DAY 8
Thursday, August 27, 2020
Seventh Day of Elul 5780

In the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, God forbade the first two human beings from eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Despite God’s warning, Adam and Eve ate the fruit. Feeling ashamed, they tried to hide from God. God called out to them and says, Ayeka?, literally, “Where are you?”

Now, when we think about this story, we notice that it is impossible that God did not know the answer to the question. Of course God knew where they were. God is God. So, why did God have to ask?

One answer is that God was not asking because God did not know. God was asking because Adam and Eve did not know. They didn’t know where they were. They did not even know who they were. By doing something they knew they were not supposed to do, they lost themselves. They became different than they had been and they were disoriented, unsure about how to get back to where they were before.

This is another moment of t’shuvah. Whenever our lives go off track, whenever we behave in ways that are different from the person we want to be, we get lost. God is in the voice that calls us back by asking, “Where are you?” That voice helps us to recognize that we are lost, and helps us find our way back to ourselves. That is t’shuvah.

Practice for this day:
Ask yourself the primal question, “Where am I?” If you want, you can answer, “I’m at home in Rhode Island, of course!” but you know that there is a deeper answer. Where are you in your life? Right now, are you the person you want to be? In what ways have you gotten off course? If there is something in your life that is off kilter, that is keeping you from being the person you want to be, name it.

Write down, very briefly, one to three ways in which your life is on the wrong course that you would like to correct.

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DAY 7
Wednesday, August 26, 2020
Sixth Day of Elul 5780

The first Jewish prayer that most of us learn is the Shema. The six Hebrew words are Shema Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad, “Hear O Israel, Adonai is our God, Adonai is One.”

We often understand that final word, “One,” as a statement that there are no other gods. We hear it as a statement of monotheism and a rejection of the belief in many gods. But Jewish tradition gives an even deeper meaning to that word, “One.”

If you think about it, the Shema cannot possibly be only about there not being any other gods. If it were, it would have said, “Adonai is the only one,” instead of saying, “Adonai is One.” (In Hebrew, this would be rak Adonai instead of Adonai Echad.)

What the Shema really means when it says, “Adonai is One,” is that God is the unity par excellence, the perfect unity that makes everything that exists into One. This is the deep meaning of the Shema and one of the most essential teachings of Judaism. We and everything that exists are all a part of God.

What does that mean for making t’shuvah? If the deepest truth of your existence is that you are a part of God, then God cannot possibly reject you. Instead, God yearns for you. God knows this deep truth that you are an essential part of God and the universe as a whole. God wants you to have this awareness, too. God wants you to return to God, which is just another way of saying that God wants you to return to yourself. The process of returning, which we call t’shuvah, requires work and it requires judgment, but it is not about decreeing yourself to be guilty or innocent. Rather it is about finding your way back home to God, which is really the only place you have ever been.

Practice for this day:
Recite the Shema out loud and understand it as a statement about unity. Feel it as an affirmation of your unity with God. Repeat saying it as many times as you need to feel yourself to be a part of God.

Write down how this experience feels. What new insights does it give you about the task of forgiveness and personal change for the better?

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DAY 6
Tuesday, August 25, 2020
Fifth Day of Elul 5780

The Talmud teaches: “The person who has made t’shuvah stands in a place where not even a purely righteous person can stand” (B. Berachot 34b). The statement is understood to mean that t’shuvah not only cleanses a person of sin, it actually places that person above those who have never sinned at all. It is one of Jewish tradition’s most paradoxical statements about repentance, and it is one of the most difficult for us to believe. Yet, it is essential.

Why do we not believe the statement? It is because we learn from a young age that the mistakes we make leave a permanent mark on us. When we feel guilty or ashamed of things we have done wrong, we tend to believe that there is an accuser who will always remember our mistakes and bring it as evidence against us. For many of us, the accuser we imagine is actually ourselves. We ourselves are the person whose accusations we fear the most.

Jewish tradition wisely understands how unhealthy this is. We will never be able to grow and become better people if we can never forgive ourselves, if we can never believe that we can be better. If we believe that we are forever guilty, we will also believe that trying to change is futile. We will believe that we are somehow bad by our nature.

Do you see how counterproductive this belief is? If you think that you cannot improve yourself because you believe that your past wrongs make it impossible for you to be better, then what chance do you have? What chance does anyone have? If you believe that only a “perfectly righteous person” is deserving of being a good person, then no one would ever improve, find forgiveness, or believe themselves to be good. No one would ever be good.

You have to believe that it is possible for human beings to learn from their mistakes, find forgiveness, and become better. Not only that, you also have to believe that once you have gone through this experience of changing, you will be better than you were before because the experience will have taught you how to change. You will be standing in a better place.

