A message from Rabbi Sara Abrams
Those who love me, I love,
And those who seek me will find me.” (Proverbs 8:13)
Today I was listening to an old episode of On Being, the NPR radio show with Krista Tippet. She featured author Kevin Kling who was on the show to talk about the “Losses and laughter We Grown into.” Kling was born with one malfunctioning arm and many years later, lost use of his other arm as a result of a motorcycle accident. (We can all wonder to ourselves why he was on a motorcycle). He spoke about making meaning from his own trauma, growing into loss and healing.
What touched me most was the following: “Anytime we experience a loss–we are broken. The heart or trauma cannot be cured–the heart can never return to its prior state–but it can be healed, we can grow into the new brokenness of the heart or brokenness of the body.”
As Jews we are in the season of return not to a youthful innocence of heart–after all living life leaves us all with loss– but a return to a wholeness (in Hebrew, shleimoot) within us, a Higher Soul, a divine soul, an inner knowing, an inner peace.
And in our tradition we have the next 36 days to remember and prepare as this is THE time to introspect both as individuals and community. Judaism beckons us to enter bravely into this month of reflection. We are getting ready for the High Holy Days, both in our class, in nature, and in our lives. The time is ripe to partake in any and all of the following:
- to reflect on the past
- to notice where we feel broken
- to ask for forgiveness or to forgive
- to pray
- to meditate
- to reach out and mend relationships
- to grow
- to heal
It is the time of belovedness, when we are to remember that even if we do not feel beloved in the measurement of the world, that we are the beloved of the Divine. The tradition says that the Divine presence is right here, right now, here in the fields of our lives. All we have to do is seek, and we will find (Proverbs 8:17).
Elul can be likened to the blessing of new love–when each beloved is ready to receive the other in delight, and it can also be likened to the blessing of mature love, where we are loved because of our cracks and fissures. None of us, as Kevin Kling reminds us, will be cured of our brokenness but we can be healed – as we allow love and compassion, and forgiveness to flow into every damaged nook and cranny and then flow out through our hearts into the hearts of those most near to us. It’s a return: from being scattered to being centered–to wholeness–to shleimoott.
If you want to know more about the holy day season, it is not too late to join our Getting Ready for the High Holy Days study of This is Real and You are Totally Unprepared, and it is not too late to get involved here at TBT as a participant and volunteer. We need your heart, your mind, your soul to grow this community ever deeper and stronger. May this be part of our communal new year’s resolution!
I look forward to seeing you the first weekend in September, and please feel free to reach out to me to schedule a time to chat or if you are in need of pastoral care: rabbisaraabrams@gmail.com.
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B’virkat Shalom