The Love of My Life

It seems like love is in the air.  Someone posted on facebook just today, “Did I really count 37 engagements this month?”.

Not surprising considering that we are entering into the month of Elul – the final month of the Jewish calendar, whose Hebrew name is an acronym for the word Ani Lidodi Vidodi Li – I am to my beloved and my beloved is to me.

Our relationship with G-d is like our human love relationships and vice versa and we can learn from each relationship to improve on the other.

Since we we are entering into the month with a focus on our relationship with G-d let’s start by learning from our human relationship and apply it to our relationship with G-d.

Relationships require nurture. Like a flower or plant, left alone it will wither and die. If nurtured it will blossom and grow even if beaten down by the seasons of life.

When a relationship is neglected for a period of time or if its damaged over and over again, addressing the details of the neglect or damage will not repair the problem. These are symptoms. To repair the relationship we need to go back to the core of the relationship. Why did we fall in love in the first place?  What was it that connected us in the first place? 

By remembering and reconnecting with the core of the relationship, we re-fire the relationship and are able to start afresh.  The negative symptoms are repaired somewhat more systematically in this fashion.

This reconnecting to our core relationship doesn’t happen on its own. It requires a specific focus and a specific effort and most importantly – TIME.  We must dedicate time to this.

Elul is a time of reconnecting to the core of our relationship with G-d. By reconnecting to the core, our shortcomings and yes, even our frustrations with G-d in our relationship will heal itself.  But we must first reconnect at the core.  And to do this we must make time and take the time to focus.

The Torah and our tradition gives us 30 days, the entire month of Elul.  Please let’s find time to study, pray, meditate, focus and reconnect.  This way when we show up on Rosh Hashanah we’ll be whole and ready to start a new loving year together.

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