On Elul

And spirituality in relationship

About eleven years ago, I was traveling in the UK after officiating the wedding of two friends I met while farming in Louisiana. The wedding was in Manchester, England, and, with another week before my flight home from London, I took the advice of the newly married couple and traveled to Conwy, Wales. I booked a bed in a hostel, gathered my backpack, and hopped on a two-hour train ride.

The Smallest House in Great Britain, a highlight of Conwy

After disembarking, I walked three miles—including a long stretch up a rather steep hill—and found the small hostel I'd booked. There was no staff, no food, and one other traveler: an older Scottish gentleman who told me he'd been staying there for months and had no plans to leave anytime soon. He was a painter, he told me, and full of melancholy (he told me this as well). He rarely left the hostel, though we were surrounded by lush, green hills full of sheep and remnants of Roman architecture.

He shared some dried ramen with me, and when we spoke, he told me of all his regrets. He hadn't been a good husband, he told me, and was now divorced, and he wished he'd been a better father (he had one adult daughter). I asked him about his painting and he showed me his website with some of his works—landscapes mostly, some close work of flower petals and trees, beautiful brush strokes, a gentleness in his craft—though he expressed regret about having painted at all. When I asked him what he wished he'd done with his time, he looked at me with a steely countenance and said emphatically, "Preach the Gospel, Daniel!"

I shared with him my regrets as well, though they felt rather small in contrast. I had not spoken my heart or mind at times when I thought I should have. I had been short with people because of my own insecurities. I'd let fears of rejection and failure lead me to act small and petty. I have difficulty remembering the specifics of my own regrets as—it strikes me now—these categories remain the regular arenas of my shortcomings.

I have this story on my mind, this story of an old Scottish painter telling me of his regrets and me telling him mine, because I am reflecting this Elul (the last month of the Hebrew calendar) on what it means to share such regrets, both as teller and as listener. There we were, strangers in a distant land communing with the only other human around and revealing to each other the ways we'd acted that haunted us—what we’d done that we felt had both wronged others and, importantly, wronged ourselves. Though it was not intentional, we engaged together in the practice of vidui/confession, and it was vital that we have each other there to listen. Remembering and reflecting on this experience, I find myself awed by the wonder of language as it passes between human beings; how it has the power to do more than help us communicate our own internalities to another, that it can craft connections among people that rise to life in the space between them and then settle within them somewhere deeper than language can articulate.

I believe there is a common understanding of spirituality that is primarily about a relationship between an individual and the divine. Indeed, my own understanding of spirituality fit within this framing for a long time. After all, each of us is born and dies in some profound way alone, and through confrontation with our mortality, through appreciation of the unique singleness of our one precious life, many of us find our initial access to a sense of meaning beyond the strange absurdity of life as an ape with a big brain and a somewhat straighter spine.

And yet, this path of spirituality is limited. It has too clear an end to its understandings (something like "I am me and I am part of the Oneness"), and so it fails to be continually renewing of wonder, to repeatedly remind us of the great mystery and enchantment at the core of existence that feels necessary to me to remain spiritually alive. What I've found instead is that I need others. I need relationship. I need to be reminded, again and again and again, that the Oneness exists in you. Maybe spirituality and a relationship with the divine can be born in the vertical alignment of an individual with something greater, but I believe it only thrives horizontally, in the space that exists between human beings at the deepest level.

The Taoist in me understands this space to be unspeakable, accessible only in approximation through gesture and language that is necessarily imprecise. The Jewish part of me yearns to draw closer and closer to what cannot be spoken, to always make the attempt even knowing the goal is unattainable. Why? because the sparks that fly off the churn of working to better my relationships may contribute to the reignition of the flame of heart so sorely lacking in the world right now.

I believe it is perhaps one of the greatest insights of Jewish wisdom that we undertake this time of reflection communally—that we begin our acts of repentance that take us through Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur by considering our relationships with others and making repair with others. It is not sufficient—not by some holy writ, but because emotionally, spiritually, it is not sufficient for us—to merely work on ourselves within ourselves.

This is my reflection for Elul. That while so much of the world grows uglier, with pain and destruction spreading seemingly everywhere, the allure of disengaging and isolating can be so powerful. And yet the wisdom of Elul is to say: you are not alone. Indeed, you are profoundly not alone. You are so not alone that to devalue your own life by claiming some absolute alone-ness is a disservice—more than a disservice, it is a terrible loss—to all the others around you, friends, families, and strangers alike. Even melancholy Scottish strangers who paint.

So, reader, as we ride the wave of Elul toward Rosh Hashanah and the new year, reflecting on the year past and how we wish to transform ourselves and this world for the better in the year to come, I want you to know that you are needed. I need you. Without you, in your entirety, in your wholeness, with that spark of life emanating from your every breath, the world becomes flat, boring, and unbearably lonely and regretful.

May your new year be sweet and joyful. May we strive to inscribe each other in the book of living.