# data[].attributes.body
Please enjoy this introduction to the month of Elul.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Jewish month of Elul is traditionally a time for personal reflection and spiritual preparation for the New Year. It offers a structured opportunity to examine what is holding us back from being who we really want to be. If we use the period of Elul to take concrete steps towards becoming advocates for change, together we can make a difference!

TRADITION The word Elul can be understood as an acronym for the Hebrew verse Ani L'dodi V'dodi Li, "I am for my beloved and my beloved is for me."

SUGGESTION Think about your relationship with whatever you conceive of as the Divine Presence. Try to imagine a more intimate relationship, as if God were your beloved. You might want to write a letter addressed to this Beloved in which you speak as you would to a close friend. You may want to honor yourself as "created in God's image" by treating yourself as you would treat a beloved.

TRADITION The teshuvah process operates on two levels, one involving human relationships and the other involving our relationship with God. According to tradition, one resolves human relationships during Elul by asking forgiveness for wrongdoings. If one earnestly asks three times, the obligation is fulfilled.

SUGGESTION As part of your teshuvah process try to sort out difficult relationships (with people, organizations) that drain you of your creative energy. Think about what kind of closure you need in order to move forward into the next year.

TRADITION The shofar (ram's horn) is blown at the conclusion of every weekday morning prayer service during Elul.

SUGGESTION Use this month to listen for the shofar's rousing call. Carve out some time to think through the kinds of changes you want to make in the coming year. What's holding you back?

TRADITION Psalm 27, which begins with the words "God is my light and my helper, whom shall I fear?" is recited every day from Elul (the beginning of the month) through the middle of (the Festival of Booths).

SUGGESTION Honor the fact that change can involve fear. Think about keeping an Elul journal to help revive your internal dialogue. You may want to use some or all of Psalm 27 as a departure point for meditation and/or writing. Books like The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron may also be useful tools.

TRADITION (the first prayer recited on the eve of Yom Kippur) serves to annul all existing vows and prepare us to begin the New Year with a clean slate. The Al Heyt prayer enumerates the specific ways we have missed the mark.

SUGGESTION Take some time to re-evaluate your participation in the community. Try to be more conscious of how you spend your time and money. Do your calendar and checkbook reflect your values and priorities?

First published in Ma'yan Journey, Fall 1997

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Renewing Ourselves and Our Visions in the Month of Elul

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Jewish month of Elul is traditionally a time for personal reflection and spiritual preparation for the New Year. It offers a structured opportunity to examine what is holding us back from being who we really want to be. If we use the period of Elul to take concrete steps towards becoming advocates for change, together we can make a difference!

# data[].attributes.body
Elul  urges us to pause, to reflect, to renew ourselves again. On this day 2 of Elul take the time to do at a minimum a 3 minute meditation to just pause and pay attention to your surrounding and your breath.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The habit of meditation is one of the most powerful things I've ever learned.

Amazingly, it's also one of the most simple habits to do - you can do it anywhere, any time, and it will always have immediate benefits.

How many habits can you say that about?

While many people think of meditation as something you might do with a teacher, in a Zen Center, it can be as simple as paying attention to your breath while sitting in your car or on the train, or while sitting at the coffee shop or in your office, or while walking or showering.

It can take just one or two minutes if you're busy. There's no excuse for not doing it, when you simplify the meditation habit.

Why Meditate?

Why create a small daily meditation practice? There are countless reasons, but here are some of my favorite:

It relieves stress and helps you to relax.

When you practice mindfulness, you can carry it out to everyday life.

Mindfulness helps you to savor life, change habits, live simply and slowly, be present in everything you do.

Meditation has been shown to have mental benefits, such as improved focus, happiness, memory, self-control, academic performance and more.

Some research on meditation has indicated that it may have other health benefits, including improved metabolism, heart rate, respiration, blood pressure and more.

