Pearls of Elul 5786 - Day Twenty-Seven

September 8 | 26 Elul

Did You Hope for Redemption?

Talmudic question: צפית לישועה - Tzipita l'yeshuah

Of all the Talmud's questions, this one may be the most surprising: Did you hope for redemption? The High Holy Days are filled with this same tension between acknowledging how broken the world can be and refusing to give up on the possibility of repair. On Rosh Hashanah we imagine a world in which all creation is gathered before God; on Yom Kippur we ask for forgiveness and the possibility of beginning again. We confess our failures precisely because we believe that change is possible. Teshuvah itself is an act of hope. To turn around means believing that the road ahead does not have to look exactly like the road behind us.

To hope for teshuva is not necessarily to believe that everything will magically work out. It is to refuse to believe that the present moment is the final word.

The questions for Elul are:

What am I still hoping can be repaired?

And perhaps:

Where in my life have I stopped imagining that change is possible?