The Rabbi's Corner

Tesuvah, Healing and Community

Repentance, Teshuvah and Healing

At this time of year the community turns itself both together and individuals to the thoughts of repentance. We take stock in the month of Elul and according to the rabbis engage in meaningful spiritual practices that prepare us for loving God in a stronger way. It is common in the month of August to becoming Gods “Beloved”. Elul serves as an acronym for the verse in the Song of Solomon Ani L’dodi V’Dodi Li I am my beloveds and my beloved is mine. The rabbinic notion here is to repair the relationship with God by repairing our relationship with ourselves and making our relationships right with others.

Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook taught in the early part of last century that the world is headed towards spiritual evolution and that Gods plan for the universe includes the awakening consciousness of every human being. Now looking at this current state of the world its hard to see such spiritual evolution — and the situation in Iraq needs immediate transformation. There’s just too much war and fighting, too much of Sinat Hinam — groundless hatred. What Rabbi Kook asked us to look at was how we can spiritually evolve in the Everyday, despite what appears to be Chaos afoot.

So the beauty of the Yamim Noraim — days of awakening to the Awe of Existence and the Divine Source

A great preparation for High Holy days is to practice your singing of the special tunes and practice kindness and forgiveness every day. IT is particularly hard to forgive those that will not forgive you and Jewish tradition and Jewish law does not require you to forgive a person who has refused you three times. So are you obligated to forgive everyone what they did to you? The answer is no. But, you are obligated to try and reconcile with someone with whom you have differences. And while a Jew is not obligated to love a pledged enemy they are obligated to try to resolve the conflict through peaceful means. Resolving our differences before the New Year allows for a more complete return to God. So Teshuvah is not simply changing your minds it is changing you r whole life in order to repair the world and to clean off the spiritual dirt from your soul.

Along with prayer and repentance comes the giving of charity known as Tzedakah. It is crucial to give to charity throughout the year using your money wisely and from your heart to repair the world. This year my daughter and I had the great opportunity to support three charities. The first was Mazon the Jewish fund for global hunger. The second was Magaen David Adom the Israeli Red Cross which helps victims of terrorism and saves many lives. The third but not the least was Greenhill Humane Society. We continue to give to COEJL the Coaltion for the Environment and Jewish Life. Please find a charity that moves you and help repair the world.

A further prayer for this year: that the entire Jewish community of Eugene will come together, along with the Jewish Federation of Lane County, to offer collective Jewish educational programing. Wouldn’t it be great if Temple Beth Israel, OrhaGan, Ahavas Torah and Ad Olam, along with Chabad of Eugene worked together to further Jewish education in a joint Yeshivah or learning center — just a hope and a prayer.

Finally --please join me for an extraordinary retreat near Ashland in preparation for the High Holy Days, a shabbaton from August 31-Sept.2 with new music, great davening and chanting, text study of Hasidic and Kabbalistic sources on Teshuvah and Transformation. The retreat will be co lead by Nina Amir from California, a great writer and teacher...For more information call the shul at 541-434-6551

Lshana Tova

Reb Yonatan