We are in the most challenging moment of history that most of us here have ever experienced. How can we be rooted and resilient like a grandmother oak? How can we withstand the strong and contrary winds? How can we root deeper, reach higher, and connect side by side with each each other? Some insights from trees, dreams, and Torah.

In Elul, they say the King is in the Field. Kind of like Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday.

We offer our teshuvah not out of obligation but because we love. It is because I love you that I want to be clean with you. It is because I love this world and the people in it that I want to make good on all the ways I have failed it and them. 

It seems I had to come to Ireland to be reintroduced to the prophet Elijah. For more than a week this summer, I have been on retreat at a Catholic hermitage in County Sligo run by a tiny community of Carmelite sisters and brothers. The Carmelites see the prophet Elijah as their spiritual inspiration and as the founder of their order. They call him Saint Elijah, and I happened to be there on Saint Elijah’s day. What is the kind of prophet we need now? Can we find that prophet? Can we be that prophet?

An essay for My Jewish Learning’s Recharge Blog.