Hear Our Voice

To listen to Rabbi Scott's blog, please click HERE. 

Today is the 11th of Elul and if you’re one to follow the spiritual calendar of the Jewish people, Elul is the month when we ask for (or are presented with) the “Proverbial” check. 

I would suggest that there are two kinds of restaurant “goers.” Well, actually 3. One is the person with the privilege of generally not having to look at the check.  One is the person who receives the check, doesn’t look it over, adds a 25% tip and signs. (another kind of privilege.) The third one is the one who very meticulously reviews the check to ensure that all is correct, and accounted for, that there are no extraneous charges, and if something has been returned, that it is not any longer included in the calculation. In Hebrew, the word for the check is “Cheshbon.” So if you were in Israel and you were asking the server for the check, you would say, “Cheshbon b’vakashah.” “Check please.”

Elul is the month when we are to prepare to receive “the check,” whether we asked for it or not. Elul is the month for drawing nearer to God, nearer to our tradition, nearer to the awakening of Rosh Hashanah, one of whose names is Yom Teruah (the day of loud blasts).  Its as if the ethereal “waiter in the sky” approaches our table from afar, slowly, but surely, He watching us, we watching Him, as the days of Elul tick on.  And then, as Rosh Hashanah arrives, we are “served.” Handed to us is OUR PERSONAL Cheshbon Hanefesh, a check for our soul.

And there we are, on Rosh Hashanah, check in hand, with a list of what we have consumed over the past year: how much credit have we drawn upon and how much did we reinvest? How much stability have we weakened, and how much have we shored up?  How much optimism have we squandered and how much hope have we reinstilled? 

Our Cheshbon Hanefesh is a powerful image for each of us to serve to ourselves.  It’s a framework for recognizing that none of us is perfect, and that as a result, every one of us is presented the obligation to try harder to be better. To express more care and concern; to seek to understand before judgment; to look harder for the humanness before us. All of the rituals, traditions, texts, sermons, music, and silence in our High Holy Days aim towards these objectives – such that we when we review our Cheshbon Hanefesh, we can honestly see ourselves, rejecting the privilege that might otherwise make it possible for us to ignore it altogether.