Tomorrow is my kids’ first day of school for this year. That is the main reason my day of Elul is practically coinciding with my day of September – I need to finish this blog post and go to bed, my alarm will go off at 6:30 for the first time in two months.

There was much running around and packing and organising, and people who couldn’t get to sleep from excitement and a whole summer of going to bed late. There is a newly minted Grade 5 student who is nervous about getting her own locker, a big brave Grade 8 student who has this junior high thing figured out, and an unbelievable Grade 11 student who is suddenly thinking about university and life after the school in which he began kindergarten just the other day.

I am very blessed to have three versions of my heart out walking around outside my body, to quote the writer Elizabeth Stone. Before they came into my life I thought I knew what love was. I had parents and siblings and lovers, and I loved them all. But they did not cause my heart to go walking around outside my body.

During the High Holy Days, we imagine G-d as the King of Kings, a stern but fair judge. But let us not forget that HaShem is also our parent, and that the feminine aspect of G-d, the Shechinah, is our Holy Mother. We are Her heart walking around the world. In the face of such love, how can we be afraid?