A Very Narrow Bridge

The world is a very narrow bridge; the important thing is not to be afraid. ~Nachman of Breslov

Tag: Elul

September 10, 2014

A Heart to Understand

Here’s something that happened to me this week:

The mom of a kid on Elly’s baseball team told me my ex wife saved her life.

“Your wife,” she said, “Is amazing.”
“Ex wife,” I said, “But she can still be amazing.”
“Whoever she is. She saved my life.”

I expected that she’d tell me about how Elly’s mom had stepped in at the last minute and picked up her kid when she had to work late, or brought snacks to school when she couldn’t, or gave her a ride when her car was in the shop. The things we talk about when we say someone saved our lives. When someone is a real lifesaver.

“She saved my life,” she repeated and just looked me in the eye. Hers were almost teary. Almost. Mostly they were shining. And I got it. I hugged her. I’m not entirely sure why. It was the right thing to do, I guess.

“Next week is my last treatment, but the cancer is already completely gone” she said.

K (Elly’s mom) is an oncologist. But I don’t think it was the drugs she administered that made her a lifesaver to Elly’s teammate’s mom.

I think it was Colorado.

I don’t know if she still does this, but she used to go to Colorado for every year for three or four days of training on doctor-patient communication for oncologists. It’s really a retreat. Spiritual guidance for cancer doctors. A yearly reminder that we are all human beings and that being human is hard.

Doctors aren’t usually taught that. That’s why I don’t usually like to see doctors. It’s why I don’t particularly care for Western medicine. Acupuncturists, for instance, are taught to start from the fact that we are all human beings, all part of something much bigger, and that being human is hard. That’s how it works, I think. By starting with love.

I could write forever about that, but I’m not going to.

I’m convinced that K saved this woman’s life, not because of the chemicals she used to treat her, but because she learned how to talk to her. How to see her as a human being. Otherwise, she could have treated the cancer, put it into remission, gotten her back to normal daily activities. Given her back a normal life. But she couldn’t have saved it.

Because the real thing K learned in Colorado is that doctors are also human and, even if they can’t allow themselves to completely fall apart in the face of illness and death, they are allowed to be affected by it. They are allowed to be a little vulnerable.

Being vulnerable is important.

You know, I think, without question, and I can tell you as a researcher with 11,000 pieces of data, I cannot find a single example of courage, moral courage, spiritual courage, leadership courage, relational courage, I cannot find a single example of courage in my research that was not born completely of vulnerability.
—Brené Brown (Interview from On Being with Krista Tippet)

I hate being vulnerable. Really hate it. I will do almost anything to avoid it. But it still comes up. All the time. I have to be vulnerable sometimes. And it’s a gamble because there are two ways we can react to vulnerability.

We can react to it with violence, or we can react to it with vulnerability.

Reacting to vulnerability with violence always comes from fear. From pachad. The fear I wrote about last time. The fear of phantoms. Of illusions we create in our minds. It’s a reaction that comes from a profound sense of shame. Of victimhood.

Self-described victims are extremely dangerous. They feel justified in anything they do because of that illusion of victimhood, and so they victimize others. It’s all in their heads. They are all in their heads.

When we meet vulnerability with vulnerability, we heal each other. We experience yir’ah—the fear and awe that is Love. And we share that Love. Because there’s nothing else we can do with it. And it’s not easy.

Being a victim is much easier because it means we never really have to grow up. Never have to face the parts of us we may not like. Never take responsibility.
But it also makes us destructive. So destructive.

This week we read Ki Tavo (Devarim [Deuteronomy] 26:1-29:8). At the end of the parshah Moshe is reminding the Israelites that they have seen the great things God did for them, the signs and wonders. Then he says this:

.וְלֹא-נָתַן יְהוָה לָכֶם לֵב לָדַעַת, וְעֵינַיִם לִרְאוֹת וְאָזְנַיִם לִשְׁמֹעַ, עַד, הַיּוֹם הַזֶּה
But up until now Y-H-V-H hasn’t given you a heart to understand, or eyes to see, or ears to hear.

Until now, the Moment–What Is, hasn’t given you the heart to really get it.

When we live in our heads, we are victims, we are ashamed, and we see ourselves as worthless piles of shit. The Israelites were victims up until that moment. Victims who didn’t have to grow up. Victims who lived in their heads. Creating, over and over again, a mental image that they could cling to: their own sense of entitled victimhood. Victimhood that justifies violence in the face of vulnerability. That’s what victims do.

