The Terrible Mercy of Being Seen

What Elul taught me about preparing for a new year when you are still trying to understand the old one

Elul has arrived, which means Jewish women everywhere are engaged in one of our most ancient spiritual practices: making a list.

What did I get wrong this year? Who do I need to apologize to? What needs changing? What do I want from the year ahead? Why am I still doing that thing I solemnly promised last Rosh Hashanah I would stop doing? And how is it Elul again when I have not emotionally finished with Pesach?

The shofar starts sounding. Rosh Hashanah appears on the horizon. Yom Kippur begins looming behind it like the annual performance review no one remembers scheduling.

We prepare.

But lately, I have been wondering whether we have made “preparation” far too synonymous with “improvement”.

What if Elul is not simply asking, What do I need to change?

What if it is asking four separate questions?

What needs changing? What needs repairing? What needs accommodating? And, perhaps hardest of all, what needs accepting?

Those are not the same thing.

One of the traditional ideas associated with Elul is cheshbon hanefesh, an accounting of the soul. Take inventory. Look honestly at what is there, not at what you wish were there, not at what your neighbor has, and certainly not at what Facebook claims everybody else has.

What is actually in the warehouse?

I have considerable experience with inventory. I was born in Pretoria, then lived in Israel, Edinburgh, Johannesburg, Cape Town, and eventually back in Israel. I have moved 52 times.

Some people have a childhood home.

I have an Excel spreadsheet.

Moving that often teaches you how to reinvent yourself. New house, new school, new people, new rules. Walk into the room, work out who everyone is, and adapt. Become whatever version of yourself functions best there.

It is a fantastic survival skill until you become so good at adapting that you are no longer entirely sure which parts are adaptation and which parts are you.

That strikes me as a particularly Elul-type problem.

After we moved back from Edinburgh to Johannesburg, one of my teachers called my parents in because she was concerned. Their daughter, she explained, had a speech defect.

My parents listened politely before informing her that their daughter did not have a speech defect.

She had a Scottish accent.

Nothing was wrong.

Something was different.

Those are not synonyms, although it has taken me approximately half a century to appreciate how much damage can be done by confusing the two.

Because cheshbon hanefesh cannot work if the books are cooked before you begin.

Before I ask, “What should I change?”, I have to ask, “What is actually true?”

That means confronting not only the flattering lies we tell ourselves, but the cruel ones too.

I’m stupid. I’m lazy. I’m too much. I’m too sensitive. Everybody else can cope with this, so why can’t I?

For years, I looked extremely capable. At school, I was a prefect and a drum majorette—confident, articulate, and comfortable leading. I could organize things. I could perform. I could stand in front of people without dying, which apparently qualifies one for several professions.

There were also things I found inexplicably difficult.

So I hid them.

Some women learn contouring. I learned neurological contouring. Highlight the strengths. Blend the executive dysfunction. Under no circumstances allow anyone to see what is happening without foundation.

Eventually, I learned how my brain works, which made the accounts look very different.

Not: “Nothing is my responsibility.”

Absolutely not.

But also not: “Everything difficult is a character defect.”

That distinction matters enormously during Elul because not every struggle is a sin, and not every explanation is an excuse.

Some things don’t require teshuvah.

If, however, I hurt another person, behave badly, act selfishly, break trust, or refuse to put right something I can repair, that belongs in an entirely different department.

That invoice is mine.

Which brings me to the second question: what needs repairing?

Teshuvah is not simply a month of staring meaningfully into the middle distance and developing opinions about oneself. Eventually, something has to happen.

Who did I hurt? What can I put right? What needs an apology? What behavior must change?

We have a peculiar habit of confusing accountability with self-condemnation. Apparently, if I admit I did something wrong, I am expected to feel terrible about myself for several business days, or the apology doesn’t count.

But “I did something wrong” and “I am fundamentally defective” are profoundly different statements.

The first allows for repair. The second contains nowhere to go.

I suspect some of us arrive at Yom Kippur carrying sins G-D never actually charged us with. Our bodies. Our brains. Our age. Our limitations. Failed marriages. Unmarried status. Our children’s choices. Careers that did not follow the glossy trajectory LinkedIn seems to think adult life should have.

We beat our chests for being human and somehow miss the things we genuinely owe an apology for.

Then there is the third question: what needs to be accommodated?

This may be the revelation I have resisted most stubbornly.

Sometimes preparation does not mean changing yourself.

Sometimes it means changing the conditions.

I used to be an aerobics instructor and personal trainer. No one is left to testify, so you’ll have to trust me. I once spent hours voluntarily doing aerobics, weights, and circuits. Today someone says, “It’s only a twenty-minute walk,” and my first thought is, “What happened to the car?”

Bodies change. So we adapt.

We wear glasses. We use hearing aids. We take medication. We sit down when standing hurts. Nobody says to somebody who needs glasses, “Have you tried seeing harder?”

Yet when it comes to the brain or temperament, we suddenly become very attached to suffering as evidence of moral seriousness.

Why do you need quiet? Why do you need structure? Why can’t you just push through? Why does this environment exhaust you?

Sometimes making life easier is not cheating. It is good engineering.

Looking back, I can see very clearly that I have flourished in particular kinds of environments. At the Spier Festival Trust in Cape Town, I sold sponsorships and raised donations for a performing-arts festival. There were artists, ideas, deadlines, persuasion, stories, and creativity. I loved it.

