Judaism And Healthy Living: Using the Month of Elul for Spiritual Accounting

As the full moon illuminates the evening sky, we are reminded that Rosh HaShanah, the Jewish New Year, will be here in just two weeks. While we often make mundane preparations for the High Holy Days themselves, purchasing new clothes, preparing favorite traditional foods and inviting treasured family and friends to share the holiday table, it is much less often that we take the time to prepare ourselves spiritually. In fact, the month of Elul offers us an opportunity for this. The cry of the Shofar, that is sounded each day of this month, in synagogues all over the world, serves as a wake-up call. It is that time of year again, time for spiritual "accounting," time to begin the process of repentance or Teshuvah.

Our liturgy suggests the proper path to Teshuvah, stating that our prayers of atonement are successful if our sins are between ourselves and God, but if we have wronged another human being, we must take action to approach the person and personally ask for forgiveness. Both of these actions help us to free ourselves from the burdens of sin and wrong-doing, enabling us another chance on getting it right this time.

Like everything else in life, no one said that this would be easy. It is certainly not easy to approach someone if the hurt is deep and the scars are many. Furthermore, sins between us and God...this raises questions of faith and fate. Do we atone because we think God truly holds all of the cards or because we believe God will have mercy on us or because this is just what people do each year.

No matter what your personal theology is, I think that taking the time to ask for forgiveness and to repent for our sins and wrong-doing is not a bad exercise. Each year around tax time, we take account of our finances: what we spent wisely and where we could have saved. Isn't it also appropriate to take account of our actions in a similar manner? We often seek opportunities to "start over" after we have gone astray. Let this year be the year that you take advantage of the opportunity that the month of Elul affords us, a time for spiritual accounting and a new plan for the year ahead.