TBT Blog

Each week during the month of Elul, we will offer a short text and a prompt or two for you to use for personal reflection. We will connect around these prompts during Shabbat services throughout Elul, and invite you to share your reflections in person or online by filling out this form.

“I was raised to care about social justice and to believe that problems existed, that change was possible, and that we all had to do our part to help heal the world. My parents suggested that it was a fundamental Jewish obligation—and our main purpose for being on this earth.” This quote, from an online biographical write up of activist Ruth Messinger, describes the core Jewish identity-building aspects of many of the Jewish people I have met over the years, and sits at the center of our fourth theme this Elul: to whom or what do you turn to transform thought into action?

One of our most cited and instructive Jewish texts in this vein comes from Pirkei Avot, where we are urged: “It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to neglect it.” (Avot, 2:16) In this short text we find both the acknowledgement that there is more to do than might be possible for any one single person, and a reminder that this truth is no reason (or one might even say, excuse) to give up or relinquish our human responsibility to do that work.

And so, in this final week of Elul, we wonder:

• To whom or to what do you turn to transform thought into action?
• What (emotionally, spiritually, practically) do you find you need most when you see or experience injustice in the world? Where do you go to find those things?
• In what ways do you agree or disagree with the text from Pirkei Avot? Is there ever a time when making change is in fact NOT our human responsibility?