Actually, some of the best benefits of meditation are hard to define - you begin to understand yourself better, for example, and form a self-awareness level you've never had before.

Most simply, sitting for just a few minutes of meditation is an oasis of calm and relaxation that we rarely find in our lives these days. And that, in itself, is enough.

How to Do It Daily

There are lots and lots of ways to meditate. But our concern is not to find a perfect form of meditation - it's to form the daily habit of meditation. And so our method will be as simple as possible.

1. Commit to just 2 minutes a day. Start simply if you want the habit to stick. You can do it for 5 minutes if you feel good about it, but all you're committing to is 2 minutes each day.

2. Pick a time and trigger. Not an exact time of day, but a general time, like morning when you wake up, or during your lunch hour. The trigger should be something you already do regularly, like drink your first cup of coffee, brush your teeth, have lunch, or arrive home from work.

3. Find a quiet spot. Sometimes early morning is best, before others in your house might be awake and making lots of noise. Others might find a spot in a park or on the beach or some other soothing setting. It really doesn't matter where - as long as you can sit without being bothered for a few minutes. A few people walking by your park bench is fine.

4. Sit comfortably. Don't fuss too much about how you sit, what you wear, what you sit on, etc. I personally like to sit on a pillow on the floor, with my back leaning against a wall, because I'm very inflexible. Others who can sit cross-legged comfortably might do that instead. Still others can sit on a chair or couch if sitting on the floor is uncomfortable. Zen practitioners often use a zafu, a round cushion filled with kapok or buckwheat. Don't go out and buy one if you don't already have one. Any cushion or pillow will do, and some people can sit on a bare floor comfortably.

5. Start with just 2 minutes. This is really important. Most people will think they can meditate for 15-30 minutes, and they can. But this is not a test of how strong you are at staying in meditation - we are trying to form a longer-lasting habit. And to do that, we want to start with just a two minutes. You'll find it much easier to start this way, and forming a habit with a small start like this is a method much more likely to succeed. You can expand to 5-7 minutes if you can do it for 7 straight days, then 10 minutes if you can do it for 14 straight days, then 15 minutes if you can stick to it for 21 straight days, and 20 if you can do a full month.

6. Focus on your breath. As you breathe in, follow your breath in through your nostrils, then into your throat, then into your lungs and belly. Sit straight, keep your eyes open but looking at the ground and with a soft focus. If you want to close your eyes, that's fine. As you breathe out, follow your breath out back into the world. If it helps, count ... one breath in, two breath out, three breath in, four breath out ... when you get to 10, start over. If you lose track, start over. If you find your mind wandering (and you will), just pay attention to your mind wandering, then bring it gently back to your breath. Repeat this process for the few minutes you meditate. You won't be very good at it at first, most likely, but you'll get better with practice.

And that's it. It's a very simple practice, but you want to do it for 2 minutes, every day, after the same trigger each day. Do this for a month and you'll have a daily meditation habit.

Expanding Your Practice

Sitting and paying attention to your breath is really mindfulness practice. It's a way to train yourself to focus your attention. Once you've practiced a bit while sitting in a quiet space, you can expand your mindfulness practice:

When you feel stress, take a minute to pay attention to your breath, and return your mind to the present moment.

Try taking a walk, and instead of thinking about things you need to do later, pay attention to your breath, your body's sensations, the things around you.

When you eat, just eat, and focus your attention on the food, on your feelings as you eat, on the sensations.

Try a mindful tea ritual, where you focus your attention on your movements as you prepare the tea, on the tea as you smell and taste it, on your breath as you go through the ritual.

Wash your dishes and sweep your floor mindfully.

This, of course, is just a start. There are many ways to practice mindfulness, including with other people, while you work, and so on.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The habit of meditation is one of the most powerful things I've ever learned. Amazingly, it's also one of the most simple habits to do - you can do it anywhere, any time, and it will always have immediate benefits. How many habits can you say that about?

