Wise’s Elul Challenge provides activities focused on four Holy Day themes: T’filah (Reflect), Tzedakah (Repair), Teshuvah (Repent), T’hadesh (Renew). The next four days of Kavanot will each address one of these themes.  Today: T’filah (Reflect) In Hebrew, the word for prayer is t’filah and the process or action of prayer is התפלל—hitpaleil.  Without getting too much into the grammar weeds, it’s a reflexive verb which means that in some way the action returns to oneself. So, while we often think of prayer as an address to God, in fact, the first audience for our prayers is ourselves. One of the primary activities of prayer, then, is introspection In our introspective prayer/thoughts we can pursue the answers to these questions: ​​​​​​​ Who am I? What am I in relationship to others? What are my deepest needs? What/who do I want to become? If you review our activities for the first seven days of Elul in [...]

Thirty-six years ago, at our wedding reception, one of our friends toasted my bride and me using the acrostic interpretation of the Hebrew month of Elul—it was the month in which we married. In Hebrew: אֱלוּל. It has long been recognized the letters of the month correspond to the words of this passage from Song of Songs: אֲנִ֤י לְדוֹדִי֙ וְדוֹדִ֣י לִ֔י—I am my beloved and my beloved is mine (6:3). Elul, she said, is an opportune time to get married because of its association with those beautiful words. Indeed, her words proved prescient as we celebrate every one of those thirty-six years! What she didn’t mention was that for a rabbi, the month of Elul is also a time of heightened anxiety and elevated stress because it directly precedes the High Holy Days. Not merely because the weight of preparations is on us but also because we are deeply aware of our own [...]