This Sunday and Monday is Rosh Chodesh Elul, the beginning of the final month on the Jewish calendar. Some years, Elul whispers, inviting us in with tenderness. Other years, it demands, like thunder, startling us awake from a deep slumber. Elul is the season of teshuvah (repentance), the foundational practice of the High Holy Day season, but not in the punitive sense many associate with the term. In its literal sense, teshuvah means return. Return to the self we were always meant to be. Return to compassion. Return to God.

The work of Elul is to wake up. To become aware of the ways we’ve drifted—from our values, from our people, from our purpose—and to begin the slow work of return.

This month calls us not to perfection, but to presence. Not to be finished, but to begin.

Rabbi Gray Myrseth offers these beautiful words in their poem titled “Teshuvah,” included in the Hebrew College High Holiday Companion published in 2017:

The year’s gate opening on loud hinges

startles me each year and this one is no different.

I snap to attention. I am right here. I am listening.

That is Elul. A holy beginning. A deep breath before the shofar cries. A voice saying: “Come back. All is not lost. You are not too far gone.”

So, on this Rosh Chodesh Elul, wake up and listen. Not to the noise, but to the still, small voice inside you. The soul remembers. The soul wants to come home. May this month awaken us with compassion, and may we meet ourselves and each other with softness and strength.

Shabbat Shalom and Chodesh Tov—may it be a good and soul-stirring month.

L’shalom,

Cantor Audrey