From All is Run
I have been running for many years. Like most runners, I have built up a small list of my favorite trails and streets, places where my feet flow smoothly and my mind can stay focused. The runs have become familiar enough, that as I pass certain key points, I find myself brought back to moments in the past when I had crossed these same places. I go over the moss covered bridge, and I am brought back to a nervous run before my wedding day. Passing a certain tree reminds me of my celebratory sprint after I competed my final paper before graduating from college. Or climbing the long rock covered hill, brings me back to my first long and tired run after my oldest son was born. Each place has a different story, to which more layers are added every time I pass.
We are in the midst of the month of the Jewish month of Elul, the time of year when Jews are asked to reflect and search for ways to improve themselves in preparation for the New Year.
Every year as we experience these holidays, I, like others in my community, go through the same prayers and stories, chant the same tunes, and are asked the same questions of how best to improve ourselves in the year to come. So much of what we do and say is the same, but of course, it is we who are different. Each year brings us new joys and challenges, new relationships and always new problems that need fixing.
For me, the familiarity of the liturgy and rituals provides the strongest motivation to change, in part because they, like my favorite runs, bring me back to where I was, who I was, in years past. I know that last year I had given myself the challenge to improve, and I still am not perfect. I know that I had committed myself to work harder to do acts of tikkun olam, or healing the world, and the world is not fully fixed. And I know that I once looked deep within, searching for the broken parts of myself, working to truly make myself whole.
We will always be crossing the same paths in our lives, and we don’t have the choice to simply turn around and do things all over again. In fact, the challenge of being human is that we often end up doing the same actions, and making the same mistakes no matter how many times we have tried to improve. The idea of teshuva, returning, asks us instead to do something quite simple, to look back at who we were, see how we can grow to become better people, and then try our best to fix what is broken. It may not work the first time, but we know we can return again the next time we find ourselves in the same place. And may we all return to a place of true healing and wholeness.