Skip to main content

Dealing with What Is Broken

 

The Shofar Represents Our Dealing with What Is Broken

 

            Sins are called “breaking” (Radak on Psalms 17). Every time a person sins, he breaks something (Akeidas Yitzchak: Chapter 67, Parshat Shoftim). In particular, he breaks his relationship with God.

            Elul is the time for us to repair or replace the things in our lives that have broken away from God. That is why, during Elul, God gave Moses the second set of Tablets to replace the broken first set. And, the Shelah says, that is why there are a great number of laws discussing whether or not a person can use a shofar that is in some way broken. During Elul, we must deal with the matters in our lives that are broken.

By: Rabbi Simcha Weinberg, n''y

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

TAKING IT WITH YOU-MISHPATIM-ALEINU

Our sages teach us, “On the Red Sea, God appeared to them like a young boy, while at Sinai, He appeared like an old man.” At first thought, this is extremely difficult to understand, since it is written, “You have not seen   any image (To see Deuteronomy 4:15).” We can explain this with an example. When a parent loves his child, this great love causes the child’s image to be engraved on the parent’s mind. It is therefore as if the child were actually standing in the presence of the parent. When the child is young, he exists in his parent’s mind in the image of a small child. Later, when he grows, the image in the parent’s thoughts is that of an older person.   It is known that, “Israel rose first in thought.” This means that they are constantly engraved in the Supernal Thought, just as a child is in its parent’s mind. When a child acts properly and does what its parent wishes, this is the image that is engraved in its parent’s thoughts. The same is true when the child goes aga...

Who clothes the naked

"Certainly those determining acts of her life were not ideally beautiful. They were the mixed result of a young and noble impulse struggling amidst the conditions of an imperfect social state, in which great feelings will often take the aspect of error, and great faith the aspect of illusion. For there is no creature whose inward being is so strong that it is not greatly determined by what lies outside it." "But we insignificant people with our daily words and acts are preparing the lives of many Dorotheas." "Her finely-touched spirit had still its fine issues, though they were not widely visible. Her full nature like that river of which Cyrus broke the strength, spent itself in channels which had no great name on the earth. But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to t...

Creation

 All was destroyed during the month of Av. Creation began on Elul, and, so it will again. We recite this prayer for the New Month focusing on Creation. “God created the world in order to do good to an other (Derech Hashem 1:2:1).” Creation was an expression of absolute love, the “other” had done nothing to earn it. This is why Elul, the month of Creation is also the month of intense love between God and Israel. I recite this prayer imaging myself participating in the final Heavenly planning meetings before Creation. I am not praying as one who has already existed and experienced success and failure, but as one who has the opportunity to see the world before Creation, and request in this moment of intense love all that I could possibly need and want. I use this prayer to prepare for all my Elul prayers until the 25th of the month when Creation began. For what shall I ask? What will I need to succeed? How will I define success? What do I hope to achieve? Rabbi Simcha Weinberg