Preparing for the High Holy Days

The High Holidays remind us that there is One who always cares, who responds to each of the beings in the world with hesed "loving kindness", the Holy One. The work during the month of Elul, leading up to Rosh Hashanah is to recapture a sense of being in relationship with God.

It is also to recapture a sense of self-worth based on being cherished by the Holy One. If we can achieve a sense of that relationship, then we can examine our inner selves unafraid of what we will discover. Free from that concern, we can really look at what we have done this past year -- where we have hurt others and ourselves, where we did not live up to our own expectations, or where we had too high expectation. Having gained clarity, we may be able to move on to change, to struggle with that which can be improved, to repair the relationships that we had damaged in the past year.