The ancient Greek philosopher, Socrates, once said: "The unexamined life is not worth living." In the twentieth century, Rabbi Irving Greenberg rewrote this Socratic saying as he imagined the Torah would have phrased it. He wrote: "To live the unexamined life is not really living." In Greenberg's version, life is not tossed aside when considered unworthy; rather, it is the living of it that is the focus. And the way to live is to act; to be reborn each year; to allow oneself to change and to grow - whether spiritually, intellectually, physically, or emotionally.

Over the last few months, the CKS Board of Directors and I have gathered together to embark on a training and visioning process that will help us to be stronger, more efficient leaders. While much of this training is geared toward organizational structure and function, an equal amount is about self-examination. Who are we as a community? What are our strengths and our weaknesses? How can we improve what we don't do well, and make even better what we are doing well?

This process that we are and will be engaged in at the community level is not unlike the process of teshuvah that we as individuals practice in preparation for the High Holidays - a kind of Jewish self-examination. As the month of Elul begins, and the Ten Days of Repentance, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, edge ever closer, it is good to remember what all the soul-searching and praying are about.

Teshuvah is not just about sitting in schul and mumbling prayers. Teshuvah is about action. The word itself, from the Hebrew meaning "to turn" or "to return" implies motion. Without motion, without action, we cannot improve ourselves or our community. We cannot re-imagine ourselves. We cannot be reborn. But how do we get there when we are already dashing from place to place? First, paradoxically, we must stop moving.

In Judaism, teshuvah is a very particular process following a very particular formula. According to Maimonides, the medieval rabbi, doctor, philosopher, and codifier of Jewish law and practice, first we regret our wrongdoing; then we actively reject it; finally, we move toward resolution - emerging (we hope) both changed and renewed.

To put it another way, teshuvah is like a chemical reaction. Each year, during Elul, we turn down the heat under the bubbling cauldron of life, we allow the temperature to drop, and we slow down as we turn inward to re-examine our lives, to reacquaint ourselves with our own souls. This inward-turning, this turning down of the heat, culminates on Yom Kippur when we ignore our physical needs altogether by abstaining from food, water, bathing, and sexual activity – and we come together as a community to pray. Then, slowly, the heat is turned up, and like newly vibrating, dancing, and colliding atomic particles, we form new bonds, new chains of molecules, within ourselves and with those around us.

It is the community interaction that gives teshuvah its heat. Teshuvah is the energy that was there all along, tied up in unproductive bonds, reorganized and restructured and ready to unlock the frozen inertia of the familiar and the routine. Teshuvah is the antidote to the numbness of apathy and inaction. Teshuvah is where action is conceived.

So, as the summer comes to a close and the temperature outside begins to drop, turn down the temperature inside yourself as well. Allow some time for the molecules to slow down. Allow some time for teshuvah, for re-imagining yourself and your community. Rediscover who you are and rediscover Congregation Kehilat Shalom. Then turn the heat back up. We need your talents. We need your feedback. We need your ideas. We need your energy.

I hope to see each and every one of you during High Holidays and in the coming year. Leshana tova tikateivu! Happy New Year and may we all be inscribed for life!

B'shalom uvracha,
Rabbi Susan