With the month of Elul comes reflection — both reflection back on the year that has been and reflecting inwards. Looking inwards, how are we? Not the cursory question where someone asks “How are you?” and you reflexively respond, “Fine.” But the real question — asked by someone who deeply cares.

How are you? 

Perhaps it is okay to admit when we are not fine. Even if we cannot admit it to others, we must at least admit it to ourselves. Elul gives us the opportunity, if we are ready, to do a deep dive into our body, mind, and soul to reflect on who we are, how we are, and where we are in our life’s journey. 

Earlier this year, I heard a speaker who talked about relationships in the framework of three stages — connection, disconnection, and repair. Though she was speaking about our relationships with others, these ideas can also be applied to our relationship to ourselves, our relationship to our soul, and our relationship to our Jewishness.

Acknowledging that we are disconnected from our soul can be hard, but without analyzing this most essential relationship, how can we start on the journey of repair back to a state of connection?

At the beginning of this year, I was disconnected from my neshemah — from my soul. Looking back, I could blame many outside factors. I was having health challenges. I had a lot of extra sources of stress. I had broken relationships with people who were important to me. But like Christmas in Love Actually, on Elul we tell the truth. While all of the external factors existed, I am ultimately responsible for this state of disconnection.

Admitting this is difficult. In looking back, I have entrusted my Jewish soul to institutions. I grew up at Workman’s (now Worker’s) Circle. I learned prayer through Tamarack Camps. I developed my Jewish identity through BBYO. I joined Jewish organizations and synagogues. I was a vessel, and I expected outside entities to pour Jewish knowledge, wisdom, and insight into me. I was the proverbial bucket waiting, eager to be filled.

Perhaps being a bucket works when you are a child, but eventually, this creates problems. This piece of knowledge conflicts with this other piece of knowledge. This teacher’s wisdom conflicts with that teacher’s wisdom. Our very name, Israel, means to struggle with God. And I began to struggle more frequently as I found my teachers, my institutions, and my adopted Jewish homes not just in conflict with each other, but more frequently in conflict with my understanding of the world around me and the values by which I lived my life. Because I internalized these conflicts like unrepaired cracks, everything poured into me left me feeling empty. 

In certain circumstances, conflict is an excellent tool for learning and growth. But for me, I had externalized my very Jewish identity, and it was time to reclaim it. So, how to repair the disconnection? How to reconnect with my Jewish soul? 

I had a teacher in law school who used to draw his students these crazy pictures. He would explain how, in his view, the First Amendment was the grass, and the 14th Amendment was the trees, and the penumbra of rights covered over everything like the sky. If this doesn’t make sense to you, don’t worry. It didn’t make sense to most of us either. But in his genius, he would excitedly explain these amazing thoughts that helped him conceptualize very complex ideas. And then at the end, he would always say, “If this helps you … wonderful. If not, just throw it out.” 

In externalizing my Jewish soul and becoming a bucket to be filled, I had forgotten that the point of Judaism is not blind acceptance or allegiance. The point of Judaism is to give us a guidebook through this life. It is to help us find purpose and meaning. It is to help us form a community. It should nourish our souls. And like that professor taught me, when we learn of teachings or wisdom or knowledge, if it helps us … wonderful. But if it does not help us, we don’t have to internalize it. While maybe I wouldn’t throw it away, just as I didn’t throw away that professor's drawings (likely filed away somewhere in a Rubbermaid in my basement), it is okay to hear them and say, “Maybe this would be helpful to someone else, but it is not helpful to me.”

I am working to repair my Jewish soul. No longer the bucket, I am starting to view the relationship with myself and the Jewish world around me as a patchwork quilt. I have spent these long months of brokenness and disconnection seeking out new views on knowledge and wisdom. Long hours of text study on Shavuot. Coffee and conversations — some with large groups and some one-on-one. Attending services at different shuls when I travelled around the country. Torah studies with different denominations. So many podcasts!  

And with each, I have grown better at not expecting any experience to be the perfect fit. I have grown okay with the discomfort. I learned to view each experience as a gift, a piece of fabric. Some fabric, I incorporated wholly into this new patchwork quilt making up my soul. Some fabric, I altered — keeping the parts with meaning and excising the rest. And some fabrics were gifts I chose not to accept, though I mostly had gratitude for those who tried to give them to me.

And so, we return to my opening question: 

Who is responsible for my Jewish soul? 

Before I may have outsourced these answers and assigned responsibility to the teachers, the rabbis, the institutions, the communities that shaped me. But Elul requires a more honest answer: 

The responsibility for my Jewish soul rests with me.

I am responsible for noticing when I feel disconnected. I am responsible for doing the hard work of repair. 

I am responsible for choosing which pieces of fabric I will stitch into the quilt of my soul and which I will set aside. 

I am responsible for allowing Judaism to lift me in comfort rather than weigh me down in contradictions.

Elul is not about perfection; it is about honesty and repair. I cannot control all the forces around me, but I can claim responsibility for the relationship I have with my own neshemah. With every piece of fabric I sew, I feel more whole. With every act of reflection and repair, I return closer to connection.

This year, as we approach the High Holidays, I do so with the reminder that my Jewish soul is not something to be entrusted to others, but something I must keep with intention, gratitude, and love. 

The work is never finished. Perhaps, rather than a burden, that is the gift — a lifetime to continue working on this patchwork quilt.