Elul

Image by Chaim Goldberg

During the month of Elul, a preparatory time before the High Holidays of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, our relation with G-d is analogous to a King in the field.

The King spends the vast majority of his time entrenched in the inner-workings of court life and the palace, accessible only to the elite.

Desirous of something more - to be with his people, to stroll amongst them and to connect to them - he one day leaves his palace and goes out to the field in order to great his loving subjects. As he passes through the fields the people of the town come out to great him, and he in return receives them with a joy, showing them his laughing countenance. Even the souls of those deep in the fields, closer to the desert then to civilization, are drawn out by the King's presence. Soon the King returns to the palace followed by an entourage of all those who met him in the field.

This story is paradigm of the spiritual character of the month. We do not come to G-d, our king, as we do during the High Holidays - servants in the royal palace . . . a realm far exalted above the foibles and tribulations of their daily activities; rather during Elul, He comes to us, to our own mundane lives, allowing us arouse our hearts and join Him in his journey.

Even those lost in the wilderness, trapped within the brambles of their own Evil Inclinations - desireous but unable to fly from the pinions of unwanted passions - are able to finally return. The King has come to the edge of civilization, the only action needed is to take the step, albeit a single one, in the direction of return.

May we all be blessed with a sweet new year.



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