Wake Up, Elul is Here! -- with Writing Prompts

רבי אליעזר אומר, יהי כבוד חברך חביב עליך כשלך, ואל תהי נוח לכעוס, ושוב יום אחד לפני מיתתך

Rabbi Eliezer would say: The honor of your fellow should be as precious to you as your own, and do not be easy to anger. Repent one day before your death. (Sayings of the Fathers (Avot) ch.2)

Asked his disciples: Does a man know on which day he will die? Said he to them: So being the case, he should repent today, for perhaps tomorrow he will die; hence, all his days are passed in a state of repentance. (bShabbat 153a)

Mindfulness is a hot ticket word in contemporary American culture. It goes along with meditation, yoga, contemplative practices. Some of us may roll our eyes at the term, others may say, "yeah, I do that!" and still others — perhaps most of us — have a desire to increase our mindfulness.

In the ancient wisdom of Rabbi Eliezer we find the call to be first of all mindful in our relationships. Hold the honor of our fellows high, and try not to get angry. And, knowing we will err, as surely all humans do, Rabbi Eliezer offers a way out: repent. Now.

But don't we all get caught up in the rush of daily life? Don't we sometimes rush to grumble about the person in front of us on the road, or in a grocery store? Don't we sometimes yell at our children out of exasperation even when we know it won't help anything (I did that the other day at the park, and I'm still thinking how ridiculous I must have looked to all those — one of my less pretty parenting moments)? Aren't we all sometimes selfish, sometimes abrupt, sometimes hot, sometimes judgmental? Haven't we all acted before thinking?

The blasts of the shofar, from this first day of Elul into the coming new year, call us to wake up, to check in with ourselves and see, just how mindful are we? Just how aware are we in our daily lives? 

Even if we have a daily practice of self-reflection and self-improvement — even if that practice has us turning to those we have been angry at, or have judged poorly, in the process of our daily lives — even so, very few of us don't need a reminder.

Elul gives us a month to reflect on the last year and to renew our mindfulness in preparation for the new year, and another ten days to seek forgiveness before we rehearse our death at Yom Kippur. 

Wake Up! shouts the shofar. Pay attention. How are you being in the world?

One of my spiritual teachers regularly asks the question How be you? Sometimes this sets my inner grammar police wriggling uncomfortably. But just now, I'm hearing it differently. "How are you feeling" is not the question she is asking me. Rather, I am sure, she is asking How are you being in the world? How be you?


And this is the question I offer to you. How are you being in the world?


WRITING PROMPT: If you don't have a journal, find some blank paper. Write down the question, How am I being in the world? How was I in my interactions with people today? Now spend 18 minutes (my timer is set there, but chose your amount of time) reflecting on one or more encounters you had with other people today. Focus on how you were in those interactions; let go of how they were, only judging them with honor. 

Repeat this exercise throughout the week. If there are days when you feel like you don't have much to say, reflect backward; is there an experience from the last week, month, year that you are still thinking about, that is still bothering you in some way? Reflect!

New Beginnings, Fresh or Rotten - Your Choice

You know that one moldy strawberry in the box? The one that's touching at least five others? What is your first thought - past the ICK - when you see that mold? Contamination!

Torah speaks of the first days of the world - of the separating of light from darkness and of water from land and air - as a time of completion. Things come into being whole and ready. The herbs and fruits are ready to eat right away, "in the beginning." Adam and Eve are not brought into this world as infants, but as wholly formed adults, walking and speaking and thinking.

Rosh Hashanah celebrates this whole world, the anniversary of that beginning. And that's where we stand now, in the autumn - with a world of abundance, beginning and approaching the harvest season.

Ripe apples and pomegranates for our Rosh Hashanah dinner tables mean that the trees - and the herbs of the field - are about to go dormant, to die their autumnal death. We are entering darkness, brought by the autumnal equinox and the hibernation of plants and animals.

Now, as we leave the light of summer and the growing season behind, we celebrate the abundance of the world Created whole, trees and fields offering up sustenance that we seek to preserve to carry us through the winter.

Now, we want to carry the best of our foods into storage - and we want to carry the best of ourselves into the new year. One moldy strawberry will contaminate the whole container; molds and rot spread. We don't want that - in our food supply, or in our selves.

So we clean out the old - we take inventory of our fruits and herbs, and we take inventory of our souls. We choose what goes into our containers carefully.

We have the opportunity to put an end to behaviors that cause rot, that fester in our relationships. We ask forgiveness, and we search our souls for ways to change our behavior, to be better people in the coming year.

If we choose our fruits well, we can make it through the darkness of winter. We will have healthy food for our bodies -- and we will have clean souls and strong relationships that will carry us through the coming year, whatever it holds for us.

Wishing you good choices, solid forgiveness, and a healthy and sweet new year.