Elul: Be Sincere, Be Real, Be You - Rabbi Aryeh Leibowitz

elle is known for its russia tavos ani ladodi vidodi li for instance but there's another rashe tapos of elul which is extremely insightful for understanding the avodah of this month and that's he wants us to be sincere he wants us to be real with ourselves a lot of people think that during this time period you need to radically alter who you are you need to change who you are and it could be that in el that's not what hashem wants he doesn't want us to become someone else he wants us to be us but he wants us to really be us he wants us to be real with ourselves and he wants us to live up to all the aspirations that we know we can live up to you know one of the sources for blowing the show for a hundred times on rosh hashanah are the tears of the mother of sistra now if you remember sister was in battle with kali israel and his mother was sitting by the window waiting for him to come back from battle and when he wasn't coming back she began to cry and it's because of those tears we commemorate those tears by blowing the show for 100 times and it's so strange why would we want to commemorate the tears of the mother of a russia of our enemy and the answer perhaps is that it's true he was our enemy and perhaps she wasn't the greatest of people either but you know what the tears of a mother are always sincere and that those tears that ran down her face those were sincere tears sincere tears of a mother and that's what we're trying to connect to during this period on rosh hashanah we're trying to connect to sincerity that we should serve hashem wholeheartedly sincerely and with with sincerity and that's the avodah of elon so look at our avodah to look at how we're serving and to try to raise the degree that we're doing it seriously and with sincerity there's another interpretation of el this is not a russia tevos but it's the aramaic the word elul al-islam islamid so in the past by a suru is eretz kanan when the spies were going into the land and they needed to really analyze well to look into it look into the land so the targum says like the word el and that means that the word elo in aramaic might mean to analyze to look deeply how do you arrive at a service of god that comes from a sincere place which is the goal of elo it's through evil it's through pondering it's through his boneness it's through contemplation and really thinking about the way that i live my life are there areas where i could raise the degree of sincerity we do a lot of things we dive in we certainly pay lip service to saying but do we feel it is it real that's the question available and if we can raise our degree of sincerity that our service of hashem is a drop more sincere or drop more real and that will be a successful elo the prayer that we say twice a day in el isla david hashem ori vishi and one of the lines there perhaps the most famous line we say there's one thing i ask of god what is it oh savakish and this is my request why do we repeat that we already said hashem why do we repeat oh savakish and this is my request perhaps david is trying to clarify for himself am i really sincere when i say shifty base hashem it's so easy to say that but do i really feel it and dabra malik was going through the process and he's saying there's one thing i request yes this is my request he's repeating it because he's saying yes i really really believe this and that needs to be our voice during elbow during elo we need to clarify for ourselves that yes we want a life that's dedicated dedicated to service of god and oh savages yes that really is my request so hashem should help all of us during this period of islam that we should serve with our heart we should be real we should be sincere and we should be able to say like david shift that is my ultimate desire in life you