Confessing @ MindSay

The month of Elul has begun.  It  is the month on the Jewish calendar that precedes the new year Rosh Hashanah- and the very serious week ( we call it the days of awe)  leading up to Yom Kippur aka as the Day of Atonement. Many Christians have no idea what this is about so I am going to try to explain it and I will get some things wrong but I will also share my personal take on the month and why it might be good practice for people of any religion to use it’s meaning.

Teshuvah is a Hebrew word meaning return or turning and it refers to acts of  forgiveness that one exends to others and to oneself. It is complicated because not only are good jews supposed to ask forgiveness of people during Elul so they can try to right the wrong they have committed but we are also encouraged to tell others how we have felt hurt by them so that we give them a chance to make amends. This isn’t done in an angry see what you have done to me way. It is done with heart and sincerity and we understand that sometimes people are unconscious of hurting someone and by holding a grudge against them we are perpetuating the hurt and in fact harming them. By fessing up we let it go and give them the chance to say. Oh wow I had no idea, I am so sorry. Or maybe you discover that they  knew full well what they were doing and you can clearly understand that this isn’t a person you want to keep hanging out with.

So you can see why Teshuvah is an important concept in the days of awe. Because by the beginning of YK ( at a sundown service called Kol Nidre)  we are supposed to have finished our earthly business of making amends with people. I say that because a lot of non jews think that YK is a big group confession that takes everyone off the hook and gives you a clean slate for the next year. No way. Our job is to use the period of introspection to do the human business of correcting the things we got wrong through the year before we confront God and ask God for the forgiveness we want for the ways we have let down God. This might not be making a lot of sense. I admit that a lot of Jews don’t actually get it either.

But for those of use who take teshuvah seriously it is a magical time to work harder at being a better person and coming clean with those we care about and those we don’t care about to let them know we are flawed and are going to work to get it more right in the coming year. Sometimes it requires a heart to heart talk, as when I confessed to someone that  I had gossiped about him when I knew he had stolen books from the temple library. And that the gossip was wrong but so was taking the books and I wanted him to return the books. And another time I called a co worker I had stopped talking to tell her that I was sorry I had been brutal and cold.  I knew I had no intention of tolerating her bad behavior again but I could have been nicer when I ended our relationship.

This is getting very wordy and I apologize but teshuvah is a complicated thing and I will probably talk about it more as Elul progresses.

The fall holidays are wonderful and they start with a fresh excitement as the weather changes. Then they move into deep deep sobriety and sadness with  kol nidre and yizkor and then pick up with the lush and sensually delicious Sukkot – my favorite of all holidays where we build little huts and decorate them with fruit and eat in them for a week. And end with a wonderful bang at Simchas Torah when the cycle of reading the torah weekly ends and starts ight up again.  But more about that later. Right now it’s Elul, the last month on the Jewish calendar  and in some ways the most important.