But when we are vulnerable, when we meet the vulnerability of other people with our own vulnerability, we move into our hearts. In our hearts, we understand. We experience the Love that exists in the Moment. In everything, everywhere, always. We become a part of it. And we heal each other through it.

Elul is half over. We are halfway through our  heshbon hanefesh, our deep reflection on our life for the year. Are we victims who hurt other people, or are we vulnerable so that we can heal them?

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September 2, 2013

Prove it.

I am sitting at a bagel place with Benno and Nikki.

“What is the thread that connects us?” Benno wants to know. I think he already knows, but he wants us to start thinking.

Faith?

No. Faith isn’t what we have.

Belief?

No. Belief doesn’t cover it either.

Finally, a little embarrassed, I suggest that what I have is Proof.

Benno’s eyes light up. Nikki says “Yes!”

The three of us are sitting together in a bagel place (where else?) Three people from different traditions, different cultures, at three very different stages in life. All of us sitting together in the bagel place and agreeing that we have no faith. No belief. Just Proof.

Faith is predicated upon some outside factor, like the system. You can’t have faith without something separate. Even having faith in yourself seems to look at the part of you in which to have faith as something separate from the part of you where doubt, heartbreak, and hopelessness live.

Belief is all about the individual. Believing in something means you hold it to be true.

For me, Proof is something else. Proof needs both. Proof wants us, forces us, to see the connection between those things outside of us and within us. Proof wants us to know there’s no real difference between those things. Proof is Proof. And sometimes Proof scares the crap out of us.

We don’t want to be connected. We want to be ourselves. We want our beliefs. We want that outside factor to rely on.

A person can’t just go around talking about being the same thing as the table or the cocker spaniel down the road, or the head of garlic he’s wearing on a string around his neck. That’s just weird.

But Proof is also comforting. So comforting. Because Proof never goes away. We might not notice it. We shouldn’t always notice it (please see, for example, the guy in the kaftan with the head of garlic on a string around his neck). But Proof is there.

Proof is the melody of זִמְרָת יָהּ (Zimrat Ya), the Divine Song. Proof is there when we are תָּמִים (tamim) present with an open heart. Proof is what stays our hand, or our tongue, when we are tempted to destroy hope. Proof is what causes us to fall in love, and to stay in love when the rules make no sense. Proof is calling to us every time we sound the shofar during the month of Elul.

Proof is at the bagel place and on the hiking trail. Proof is in the difficult conversation and in the uncontrollable laughter.

The last Shabbat in Elul has passed. We read parshat Nitzavim-Vayeilech (Devarim 29:9 – 31:30). And we learned exactly where Proof is:  כִּי-קָרוֹב אֵלֶיךָ הַדָּבָר, מְאֹד:  בְּפִיךָ וּבִלְבָבְךָ, לַעֲשֹׂתוֹ.  “Because it is very near to you, this [Proof]. In your mouth and in your heart so that you should enact it.”

Proof is there, not for the noticing, but for the acting.

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August 22, 2013

Grammar and Love

It’s halfway through Elul. How’s that heshbon hanefesh coming along, Harry?

So. Anyway…

I’m just going to cut to the chase.

This week we read Ki Tavo (Devarim [Deuteronomy] 26:1 – 29:8).

There’s a nice part about bringing fruit to the Temple. More blessings. More curses. More things to avoid doing so you won’t be cursed. Threats of never-ending hemorrhoids. Seriously. Never-ending hemorrhoids. Check it out: Devarim 28:27.

But in the middle (before the hemorrhoids) there’s this, which is more important (26: 17-18):

אֶת-יְהוָה הֶאֱמַרְתָּ, הַיּוֹם:  לִהְיוֹת לְךָ לֵאלֹהִים וְלָלֶכֶת בִּדְרָכָיו, וְלִשְׁמֹר חֻקָּיו וּמִצְו‍ֹתָיו וּמִשְׁפָּטָיו–וְלִשְׁמֹעַ בְּקֹלוֹ

 וַיהוָה הֶאֱמִירְךָ הַיּוֹם, לִהְיוֹת לוֹ לְעַם סְגֻלָּה, כַּאֲשֶׁר, דִּבֶּר-לָךְ; וְלִשְׁמֹר, כָּל-מִצְו‍ֹתָיו

26:17 Today you have selected Adonai to be your God, to walk in His ways, to keep his hukim and his mitzvot, and His mishpatim, and to listen to His Voice.

