Last Stop first Stop, Elul Station
Jews around the world have used the spirit of Elul to mark the season of connection – with God, with other humans, with the world. In a long life I’ve made many stops at Elul Station in temples and synagogues. Yet, amidst the spiritual feast of the High Holy Days, I always experienced surging, contentious feelings that filled me with insecurity and a sense of abandonment.
Strangely, I discovered that the clue to these feelings lay in the lighthearted Dreidel Song for which my father, Samuel E. Goldfarb wrote the melody in 1926. Although he managed to perform some of his fatherly duties, he had one foot out of the door to start a new family on the West Coast. “I have a Little Dreidel” was always a threat to me because of the built-in yearning and rejection it held. I would never be that child or adult who would enjoy that song in the presence of the composer.
The pieces of my life’s puzzle gradually came together to initiate a process of forgiveness: a bat kol of great wisdom; my life as a practicing psychologist; and a wonderful family.
During Elul, we hear a litany of sins of omission and commission. But there is another area in which the worshipper has failed to pay enough attention to the damage that was done to the self. If not, then how can the traces of darkness and pessimism be confronted and overcome? How can we free ourselves to right wrongs against others and the world? How can we forgive? Elul opens the curtain from where we explore insights that can be translated into action.
There is immense power of change behind that curtain that we can access in our own unique manner.
Dr. Myron A. Gordon is a 102-year-old father, husband, friend, psychologist, producer and all-around great guy. www.jewishamericansongster.com
