Excerpt from
60 DAYS: A Spiritual Guide to the High Holidays

 “During Elul ‘the king is in the field’ and everyone who so desires is permitted to meet him, and he receives them all with a cheerful countenance and shows a smiling face to them all”
– Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi [1]

ELUL 8
TAKING INITIATIVE

All year round there are many layers that shroud your own essence from yourself; there is a split between your inner self and your outer self—who you truly are and what you do, your spirit and your activities. In Elul many of these layers are stripped. You can access, if you wish, your true self, since it is part of the higher reality and the essence of all of existence called G-d. 

In Elul, “the King is in the field,” writes the Alter Rebbe. He uses the analogy of a king who is returning home from his travels as a way of explaining the phenomenon of Elul.

 The king had been traveling; he had left his palace and gone to a far off land outside his kingdom.  And now he is on his way home.  He is about to enter his palace and he stands outside in the field greeting his people.  Then he goes back into the palace and again mounts his throne. 

When the king is in the field, every person has the opportunity, without petitioning for an audience, to go over to him, say hello and ask for whatever he or she needs.  The king is smiling, he is happy to be home, he is in his informal mode, and he is predisposed to grant all requests. 

That’s Elul.  On Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, the King is back in his palace on his throne.  

Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur are holidays.  Elul is amid workdays.  We are in the field, we are still living our normal lives. Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur have a very powerful energy, because on those days we petition the King in his inner sanctum.  But in Elul, we petition the King on our turf.

It is a profound message of hope that we don’t have to wait for on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur to find G-d. We can go out to meet Him now. 

Ask yourself:  If you could literally go out to meet G-d in the field, how would you approach Him, what would you ask Him? 

It takes initiative to go out to meet G-d, even when He is "in the field," close and available.  It takes initiative to extend yourself and it takes love. 

G-d gave us the power to love each other—the power to unite the Divine image which was split at the time of creation of the world into male and female—because He wanted us to learn through that how to love Him.  

We learn how to love through our interactions with one another, and we also, sadly, learn how not to love. We hurt each other sometimes. But in the healthiest sense, when we learn to love another person, it’s the first step towards learning how to love G-d as well.  

After the hurt and loss—which we remember in the month of Av—love must begin on our initiative. We have to show—down here below—that we are ready for G-d’s love to shine on us from above. 

Elul is the time in the Jewish calendar when we take the first step.  One of the acronyms of Elul is: Ani l’dodi v’dodi li, meaning “I am for my beloved, and my beloved is for me.” (“Song of Songs” 6:3) 

In Elul “I” initiate and “my beloved” responds in kind. [2]  

The Torah teaches that it is guaranteed—G-d will respond.  That doesn’t always mean that the results will be what we want. But something will happen, because there’s nothing more powerful than taking initiative. 

When the Jews reached the Red Sea and were despairing, one man named Nachshon took the risk and walked into the water. The water reached his nose and then the sea parted. When you take initiative, the seas part.  

Ask yourself: How often do you take the initiative in your life?  How often do you take the initiative in your relationship with your beloved? And with G-d?   

Exercise for the day: 

~ Find a new way today to express your love to your beloved.
~ Don’t wait—initiate something beautiful.

Quote:

“Open up for me the eye of a needle and I will open for you the most expansive corridors of the Great Hall.” [3] G-d asks of us only one thing: “I don’t ask you to change your entire life; I ask only that you open up for me the eye of a needle. Dedicate to Me, one moment, one space, one corner of your life. But this moment, this space, this corner should be only for Me…”

Laws and Customs

Some synagogues have the custom to announce on each day of Elul: Shuvu Bonim Shovivim [4] “Return my children, return,” echoing the daily heavenly call that summons everyone to teshuvah. [5] Though our ears may not hear the call, our souls do hear it.[6] It behooves us to cup our ears, absorb the call and act on it.

Facts

The month of Elul, whose astral sign is betulah (Virgo) is the month of the bride, a month in which the love between the Divine groom and His bride Israel is at its height. “I am for me beloved and my beloved is for me.” Elul is a time when the initiative comes from our side of the relationship, and the Divine response to our love is one that relates to us as finite material beings and embraces our natural self and personality. We, the “bride” purify and refine ourselves in preparation for the “wedding” with the Divine that occurs on Rosh Hashana and particularly on Yom Kippur.[7] This is also symbolized by the yud (the letter of this month), the purest and simplest of letters, and also the origin of all letters. Yud is also the first letter in the essential four-letter Name of G-d.

[1] Likkutei Torah Re’eh 32a.

[2] The transmutation of the Divine name associated with Elul is also in this order: Heh, Heh, Vav, Yud. First comes the feminine dimension (the two heh’s, binah and malchut) – the initiative from below, “I am to my beloved,” arousing the Divine response from above (vav yud, z’a and chochma), “my beloved is to me.”

[3] Midrash, Shir Hashirim Rabba 5:2. Zohar III 95a. Pesikta Rabsi ch. 15. Pesikta D’Rav Kahana Parshat HaChodesh.

[4] Birchei Yosef 581:6.

[5] Chagigah 15a.

[6] See Likkutei Torah Teitzei 36d. 71d.

[7] Sefer HaSichot 5750, vol 2, pp. 631-633.