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10 Elul 5783 | August 27, 2023
Rabbi Andrew Rosenkranz 
Ahad Ha’am, one of modern Zionism’s earliest philosophers, once wrote, “More than the Jews have kept Shabbat, Shabbat has kept the Jews.”  Shabbat is what unites us as Jews. Even God needed a rest after a hard work week.  For us, it’s a time to release the tensions of work and the stresses we encounter in our daily lives. 
 
If Shabbat is our weekly break, think of the High Holy Days as our annual break.  And like Shabbat, the Days of Awe are a gift from God to the Jewish people.  One day a week isn’t enough to contemplate all the aspects that make up our sense of individuality, we need a time period, beginning with Elul and continuing throughout the holidays.  Repentance, forgiveness, memory and gratefulness are just some of the many emotions we experience during this period.
 
Each year during this time, something appears to me during Elul that is usually different from the year before, and which helps me prepare to enter the sanctuary on the High Holy Days.  This year it’s a sense of gratefulness.  To be alive, to have my family and friends, and to simply experience life – I have a keener sense of gratefulness this year than I have in the past.
 
Next year, I’m sure, it will be something different.  But whatever it may be, I know that the worship experience, along with our beautiful machzorim, will highlight for me that special emotion I’ve been feeling all year.
 
What special theme of the holidays will strike you this year as especially pertinent?

11 Elul 5783 | August 28, 2023
A Cleansing Breath
Cantor Joanna Alexander

This summer I could taste the air. 
It flowed down from the Canadian Wildfires interrupting our programming and breathing at camp. 
Suddenly I wanted to wear a mask again. 
Suddenly the chanichim were frightened. 
Suddenly we remembered that the air can hold something scary, even as it is unseen. 

But the wind blew, and the trees breathed, and the air changed to be a tasteless gas once again. 
How remarkable the self-healing of the wind, the cleaning ability of a brand new day. 
How glorious the connectedness and distance of our world. 
 
We breathe in and out, the wind goes round. 
We breathe in and out, the sun rises and sets. 
We breathe in and out, and once again we face ourselves as we turn again to the time of returning.  
Some of what we face we have done knowingly and with intention.  
Some of what we have done we seek out knowledge of its harm or health. 
Like the air we breathe, we cannot always tell when we have been healthy in the world or when destruction has followed in our wake.  
We turn and return, we breath in and out, we must account for our time, its ups, downs and imbalanced acts. 
We turn and return like the wind, to a cleaner, more forgiving air.  
More open to others, more dedicated to God, more free of the burdens we share. 

12 Elul 5783 | August 29, 2023
Rabbi Stephen Wise
I officiate around a dozen weddings each year, mostly in the warm months here in Ontario between May and September.  I find that while people occur in a dazzling variety of forms and personalities, there are two types of couples – those who believe they were destined for each other and those who do not.  Some feel instantly when they met that they were meant for each other.  Some felt a more gradual process of coming to love each other and seeing their relationship deepen over time.  I don’t know if one is right or the other, think they are both right.  You can know it at once and it can also take time to develop.  When I think back at the moment I met my wife I knew this was something special, and just because we were sitting on the floor of the Ulam at summer camp as staff didn’t mean I couldn’t see my future with her.  I was in love within days and within a year I was convinced she was the one though I didn’t actually pop the question until 4 years later.  And I also believe that my life changed for the better from that moment, I had clarity on my career, I felt I could become who I was meant to be.  Pirkei Avot says everything is foreseen and freewill is in your hands.  Maybe there are moments when you too sense that something is happening, change is in the air, you are ready to become who you were meant to be and maybe that time is now.

13 Elul 5783 | August 30, 2023
Changing Our Ways by Changing Our Direction
Rabbi Glenn Ettman
I was walking in my neighborhood in Los Angeles when my attention was suddenly grabbed by pink chalk writing scrawled on the sidewalk street corner:
 
“When life doesn't go right, go left.”
 
