Every year, Jews from across the spectrum approach the Rosh Hashanah season with anticipation. Families gather, tables are set and, as the year draws to an end, I begin to contemplate where I’ve wandered throughout the year. I think about the happenings that have brought me to this point.
As a younger man studying in yeshivah, this time of year used to be when I would look at myself and critically assess the areas in which I was lacking, beat myself up and regret the path that I had landed on. In essence, it used to comprise pain and anguish, which often led to shame and a deep sense that I would never be good enough. But, honestly, processing things in this way never led me to anything lasting or good. It never brought me to a place that felt different than I was before; the desired change never occurred.
So, then I wondered: Why Elul? Why Rosh Hashanah? What does the New Year provide? There are answers to these questions, and they range from the mundane to the celestial. Families have been involving themselves in the various traditions for centuries, and we are a stubborn people; tradition tends to stick. It is a time of new beginnings: summer turns to fall, the school year begins, children bring home their new learnings, and new friends are made.
As I have pondered these questions further, I have begun to realize something that has deeply changed my view of this period: in the Jewish structure of life, these weeks give me moments of reflection and connection back to the most real parts of myself. It is not a time to be better or to advance, but rather a time to stop and allow every part of me, including the aspects that don’t feel good enough, to be one. It is a return to that state of perfection, not in the sense that I am perfect, but the wholeness that a baby experiences, without the judgment, without the critical eye.
As someone who works in the mental health field and witnesses, both personally and professionally, the profound struggle to come to terms with the thoughts, feelings and values contained within us, I find this time of year particularly moving. I sit with my hurt, my perceived ugliness, the elements of me that feel unwhole and unwelcome. I use the space to be who I am, without walls, without judgment. All I can do is to be, as I am. There is nothing more whole than being. To find this in my relationship with G-d, built into the very fabric of existence, is a perfection that I lack the words to describe.
Perhaps most essentially, this is the time of year to look in the mirror, not to regret or to repent in the sense that I am broken or need repair, but to anchor myself in the one reality that matters: I am a reflection of Him, a creation in His image. There is nothing that can ever be wrong with that.
Elul is a check-in with reality. It is an opportunity for me to say: I am enough. No matter what happens, I bring me wherever I go, and that is perfectly acceptable. My failings, my perceived shortcomings, they do not define me, but they are a welcome piece of the puzzle that makes me who I am. And so, I think I might finally get it. Elul is a wonderful month. It is a month of acceptance, of giving myself the space to be who I am, exactly as He made me. That is Elul to me.
JJ Emanuel is a husband, father and registered psychotherapist in Thornhill, Ont., specializing in men’s mental health. He is the founding editor of In Session, a free monthly wellness publication that brings together Jewish voices on mental health, meaning and everyday living, which you can read at insessionjournal.substack.com. His website is emanueltherapy.com.