Elul Project 5781
חַדֵּשׁ יָמֵינוּ כְּקֶדֶם
Renew our days as in the past or renew our days as in the beginning.
This phrase, which is sung at the conclusion of every Torah service, originates from the 
Book of Lamentations recited on Tisha B’av. It expresses the hope that God will restore our days to resemble a time before the destruction of the Temple. The final word, kedem, not only evokes longing for a past time, but a primordial time, a beginning time, when the world was freshly born, creation. Furthermore, the root letters of kedem, kuf-dalet-mem, yield a number of additional meanings. Derived from kadim, which means east, kuf-dalet-mem also paradoxically points to the future and is used to convey forward motion. Kuf-dalet-mem connects a sense of progress and development not only to the past, but to a time that is essentially new.

We are living in a period of global mourning, uncertainty, transition, reflection, and hope. What have we been through, who are we now, and where are we going?

This Elul, what does it mean to move forward? What role does looking back, remembering, and restoring play in our personal and collective progress? And how might we be guided by the vision of a new world?
Today's Text: Day 14
Time Spirals and Other Insights into the Jewish Calendar
Huffpost article by Eitan Press


“According to the teachings of the Torah, history does not unfold along a time-line but a time-spiral.

For example, the High Holiday of Rosh Hashanah celebrates among many things — the anniversary of the creation of Humankind, of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden — and Torah teaches that on Rosh Hashanah a person should act like his or her best, actualized self, because the qualities of time that have returned on Rosh Hashanah empower a person to create his self and who he will be for the coming year.

Movement on a spiral implies growth: In traveling on a spiral, there is a circular motion revolving around a center, but it is also combined with a vertical movement. You don’t come back to the same place you started but a similar place farther along the spiral.”
Question(s) of the Day
How are you moving vertically?

Closer to the "center"? 

Consider one way you have grown this year. 
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