26:18 And God has selected you today to be His treasured people, as He told you, and you should keep all his mitzvot.

Hukim are statutes and mishpatim are ordinances. Both are important.

I’m just going to keep thinking of mitzvot as connections.

Traditionally, mishpatim are laws that reason would suggest are necessary. Laws against murder, robbery, adultery—that sort of thing. Hukim are different. They don’t make sense. Laws about not mixing wool and linen in the same cloth. It doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Hold onto that thought for a minute. It’s going to be important, I promise.

I suck at Hebrew grammar, so I will probably get this completely wrong, but the verb form that the word for “selected” takes in those verses is the hiphil which is often used to denote the causative. In fact this extremely informative video explains just that.

So, the verses could be read: “Today God is causing you to select Him…” and “And you are causing God to select you…“

Honestly, that’s not my interpretation. Rashi’s grandson, Rashbam said it first.

So what?

God caused the Israelites to select Him. The Israelites caused God to select them.

Remind you of anything?

“You told me that silly story, and it made me fall for you.” “You always listened and remembered, and it made me love you.”

 God and the Israelites fell in love.

Love is a connection.

Love involves some rules that make sense: “Don’t cheat on me.” Or “I want you there with me on the best day of my life and on the worst day of my life.” Those make sense. They are logical. Right?

Sometimes love involves rules that don’t make any sense: “I took out the garbage last time, it’s clearly your turn.” Seriously, who cares as long as the garbage goes out?

Love sometimes makes sense, and sometimes it makes no sense at all. But it’s always a connection. It should always be a rootedness.

If it doesn’t have that connection, that rootedness, no amount of making sense will make it work. And, I suppose, if it doesn’t have that completely illogical part, it will be boring.

How often have I missed that?

Welcome to my Elul.

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August 16, 2013

This Might Not Make You Happy

Hey. Listen. I had kind of a shitty week.

I didn’t get enough sleep. I attached myself to a lost cause again—and lost. Phone calls were not returned. A package never arrived. Plans I was looking forward to got cancelled.

Shitty week.

Even this didn’t help:

My grandmother wasn’t worried if I was in a sulky mood about something…If I complained, ‘but I’m not haappy,’ she would tell me, ‘Where is it written that you’re supposed to be happy all the time?'” —Sylvia Boorstein (Shambhala Sun Interview)

This week we read Ki Teitzei (Devarim [Deuteronomy] 21:10 – 25:19).

It didn’t help my mood.

Here’s a rundown of some of topics covered:

  • Captured women mourning their parents
  • Hated wives
  • Lost property
  • Recalcitrant children (being put to death)
  • How to treat the corpses of the executed
  • Rejected wives
  • Slander against rejected wives
  • Adultery
  • Rape
  • Excluding the maimed from the community
  • Excluding those born outside of marriage from the community
  • Excluding certain ethnic groups from the community
  • Divorce
  • Kidnapping
  • Poverty
  • Fighting
  • Dishonesty

I am completely failing to acknowledge the fact that many of these topics are described in terms of how to show compassion as these horrible things come up.

But…you know…

Shitty week.

It turns out, though, that Ki Teitzei actually addresses my shitty week.

At the very end.

Of course.

The last verse, actually the last part of the last verse, says this: תִּמְחֶה אֶת-זֵכֶר עֲמָלֵק, מִתַּחַת הַשָּׁמָיִם; לֹא, תִּשְׁכָּח Timchah et zeicher Amalek mitachat hashamayim. Lo Tiskach. “Blot out the name of Amelak from under heaven. Do not forget.” (25:19)

Amalek attacked the Israelites as they were making their way out of Egypt, when they were hungry and tired, and he attacked the most vulnerable among them. The Hebrew word for Egypt is Mitzrayim, literally: “The Narrow Place.” Its root is also used for the word for “despair.” Amalek attacked when the Israelites were physically vulnerable. That’s bad enough. He also attacked when they were moving out of despair, which is a whole other kind of vulnerable.

He attacked when they had the potential to move into hope.

Destroying hope is the kind of violence that makes me shudder.

We are charged with blotting out Amalek’s name from under heaven (Actually, we’re charged with blotting out his memory, but I’m taking a small liberty with the text–shitty week). And we are charged not to forget.

