In April, we went to Lowe’s and bought four different kinds of tomato plants, a mint plant, and a strawberry plant. Every day, we dutifully watered them and measured them, meticulously detailing their growth. I had never been a gardener before (am I one now? I’m still not sure), and engaging in this process became so satisfying. From the moment those first tomatoes were ripe (we only got one lone strawberry), there was such a sense of connectedness, a feeling of achievement, of purpose. The process worked!
Rabbi Kalonymous Kalman Shapira, a Hasidic rabbi from Poland (1889-1943) compared Judaism to planting and tending a rosebush. I don’t know if he was a gardener, but he taught that both of them require and involve lots of hard work and preparation, and both of them can be a spiritual path. The goal in the garden is to eventually produce a rose; all of the work of tending the garden is with the hopes of a budding rose. The goal of the system of mitzvot is to allow for the full flowering and revelation of our truest selves.
If we are practicing our Judaism with intentionality and purpose, Shapira teaches, we will learn to slowly bring out our best selves. Without ever looking for that self-revelation, or even being conscious that our tradition is working to profoundly affect our inner lives, Judaism is just yard-work. But without ever doing the yard-work, the rose will never bloom. If we don’t engage with the process, we’ll never see how we might flower.
This coming week, we enter Elul, the month where we – more than any other time of the year – are encouraged to get out into our gardens and begin pruning if we hope to see anything flower within us by the time we get to the high holidays. Now is the time to begin the work of reflecting on our year, now before we are sitting in shul on Rosh Hashanah. What weeds have grown in us over the past year, what needs pruning, what needs some extra water, what needs planting in ourselves, and what are we hoping to grow?
This coming week, as we begin the month of preparation, I hope we’ll each imagine what roses we hope to see, and what work will allow for their flowering.
