The month of Elul began earlier this week, accompanied by the dreadful news of the murders of six Israeli hostages, along with another stalemate blocking a meaningful path toward ceasefire and whatever rebuilding must follow. We are shattered. We are hardened.
Elul is the beginning of our high holiday journey. It’s a month given over to reflection and accountability. We are meant to take this work seriously and also with love. “Elul” is an acronym for a verse from the Song of Songs: Ani ledodi ve’dodi li. I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine. Embedded in Elul’s work of self-review is an invitation for us to crack ourselves open with empathy and compassion.
October 7, 2023 will forever live as a day of devastation for Israel and Jews around the world. Our heartbreak intensified as the American Jewish community seemed to splinter, with families, communities and organizations dividing and polarizing over stances on Israel, Zionism and the war. It was a profound shattering—individually and communally.
And as the horrors unleashed last October 7 have extended into a conflict lasting more than 330 days and devastating so many lives, the splintering gets more and more hardened, fueled by headlines, an atmosphere of polarization, our own trauma and more. We are shattered. We are splintered. We are hardened.
The High Holidays are about accountability and repentance. These are grounded ultimately in anavah, humility, an attribute that requires us to soften those places where we have grown rigid. Israel’s president Isaac Herzog modeled this powerfully in his eulogy at the heartbreaking funeral of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, one of the hostages murdered last weekend, when he apologized many times over.
The High Holidays are an encounter with all that is far beyond our control. Who will live and who will die in the coming year we ask in the unetaneh tokef prayer. But the core lesson of those questions is to empower us to take action in those ways and those places where we do have control. On the Days of Awe, we stand in community and together we practice humility and embrace vulnerability and pursue repentance so that we can get really clear about what and who is most important to us and how we can act, individually and collectively, to bring those commitments to life in the year ahead.
We are shattered. We are splintered. We are hardened.
As Rabbi Hannah Spiro (RRC 2017) so powerfully expressed in this prayer at the U.S. House of Representatives earlier this week, may our grief and rage of this last week—of this last year—serve some purpose and help us to get to where we need to be. Reconstructing Judaism, together with Ritualwell and Evolve, offer resources for those seeking comfort, practice, greater understanding and dialogue. In the midst of splintering and shattering and hardness, may we all find ways to soften and heal and repair. May we all get what we need.
May the souls of those who have died be bound up in our lives. May our high holiday preparations help us toward greater clarity and greater compassion. And may the one who creates harmony above make peace for us, for all Israel and for all who dwell on earth.
Hodesh tov. Shabbat shalom.
Rabbi Deborah Waxman
President & CEO Reconstructing Judaism