# data[].attributes.body
Who am I?  Who do I want to be?
“Reflective thinking turns experience into insight.” John C. Maxwell

# data[].attributes.body
“People are too quick to pass judgement and too slow to self-reflect.” Anonymous

# data[].attributes.body
“Everyone and everything that shows up in our life is a reflection of something that is happening inside of us.” Alan Cohen

# data[].attributes.body
Let in the light.

# data[].attributes.body
Be kind to those around you.

# data[].attributes.body
“Your soul needs time for solitude and self-reflection. In order to love, lead, heal, and create, you must nourish yourself first.” Louise Hay

# data[].attributes.body
“Time spent in self-reflection is never wasted – it is an intimate date with yourself.” Dr Paul TP Wong

# data[].attributes.body
“Why is my reflection someone I don’t know?” Mulan

# data[].attributes.body
The music of the Holy Days

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Close your eyes for a moment. Imagine that you are gathered with your congregation for High Holiday worship. It is Erev Yom Kippur - the holiest night of the year. Look around the space, at the people of your community gathered all together - those familiar to you and those you do not know. The room is filled with anticipation of the evening and day to come. You have just finished the last meal that you will eat for 24 hours. Your stomach is full, but you already sense the empty feeling you will be experiencing by the time morning arrives.

Why are we gathered? Why do we fast? How do we feel? Our liturgy reminds us that we are finite, that our own power can only take us so far, and that what we do in this world really does matter. Our liturgy reminds us to think about where we have fallen short during the year, and to tell those we have wronged that we are sorry. It exhorts us to promise to try to be better, to live up to a higher standard. It is a time of community, of family, and of awe and wonder.

What do these liturgical messages have to do with the music of the High Holiday season? To understand Jewish music, we have to understand Jewish concepts of time, space, spirituality, and worship.

We can begin by reminding ourselves that Judaism is, in fact, ancient and filled with mystery.

For about the last 200 years, Reform Judaism sought to minimize elements of Judaism which did not conform to rational thought. The brilliant founders of our movement took the Enlightenment's elevation of reason, which they loved because it brought them emancipation, and placed it at the center of their Judaism. For the early Reform Jews, ritual mitzvot were completely non-binding and God became an ethical ideal, rather than a personal redeemer. The liturgy was stripped of mystical poems and prayers, and the Kol Nidrei was even taken out of the Yom Kippur service - because it was illogical to apologize in advance for breaking one's word.

The leaders and rabbis of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries thought the ancient rabbis were just like them - reasonable and rational thinkers. They were -- but many also engaged in mystical meditation. For rabbis from the second century through to the sixteenth and beyond, the world was a miracle constantly unfolding - all time was sacred time, all space was sacred space, and all living was sacred living. Those rabbis gave us a prayerbook full of colorful imagery and mantra-like prayers, like the Kaddish. These men believed the singing voice to be intrinsically holy, because it came from breath and breath comes from God.

This mystical aspect of Judaism is seen nowhere as clearly as it is in the music. In Arabic music and Indian Music, there are melodic themes that are associated with certain times and certain days of the year. In fact, traditional Ashkenazic synagogue chant is defined so much by date and time of day that if you took a traditional Jew who davened every day out into space for a few months, and then dropped him, blindfolded, into a traditional Ashkenazic synagogue anywhere in the world, he would be able to tell you within minutes if it was a weekday, holiday, or Shabbat and whether it was morning, afternoon or evening - just by the melodies that he was hearing.

Travel back in time with me. It's an ordinary week in ancient Israel. Only a few Israelites can put down their daily chores in order to gather in Jerusalem for the sacrifices and to observe the Temple service. As one of the group of men in your community who travels to Jerusalem on a rotating basis to observe the Temple service, you feel a unique obligation to the Temple service and to your village. So, as the service is taking place in Jerusalem, you gather with other men from your village - the Anshei Ma'amad, or "Standing Men," who also rotate through Jerusalem to observe the Temple service, and you chant the Psalms and prayers of the service as you remember them. You recite the words of the liturgy and you sing the Temple songs. Life is not always easy, but as long as the Temple service continues, you know your place in the world, your purpose, and you believe that you understand what God wants.

