“On Your behalf, my heart says, ‘Seek My Presence.’ Your Presence, O Lord, I will seek.” (Psalms 27:8)
It is early morning, or is it still night? Dream’s haziness drifts into the grayness of my room, in the magical time between asleep and awake. The voices of children call, their cheerful voices contrasting with the nights’ tears. From somewhere, as from afar, the insistent cry of a lone bird may be heard, calling, enticing me to shed the night’s darkness and enter the soft light of early morn.
Has it been two years now? Two years, in which the mind reels with the unfathomable, the heart is shattered, the soul drifts in a sea of confusion, unable to comprehend. The spirit alights above, to the Heavens, in search of answers, but there are none. A sense of fogginess covers reality, time blurs into a sea of waiting.
And so this year a cloak of whiteness covers the month of Elul, the entrance to the High Holidays. Is it the cloak of purity, or of numbness? Caught in disbelief, our hearts cannot accommodate the events of the past two years. Cannot accept the tragedy, the sorrow, the pain. Why? How? We search vainly for consolation.
Each morning, I read the news, once again. In anticipation. Of awakening to a reality which has changed, to a life in the Promised Land which is truly blessed.
Perhaps Peace has arrived in our land while I was asleep. I wait.
As for generations we have patiently awaited the arrival of the Messiah.
Perhaps today. If not today, then certainly tomorrow.
We are now in the month of Elul, the period of time leading to the Days of Awe. A time of penitence, of prayer. We pray that The Lord will have mercy on His People.
As we read daily:
“Hear my voice when I call, O Lord;
be merciful to me and answer me
On Your behalf, my heart says, ‘Seek My presence.’
Your Presence, O Lord, I will seek
do not hide Your presence from me…”
(Psalms 27:7-9)
This is also a time in which a touch of Heaven is felt upon the Earth. Light is seeping into the fogginess of our nights. Daybreak adds the misty glow of light to night’s heavy darkness, and the haze of Heaven’s light softens Earth’s tribulations.
At early morning’s dawn we hear the song of the birds. We arise to the voices of the children, our hope for the future.
And within our souls shimmers softly the glow of the Divine.
We are called upon daily to act, to live, to strive, to maintain our hope, our faith in Your Goodness.
For perhaps it is also we, who are created in image of the Divine, who are called upon in these difficult times to bring a touch of the Blessed to this earth. We, in whom the spark of the Divine burns softly, consistently, refuses to be dimmed.
As it is written: “You shall be Holy, for I the Lord Your God am Holy.” (Leviticus 19:2)
When God created Adam, he blew the Breath of Life into him. According to the Kabbalah, the sound of the Breath was the sound of the shofar.(Sod Yesharim 1)
The shofar blown each morning of the month of Elul enters our soul with a blast, with a reminder, that the primordial breath of Life blows softly within each of us.
And so, perhaps in the month of Elul, in anticipation of the Days of Awe, we are also reminded of the miracle of Creation. Of the miracle of our creation as Man, of the miracle of our existence.
What would life be like, if we could walk each day with the knowledge that we are Blessed?
We now awake each day to a reality of tragedy. But perhaps, it is our faith that is tested through sorrow. Despite the tragedy and pain, we turn to the quiet and tranquility which can be found within. We hear an echo of the Voice which spoke and the world came into being. An echo of the Breath which blew Man into being. An inner voice speaks to us, challenges us, whispers to us to return, come again into the Holiness in which we were formed.
Can we hear the voice? Can we answer the call?
What is in our hands to do, what is in our hearts to believe, what is in our souls to bear unbroken.
Can we maintain our unwavering faith, optimism, knowledge of the Divine nature of life, despite? Can we keep hope alive in our hearts?
Perhaps today.
It is the month of Elul. When God’s presence is almost palpable.
As our fate for this year is being determined,
May we be inscribed in the Book of Life.
May we keep the music of life in our hearts, the call of the Divine in our souls,
May the lives of our children and grandchildren, the life of our Nation, be blessed with a future of Peace.
”One thing I ask of the Lord,
this only do I seek;
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life…”
(Psalms 27:4)
Outside my window, soft light glistens off the branches of trees, dew sparkles on the petals of flowers. It is early morning, and all is still. On the background of a pale blue sky, white clouds are motionless. The whiteness of clouds burs with the purity of Heaven. Is it the voice of an angel that I hear, or the call of a lone bird? A call to hope, to the promise of renewal on the wings of a New Year.
In the stillness we hear a Voice. In the ever-present grief and darkness, we feel a faint glow. A hope which burns within, and refuses to be extinguished.
May we find the strength.
In this week’s Haftarah we read: ”…and the angel of His presence saved them, with His love and with his pity He redeemed them, He lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.” (Isaiah 63:9)
May Redemption arrive speedily, in its time.