TESHUVAH TFILLAH TZEDEKAH

These are the three traditional actions that we are supposed to undertake during Elul. These words are from the Unataneh Tokef, the prayer I quoted last blog post and the origin of Leonard Cohen’s wonderful song Who by Fire. They are the prayer’s prescription for how to avert the decree of not being written in the book of life—that is being condemned to die in the coming year. Let’s take a look at what might be a traditional meaning and how we might incorporate an earth based perspective.

Teshuvah is usually translated as repentance, but it means something more like return.  The traditional idea is that we get right with each other and with the divine, and that this is a return to the way things are supposed to be, a return to our birthright if you will.  We usually accomplish this by a thorough Cheshbon Hanefesh, soul accounting, of all the ways we have gone wrong in the past and take what steps we can to rectify the relationships.

I would invite us to think about how to return to the rightful place of humans as creatures amongst other creatures in the world.  We do not exist apart from what we call nature, but we are part of it, different in body but no different in terms of our status, than the rocks, the trees, the mountains, the birds, the mammals, the creepy crawlies.  How do we as individuals reclaim that sense of belonging in the more than human world?  How do we as a community take a reckoning of all the ways we have sinned against other beings?  How do we take actions to rectify our past sins and commit to not doing them anymore?

T'fillah is prayer. Most of us struggle in some sense with our prayer practices.  We may not have one at all or we may pray too often by rote.  T’fillah during Elul when the divine is closer to our world is meant to be a call to heartfelt prayer and connection. 

I want to offer three possibilities for how we can expand this to the more than human world.  One is to pray for the more than human world.  Write a prayer expressing some ways that you or we as a society as a whole have sinned against the more than human world and ask for forgiveness.  That’s a really Elul thing to do.  Second, pray amongst the more than human world. Personally, I think I have lost the ability to pray inside a building.  Go out into your yard, a park, a hiking trail and offer your prayers there.  Third, pray with the more than human world.  This one is trickier. Sit down on the grass, or put your hands on a tree and say, I want to pray with you.  How can we pray together?  Listen to what comes.

Tzedekah is usually translated as charity.  It comes from the root that means righteousness. On a really practical level, Jewish non profits raise a high percentage of money with High Holiday appeals and Elul is preparation for being asked. Our communal institutions need our support. It is righteous to support them.

Two suggestions for this part of getting in right alignment with the divine and the more than human world.  One is the obvious donation of money to your favorite non profit that works on behalf of the earth. The second is asking what kind of righteous actions you could take during this month.  What’s one thing you can do to decrease your consumption?  One thing to feel more at home in the more than human world?  One thing to acknowledge the rights of any of the other beings that comprise our world?

None of what I am suggesting is something that is remote or far away.  It is all close at hand.  Please do some of it.

Next week I will share my Elul adaptation of the prayer “Mah Tovu”