Rabbi's Message and Elul-Tishrei Schedule

Rabbi Yitzhak in the Gemara Rosh Ha-Shanah (16b) lists a number of actions of repentance that “rip up a negative divine decree against a person,” including “changing one’s name, changing one’s deeds,” and some say “changing one’s place.” The common theme is that Tshuvah entails making changes in our behavior and life situation.

According to R. Israel Salanter, change is the core strategy of the season of Tshuvah. He says that it used to be, in traditional Jewish communities, that the advent of Elul itself was enough to make people tremble and arouse every Jew to mend their ways and strengthen their commitment to Torah and Mitzvot and service of Ha-Shem. Added to this was the custom to blow shofar for the month, after Shacharit “to awaken a person from their sleep and the vanities of their distractions to pay attention to their deeds, as it says ‘can the shofar sound alarm in the city and the people not tremble (Amos 3:6)’.” Then, in Ashkenazic communities, we begin Selichot a week before Rosh HaShanah. But these days, complains R. Salanter, we need more to shake us up to draw close to Ha-Shem and His service. These days the most effective strategy we have for Tshuvah is to work hard to make changes in our routines, changes in our accustomed patterns of behavior that have become ruts of complacency. We do this by finding new opportunities to help others and dedicating ourselves to new, higher levels of careful practice of Mitzvot, and investing new energy in our Torah learning (Or Yisrael 14).

We can stimulate these changes by finding new ways to engage in Torah and Mitzvot. Focus on a mitzvah with which you might be less familiar. The Rambam suggests selecting a mitzvah in which to become an expert and practicing it with detailed knowledge and observance and purity of intent as a way to uplift our entire spiritual practice.  Find new opportunities to learn Torah. Join a new shiur in Shul, join or gather together a new learning group or start a chavruta, even find new opportunities to learn online. Look proactively, as a family, for worthy Tzedakah organizations to support and new ways to help others – have a family meeting about it and involve your children in the decision-making process. These changes are not artificial. They are valuable in themselves, they are educational and they prompt a critical self-awareness that helps us transform ourselves in positive and substantive ways.

The season of Tshuvah is a time of moral and spiritual opportunity, in which our Tradition says that Ha-Shem is especially close to us and we can draw close to Ha-Shem. In this season we can take advantage of this intimacy with Ha-Shem to awaken ourselves to a reinvigorated life and welcome a New Year of new possibilities for ourselves, our community and Klal Yisrael.

Rabbi Meir Sendor

Download the Schedule for Elul and Tishrei