Elul and Good People
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote: “The good person is not
he who does the right thing, but he who is in the habit of doing the right
thing.”
It is simple, and perhaps easy, to do a single good deed, to
volunteer at a soup kitchen on a Sunday, to write a check to a needy charity,
to offer one apology to a person wronged, or to attend Rosh Hashanah and Yom
Kippur services. These are all worthy
endeavors but Judaism is not about the solitary act but instead about a litany
of acts, a lifetime of doing right. Our
faith is about creating a discipline of doing, about ritualizing behaviors.
This is why Judaism sets aside not two days for the task of
repentance, or even ten, but instead forty.
On Tuesday, with the new moon of Elul, this forty day period of
introspection and repair began. It began
with Rosh Hodesh Elul, gains momentum with the meditative Selichot service (on
Saturday, September 20th at 7 pm), further intensifies with the
prayers of Rosh Hashanah and reaches a crescendo with the fasting of Yom
Kippur. These forty days mirror the days
Moses spent on Mount Sinai communing with God.
They are intended so that we might turn inward and examine our ways and
repair our wrongs.
Repentance, teshuvah, is about turning and changing. This of course is no simple task. It is not about reciting one Al Cheyt, one
moment of apology, one solitary word of forgiveness, but instead about building
a life centered on words and deeds. It
is about stringing together a few acts until they become a habit. That cannot
be accomplished in a mere two days, no matter how meaningful our services are, no
matter how heartfelt our praying and singing might be.
Each of these days we are granted an opportunity for renewal
and repair. Set aside moments during the
course of this month and ask yourself what you would like to change, from whom
you would like to offer an apology and seek forgiveness.
We are given a blessing each and every one of these days to create new habits. And from there we begin to build the title of good person.
We are given a blessing each and every one of these days to create new habits. And from there we begin to build the title of good person.