deliberation each day and then reflect on the writing as you sit quietly on Erev Rosh ha’Shanah, Tishrei 1st 5785.

Welcome to the “idea of something”, a road, a dream, a journey, a learning, a review, a yearning towards what is Divine, an anguished optimism that relies on miracles. May these be the complex gifts of Elul. Welcome to that sacred idea.