ROSH CHODESH ELUL - OF PARADISE LOST AND REGAINED

OF PARADISE LOST AND REGAINED

by Rabbi Baruch Melman

In the midst of the summer's bloom we don't think of its impending farewell. What has nourished and sustained us and made us feel alive will soon be taking leave. The balmy careless days of leisure will soon give way once more to the frenetic schedules and tiring obligations of the noisome world.How much we will miss these days. How much we will pine for them when they are gone.

But life implies change. Life implies passing. Everything must take leave at one point or another. Let us appreciate it in the moment. Let us experience it in the present time and preserve it in our precious memories.

As the month of Av becomes the month of Elul, the heaviness of our burdens become lighter as our sorrows are transformed into joys. Just as the Torah asks us to leave our parents and cleave to our spouses, so too we take leave of Av (father) and join together with Elul, whose letters comprise the acronym for Ani Ledodi Ve'dodi Li. "I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine."

Elul corresponds to Virgo in the Zodiac. Virgo represents a state of unspoiled purity- a consciousness of returning to the purity of The Garden before the fall of mankind. It is the month before Libra- the judging on the scales of righteousness for all creation. As Adam left G*d, his father, and sinned with the aid of his beshert, he needs to reconcile with her once more before the judgment for reconciliation to occur.

For us to reenter the Garden once more in a renewed sense of purity and wholeness and restore those endless days of paradise, we must know that we can't do it alone. We are all inextricably tied to each other. Judaism teaches that our redemption is a collective redemption, not a personal one. And as we ourselves grow, we help lift up the entire community.

And as all the people of Israel grope and lurch to that ultimate redemption we must know that it is a collective enterprise, not a solitary one. As lovers dance in the fields together so too will Israel one day dance with G*d. Then paradise will be renewed everlasting. Indeed, it was never truly lost.