Wednesday, September 24, 2014

#BlogElul: Return

While we humans are busy at this season, turning and returning -- to the selves we once were, to the selves we want to be -- the world carries on, spinning forward with its burdens...its wars, its famines, its diseases, and its other hardships in tow.

And so, too, do we.

We do not do this work in a vacuum.

Even as we hope and pray and promise and strive to be the best that we can, we do so amidst the burdens the world shares with us -- amidst hunger, cancer, unemployment, poverty, shame, drug addiction, child abuse, violence, family estrangement, alcoholism, financial hardship...the list goes on and on.

And yet, we continue to turn, year after year, to the place of return within ourselves, working to be the selves we once were, striving to be the better selves we know we can be.  Again and again and again, at this season each year, we turn and we return.

Baruch atah Adonai Eloheinu melech ha-olam for encouraging and enabling us to turn and to return, even as the world spins us forever forward on its axis.

May you be inscribed and sealed in the Book of Life for a good and sweet year.  Shana tova u'metuka.  


Inspired by Ima on (and off) the Bima, this #BlogElul post is the last in this year's series marking the days of the Hebrew month of Elul, which precedes the Jewish High Holidays and traditionally serves as a time of reflection and spiritual preparation for the new year.