Mitzvot and Mindfulness

By Rabbi Elyse Winick
Associate Director for KOACH

Summer: The culmination of our indulgence, long days of sunshine, late nights, reduced responsibilities. Like a cat curled in a warm and sunny spot, it’s a challenge to pull ourselves back to reality, to responsibility, to clarity and to focus. We unroll and stretch towards the start of a new year, holding on to the last wisps of the old as they fade. Then Rosh Hodesh Elul dawns and the clarion call of the shofar awakens us, calls us to action. Each morning leading into the start of the new year the blast of the shofar echoes in our souls, reminding us of the important tasks which lie ahead.

Pirkei D’Rabbi Eliezer (midrashic text, 1^st/2^nd century CE) teaches that the shofar was blown at the moment of Moses’ ascending Mt Sinai once more, to receive the commandments a second time, unbroken, on Rosh Hodesh Elul. The sound was a reminder to the Children of Israel not to sin in his absence and it was also an echo of Psalm 47:6: "God has gone up with a trumpet blast; the Lord with a ram’s horn sound." Thus it was instituted that the shofar be blown on Rosh Hodesh Elul each year and every morning throughout the month of Elul as a reminder of the path we all must travel as we approach the Days of Awe.

That call rings out in our hearts each Elul day and we can hear the call in many different ways. Some days it is the whistle of the lifeguard, signaling the need to return to shore. Some days it is the reflection of the way our soul began the previous year whole, became fragmented with the passage of time, but we are now becoming whole again. Some days it is a battle cry, as we struggle with the past in order to build the future. Some days it is the alarm clock, wakening us from our passivity and inspiring us to act.

Each day of Elul is its own gift, a chance to look deeply into our souls and find the spark of the Divine. Each morning we are reminded of the turning and returning of the season and the opportunity to start anew.

This new ezine feature will address a different mitzvah each month, considering its origins and its potential in our lives.

[Posted 8/30/11]