What Are You Doing In Elul? (August KOL)
Los Angeles is a city of signs and billboards everywhere. I know more about upcoming shows and movies than I would normally know tucked back here in the woods of Virginia, because everywhere you go there are huge advertisements for the entertainment industry. But, my favorite sign in the entire city is on Wilshire Boulevard, hanging on the front of Sinai Temple. It reads, “What are you doing two days after Labor Day?”
It’s inspired! And it created quite a bit of anxiety in the heart of this rabbi, who finds it hard to relax as the countdown to High Holy days begins. Most of us, hopefully, will make the choice to stop everything in our lives – work, school, chores, shopping, use of technology, and be in temple with loved ones, friends, fellow Jews, and those who want to share the holiday and our Judaism with us. I always encourage non-Jews in households living a Jewish life to join with family and make these holy days a time to share with family and community, as well. I tell all of my students that as I am in my fourth decade as a rabbi, I can promise that NOTHING going on in school is more important than taking the day off. NOTHING. And that goes for sports, dance, business trips, and yes, even vacations. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are not better spent on the beach or a cruise. Every student who ever went to school instead of services has regretted it later, or when asked a decade later, realizes what a foolish and non-Jewish choice it is.
For millennia, we Jews gather in at the greatest testimony to eternity and survival the world has ever known. Collectively, no matter what our labels movement-wide, we identify with a tradition that is older than our nation and the world we know. We connect with our inner selves and our spiritual souls to reflect and repent and restore our sense of wholeness and to come to terms with our past, as we vision and dream for our future. “The awesome power of the day,” as the prayerbook is fond of saying, as well as the meals and gatherings, the wishes of Shanah Tovah and Happy New Year, compel us to transcend the daily grind in favor of finding something better, something greater than we have known or been.
At a time when institutional religion is being reviled in some circles and abandoned in others, we at TBS, have already seen a rise in our L’dor Vador memberships, as many more of the young people who grew up at TBS are joining our congregation as the adults and future of our community. We must do more to reach all ages of Jews at this critical turning point in Jewish life, but at our core, we need to remind everyone and ourselves that without our institutions, our synagogues, our rabbis, our religious schools, and organized Jewish communities, none of this will survive another generation.
This is the time to stop being silent. This is the month to encourage neighbors, relatives, and family members with young children to join the temple, or give them a gift of membership. This is the time to share with adult children, neighbors, colleagues, and friends the importance of choosing to belong, not just for the collective Jewish people, but because Judaism has so much to offer each one of us on our life journeys. Stop being polite and holding your tongue. Invite, encourage, pay for a membership, let people know that we need them and they need us!
For me the question isn’t only what we will be doing two days after Labor Day? It is what we will be doing 30 days before to get ourselves ready to stand together and be counted as the shofar is blown? And what can we do this year, and every year, to make sure that the shofar is blown in synagogues for millennia to come?
If we were to put a big sign up at TBS, what might you want it to say this month of Elul? I’d love to know. Share with me, or visit our Facebook page and share with all of us, or email our editor and Director of Member Services, Lynn so that we can keep this conversation going.
May you have a thoughtful, restful, and Jewishly-infused Elul/August. Hoping to see all of you two days after Labor Day!
Faithfully yours,
Rabbi Amy R. Perlin, D.D.