Practice for this day:
Think of a past mistake in your life, even one from long ago, that makes you feel guilty to this day. In your mind, weigh the pros and cons of continuing to feel guilty. What benefit do you get from your feelings of guilt? How do your feelings of inadequacy and shame hold you down? How would you benefit if you were able to release your guilty feelings and feel forgiven? What benefit would you get from feeling that you had overcome your past mistake?

Write down your past mistake and whether you want to feel forgiven:

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DAY 5
Monday, August 24, 2020
Fourth Day of Elul 5780

In the story of Joseph in the book of Genesis, there is a moment when Joseph’s half-brothers appeared before him without recognizing him. They came to Egypt to ask for food to survive a famine, so they were desperate and hungry. They did not know that the high Egyptian official they had to ask was actually the half-brother they had sold into slavery many years before.

At first, Joseph taunted his half-brothers. He seemed to want revenge for their past cruelty to him. He told them that he would not give them any more food until they brought their youngest sibling, Benjamin, to him. (Benjamin was Joseph’s only full brother, the one he and his father, Jacob, loved the most, and the only one who was not part of selling Joseph into slavery). When the brothers, at last, brought Benjamin to Joseph, he took the boy as a captive and told the others that he would not allow them to take Benjamin back to their father, Jacob.

In response, one of Joseph’s half-brothers, Judah, spoke in a way that broke Joseph’s heart. He told Joseph that Benjamin was the only son their father had left from Rachel, the love of his life who died while giving birth to Benjamin. Rachel’s only other son, Judah explained, had died many years earlier. (Joseph, of course, knew that this other son, the one who supposedly had died, was actually himself.) Judah told Joseph that if he and his brothers returned home without Benjamin, it would cause Jacob to die of grief. Joseph was so moved by Judah’s speech that he cried out and revealed his true identity and told the brothers that he forgave them and would not punish them for selling him into slavery.

In the story, we see Joseph make the transition from anger and feelings of revenge and hurt to compassion and feelings of forgiveness. The story is one of the models used by the rabbis to describe the experience of t’shuvah. Part of repentance is the experience of letting go of past pain and resentment. It is the experience of allowing love to wash away hurt feelings, to allow forgiveness to overcome hatred. (Note: This can be very difficult for people who carry deep wounds from past abuse and cruelty. If you struggle with this, consider seeking help from a professional.)

Practice for this day:
Think of a moment in your life when you let go of anger to forgive someone who had hurt you. For now, don’t think about a really big experience. Think of something small and specific that reminds you of how Joseph let go of anger and moved toward forgiveness.

Describe it briefly below:

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DAY 4
Sunday, August 23, 2020
Third Day of Elul 5780

The Hebrew word “t’shuvah,” which we usually translate as “repentance” actually comes from a Hebrew root that means “turn” or “return.” To “make t’shuvah” really means to return back to the path that you intend to walk in life. It does not mean that you have to become a different person (as if that were possible). Doing t’shuvah means finding a way to return to being yourself.

We all get derailed in life sometimes and find that we have become a different person from the person we would like to be. T’shuvah is our invitation to make a course correction in life, to turn, and to return to being the person we intend to be.

Practice for this day:
Think about the words that describe the fundamental qualities that describe who you really are. Let these be words that describe your deep nature – not the things you have achieved, the skills you have mastered, or the titles you have earned – but the words that describe who you have always been. For example, you may remember things that people have told you about yourself – times when people told you that you were “kind,” “energetic,” or “inquisitive.” Find the words that describe you at your best, and the things you like about yourself at your best, and write them.

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Day 3
Saturday, August 22, 2020
Second Day of Elul 5780
Shabbat Shoftim

Today is Shabbat, the most holy day in Jewish tradition. It is our day of rest and our day of joyfully feeling God’s presence all around us.

This particular Shabbat is called Shabbat Shoftim for the Torah portion we read today. The portion includes laws about warfare. One of the laws prohibits an attacking army from destroying their enemy’s fruit trees. The army is allowed to chop down other trees to build weapons to attack the city, but not the fruit trees. The Torah asks the rhetorical question, “Is a tree of the field a human being who can withdraw from you into the besieged city?” (Deuteronomy 20:19).

According to medieval Jewish commentators, this verse teaches us to have compassion for trees and the natural world. Under a principle called Bal Tashchit, (“You shall not destroy”), we are forbidden from the unnecessary destruction of natural resources. We are taught to treat the world with compassion and love. That commandment, of course, includes the requirement to treat other human beings lovingly, and also to treat ourselves lovingly. We are all a part of the natural world.

