What Elul taught me about preparing for a new year when you are still trying to understand the old one

Elul has arrived, which means Jewish women everywhere are engaged in one of our most ancient spiritual practices: making a list.

What did I get wrong this year? Who do I need to apologize to? What needs changing? What do I want from the year ahead? Why am I still doing that thing I solemnly promised last Rosh Hashanah I would stop doing? And how is it Elul again when I have not emotionally finished with Pesach?

The shofar starts sounding. Rosh Hashanah appears on the horizon. Yom Kippur begins looming behind it like the annual performance review no one remembers scheduling.

But lately, I have been wondering whether we have made “preparation” far too synonymous with “improvement”.

What if Elul is not simply asking, What do I need to change?

What if it is asking four separate questions?

What needs changing? What needs repairing? What needs accommodating? And, perhaps hardest of all, what needs accepting?

Those are not the same thing.

One of the traditional ideas associated with Elul is cheshbon hanefesh, an accounting of the soul. Take inventory. Look honestly at what is there, not at what you wish were there, not at what your neighbor has, and certainly not at what Facebook claims everybody else has.

What is actually in the warehouse?

I have considerable experience with inventory. I was born in Pretoria, then lived in Israel, Edinburgh, Johannesburg, Cape Town, and eventually back in Israel. I have moved 52 times.

Some people have a childhood home.

I have an Excel spreadsheet.

Moving that often teaches you how to reinvent yourself. New house, new school, new people, new rules. Walk into the room, work out who everyone is, and adapt. Become whatever version of yourself functions best there.

It is a fantastic survival skill until you become so good at adapting that you are no longer entirely sure which parts are adaptation and which parts are you.

That strikes me as a particularly Elul-type problem.

After we moved back from Edinburgh to Johannesburg, one of my teachers called my parents in because she was concerned. Their daughter, she explained, had a speech defect.

My parents listened politely before informing her that their daughter did not have a speech defect.

She had a Scottish accent.

Something was different.

Those are not synonyms, although it has taken me approximately half a century to appreciate how much damage can be done by confusing the two.

Because cheshbon hanefesh cannot work if the books are cooked before you begin.

Before I ask, “What should I change?”, I have to ask, “What is actually true?”

That means confronting not only the flattering lies we tell ourselves, but the cruel ones too.

I’m stupid. I’m lazy. I’m too much. I’m too sensitive. Everybody else can cope with this, so why can’t I?

For years, I looked extremely capable. At school, I was a prefect and a drum majorette—confident, articulate, and comfortable leading. I could organize things. I could perform. I could stand in front of people without dying, which apparently qualifies one for several........

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