Earlier this week marked the beginning of the Hebrew month of Elul, the month that precedes Rosh Hashana. I have not completely absorbed just how early the High Holidays are this year. The Jewish calendar–a morphing of solar and lunar time-keeping–neither wanders as freely as the Muslim calendar (which has Ramadan moving year to year through all of the seasons), nor cleaves too closely to the Gregorian calendar.  Our holidays float back and forth, generally falling in the same season each year, but not the same week, or even month.

There’s a joke that the holidays are either early, or late, but never on time. To give more of a sense of how early “early” is this year: Hanukkah, which overlapped with Christmas just a couple of years ago, will begin this year with Thanksgiving. And Rosh Hashana will fall just days after Labor Day. Suffice it to say, I’m not ready. My husband is a pulpit rabbi, and he’s not ready. Tomorrow, we go on vacation (because this is the one week my brother’s family was free), we come back just in time for school to start, and then BAM. Rosh Hashana, the new year, and the start of a long month of holidays focused on teshuvah (repentance), and making a fresh start. 

Last year, on the second day of Rosh Hashana, my father was in the ICU being put on a ventilator; he died a month later. It wasn’t exactly the kind of fresh start any of us were hoping for. I can feel the twinge in my gut as the anniversary approaches, but at the same time I’ve indulged a summer fantasy that the holidays aren’t really just around the corner.  They’re not till..  the fall.

Whatever the season, whatever date on the Gregorian calendar, it’s Elul now, a month in which we’re supposed to start taking stock of our lives. We’re also supposed to hear the blow of the shofar each day, a practice we’ve never followed rigorously in our family. But our daughter, who’s 8, has been blowing that thing like a pro since she was 3 years old. She’s been rocking lots of attitude this year, in good ways–wearing her hair in an Afro for the first time (even as an experiment), practicing hand stands and building up her strength, reading like a champ. And her shofar blowing is fierce.  This year, it may do her good to blow that thing every day of Elul. And it may do us good, too, I think I need the blast of the shofar–to remind me that Rosh Hashana, and all that it means, is really on its way. So we’re packing up that ram’s horn–a small one, anyway–and taking it on the road…