20 Elul 5784

Rabbi Aviva Kipen

Progressive Judaism Victoria

Dates of Joy and Dread
There are birthdays of dread for some: the Big 30, 40, 50 ……
Life sends its memorable markers: celebrations of safe birth, going to pre-school, beginning formal education, graduating to middle and senior schools and many more.
There are birthdays of joy. A 13th birthday celebrated in community for b’Mitzvah. An 18th, Chai.  A 1st birthday for a baby. The mid-decade and round-number birthdays have their own significance as career and age markers “to 120”. Some birthdays are dreaded. My Mum did not want to celebrate my 40th birthday because it would emphasise her own age, but I was thrilled to celebrate my 70th with the family.

Hayom harat olam the Birthday of the World: we reflect on the opportunity for rebirth each year, as we prepare for the cycle of humility, as we wonder how The Divine might measure us at the start of the new cycle for 5785. As we take time in Elul to make space for what will follow in Tishrei, anticipation provides a window into the individual and collective souls as they travel towards recognition of the wholeness of the Jewish People in its broad array of diversity and style. How small we feel as we reflect on the space we occupy individually in the face of our history and tradition.

Some birthdays are dreaded as are some jahrzeit anniversaries of loved ones. They remain painful and immediate, sometimes tragic, ever-present, no matter how long ago the bereavement.  I woke to my last birthday without realising its date would be tainted forever after. I shared my birthday with Sir Zelman Cowan z”l, late Governor General of Australia and a deeply committed member of TBI.  October 7th 2023. The impact of that day will mark our history and the history of the world, as events continue to play out. Our individual spiritual journeys cannot have been far from the collective journey of the Jewish People as we watched news, followed feeds, gathered with others, responded to prejudice and grappled with events from our various standpoints and positions.

Why is this Elul different from every other Elul? Because we wonder how our individual Jewish experiences and identities will be in the future, because what we do now may have a direct and unprecedented bearing on the Jewish whole klal Yisrael in the years ahead. Elul. We have reason to tremble.