Practice for this day:
Take some time to think about the ways you treat the natural world around you. In what ways do you treat the world kindly by not wasting natural resources like water and energy? How do you love the earth by practicing recycling to make sure that resources are given another chance to be useful, instead of just being buried in a landfill? What other things could you do to treat nature with compassion?

Decide on one resolution for loving nature and treating it well. It could be something you have not done up until now that you would like to resolve to do from now on. Or, it could be something harmful you have done that you would like to resolve not to do again. Write down your resolution.


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DAY 2
Friday, August 21, 2020
First Day of Elul 5780
Rosh Chodesh Elul

In the story of the giving of the Ten Commandments, the Israelites all stand at the base of Mount Sinai and hear God’s voice from the mountaintop declare, “I am Adonai your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, the house of  bondage. You shall have no other gods beside Me” (Exodus 20:2-3). It is a foundational moment in the Jewish relationship with God.

We describe that relationship as a covenant – a two-way agreement. God pledges devotion to us and we pledge our devotion to God. The Ten Commandments and the Torah given at Mount Sinai are the foundation of that agreement. We strive to live up to our end of the deal by trying to live by God’s commandments and by being the best people we can be.

However, because we are human, we make mistakes. There are many different kinds of mistakes, but the most common Hebrew word for this kind of human failing is “cheit.” Fittingly, the word comes from a root that means “to miss the target.” When we make a mistake in our relationship with God, it is compared to an archer missing the bullseye. It is an error. It is something we can make up for by trying harder and learning to do better.

In English, we usually translate the word cheit as “sin,” and that is sometimes a problem. In English, “sin” sounds like something that requires a punishment, an offense that makes God angry. In Hebrew, not every cheit rises to that level. T’shuvah is the process for correcting our mistakes. It is not about feeling guilty for horrible things we have done that make God want to punish us. T’shuvah is about correcting our mistakes and renewing our covenant with God.

Practice for this day:
Think about some of the recent mistakes you may have made in life that make you feel badly – times when you hurt someone’s feelings or times when you were less than forthright. How would it feel if you could feel totally and completely forgiven for those mistakes? How would it feel if you were entirely forgiven for every mistake you had made in your life? That is what t’shuvah is about. It’s about releasing yourself from guilt and hard feelings you direct against yourself. It’s about correcting your tendencies to make the same mistakes over and over again. It’s about making a mid-flight course correction in your life that gets you going in the right direction.

Write a few words about the course corrections you would like to make in life and the feeling of forgiveness you would like to feel.


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DAY 1
Thursday, August 20, 2020
Thirtieth Day of Av 5780
Rosh Chodesh Elul

The first day of every month in the Hebrew calendar is a minor holiday called Rosh Chodesh, literally, “the head of the month.” Because the Hebrew calendar is based on lunar cycles, and because one lunar cycle is approximately 29-1/2 days, each Hebrew month has either 29 or 30 days. (There are no half days!) When a month has 30 days, we celebrate a new month on the 30th day and also on the next day, the first day of the next month. That is why today, the 30th day of the month of Av, is celebrated as the first day of Rosh Chodesh for the month of Elul.

The month of Elul is regarded in Jewish tradition as the beginning of the process of t’shuvah, the repentance that we strive to achieve as we approach the High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

Medieval rabbis observed that the letters that spell Elul (אלול) stand for the Hebrew phrase “Ani l’dodi v’dodi li,” “I am my beloved and my beloved is mine.” The phrase is a quote from the biblical book Song of Songs (chapter 6, verse 3) and is understood in Jewish tradition as a statement about the relationship between God and the Jewish people. The rabbis also noted that the last letter of the word Elul in Hebrew is lamed, which has the numerical value of forty. From this, they stated that during the forty days that begin with Rosh Chodesh Elul and end with Yom Kippur, people should “bring their hearts near to their beloved God in t’shuvah knowing that God, in return, will accept their t’shuvah with love” (Mishnah Berurah 581).

Practice for this day:
On this minor holiday of Rosh Chodesh Elul, take some time to think of all the ways that love touches your life. Think about the people you love and the people who love you. Feel your heart swell with happiness and love as you think about them. Intentionally feel yourself wish goodness and wellbeing to the people you love; imagine how they, too, wish goodness and wellbeing upon you. Hold that feeling a few minutes and allow it to sink into every part of your mind, feel it physically in every corner of your body. Allow yourself to be comforted by the feeling of loving and being loved.

