One of our sons teaches high school in Chicago. Last year I met the mother of one his students. She told me that her son loves having my son as his Rebbe, Judaics teacher and said that he is the goat.
Now apparently I am not good at masking my emotions. I have been told more than once not to play poker. So it seems my face must have betrayed my horror that this mom thought it was fine for her son to call his teacher a goat. I must have looked somewhat aghast as she added insult to injury by repeating his comments.
She then asked me if I knew what goat meant.
I replied that perhaps I might be missing some important information.
It turns out that GOAT is a well know (who knew) acronym for
Greatest Of All Time.
That was a learning moment for me.
First of all I realized that I was very quick to judge in this instance. And secondly, I realized that I should’ve communicated my confusion as opposed to jumping to my own conclusions, not giving the Mom, and her son the benefit of the doubt.
As we traverse the month of Elul there are many lessons we can learn to make this time more meaningful.
The word Elul is in itself an acronym. The Hebrew letters Alef, Lamed, Vav,Lamed
are an acronym for Ani LDodi VDodi Li which means I am for my beloved as my beloved is for me.
During these weeks leading up to Rosh Hashana it is a commentary on the relationship we are trying to build with Gd. We are trying to create connection and meaning.
How are we to accomplish that connection?
Another acronym which can be derived from the Hebrew letters which comprise the word Elul is Ish Lrayahu VMatanot Levyonim.
This is a snippet of a verse in the scroll of Esther which we read on Purim. The verse tells us to celebrate the day with connection to one another and by giving charity to the poor.
So it seems that Elul is the month of connection and one of the ways to connect to Gd is by taking care of Gd’s children. This is achieved by getting along with one another, being charitable to each other either literally with financial support or with emotional support by speaking kindly and giving the benefit of the doubt.
The Torah portions in the weeks leading up to Rosh Hashana all have messages that are timely.
Our portion is called Shoftim, which means Judges. Moses teaches the Jewish people that when they arrive in the Land of Israel, it will be incumbent upon them to seat judges and create a police force.
Law and Order.
But the verse is written in the singular, it seems to say that each of us needs to create a judge and police for ourselves internally. Not only do we need to study and identify proper behavior, we need to actually act on these ideas to bring them to fruition. The internal work is driven by our behavior.
We can achieve this improved behavior with what Sarah Lehrfield (our daughter) calls small incremental moments. We create closeness by turning to one another with empathy, doing small acts of loving service, passing a loving glance or note or whispered encouragement within the minutiae of our day.
In our Parsha, there are laws regarding the behavior of the judges. It is prohibited for a judge to accept a bribe, because it will obviously sway the judge to rule in favor of the one who bribed him.
Rabbanit Yemima Mizrachi shared that there is one exception to this rule.
In Elul, Gd accepts our bribes with joy.
Every little action we take, whether it be a small kindness, a loving deed, a slight turn to making things better, giving the benefit of the doubt, all this is “bribery” that Gd will use to help out prayers be accepted during this days.
How joyous it is to learn that any small repair can totally change us and ultimately repair our world and repeal a negative judgement.
It makes me want to laugh out loud at how little it takes to make a difference.
Or perhaps I’ve learned a thing or two…LOL!
Shabbat Shalom and so much love!