Shiur provided courtesy of Naaleh.com

Adapted by Channie Koplowitz Stein

The Torah anticipates every possibility. When soldiers go out to war, it is possible that one will see a beautiful woman, become enamored of her, and desire her. Rather than allowing rampant passion to overtake the Jewish soldier, the Torah offers a path where the soldier can lawfully marry her and take her into his family. The Torah presents these prerequisites: "She shall shave her head and let her nails grow. She shall remove the garments of her captivity from upon herself and sit in your house and she shall weep for her father and her mother for a full month... and she shall be a wife to you."

While in the course of war, these verses can certainly be taken literally as the woman's mourning her parents, Rabbi Akiva infers allegorically that she is mourning leaving her former god and homeland forever, her grief forming the bridge to her new life as a Jewess. As the Prophet Jeremiah writes, "They say to a piece of wood, "You are my father."

Metaphorically, the captive woman represents our neshamah, writes Rabbi Miller citing the Zohar, and the "full month" she is grieving represents the month of Elul for all of us. a time for introspection and review of our past life and beliefs. As Rabbi Zev Leff adds, it is a time to reflect and internalize that we have no one to rely on, not even mother or father, except Hashem Himself. As we recite daily during the month of Elul, "Though my father and mother have abandoned me, God is still there to gather me up." We analyze the last year objectively, where did I place my value, on useless things or on my relationship with Hakodosh Boruch Hu? While Hashem is closer to us in the Month of Elul, are we drawing ourselves closer to Him? Are we saying אני לדודי /I am to my Beloved so that we draw Hashem closer to us, ודודי לי / and my Beloved is to me? In this month of Elul/אלול I must rediscover myself and my relationship with Hashem.

This is the message in the Haftorah of Shabbat Shuvah notes R. Sher zt”l where the Prophet Hoshea urges us to return to Hashem. He urges us to remove our reliance on worthless idols and on material wealth. Even our own personal efforts, our hishtadlus, we must realize is only a veneer that covers the true Source of everything. We must understand that nothing exists outside Hashem, and our personal effort is a test; will we ascribe our success to Hashem, or will we say, "It was my strength... that made me all this wealth." Then we have made ourselves into gods. We have removed Hashem from our lives. Our hearts become dull to Hashem's presence, we see the world through clouded, dusty lenses, relying on others as if they are our parents, forgetting that we are the children of Hashem, our Father and our God.

While we must indeed honor and remember our father and mother, we must abandon the thought that our sustenance comes from them rather than through them as Hashem's emissaries. This is what Dovid Hamelech meant when he wrote, "For my father and my mother have abandoned me," writes Rabbi Hofstadter. It is only with that realization that we can arrive at the end of the verse, "And Hashem will gather me in." Only with distancing myself from my past can I recreate myself and form that strong bond with Hakodosh Boruch Hu.

Supporting the idea of recreating ourselves, Rabbi Immanuel Bernstein quotes Chazal who notice an unusual anomaly in how the Torah describes the additional Mussaf offerings of the various holidays. For all the other Mussaf offerings, the Torah states, "Vehikravtem/ You shall offer...," However, for the Rosh Hashanah Mussaf, the Torah says, "Va'asitem.../ You shall make." Rabbi Bernstein suggests that Rosh Hashanah offers us the opportunity for renewal, to completely recreate, remake ourselves.

As we celebrate each of our festivals, each continues to contains within it some element of the origins of that special day. Rosh Hashanah is the day Man was created. Therefore, on every Rosh Hashanah a person can recreate himself. How? Through the shofar. As Hashem blew His breath into Adam to bring him to life, so does our breath rise through the shofar and activate the breath on high, blowing new life into us. This is the mitzvah of the day, of its name in the Torah, Yom Teruah. "Tiku bachodesh shofar.../Blow the shofar at the moon's renewal, at the time appointed for our festive day," writes Dovid Hamelech in Tehillim. For the shofar is the sign of chodosh, of renewal, the day we renew and recreate ourselves.