Then, Jerusalem is taken and the Temple falls. The service that seemed to keep the order of the world going is over. In panic, our ancestors asked: What happens now? How do we serve God? Gradually, painfully, the answer came: we have houses of study, we have the liturgy and the music. We can reinvent ourselves.

During those traumatic years, as our people watched their homes and land devastated, the new synagogue gave them hope. What could not continue was ended, but what could continue was necessary for the - now exiled - Jewish community's spiritual well-being. The use of instruments was banned from services, as a sign of mourning for the Temple. The vocal music, however, proved to be a powerful, emotional force in helping the newly exiled community face its unclear future. Throughout the first centuries of the Diaspora, our people were on the move. As they moved northward - deeper into Europe and the Iberian Peninsula - regional differences in practice started to become more pronounced. Did your community speak Yiddish, or Ladino? Or maybe Judeo-Arabic? Were you part of a community in North Africa? Muslim Spain, or Christian Europe? How did your neighbors influence you? How did you influence them?

For many centuries, our people lived in peace and prosperity, and then the Crusades began. Those Jews who survived a bout with Crusaders were left in small and frightened groups - and many of them began to migrate eastward - into what would become Russia, the Ukraine and Poland. They took any possessions they had left with them. They also took their fear, and their intense hope for a better world. They expressed their fear and hope in their poetry and music, but the time was long ago and not very much was written down. Over time, much of the poetry was lost.

We still have the music.

We call these melodies Missinai, which means "from Sinai." They are not nearly as old as that - dating back only to the 11th or 12th centuries CE. Up until this point in history, we know quite a bit about the synagogue service, and that vocal music was integral to that service. We are fairly certain that some of our prayer modes grew out of Torah and Haftarah chant, but we have no record of actual synagogue melodies. It is only now, with the Missinai tunes of the eleventh to fifteenth centuries that we have a melodic record. These melodies are considered to be among our people's most sacred possessions.

When would you use your most powerful and sacred melodies? The answer, of course, is clear: at your most powerful and sacred time of the year. Thus, we hear these special melodies only once a year, during the Yamim Noraim, the "Days of Awe." We hear them in the Amidah, the Sh'ma, Bar'chu, Mi Chamocha, Aleinu, Kaddish, Unetane Tokef and Kol Nidrei. Certain melodic formulas repeat over and over throughout the High Holidays - for example special cadences such as the way we sing " Amen." Some melodies are rhythmic and easy to sing, like "," while others, presumably older, are more irregular and chant-like - for example the chant for "Avot v'Imahot." These melodies evoke something different than does our regular Shabbat worship. They evoke remembrances of ages past, of wonder at the mysteries of the universe, of lives lived and lost - heroically - in utter faith and devotion to our people, and to God.

We cannot expect High Holiday music to sound and feel like Shabbat. The High Holidays are a unique, awesome and special time of year. That uniqueness and awe is echoed in music that reverberates with the hopes and trials of ages past. Through this music we preserve our people's history and our spiritual legacy.

Today, we have a wealth of Jewish music from which to choose. We have westernized much of our music: we have added harmony, removed much of the ornamentation, made things metrical and written them down. We have incorporated folk song throughout the ages. Once upon a time, a simple folk melody became the High Holiday Bar'chu. Today our services are enriched by melodies composed by new composers like Rick Recht, Mah Tovu, Jeff Klepper, and Debbie Friedman, as well as classics by Louis Lewandowski and Salomon Sulzer. All of it is Jewish music. My hope is that all of it remains Jewish music. We should not throw away our musical roots, we must use our musical tradition to nourish our souls and keep the history of our people alive.