That doesn’t help my mood.

Then I think about Elul. And I remember that I love Elul. And I remember that this is not supposed to be an easy month.

We are supposed to do both.

We need to remember. We need to remember the fear, the destruction of hope, the abject misery.

We need to remember that this journey, this being human, this spiritual path, is not always happy-clappy. Sometimes it sucks. It’s not written anywhere that we should be happy all the time.

And, guess what?

That’s spiritual too. So we remember.

But we also blot out Amalek’s name (I have mentioned it 5 times so far, by the way.) We should blot out his name because we need to remember not to do what he did. We should never take on that name. That description.

We need to remember what it was like.

Shitty week.

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August 9, 2013

What is Tamim?

Have I mentioned how much I love Devarim (Deuteronomy)? Probably. I love how it wraps things up. I love it’s reflectiveness. I love how it spends so much time on what the Israelites need to strive for when they are on their own after they cross the Jordan. How it fits so perfectly with this time of year. It’s like the guide for heshbon hanefesh for our soul’s accounting.

This week is Shoftim. (Devarim [Deuteronomy] 16:18 – 21:9). It’s got a lot going on. Appointing judges and magistrates, how to deal with complex legal cases, “Justice, Justice, you shall pursue!” Who has to fight in wars, and who doesn’t. Stamp out paganism now! Don’t be a soothsayer.

Then, right there, in the middle of the soothsayer part, this line shows up: תָּמִים תִּהְיֶה, עִם יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ. Tamim tih’yeh im Adonai Elohecha. Be wholehearted with your God.

The weird word here is tamim. Is it really “wholehearted?” Is it only “wholehearted?” Other places it’s translated a lot of other ways: Innocent, complete, whole, entire, wholesome, unimpaired, having integrity, pure, blameless…the list goes on and on…and on.

Here’s what the famous medieval commentator Rashi has to say:

Walk with God simple-heartedly (bet’mimut) and look for­ward to what He has in store. Do not probe the future, but rather accept whatever happens to you simple-heartedly…

Basically, don’t keep looking for the next big thing. Don’t look for the better person to go out with or marry, don’t go looking for the cooler job, the more fashionable city…just be here for a minute, please. Be present. Be aware. Seriously, be here. Otherwise you’re just going to be miserable.

My havruta says tamim is the best way to hebraicize the word “zen.” I love that guy so very much.

He doesn’t mean the “calm” sense of zen. He means the perfectly present, open hearted, totally cool with the situation, trusting, kind of zen.

So there’s the tamim part. But there’s another word. A tiny word with two letters in Hebrew: עִם im. It means “with.”

So it’s not openhearted, simplehearted, present, innocent, trusting to God. Or about God. Or of God.

It’s with God.

If we are tamim, God will be tamim. God, the Universe, Humanity…whatever you want to call it. I say God. God will be present. That’s where God lives. In temimut. (That’s the noun form.)

Shoftim is mostly about the importance of justice and compassion.

Both of those depend upon being present.

It’s the first week of Elul. The first Shabbat in Elul. It’s heshbon hanefesh time. Reflecting time. Honest accounting time. Looking inward time.

Have I been tamim enough? Openhearted, compassionate, present, enough? Have I spent too much time looking for the next best thing? If I haven’t opened my heart to the present, why not?

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August 4, 2013

Shabbat Before Elul

…The Sabbath is endowed with a felicity which enraptures the soul, which glides into our thoughts with a healing sympathy… It is a day that can soothe all sadness away. —Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Sabbath, p 20.

It is Shabbat afternoon. I have been silent for hours now. The only words I have spoken today are prayers at the synagogue this morning. Walking along the trail in the park, I am still silent. I am having a silent Shabbat to see what it’s like.

It’s not easy.

I am having a hard time feeling the felicity Heschel writes about. My soul doesn’t feel enraptured. It feels alone.

As I walk, I find myself looking at my watch. But it is Shabbat and I don’t need to be anywhere at any particular time. I take the watch off and put it in my pocket.

Then my thoughts creep in: Why wasn’t I stronger? Why wasn’t I bolder? Why wasn’t I more willing to stand up for what I knew to be correct? Why didn’t I do things years ago? Why am I always alone? Why do I attach myself to lost causes and then become upset when I lose?