How does the process of recreation begin; how can we "make" ourselves? By making of ourselves an offering, by offering up our old existence, our ego, by coronating Hashem as the center of our being. It is, symbolically, a re-enactment of akeidat Yitzchak, the binding of Isaac on the altar as we reemerge a new being. Like the beautiful captive woman who removes the clothes of her captivity, of her old life, so must we remove ourselves from our old life, our old familiar pleasures, the gods of our previous existence, writes Rabbi Fryman zt”l in Shaarei Derech. Only then can we focus on a new path, a new life focused on Hashem. As Rabbi Rothberg explains, this is not doing teshuvah, but changing our essence. We have changed from being egocentric to being Godcentric. As Rabbi Wachtfogel zt”l says, these cries of the captive woman/soul are not cries of grief, but cries of longing for our Father, our heavenly Father, and for our mother, Knesset Yisroel, a cry yearning for connection to holiness.

The whole focus of the month of Elul is to prepare ourselves for Rosh Hashanah. The Netivot Shalom interprets the verse in Tehillim, "ואני תפילתי לך... My prayer is to You, Hashem,...in the abundance of Your kindness, answer me..." as meaning that all my actions should be for You, Hashem. Not just the avoidance of sin and the observance of mitzvoth, but every action, even those actions Jews and gentiles alike are permitted to do, should be focused on serving You, not on serving myself. I should infuse it with sanctity. Then, Elokhim, even in Your judgment, Your kindness will answer me.

Our parshah begins, "When you go out to war against your enemy..." The Shvilei Pinchas, citing the Zohar, discusses the constant battle we all face against our yetzer horo. In this allegorical interpretation, the beautiful. pure neshamah is captive within and is sullied by a sinful body. To regain its beauty and light, it must shed the "dirt" adhering to its body so that united with the body, it can serve Hashem. This is the double reading of the verse in Tehillim, as written, "He made us, ולו אנחנו / and we are His, His nation..." Alternately, the verse can be read, "ולא אנחנו /We are unworthy to be His nation..." Combining the two spellings, we get the month of Elul/ אלול, the month we strive to reconnect to our Beloved. We are urged to access the unsullied point, the "pintele Yid" deep within ourselves mima'amakim, that remains pure.

It is in this unsullied depths of the Jewish soul that we are always called "sons of Hashem." However, there is disagreement about our status when one has sinned. Rabbi Yehudah maintains that when the pure soul is hidden under layers of sin, we are called slaves of Hashem. On the other hand, Rabbi Meir feels that in all circumstances, we remain Hashem's children. This divergence of opinion gives us the duality intrinsic in our mantra Avinu Malkanu/ our Father, our King. But because that pure sanctity never fully disappears, although not clearly visible, we always have the ability to access it and return, to do teshuvah and again uncover the light of our soul. It is in this context that we can understand Rabbi Meir's maxim in Pirkei Avot, "Do not focus on the container, but rather on its contents." The neshamah cries out to be free, and the month of Elul gives us the opportunity to free her.

Hashem created Adam to have a constant connection to Hashem, unobstructed, clear vision of His essence and immanence. But our sins obscure our vision. We want to go back to the light so that we can recognize Hashem in all His goodness. To do this, we must recognize the goodness within ourselves, for we all have within us a portion of Hashem from on high. This is the beginning of the path back to Hashem, the awakening of the desire of "ani leDodi," that will trigger Hashem's response of veDodi li."

Our past, perhaps mired in the coverings of sin, need not define us. We can shed those layers as we strive to reconnect deeply with Hakodosh Boruch Hu. Just as the beautiful captive woman has a month to emerge as a Jewish wife, so do we have the month of Elul to cleanse our souls and emerge newly created, beautiful souls in our committed relationship with Hakodosh Boruch Hu.

to emerge as a Jewish wife, so do we have the month of Elul to cleanse our souls and emerge newly created, beautiful souls in our committed relationship with Hakodosh Boruch Hu.