Translation by Yehoshua Siskin (yehoshua.siskin@gmail.com)
It's less than thirty days before Yom Kippur, less than one month until Kol Nidrei. Are you prepared?
The Torah portion we just read in the synagogue on Shabbat provides a valuable perspective on the task before us. The parasha of Ki Teitzei describes the mitzvah of returning a lost object. If we find something (whether a donkey, money or a cell phone), we cannot ignore it or take it for ourselves. Instead, we must try to return it to its owner.
Yet our commentators explain that the mitzvah of returning a lost object has a deeper meaning. We too, as well as those around us, are sometimes lost. *We are obligated to return to the best version of ourselves and, beyond this, to the dream we dreamed of who we could be.*
Chodesh Elul presents us with a golden opportunity to take stock and ask ourselves, before the holidays of Tishrei, where we got lost during the previous year. Where did we get confused and go astray? Who and where are we truly supposed to be? Do we belong to other persons, places, or things -- or to ourselves, and to our dreams?