It is the last Shabbat in the month of Av. This coming Wednesday will be the first day of the month of Elul. I will sound the shofar at shacharit (morning services) at the synagogue. We do this every morning for all of Elul, the month before Rosh Hashanah. We are waking people to their heshbon hanefesh, to the beginning of their soul’s accounting.

Suddenly you are awakened by a strange noise. A noise that fills the full field of your consciousness and then splits into several jagged strands, shattering that field, shaking you awake. The ram’s horn, the shofar, the same instrument that will sound one hundred times on Rosh Hashanah, the same sound that filled the world when the Torah was spoken into being on Mount Sinai, is being blown to call you to wakefulness. You awake to confusion. Where are you? Who are you? —Alan Lew, This is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared, p 64.

How can I be expected to wake my community when I am so unsure of where I am, of who I am? When my own accounting doesn’t seem to be adding up?

I take a breath. I let it go. I take another and let it go. And another. And another. I begin to allow my thoughts simply to be thoughts. They come up and I can let them go with my breath. I begin to listen to the sound of my feet on the trail. The crunch of the gravel, the sound of my shoes on the dirt.

The only words I have spoken in hours are prayers.

And my favorite words from any prayer come to me: עָזִּי וְזִמְרָת יָהּ וַיְהִי לִי לִישׁוּעָה Ozi v’zimrat Yah vay’hi li lishuah. My Strength, and the Divine Song, and What Will Be—My Salvation.

My Strength is not trivial. I am a physically healthy and substantial man; I am filled with purpose. But that is not enough.

My Strength and the Divine Song.

Once my friend Dale brought me to the chemistry lab and showed me a machine that analyzed molecules based on where they appear on the spectrum. Each molecule resonates at a different frequency.* Essentially, the entire universe is singing. You, me, the stars, and the cocker spaniel down the street. We are all vibrating at the frequency of the molecules we are made of. The Divine Song. But even my strength and the Divine Song are not enough.

My Strength, and the Divine Song, and What Will Be.

What Will Be? Very near the end of 2013 (as opposed to 5773, which is the year according to the Hebrew Calendar), we will read Parshat Shemot (Shemot [Exodus] 1:1 – 6:1). This is a good one. It has the baby Moshe in the basket, it has the Burning Bush, and it has “Let My people go!” Some real Cecil B. DeMille stuff.

At the Burning Bush, Moshe asks God what he should say to the Israelites when they ask who sent him. God’s answer is אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה. “I Will Be What I Will Be.” God is present in every moment. This hike, the sadness I am feeling, my awareness of the sound of my feet on the trail. This moment is filled with the Divine Presence. Whatever this moment Is or Will Be.

My Strength and the Divine Song, and What Will Be—My Salvation.

On Wednesday I will sound four calls on the shofar: Tekiah, Shevarim, Teruah, Tekiah. “Tekiah means that which is rooted; shevarim means that which is broken; and teruah refers to an image of shaking.” (Rabbi Matthew Berkowitz)

Tekia: The strength which grounds me.

Teruah: The shaking vibration of the Divine Song.

Shevarim: The brokenness we can feel in any given moment.

Tekiah: Moving from that brokenness back to strength is My Salvation.

The order of the shofar calls is not the same as the prayer. Life doesn’t always happen in order. When I hear those sounds I will hear my whole past year beginning to be laid out before me and I will be reminded that the order of the events of the last year no longer matters. Not as much as the strength with which the new year will begin.  

At the end of Yom Kippur, the final tekia of the holidays for which I am preparing will begin my year with strength, rootedness, an improved awareness of where I am, and who I am.

But I can’t get there without facing the shaking and the brokenness; the Song and the Presence. 

* Please forgive me if I have the science wrong—this was almost 15 years ago.

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August 19, 2012

Eleven Months Part 7: Master Hakuin and Elul.

The Zen master Hakuin was praised by his neighbors as one living a pure life.

A beautiful Japanese girl whose parents owned a food store lived near him. Suddenly, without any warning, her parents discovered she was with child.

This made her parents very angry. She would not confess who the man was, but after much harassment at last named Hakuin.

In great anger the parents went to the master. “Is that so?” was all he would say.

After the child was born it was brought to Hakuin. By this time he had lost his reputation, which did not trouble him, but he took very good care of the child. He obtained milk from his neighbors and everything else the little one needed.

A year later the girl-mother could stand it no longer. She told her parents the truth – that the real father of the child was a young man who worked in the fishmarket.