I have also worked in Film. Commercials. Restaurants. Sales. Pet care. Writing.

Again and again, I have done best where there is variety, creativity, and human connection.

And yet, when I found myself more recently in an environment that was rigid and deeply unhappy, my first assumption was that I needed to cope better.

Try harder.

Be more resilient.

We love resilience, particularly in Israel. We are practically issued resilience with our Teudat Zehut. Something dreadful happens, and within twenty minutes somebody says, “Am Yisrael Chai.”

And yes. Thank G-D.

But resilience can become a trap. Not everything should be endured.

I spent years thinking resilience meant learning to stay underwater longer. Sometimes resilience means noticing this isn’t actually a swimming lesson.
You are drowning.
Get out.

That makes the Elul shofar considerably more interesting to me.

We describe it as a wake-up call.

Wake up.

But wake up to what?

Not always: you are doing something wrong.
Sometimes, you are living something wrong.

You are in the wrong job. You are carrying resentment that has been occupying rent-free for twelve years. You are maintaining the relationship largely because neither of you wants the awkward conversation. You pretend you don’t need help. You are expending vast amounts of energy to appear fine.

Wake up.

Sometimes the shofar is not saying, “Become better.”

Sometimes it is saying, “Stop bullshitting yourself.”

And then comes the hardest question: what needs to be accepted?

Not resignation. Acceptance.

There are things I can change. Things I can repair. Things I can build around. And there are things that simply belong to the life I actually have.

I spent years trying to become a hypothetical version of myself who found ordinary things easy.

She was calm. Linear. Consistent. Academically conventional. Emotionally regulated. Married, presumably. Excellent pension. Enjoyed hiking.

I have never met this woman. I already dislike her. Maybe Elul is not asking me to manufacture her. Maybe it is asking me to stop wasting another year auditioning for her role.

The Alter Rebbe gives us the beautiful Elul image of “the King in the field”: G-D coming out, as it were, to meet us in ordinary life before the majesty and intensity of Rosh Hashanah.

G-D does not say, “Come back when you’ve sorted yourself out.”

He meets us where we are.

Which is fortunate, because if He is waiting for me at the palace, I will inevitably arrive at the wrong entrance carrying the incorrect forms.

But the theology is rather profound.

G-D comes to the reality.

Perhaps we should too.

When I made Aliyah, I began the journey with three suitcases and two cat carriers. Purrcy. Petunia. Two hands. Several airports.

Eventually, mathematics intervened.

Something had to go.

It was not going to be a cat.

So I abandoned one suitcase.

There is something wonderfully clarifying about physically being unable to carry everything. Your priorities become apparent extremely quickly.

Cats: essential.

Third suitcase: apparently we’d grown apart.

And perhaps that is Elul.

We cannot carry everything into another year.

Every one of us has a suitcase.

Maybe yours contains resentment. Maybe guilt. Maybe grief. Maybe a relationship that needs repair. Maybe the conviction that your adult children should be living differently. Good luck with that one…

Maybe it contains the body you had at thirty, somebody else’s opinion of you, an old failure you continue producing as evidence for the prosecution, or a version of yourself you have spent twenty years trying to become.

Open the suitcase.

Not everything inside it is a sin.

That is the point.

Some things require repentance.

Some require repair.

Some require accommodation.

Some require acceptance.

And some should simply be left at the airport.

Elul also reminds us that none of this happens entirely alone.

In communities of women, I have seen the absurdly practical side of that truth. Someone needs an antihistamine at two in the morning, and another woman leaves it outside. Someone loses a handbag, and an informal intelligence service is established. Need a dress? Someone has one. Need a lift? Ask. Need lemons? Apparently, there is an agricultural division.

That is not trivial. It is an environment in which human limitations can be shared.

Elul is associated with the words Ani l’dodi v’dodi li, “I am my Beloved’s and my Beloved is mine.” It is relational. We do not enter the Yamim Noraim in solitary confinement. So another part of the inventory must be people.

With whom can I stop pretending? Who tells me the truth? Who needs an apology? Who needs a phone call? Who needs to be released? Who needs to be held closer?

Perhaps our Elul audit therefore needs four columns, rather than the rather primitive GOOD/BAD system we so enjoy imposing on ourselves.

Change: What behavior genuinely needs to change?

Repair: Whom have I hurt, and what can I put right?

Accommodate: What reality am I fighting that I would be wiser to build around?

Accept: What was never broken in the first place?

Because Rosh Hashanah is not New Year’s Eve with challah.

We are preparing to stand before G-D and say, “Here I am.”

Not: here is the woman I meant to become.

Here is the marriage I wish I had had.

Here is the body I had in 1997.

Here is the career path LinkedIn thinks would have made more sense.

Here. I am.

This is what I did well.
This is what I got wrong.
This is what I can repair.
This is what I need help carrying.
And this, finally, I am putting down.

I have spent most of my life believing reinvention meant becoming someone new.

Elul has made me wonder whether the deepest reinvention is actually subtraction.

Not another qualification. Another resolution. Another performance. Another impossible expectation.

Perhaps teshuvah, return, is partly the removal of all the things obscuring the person underneath.

The shofar as a wake-up. Cheshbon hanefesh is an honest inventory. The King is meeting us in the field. Repair where repair is due. Acceptance where nothing was broken.

And the courage to leave behind what has already taken up far too much of our lives.

I learned that at an airport with two cats.

It has taken Elul to realize that I was doing teshuvah with my luggage.

Shanah tovah.