By Rabbi Malkah Binah Klein

This week’s Torah portion is Ki Teitzei: Deuteronomy 21:10 — 25:19

We have entered the month of Elul, the month of preparation for a new year, a season of turning toward our highest selves, of reflection and connection, of growing our capacity to love. This is a season for deepening our love relationship with Shechinah, the Divine presence that dwells among us. Over the years, I have experimented with a number of Elul practices for opening to love with the Divine. One such practice is to handwrite a letter to God our Lover, telling God about our joys and our sadness, our insights and our doubts and shame, anything that we would like to share, choosing to believe that God is receiving our writing with open heart and great love for us. And then to write a love letter from God back to us. I encourage you to try this, perhaps to invite a friend to sit together to write love letters to and from God, and if you are up for it, to read aloud the letters, with your friend as nonjudgmental witness. I am often surprised and awed by what comes through when I engage in spiritual writing of this sort.

One of our companions through this season is Psalm 27, which begins, “God is my Light and my Help, whom shall I fear?” There is a tradition to read and study this Psalm every day of Elul and through the fall holiday cycle. I am drawn to verse 9, “Do not hide Your face from me.” It is so painful when I feel that God my protector and lover is not here with me. I recall when I was in my early 20s and suffering from depression and did not yet have an understanding of the nature of depression, that it skews one’s thoughts and spins out false thoughts of unworthiness. The image that came to me at that time was that I was dialing the phone to God and the number was busy. I am so grateful that this was my metaphor for what I was experiencing — that deep down I had faith that God was there and just not available, rather than that there was no God to reach to. Now at age 53, having learned with many wise teachers and having lived through many challenging experiences, I understand that what is in my power is my own healing journey and my own spiritual life, and through tending my inner transformation, I have more access to Divine love.

This week’s parasha, Ki Teitzei, was my bat mitzvah parasha. As a teenager who had studied Hebrew and haftarah trope, I beautifully chanted the ten verses of the haftarah, Isaiah 54:1-10, but I did not have much understanding of the meaning behind the words. The meaning grows with the years, and I now have context that this haftarah is the fifth of seven haftarot of consolation read between Tisha B’Av, the saddest day of our calendar, and Rosh Hashanah, the New Year. Like Psalm 27, Isaiah 54 references the hiding of the Divine face. Verse 54:8 reads, “In slight anger, for a moment, I hid My Face from you; but with kindness everlasting I will take you back in love.” I find this verse so moving — I feel seen by a writer from more than 2,000 years ago, who, like me, understood that we will experience disconnection and trusted that love and kindness will return.

I write this D’var Torah on the birthday of my dear friend, Dr. Holly Sue Engelman, Chaya Shlomit bat Hershel v’Fradel z”l, of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Holly was a brilliant student of neuroscience and Torah, a visionary for Jewish education who chaired the board of the Harrisburg Silver Academy for many years, a devoted friend and community builder whose life was cut short when she was struck by a car during a Shabbat afternoon walk on Aug. 8. This Torah of love is dedicated to Holly’s memory and to her beloveds. Even in our deepest grief, may we trust in God’s light and love.

Rabbi Malkah Binah Klein (thrivingspirit.org) is founder of Merkava: Spiritual Transformation through Creative Ritual. She lives in Mount Airy.