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and so here we are in the special month
of elul
and uh the times of the hebrew calendar
if you're open to it they are all
encompassing
it's not just like oh that's what's
happening in the calendar i'm just going
to go to work and do my thing no it
we're immersed in its holiness and we're
surfing its energy our relationship with
the calendar is really and really the
time itself
isn't a highway like in the west we've
talked about this before
it's not a you know a straight linear
line but it's a spiral staircase that
has both an origin and a destination and
uh but as we ascend it we cycle through
the fundamental energies that fueled the
great events in our history and in our
lives and we're able to tap into that
energy and draw it upwards and upwards
and upwards and so we have a tremendous
strength during these days to recreate
ourselves and in the opening verses of
the torah itself you know we learn about
the creation of the world and about the
creation of men and what does hashem say
says
let us make man now i know that there
was a lot of theological debates that
came from these words and it's very
loaded
um but uh but in the end of the day one
of the simplest and most straightforward
is that he's speaking to us
that he's telling us that the act of
creating who we are
is a joint project
between the two of us between us and
hashem let us make man hashem speaking
to us and saying let's
the two of us let's come together
together and you could become who you
are who you're meant to be who you're
destined to be and this month the month
of elul is the time built into creation
since the beginning of time itself
for that self-creation to happen and so
i was uh reading through parashat
shoftim
through elul eyes and you can really see
it staring you right in the first verse
right judges and officers you shall
appoint in all your gates
now as we know by now it's a big mistake
to you know limit the simultaneous uh
truths of of the torah meaning there's
there's there's different dimensions of
every word of every letter in the torah
their entire books about the crowns
above the letters and the meaning that
they have so while it's true that these
words
are a directive for how the nation is
supposed to establish our just society
uh you know ruled and governed by torah
law and enforced by judges and officers
really police officers who are entrusted
with that holy task right to judge and
to legislate and to enforce well all
that's true
our sages teach us that we can also
take that to the most personal level
that we should appoint judges and police
officers over our own gates right the
gates into our consciousness we should
appoint judges and officers now
in el during this time of return and
repentance because we need to be
extremely vigilant over what images we
allow our eyes to see
what words and what messages we allow
our ears to hear and what words we allow
our mouth to say
and uh you know and of course as you can
hear from both jeremy and myself in my
opinion it's a directive not only to
judge and police what comes from your
mouth but what goes into your mouth
because that too is a fundamental part
of repentance for so much of our you
know our physical health is determined
solely by what we eat and uh you know
much of much of what our sages teach us
rav cook talks about it the much of what
true repentance is it starts
in the physical world with our physical
bodies so we have to appoint judges and
police to guard our gates the gates to
our souls this highlight was taken from
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