Appropriate for this statement to be on a literal street corner, but a more profound message for us during the days before Rosh Hashanah, when we set our intentions to make changes.  
 
When life doesn't go right, going left reminds us that we have a choice, can alter our path by altering our direction, and can change.  We must determine our focus and know that we can change our direction and perspective.  It may not be easy, but it is possible.
 
I am sure everyone of us has had a moment this year where life did not go right.  For some of us, that reality can be paralyzing and stop us in our tracks.  These days before the High Holy Day season begins is our time to set our course and change our direction.  
 
The Talmud reminds (Rosh Hashanah 16b) that if we change our place, we can change our luck or destiny.  My prayer for each of us is that we have the courage to make the changes we want to make and always remember, as hard it may be, that when life does not go right, changing our direction can alter so much more.  And that can make all the difference.

14 Elul 5783 | August 31, 2023
Rabbi Matt Cohen
It is all too common to focus on our shortcomings and faults as we navigate our way through the contemplative journey of Elul. We harshly scrutinize all our imperfections and analyze and over-analyze the times we messed up. The hope is personal change and growth. As you engage in this spiritual exercise of self-evaluation, remember that you are imperfect and flawed, and that’s ok. Jewish tradition teaches, "Everything that came into being during the six days of creation requires improvement - for example, the mustard seed needs to be sweetened...also human beings need rectification (Bereishit Rabbah 11:6)." God chose to leave imperfection in the world so that we can constantly grow and become our best, imperfect selves. Change and growth is a natural part of life. As you walk on this path towards wholeness and repair, remember to show kindness and love to yourself. Take this time to recognize the blessing of imperfection in the world and the limitless potential for wholeness your own positive change and growth can bring to our beautifully imperfect world. 

15 Elul 5783 | September 1, 2023
Changing our Names
Rabbi Batsheva Appel

The challenging work of Elul is to review the past year, to see what changes we want to make, and how we want to change in the coming year. Making the list of changes is the easiest part of the work. Enacting the changes, the shifts in our behavior, the adjustments in our relationships especially the work of repentance, these are the biggest parts of the work we do this month.
 
Maimonides writes in his legal code, the Mishneh Torah:
 
Among the ways of repentance are ... to change one's name/identity, as if to say, "I am now another person, and not that person who did those things”… [Mishneh Torah, Repentance, 2:4]
 
Changing one’s name and identity is very much a next level teshuvah repentance activity. Consider how integral our names are to who we are and how we interact in the world, from something as simple as getting an iced decaf Americano at a coffee shop to introducing ourselves to other people. Each time we use the new name, we remind ourselves of the fundamental changes we are making in our lives and how we think about ourselves. Each time we use the new name, we remind those whom we have wronged about our intent to take repentance very seriously.
 
Do we need to change our names this month to repent? Not necessarily. What is required of us is to take the work of repentance seriously and see it for the fundamental change it can be.

16 Elul 5783 | September 2, 2023
Rabbi Cassi Kail
In the midst of High Holy Day season last year, I found myself in an unlikely place: a craft store. The store itself wasn’t unusual. What was unusual is that I was in it. I’ve never been particularly artistic. And yet, I found myself perusing the aisles in search of yarn and crochet hooks.
It occurred to me that I had not actually done anything crafty in quite some time. Perhaps now, in the season of change and opportunity, it was time to give it another shot.
I went home, frustratingly failing at making a magic circle, before putting the yarn and hook down altogether. A few days later, I tried again and failed. A friend bought me a larger hook and yarn, and I tried once again, with only slightly more success.
And then, it occurred to me that I didn’t need to be good at this. I gave myself permission to fail and permission to keep on trying. After all, how often do we give ourselves the opportunity to try something well outside of our skill set?
Many months later, I wrote this while wearing a kipa of my own creation.  I will never create a masterpiece or become an artist, but I now love to crochet, and I’m proud of what I can do. Sometimes change happens in big moments of realization or transition, but far more often, it happens incrementally, stitch by stitch.