“I am to my beloved and my beloved is to me”
The month before the Jewish high holidays in Hebrew is called Elul and it is an acronym for “ani v’dodi v’dodi li” which translates to “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine.” It is a reference to our relationship with God which is like a lover and her betrothed – precious to one another, seen by one another, loved by one another.
Rav Doniel Katz of the Elevation Project in Jerusalem, says that we can work on ourselves at any time of year. But there are certain times of the year when that work comes to us more easily because God is closer and more invested in our growth and change. Elul is that time of year. It’s the time of year where our desire to grow is matched by God’s willingness and desire to help us grow. It is fertile ground for internal change, particularly change that makes us more divine beings, closer to our truest and purest selves – our spiritual selves. It’s like a matching campaign in fundraising. You can raise money any time of year but when you have a sponsor who will double or triple anything you bring in, you can hit your goal much faster. So it is with the month of Elul.
Like planting the right crops in the right season, the seeds of personal growth that we plant during Elul are far more likely to take root and grow strong and healthy because God is doubling down to help us with any efforts we make to change. He is leaning in and loving us from up close. He wants our love and our good and knows that we can be at our best only when we have a wholesome and healthy relationship with ourselves.
So instead of beating ourselves up endlessly for our flaws and our foibles, instead of worrying about divine punishment or judgment, we lean into the love relationship and the knowledge that we and God want the same things right now. We want to be close to one another, we want to feel love from one another, and we want to feel whole and complete. And anything that gets in the way of that, anything that blocks our divine light or drags us down or leads us to negativity towards ourselves and/or others, is a place in ourselves that needs to be healed. And we have the ultimate partner for that this time of year.
We call this process Teshuvah, or return. Part and parcel of that process is to think about those who we may have harmed, spoken ill about, forgot to consider, were closed hearted towards, critical of or insensitive towards. And I got to thinking, what if the person who I am most guilty of hurting in all those ways is me?
And it hit me with full force what it means to love others as we love ourselves. The implication of the commandment is that we fundamentally like and are good to ourselves but don’t extend that same generosity of spirit to others. I would interpret that adage differently. I would say that we cannot love others any differently than we love ourselves.
If we do not like or value who we are at our core, there is no way we can love others in the healthiest way. We can fake a good game. We can use kindness and giving as a strategy. But like throwing good money after bad, if the driver of our actions is a wounded sense of self, our “giving’ can backfire. We can end up feeling resentful, frustrated, self-doubting, shamed, or drained, when our outside efforts don’t give us what we really need, which is to feel whole within ourselves. Of course we need other people. Of course we want and need real connection outside of ourselves. But our relationships with others will only be as healthy as our relationships with ourselves. And that is a wonderful place to start.
If you would benefit from having a partner in healing,
don’t hesitate to reach out.
Wishing you a month of divine inspiration and growth with love.
