“Aspire,” Rabbi Elaine Zecher’s Shabbat Awakenings

September 18, 2026 | 7 Tishrei 5786

Welcome to Shabbat Awakenings as we approach Shabbat and, this week, Yom Kippur. You can also listen to it as a podcast.

Yom Kippur is a day of aspiration.

In the same way we imagine a world as we hope it should be in the face of the way the world actually is today, we, too, paint a picture in our minds and hearts of how we hope we can be in the face of the truths of the way we actually are.

This is the hard work of the season.

Sometimes we are successful and alter our lives, but for most of us, behaviors aren’t always easy to change. It takes courage to recognize the need and the difficulty. Of course, nothing takes away from the requisite of asking for forgiveness from others and of repairing relationships.

Alan Lew in This Is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared states it this way:

The unresolved elements of our lives—the unconscious patterns, the conflicts and problems that seem to arise no matter where we go or with whom we find ourselves—continue to pull us into the same moral and spiritual circumstances over and over again until we figure out how to resolve them. (page 42)

Each year, I am amazed and awed that Judaism demands this self-evaluation. It also lays out the aspiration of what may be possible. I regard this as the sacred gift of our tradition.

We use the language of return as we call this Shabbat Shuvah, the Sabbath of Return, when we read from the prophet Hosea. He offered a way to return to God and to our best selves.

Take words with you as you return to God. קְח֤וּ עִמָּכֶם֙ דְּבָרִ֔ים וְשׁ֖וּבוּ אֶל־יְהֹוָ֑ה (14:3)

As we move into Shabbat and then onto Yom Kippur, may the words that we offer throughout these days to God, to others, and to ourselves lift us higher to make real all that we aspire for the world and our own true selves.

May you be written and sealed in the book of life! שבת שלום ושנה טובה תכתבו ותחתמו

Let me know what you think. Connect with me here.

Rabbi Elaine Zecher