The King is in the Field

Rosh Chodesh Elul.

המלך בשדה.
The King is in the field.

I’ve heard those words every Elul for as long as I can remember.

The King leaves the palace and comes out to the field. We don’t have to climb the mountain or make ourselves worthy enough to enter His gates. We just have to show up.

This year, they sound completely different.

Because this year, I am showing up to Elul in mourning.

I’m not arriving particularly inspired. I’m not arriving with a beautiful list of things I want to change before Rosh Hashanah. I’m arriving with a heart that still cannot quite understand how Abba can be gone.

There are days I feel Hashem everywhere.

And there are days I want to ask Him where He is.

Maybe that is why HaMelech baSadeh is hitting me so differently this year.

The King doesn’t wait for us in the palace.

He comes into the field.

Into the messy place.
The unfinished place.
The place where we are still trying to understand what happened.
The place where faith and anger and gratitude and heartbreak somehow all live together.

Maybe Elul isn’t always about finding our way back to Hashem.

Maybe sometimes it is about realizing that He has come to find us.

I don’t know what my Elul is going to look like this year.

I know there will be tears.

I know there will be moments when the words of davening catch in my throat because Abba loved davening, and suddenly everything reminds me of him.

I know Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are going to feel different in ways I can’t even imagine yet.

And I know that I am walking into this Elul as someone different than the person I was last Elul.

But perhaps I don’t need to know anything more than this:

המלך בשדה.

The King is here.

Not waiting for me to stop grieving.
Not waiting for me to have answers.
Not waiting for me to become the version of myself I think I am supposed to be.

Here.

In the field.

Exactly where I am.

And this year, more than ever, I think I need to believe that.