There is a great Jewish tradition to dedicate the 29 days in the month of Elul to study and prepare for the coming high holy days. The time is supposed to challenge us to use each day as an opportunity for growth and discovery. On each of the 29 days of Elul, performer Craig Taubman posts a "jewel," or story, from some of today's most celebrated visionaries.
The theme of this year’s Jewels is the art of return. Beginning the night of August 26th, readers can reflect on their own moments of return with renowned actress and neuroscientist Mayim Bialik, Iranian-American comedian Maz Jobrani, Chairman and CEO of Spark Networks and JDate Greg Liberman, social activist and Rabbi of B'nai Jeshurun in New York City Roly Matalon, filmmaker and Islamic visionary M. Hasna Maznavi, and 24 other inspiring thinkers. New this year is the Jewels of Elul app, now available in the app store, which puts these moving Jewels right into readers’ hands.
The intro for this year’s Jewels of Elul is written by Rabbi David Wolpe, and included here as a taste of the Jewels to come:
Freud wrote of a repetition compulsion. He thought that we reenact scenes or situations in our lives in an attempt to get a better result. Of course, if we ourselves have not changed, then the outcome will not change. And so many of us go on making the same mistakes in new guises, wondering why things never seem to improve.
The essays in this wonderful booklet are about how to repeat the past differently, about how we ourselves can be different. Our souls need not be static. In the Torah, years after a bitter break, Jacob reencounters his brother Esau and it ends not in recrimination, but in reconciliation and in tears. It changed repetition into encounter.
What was your moment? Was there a time that you could revisit and relive as a lodestar for progress? When I am tempted to despair, I recall certain moments that remind me I am lucky to be alive – like the moment my daughter was born; and the revisiting of that moment when I see her, eloquent and insightful, writing in this very booklet.
God, the prayers tell us, renews creation every day. We too can be renewed each day. Reach into your past to change your future. These wise meditations will help point the way.
David Wolpe is the Senior Rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, CA
The theme of this year’s Jewels is the art of return. Beginning the night of August 26th, readers can reflect on their own moments of return with renowned actress and neuroscientist Mayim Bialik, Iranian-American comedian Maz Jobrani, Chairman and CEO of Spark Networks and JDate Greg Liberman, social activist and Rabbi of B'nai Jeshurun in New York City Roly Matalon, filmmaker and Islamic visionary M. Hasna Maznavi, and 24 other inspiring thinkers. New this year is the Jewels of Elul app, now available in the app store, which puts these moving Jewels right into readers’ hands.
The intro for this year’s Jewels of Elul is written by Rabbi David Wolpe, and included here as a taste of the Jewels to come:
Freud wrote of a repetition compulsion. He thought that we reenact scenes or situations in our lives in an attempt to get a better result. Of course, if we ourselves have not changed, then the outcome will not change. And so many of us go on making the same mistakes in new guises, wondering why things never seem to improve.
The essays in this wonderful booklet are about how to repeat the past differently, about how we ourselves can be different. Our souls need not be static. In the Torah, years after a bitter break, Jacob reencounters his brother Esau and it ends not in recrimination, but in reconciliation and in tears. It changed repetition into encounter.
What was your moment? Was there a time that you could revisit and relive as a lodestar for progress? When I am tempted to despair, I recall certain moments that remind me I am lucky to be alive – like the moment my daughter was born; and the revisiting of that moment when I see her, eloquent and insightful, writing in this very booklet.
God, the prayers tell us, renews creation every day. We too can be renewed each day. Reach into your past to change your future. These wise meditations will help point the way.
David Wolpe is the Senior Rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, CA