Let this feeling – and let the past and present loving relationships in your life – be the source of energy that will power you through the next forty days until Yom Kippur. As you work to seek forgiveness, make changes in yourself, and commit to being a better person, let this love sustain you and become your motivation to transform yourself.

Write down below the most important people in your life whom you love and who love you:

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There are 40 days from now to Yom Kippur – 40 days for us to make t'shuvah. 

Over the next 40 days, I will be posting on this blog a series of short daily reflections and teachings to help you prepare for the High Holy Days. I'm calling the project, 40 Days of T’shuvah.

The daily reflections are also a daily journal for you to write down your own thoughts and reflections to help you in the process of t’shuvah – making changes in your life for the better, returning to God, and repentance. You can print the daily reflections out as a physical journal to write in every day.

I'm starting today for.Rosh Chodesh Elul, the beginning of the Hebrew month of Elul, a minor holiday that is a traditional day to begin the process of t’shuvah in earnest. There will be reflections for every day through Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. I recommend that you make a set time during the day to read and reflect on each entry and to write your brief response. It should take no more than five to fifteen minutes a day. Many people find that the morning is the best time for this. 

Remember that a day in the Jewish calendar begins and ends at sunset. If you choose to do this practice at night, do it on the date before the secular date at the top of each page.

You may find that the reflections and written responses are very personal. You don’t need to share what you have written with anyone. Think of this practice as you would think of a diary, a place to write personal reflection, a book to be kept in a private place, something for you alone.

The intention of the questions and suggested practices are to gently guide you toward deeper understanding of yourself and to motivate you toward making positive changes to help you find deeper happiness. It is not, by any means, meant as a substitute for therapy. If you find the questions and practices are bringing up painful or disquieting thoughts or emotions, please consider seeking the help of a qualified professional.

You will notice that there are only three lines for your written responses on each day. This is by design. You don’t need to write an essay. It is sufficient to jot down a few ideas that will help you to solidify your thoughts and intentions, and to give you a way to remember your responses when you review your progress every ten days.

What should you do if you forget a day or fall behind? Just continue with the present day. If you want to go back to read reflections for days you missed, you certainly may do so, but don’t allow that to become a hindrance to continuing. The most important thing is to make some progress right now – in the present moment. You will have your whole life ahead of you to do more. 

This is the sermon I gave on Zoom for Temple Sinai in Cranston, Rhode Island, on May 29, 2019.

I’d like to do a little “What if” with you tonight.

What if, following the Pittsburgh shooting in October of 2018, there had been a series of other killings of American Jews every month, or every few weeks? What if, instead of hardened anti-Semites, though, the assailants had just been people who got angry with or frightened by a stranger and ended up  killing them, but their victims -- time after time -- just happened to be Jews? And what if law enforcement showed a reluctance to arrest the killers in these situations, and juries always seemed to find them “not guilty” because they were convinced that the assailant had no choice but to kill the Jew? 

What if it just kept happening, even when the news media and the public outcry made it clear that the killings were somehow linked to a general bias against Jews in our society? What if, when a few prominent Jews – say a famous Jewish actor – tried to protest the killings in a peaceful way, she ended up being blackballed by the television networks and the movie studios where she previously had worked and was out of job because she said that killing Jews is wrong? 

What if after this had been going on for a few years, with the death toll going up, up, up, there still had not been a single conviction of any of the killers? What if the reaction to the killings from a sizable portion of the country was something like, “Well, those Jews probably deserved it,” or “Well, why should we be focused so much on the death of Jews? What about all the non-Jews who are killed every year?" How would the American Jewish community respond? What would we do about it?

Would synagogues offer trainings on how to dress and behave in public in ways that are the least threatening and the least likely to incite someone to kill? Would we worry about our children and warn them to be extra careful not to do anything in public that could make someone angry or scared of them?  Would we expect the string of killings to be the number one issue in the nation all the time until something was actually done about it -- and would we be deeply disappointed and frustrated when the media quickly turned to other issues, and the public forgot about our torment, just a few days after each killing?

Would we have arguments among ourselves over whether Jews should start carrying firearms for protection, or whether that itself would just cause even more killings? Would we demand that our elected officials do something about the problem, and seethe when those officials did nothing? Would we scream at the top of our lungs, only to be told that we were being self-pitying and unrealistic? ​Would we be marching in the streets? Would we?

Now, I’m not offering this “what if” to scare you. The scenario I’m describing, yes, does sound like things that have happened to Jews in the past, but it does not look like something we are seeing happening now, or anytime soon – at least, we’re not seeing it happen to us.

However, this is what is happening, right now, in the American Black community. It is unfolding right before our eyes.