When we once again gather together for the Days of Awe, may all of us be fully present in that worship, involved in the life of our own communities, in the spiritual tasks demanded of us, and in the sacred music of our people.
Cantor Kay Greenwald serves as the Director of Placement for the American Conference of Cantors. She was ordained by the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music in 1992. Kay is happily married to Lee, a physician, and is the proud mother of Bill, who is currently working on a PhD at UC San Diego.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Why is the Music Different During the High Holidays?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Close your eyes for a moment. Imagine that you are gathered with your congregation for High Holiday worship. It is Erev Yom Kippur - the holiest night of the year. Look around the space, at the people of your community gathered all together - those familiar to you and those you do not know.

# data[].attributes.body
"Treat others as you yourself wanted to be treated" Lev 19:18

# data[].attributes.body
Look up some new recipes for the holidays.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
shabbat foods food; eating rosh hashanah

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Rosh Hashanah Recipes - Rosh Hashanah Foods & Menu

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Traditional Rosh Hashanah recipes. Classic recipes as well as exotic ones.

# data[].attributes.body
Look up in the sky this night: it will be a big beautiful moon

# data[].attributes.body
Read a good book to keep you going.

# data[].attributes.body
Watch a movie about doing things over and over again until you get it right.

# data[].attributes.body
Renewal: One of my favorite pre-High Holiday songs

# data[].attributes.body
For our teens

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Big Life Journal: Growth Mindset for Kids & Teens

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
We create effective tools and resources to help kids and teens develop a growth mindset so they can face life's challenges with confidence and have every opportunity in life. Our products are based on the latest research, and that's what makes them so unique and effective.

# data[].attributes.body
“By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience which is bitterest.”
-Confucius

# data[].attributes.body
Be Brave

# data[].attributes.body
“Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action.”
-Peter Drucker

# data[].attributes.body
On this 20th anniversary of 9/11, may the blast of the shofar serve as a sharp reminder of each of the 2,973 lives that were taken that day. May the shofar’s sound echo like the sirens of the firefighters, police offices and first responders whose actions and sacrifice on 9/11 were extraordinary. May the shofar’s blast help us appreciate the fragility of life.

On this 20th anniversary of 9/11, may the blast of the shofar serve as an alarm to us. May its sound remind us of our missteps this past year -- our biases, our prejudices, our own actions that may have made this world a less peaceful and tolerant place. May the shofar call us to heed our best instincts and act with compassion and love.

On this 20th anniversary of 9/11, may the blast of the shofar serve as a sound of comfort to all. To those wounded who continue to recover; to those who lost loved ones and friends; and to all whose hearts were broken by witnessing the pain of others. May the sound of the shofar on the 12th day of Elul help us reflect on how our world has changed in the past decade and how it has remained the same. And let each of us individually and communally recommit ourselves to again make our world whole. As the year 5771 draws to a close we reflect upon the year that was and the year that will be - where we have been and where we hope to be when the Days of Awe arrive. During these days of Elul, we pray that we may begin to repair the things we may have broken during the past year. And we pray that through these acts of Teshuvah, our world will become a more tolerant, just, and peaceful place. May this be God’s will.
-Zoe Klein, Religious Action Center

# data[].attributes.body
"Self-reflection is necessary to dig beneath our own layers and visit the inner crevices of our heart and mind to develop an understanding of life.”

# data[].attributes.body
Shofar Notes: Looking Outward
Rabbi Rossoff sums up the three shofars sounds: “Tekiah – Hear the call of the community. Shevarim – Harken to the pain of the world. Teruah – move in a direction of meaning and knowledge.”

# data[].attributes.body
“Reflective thinking turns experience into insight.”
John C. Maxwell

# data[].attributes.body
Listen to the glorious Barbara Streisand sing Avinu Malkenu

# data[].attributes.body
Erev Rosh Hashana

# data[].attributes.body
Teshuvah:  Return, Renew