ELUL PRAYING FOR FORGIVENESS FROM THE MORE THAN HUMAN WORLD
Elul is the traditional month for repentance in our Hebrew calendar. Elul is the month preceding the month of Tishrei with the High Holidays and then Sukkot and the start of the rainy season. I believe that Sukkot and the promise of the return of rain is really the point of this whole repentance cycle. This is the compelling teacher of R. Zelig Golden, a founder of Wilderness Torah. It’s very different than what we’ve learned about Yom Kippur being the day of judgment where God decides who shall live and who shall die.
We are taught that if we are in right relation to the divine, we will get rain in season. But if we are not we will suffer drought and our crops will wither and our animals starve. We recite this every day in the paragraphs from Deuteronomy after we say the Sh’ma. Water is life. So we’d better get right with the divine
(13) If, then, you obey the commandments that I enjoin upon you this day, loving the LORD your God and serving Him with all your heart and soul, (14) I will grant the rain for your land in season, the early rain and the late. You shall gather in your new grain and wine and oil— (15) I will also provide grass in the fields for your cattle—and thus you shall eat your fill. (16) Take care not to be lured away to serve other gods and bow to them. (17) For the LORD’s anger will flare up against you, and He will shut up the skies so that there will be no rain and the ground will not yield its produce; and you will soon perish from the good land that the LORD is assigning to you.
I make an adjustment in my morning practice during the month of Elul. One of the morning blessings that we recite every day if we have this practice is a blessing for community. This is the beginning of the Mah Tovu prayer, taking the words of Balaam, the non Israelite prophet who praised the community of Israel (Numbers 24:5). The traditional translation is something like “How goodly are your tents o Jacob, your dwelling places O Israel” although “dwelling places” is the same word the sacred tabernacle that houses the divine.
I wrote a prayer to extend our desire for repentance and atonement to the more than human world. We are usually taught that repentance only extends to the human world, but we are embedded in the web of life, and we have much to repent for in how we have treated our fellow beings—the trees, the waters, the insects, the birds, the four leggeds.
I would encourage you to write your own prayers of repentance towards the more than human world. I’ve included my own just to give you some idea of what might be possible. I’ve deliberately incorporated some of the words we use to ask forgiveness during the High Holidays. Here’s the prayer
S’lach li v S’lach lanu, forgive me, forgive us, for Chatanu, for we have sinned. Kaper li, Kaper lanu, grant me atonement, grant us atonement, for all that we have done wrong to you.
I stand here before you, all of us creatures in a beautiful world. I am one of you. I have a different body and different abilities. I cannot grow as tall as the trees over my head, I cannot fly through the sky like the birds in front of me, I cannot chew acorns like the squirrels who live in these woods. Unfortunately for all of us, I have the power to disrupt this beautiful system, the ability to wreck the dynamic balance that is your birthright. S’lach li v S’lach lanu, forgive me, forgive us, for Chatanu, for we have sinned.
Our ability to disrupt the whole is a uniquely human power that has been routinely abused. You all have been the victims of it. I stand here to apologize and to bear witness to the grief of all that my kind has destroyed. I cannot promise to do better, and in truth, I have no idea how to heal suburban land. So all I can do is weep with you and bear witness. Kaper li, Kaper lanu, grant me atonement, grant us atonement, for all that we have done wrong to you.
Make it stand out
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.