We have not spent this past month teshuvahmaxxing. Our work of return has not been about optimizing ourselves or upgrading our operating systems or otherwise hacking our lives. None of this language works for me, and, if you are reading this on Day 29, something tells me that it doesn’t work for you either.

It is not just that Rosh Hashanah is sometimes called Yom HaZikaron, a Day of Remembrance, that gives us an indication of the connection between the new year and our relationship to memory. How could we mark a passing year without engaging in some amount of looking back?

My old friend, Helen Rubinstein, is a writer, a teacher and a writing coach. She has a forthcoming book of essays called, Feels Like Trouble: Provocations on Writing, Teaching & Power. I had the pleasure of reading it over the past month, and, despite her entreaties in the book to avoid judging writing as ‘good’ or ‘bad’, I found it to be fabulous.

I can’t say how Casey and I heard about the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, but we did. I can’t say how we ended up spending time on their web page, but we did. I can’t say how we spent the better part of an hour on their job portal, but we certainly did! It was on this jobs page that I realized there was a whole world of zoo employment that I had never even considered.

Rosh Hashanah is sometimes referred to as the birthday of the world (hayom harat olam), but that is a confusing designation in a tradition whose creation myth spans seven days. We come to understand through a midrash that Rosh Hashanah actually marks the day when humanity was created (that’s Day 6 for those of you keeping track at home). So, counting backwards, the start of creation would actually take place on the 25th of Elul. That’s today.

Dear Elul Writers,

I feel like the act of playing a song on repeat is a move straight out of my high school years. Yet, in the past week I have had the Zombies’ This Will Be Our Year on a near-constant loop. Coming across the pond in the 60’s, the psych-pop band was undoubtedly overshadowed by the Beatles, the Stones and the Kinks, but their album, Odessey and Oracle, completely delivers. This Will Be Our Year, with its simple harmonies, has perfect late-Elul vibes–brimming with hope and positivity, while lightly alluding to the hard times left behind.

I originally wrote this reflection five years ago, and, while this particular cobb oven no longer exists, I feel confident that my next go at it will stand the test of time.

There is nothing quite like studying a text with an old friend. It is remarkable to witness the wisdom that has developed over time, while recognizing a thread of their approach to Torah and the world that stretches from your shared past to this present moment. So, it has been for me in the past month studying with my classmate from Hebrew College, the Jewish Studio Project’s very own R’ Adina Allen.

When we were in Prague last summer, Casey and I happened upon a pair of plum trees growing in a public park whose branches extended out over the sidewalk. We were on our way to a farmer’s market, but were happy to be distracted by the branches that were heavy with the little fruits.

All of the focus this summer on Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey reminded me of a piece of literary criticism that I read a lifetime ago during my first year as an undergraduate at NYU. How many essays was I assigned during my time as a college student that I can call to mind so fully? Surely, no more than I can count on my hands. Yet, for whatever reason, the analysis of Erich Auerbach in his chapter Odysseus’ Scar captured my imagination then and has stuck in my brain since. 

The eighteenth of Elul is the birth date of the Baal Shem Tov, the folk healer, mystical teacher and story teller who was the founding parent of Chasidism. The wisdom of the Baal Shem Tov is now shared and appreciated across the Jewish world and beyond. His profound tales are often included in sermons; in fact, I learned this story from a d’var Torah given by a friend.

In his poem, How to Continue Loving the World Despite Years of Impediment, the poet Marcus Wicker shares themes that resonated deeply with our exploration of the sounds of the shofar. We arrive at the sound of teruah with its broken, alarming call.  The sound is meant to help us look within, gather our losses, gather our heartbreak, gather our darkness.

Working on a college campus, I know it’s August when I look at the whiteboard, untouched since May, and decide to erase it and make space for what’s about to come. I had that experience today. Meeting with a few students, visioning for the new semester, I got up to wipe the board clean.

If I told you that there was a Jewish text where God is imagined as an old purveyor of essential oils, you might guess that it was the work of Cynthia Ozick or Etgar Keret or Isaac Bashevis Singer. Well, guess again, English major. This particular parable comes from the Babylonian Talmud.

I have always had ambivalent feelings about the P.T. Barnum quote, “there is a sucker born every minute.” On the one hand, watching people stand in line to get an $18 donut or shell out $85 for a t-shirt, does seem to indicate an abundance of foolishness in the world. On the other hand, it isn’t nice to call people suckers.

Tonight we return to the shofar, to its song and to the teaching of the Shlah Hakadosh, R’ Isaiah Horowitz. Last week we began with the full sound of tekiah and reflected on moments from this past year where we felt the “rush of the world.” Yet our journey through the sounds of the shofar continues on, and, considering the three-part sound of shevarim, we quickly recognize the cracks in our facade. 

More than forty years ago, R’ Adin Steinsaltz, of blessed memory, wrote a slim volume called Teshuvah (sometimes you’ve gotta keep it simple). The book focuses less on the paths of repentance and repair and more on the challenges of taking on religious observance. The writing is thoughtful and approachable, with a surprising amount of warmth from an esteemed scholar of his generation.