Ooh, a tough one this time, Rabbi Sommer. I feel like I am in a dialogue with you, even though I’ve never met you or even corresponded with you. I do hope you are reading these blog posts – I think you are. It’s funny how some of these little contributions just flow out of my fingers, and some just keep on getting erased again and again.
In search of inspiration, I asked Rabbi Google for a definition of awakening, and this is what s/he told me:
a·wak·en·ing/əˈwāk(ə)niNG/
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revival – arousal
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Ah. That gestalt moment when the vase suddenly becomes two faces, when we suddenly see or understand something we can never again unsee. Realisations hit us when we spend time on the accounting of the soul, and we can never again become unaware of them.
It can be pretty darned painful, but it is often a useful exercise, one way or another. The pursuit of mindfulness can have its costs, because ignorance or rather obliviousness sometimes can be bliss.
But in the end, it is better to know, to understand, to forgive, rather than to stuff things down into our unconscious and let them dictate our actions from the depths.
Awakening can mean looking reality in the eye, trying to understand the past and move forward to the future. Sometimes we would rather remain asleep, but Elul calls upon us to wake up to who we are and who we can be.
What will you awaken to today?