As you may know, just the other day our family was blessed to welcome a brand new miracle into our lives - the birth of a baby boy. He’ll get his name at his bris next week; we’re looking forward to finding out what it is. Experiencing a birth is amazing and if you think about it, one of the most optimistic times in life. Whatever the doomsday studies about people’s negative outlooks on the future have to say, parents invariably have optimistic outlooks for their newborn child’s future. A newborn is all about possibility and opportunity; their whole life is ahead of them and they’ll grow to be adults who will make a difference and succeed. But our attitude towards our own life, or that of others who have already taken many steps down this road of life, is not as rosy. We view our life through the lens of our failings and challenges. We don’t always consider all the opportunity, instead we wistfully imagine what could have been. The timing of our son’s birth is informative. You see, this Shabbat is also Rosh Chodesh. And not of any month, but of the powerful month of Elul. It is the final month of the year, the one leading up to Rosh Hashanah. The famous parable of “The KIng in the Field” informs us of the remarkable energy contained in this month. It is the month in which Hashem is closer to us than throughout the rest of the year. The month of Elul, and the High Holidays, is not about feeling guilty. It’s not about judgement in the way you usually think about it. It’s all about possibility and opportunity. Just like a newborn. If you think about Hashem as some powerful being (with a long white beard) that’s looking harshly down on us and our folly, then yes - the High Holidays has the connotation of fear, guilt and judgement. But if we understand that Hashem is not just some being - albeit more powerful than us, but still limited. Rather we understand that Hashem is in fact our very essence; we are in truth one with Hashem. Then this time of closeness is all about our potential for greatness - no matter what we’ve done or where we’ve been until this point, we can choose to re-engage and immediately transform our life for the better.
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