It's Elul; time to PREPARE and BLOG

Lakeside at OSRUI second session 2013

Today is the first day of Elul, the Hebrew month before Tishri, the start of the Jewish year and Rosh Hashanah.  If you attend morning t'filot during Elul you will hear the Shofar blown.  What a wonderful way to prepare yourself, your senses and your mind for the upcoming New Year.  Many, many people ask me what I do during the summer.  I think some people are under the false assumption that I am on vacation during the summer.  I enjoy my time at OSRUI and do spend part of my summer at camp.  Even with that I think that I can sum up what I do during the summer with one word which also corresponds to the first topic on #BlogElul:  PREPARE.  Summer is a time to prepare and work on the new school year with added time to reflect and respond.  It is a time to think about your preparations and to plan for the fall winter and spring.  To begin front loading some projects so that they CAN be completed during the year.

I hope to be blogging for all of Elul and I have listed the topics here.   I have not blogged daily since I left Israel.  I like the structure and discipline it takes to do this project.  I may not write paragraphs and paragraphs every day but I hope to make time to think and prepare something every day of Elul. 

I look forward to blogging Elul with my colleagues and thank Rabbi Phyllis Sommer for putting this all into motion. 

Are you prepared for Elul?  Have your registered for Religious School?  Did you get your High Holy Day tickets?  Do you have your menu for the festive meals?  OK, maybe I have gone too far with menu planning and I need to keep SOME topics for my other 29 posts in Elul. So Here's to #BlogElul and to all of you as you begin to PREPARE!