Parsha Shoftim – Torah, Jewish Teaching & Approaching Elul: What Does HaShem Actually Want From You?

For a Jewish person Elul can feel overwhelming. We look back at the year, see the same weaknesses, the same struggles and the same failures and wonder: what does HaShem actually expect from us?Every Elul we start again. Through Torah wisdom we think about what needs to change, what we should be doing better, our Jewish values, our Judaism, and the person we ought to become.In this Torah study, one passuk in Parsha Shoftim suggests that HaShem may be asking us for something rather different. And the clue lies in one Hebrew word thats meaning is very easily misunderstood.As we approach the Yamim Noraim, perhaps we have been asking ourselves the wrong question. What if one of the biggest mistakes we make during Elul is trying too hard to become better?Parshat Shoftim contains a deceptively simple instruction that takes us from Avraham Avinu to Ya’akov, from astrology to Har Sinai, and ultimately to a very different understanding of what HaShem actually wants from us.Send Rabbi Grant Leboff a message