The mother and father of the girl at once went to Hakuin to ask his forgiveness, to apologize at length, and to get the child back again.

Hakuin was willing. In yielding the child, all he said was: “Is that so?”

– Paul Reps and Nyogen Senzaki, Zen Flesh, Zen Bones p. 7. Also on 101 Zen Stories

I will get to this story later. First, some background:

I loved my ex wife from the moment I saw her. I was 17 and she was the most beautiful girl I could ever have imagined meeting. I loved her smile and her laugh and her deadpan sense of humor.

I loved her intensely, powerfully, helplessly. I loved her when we were together and I loved her for long stretches when we were apart. I loved her through relationships with other women. I clung to her. I loved everything about her, except for her. I wanted her to be someone else, someone she couldn’t be.

We have been divorced for seven years and I have spent much of those years making excuses: She wasn’t available to me, she was too involved in her medical training, she moved us too much, she didn’t respect my goals. The list goes on.

The truth is that what I wanted from her was to rescue me from my pain. From my unhappy childhood. From my lack of confidence. From everything I hated about myself. When she couldn’t do this, I got angry and stayed angry.

I would get angry at her for not paying enough attention to me, for not being there for me, for not loving me enough.

I was wrong. She was there. The person I thought she should be wasn’t. But I couldn’t see that because I was so caught up in what I wanted. In reality, she wanted me to succeed, she wanted me to be happy and fulfilled, she wanted me to be her child’s father.

She didn’t stop trying until it became impossible for her to keep trying. Our son was a baby and she realized how much it would damage him if he grew up in a home with parents who fought as much as we did. Finally she asked me to leave because she couldn’t do that to him. And she hated doing it. She hated me for not being able to come through for her. 

I’m not writing this to say it was entirely my fault that our marriage ended—things are always more complex than that. I am not writing this to say that I still grieve for our marriage—I don’t. Both of us are much happier now, and our son is happy and confident—a wonderful kid. Things have turned out pretty well.

I am writing this because it’s the beginning of the Jewish month of Elul. It is time for me to engage in my heshbon hanefesh, my soul’s accounting. What have I carried around within myself for the past year (or years) that I can let go of? This year during Elul, I have made a deal with myself to begin working very hard to see the world as it is and not how I want it to be. This is not easy, but it is necessary. It means coming to some difficult realizations, like understanding how much my ex-wife really loved me for me, and how I didn’t return that. It means welcoming in all my emotions and experiences, the good and the bad, and accepting that neither the good nor the bad experiences and emotions are the whole of my existence—that both are impermanent.

Master Hakuin is going to be my guide this month. He just accepted things with equanimity.

Think about it: He lived a pure life and he was accused of doing something impure. He must have been angry. I’m sure he was. But he didn’t throw a tantrum and shout “It isn’t fair!” He just accepted his anger along with the situation and said “Is that so?” Is that how it is? Okay, that’s how it is. I will move on and do what needs to be done. His reputation was ruined but he still needed to be a part of the community so he could provide for the baby.

When the girl and her parents came to apologize, he must have been relieved, and maybe angry too. But he didn’t say “See? I told all of you that I was not the kind of monk who would go around getting young women pregnant, but no one believed me!”

When they took the child back he must have been heartbroken. He had cared for the baby for a year, watched her grow and smile and take her first steps. But he didn’t scream “How could you take this child from me now? I have been caring for her! Where have you been, you stupid people? You are breaking my heart!” He just said “Is that so?” Is that how it’s going to be now? I’m going to be heartbroken. I’m going to miss her. That is part of my life now.

Elul is about looking back and letting go of those times when we’ve fallen short of that equanimity and, not being a Zen master, I have fallen short a lot. Heshbon hanefesh is called an accounting, but  it’s not about tallying as much as it’s about accepting. It’s a letting go, but a strange one because it’s about welcoming those things of which we are letting go.

Honestly, heshbon hanefesh is more like meditation than accounting. During meditation we are taught not to stop thinking, but to allow our thoughts to arise as they will, to welcome them, but not to follow them. Instead, we observe them and let them fall away. That’s what we are doing, maybe on a slightly bigger scale, during Elul. We are allowing our lives over the past year arise as they will, we are observing them and letting them fall away. When I do this on the meditation cushion I get up feeling clearer and refreshed—ready to move through the day. My hope is that when I move out of Elul and into Rosh Hashanah, I will feel similarly ready to move through another year of my life.

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