Jews Talk Racial Justice - Ep 49: Elul, the Shofar, and Awakeness

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QUICK EPISODE OVERVIEW

In this week’s episode, we reflect on the meaning of Elul, the month in the Jewish calendar that leads up to Rosh Hashanah and the high holidays. This time of anticipation calls us to prepare ourselves spiritually for the new year. We talk about the symbolic meanings of the holiday and how the ritual of hearing the shofar can be a powerful call to being “awake.” 

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Access the audio version of this episode here.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  1. April and Tracie spend the episode discussing Elul. What do you know about Elul? What, if any, traditions and rituals do you have for the month of Elul? 

  2. Tracie and April reflect on the Kabbalistic teaching about Elul being an acronym for “Ani l'dodi v'dodi li/I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine” and the idea of intimacy with the divine. What does intimacy with the Divine mean for you? What does it look like? 

  3. April notes that hearing the shofar is a type of pattern interruption that reverberates within us. What do you feel when you hear the sound of a shofar? What memories or thoughts arise in connection with it? 

  4. Tracie connects the daily sound of the shofar to a wake up call, and a daily reminder for us to do the work of fighting oppression. What are the injustices that you have become more attuned and “awoken” to over the course of the last year? 

  5. April describes “awake” and “matrix” versions of herself. Do you have a similar view of how you operate in society? What are the daily acts of injustice and oppression that serve as their own kind of shofar for you? 

  6. Tracie also reflects on what the sound of the shofar means to her, connecting it to echayeh HaMetim, and enlivening the dead. Having listened to their discussion, do you have your own thoughts on what the sound of the shofar symbolizes to you? 

INSIGHTS FROM THIS EPISODE

“This Elul, what does it look like for you to be in intimate relationship with yourself and the Divine?”
— April N. Baskin
“There’s something that feels really alive in this idea of the month of Elul - the daily shofar blasts, the attempt to really get right with ourselves and with each other and with God - and how that reflects or is a microcosm of the work that we all have to do in fighting oppression, whether it’s individual, interpersonal, institutional, or ideological.”
— Tracie Guy-Decker

COMMENTS OR QUESTIONS?

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