On Monday of this week, George Floyd, a Black man, was taken into custody by four Minneapolis police officers. According to the police, the officers were responding to a call about a “forgery in progress” at a convenience store. We don’t know why the officers left that store a few minutes after arriving to go to a van parked across the street. We do know that they removed Floyd from the drivers seat, handcuffed him and told him to sit on the sidewalk where they questioned him. We do know that they then walked him across the street back to their squad car. The police say that, at this point, the officers called for an ambulance when they saw Floyd in “medical distress.”

We know that Floyd fell to the ground behind the squad car, but we don’t know why. We know that one of the police officers held him down with a knee on his neck. We know that Floyd was forcibly held in this position for about eight minutes, during which he pleaded with the officers saying, “I can’t breathe.” We know that he then stopped speaking. The ambulance arrived, Floyd was placed in it, and he was pronounced dead a few minutes later. 

The four officers who made the arrest were fired from the Minneapolis Police Department after the incident was publicized by the news media. One of them, the officer who pushed his knee down on Floyd’s neck for eight minutes was arrested and charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter just today – four days after the incident. The other three officers on the scene have not been arrested or charged.

While there is still much that we do not know about the incident, the name of George Floyd has already joined those of Trayvon Martin, who was killed by a community watch volunteer in Florida in 2012, Michael Brown, who was killed by a police officer in Missouri in 2014, and Eric Garner, who also said, “I can’t breathe,” before being killed by a New York City police officer in 2014. These are the high profile examples that have gained much national attention of Black people being killed without explanation and without a criminal conviction for the killer. But there have been many other cases. In fact, there have been at least two other cases revealed in just the past two months.

On March 13th in Kentucky, three police officers forced their way into the home of Breonna Taylor, a Black woman, and shot her. This month, it was revealed that Ahmaud Arbery, a Black man, was shot and killed while jogging in Georgia by the son of a retired investigator for local law enforcement. In that case, the local police covered up the killing for months before the new media broadcast an eyewitness’ video of the incident. 

And the list of Black victims goes on and on. The fact that so many of these victims were killed by police or people related to law enforcement does not make the situation any better – in fact, it makes it far worse. Who do you turn to for protection when the people who are killing young men and women in your community are among those who are sworn to “protect and serve”? We see how these incidents make the hard work of law enforcement even more difficult. We see how the public’s trust in the police is eroding badly when we see the terrible and unjustifiable violence that is gripping Minneapolis right now.

We cannot pretend that we don’t have an obligation to do something in these cases. Jewish tradition commands us, “Justice, justice you shall pursue” (Deuteronomy 16:20). There is nothing just about a nation where people are killed in the streets and in their own homes because of their race. There is nothing just about a nation where the killers are left unpunished. We would never stand for it if it were happening to us, and – remember – it has happened to us. So, the question is not really “What if?” or “What would we do?” The question ought to be, “What will we do?”

First and foremost, we should make ourselves allies with the Black community, listen to them and respect them, show them our support, offer them our help, and speak loudly against the continuing killing of Black men and women in crimes of bias against them. We should demand justice. We should demand that prosecutors take swift action in crimes like the killing of George Floyd. Our tradition demands no less than that from us.

Second, we should use the position and status that we have to make a difference. It is not our fault that the white skin that most American Jews have gives us some privileges that are not enjoyed in our society by people of color. You know what I’m talking about – the privilege of not being presumed to be a criminal, the privilege of being seen. It’s not our fault, but it is also not something we can take for granted. When white people speak up for the rights of people of color, it gets more attention than when it’s only people of color speaking for themselves. People of color don’t often hear the hurtful and hateful things that white people say when people of color aren’t listening – but if you are white, you do hear it. When you hear racism, speak up. Interrupt the nasty jokes and deprecatory comments. Say something to let people know that hate is wrong.

Third, we need to look at ourselves and confront our own bias. We have all grown up and we all live in a society that is filled with racial bias and discrimination. It would be a wonder if some of it didn’t rub off on us. Be self-critical about your own assumptions and prejudices. Be honest with yourself and notice it when you act fearfully or suspiciously about people who look different from you. Notice when you see and hear others blaming people based on their race or ethnicity, and notice when you do it yourself. It’s okay to admit it. It doesn’t make you a bad person. It makes you human. But being a human being – being a mensch – also means being responsible for your own thoughts and behavior.

Our tradition teaches “You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the feelings of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 23:9). We know what if feels like to be the victims of a society that regards our lives as being worth less than those of others. We have been there. It is up to us to stand up for those victims, just as we would stand up for ourselves. It is up to us to say that their lives matter.

Shabbat shalom.