A Devotional for the Month of Elul
We’re approaching Rosh Hodesh Elul, the first day (the “rosh,” the head) of the Jewish month of Elul — a traditional time of introspection and soul-searching leading up to the Days of Awe, the high holy days of Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish new year) and Yom Kippur.
As the Maharal of Prague, Yehudah Loew (legendary creator of the Golem of Prague), wrote:
“All the month of Elul, before eating and sleeping, a person should look into his soul and search his deeds, that he may make confession.”
So here’s some introspection and confession of my own to kick start this holy month.
I make no pretence of being fully traditional. I’m a pluralistic, non-denominational, Earth-based, Renewal rabbi. And had I not been born into a particular religion, in some alternate reality, I might not have considered my earliest path, Orthodox Judaism, at all. Not because (and I must be clear here) there’s anything wrong with Judaism, but because I’m not a biblical literalist. The religion also expects a great deal — and these traditional expectations are predicated on a belief in the Torah revelation on Mt. Sinai (Matan Torah — the giving of the Torah). Under the Orthodox Jewish umbrella, for example, conversion involves an agreement to fulfill the mitzvot, the commandments. I would only have converted under Orthodox auspices had I believed in Matan Torah.
Instead, as it happens, I was born into a Jewish family. Then, I was sent to Jewish elementary schools, including a hasidic school. After graduating from my public high school, I became a hasidic Jew in the Chabad community for a number of years.
That was my early trajectory, but I’ve clearly been in orbit around that old life ever since, in certain ways, circling it even as I was no longer part of that sphere. So much so that my Ph.D. was in rabbinic literature.
This, even though I don’t believe in a literal Sinai Revelation or the binding nature of halakha (Jewish law), and eventually chose to leave Orthodox Judaism.
Many years ago, my best friend Alice, may she rest in peace, asked me a question that has remained with me. It was her wedding night, and as her maid of honour, it was my privilege to take her out the night before her wedding. She had come to Canada from what was then Czechoslovakia at the age of nine. By the time we got together to celebrate her nuptials, her belief system had become a bit of a hybrid between agnosticism, objectivism (oy!), and Christian mysticism. During our teens, she had been a staunch atheist. I guess you had to know Alice to understand how she somehow made it all work. (P.S. I miss her.)
We drank wine and talked religion, science, philosophy, poetry, and science fiction late into the night. So the context for her question was that we were a little tipsy and had already jumped into the deep end. And then, there it was.
She asked me why I stayed Jewish despite my lack of belief in Sinai and Jewish law. Why bother being Jewish at all, she asked.
Being exhausted, lightheaded, and only a few years out of the hasidic community, I had no substantive response for her. It was a pointed question, but still, a good one.
And so, I spent the next decade or so trying to formulate an answer that made sense, that was emotionally and intellectually honest.
By the time I finally did, Alice had already passed away from metastatic breast cancer. I never had the opportunity to answer her question as fully as I can today. Yet, the process of coming to answer Alice’s question was also the reason why I chose to be ordained.
It was also part of my choice to remain Jewish. So, in some ways, I have her to thank — both for reaffirming this choice and for deciding to make an additional commitment through ordination.
The capsule summary for me is this:
I do believe in the Divine in some form, but mine is a soft theology based on panentheism and process theology. About which, feel free to read this two-part piece on God-concepts for more if you are curious. Dayenu. It is sufficient.
Nevertheless, I prefer to live according to Humanist principles, because we have no certainty about what comes afterward. Dayenu. It is sufficient.
I believe in the Sinai Revelation as a metaphor that has sustained traditional Judaism for over two millennia. It is about the origin story of a people. That story does not need to be proven historical to hold power. Dayenu. It is sufficient.
I don’t believe that Jewish law is based on Divine diktat. Instead, halakha was formulated and codified in rabbinic Judaism as a series of ethical principles and rituals. In contemporary Judaism, liberal Jews may dip into this rich pool of laws and rituals as befits their needs and wishes — whatever sustains and nourishes a person’s Jewish identity and life. Dayenu. It is sufficient.
I don’t believe that the Hebrew Bible was written by God or by supernaturally-inspired humans, but by all-too-human humans, and then edited/redacted by later all-too-human humans. All were working within charged ideological and political contexts. The books of the Bible are fascinating in their own right, as the literatures of a people, and rabbinic hermeneutics (interpretations) over the past two millennia are equally complex and compelling, not to mention superb training in logic. Dayenu. It is sufficient.
But why I do I choose to remain Jewish? How would I have answered my friend’s question if I knew then what I know now?
- Because it’s my tribe — my family.
2. Because I’m a link in a generational chain that has extended back several thousand years (and were I a convert, the same would be true on a different level).
3. Because I’ve learned about Judaism, its languages, its books, its interpretations, laws, liturgy, and rituals over the decades, and it would feel wasteful not to write, teach, and transmit, this knowledge.
4. Precisely because I have an alternative take on it. There are pulpit rabbis across the Jewish spectrum who are understandably reticent to make waves by writing or sermonizing about controversial topics in the Jewish world. And there are, of course, others like myself who are more vocal. Both perspectives are needed in the conversation about what Judaism is, and what it can become. And there is always need of tikkun, of mending.
Yet, whether born Jewish or converted, clergy, Jewish educator, or layperson working their spiritual path, we are all Jews by choice. And so, what would your answers be?
As for me, I’m just one person, sitting at my desk at this particularly strange time during which pluralism and xenophobia are at loggerheads. When many voices — but especially progressive voices — are needed.
And, I feel responsible, somehow.
And here we are again, hurtling into Elul.
And I suppose that this will have to be sufficient. Dayenu.
