Deep in our psyches, there’s a wish to go home. Not to go home to a home that really existed, but to the home we dream of – a world filled with love, a world filled with kindness, a world filled with justice.

Since time immortal, our ancestors have longed to go home. Adam and Eve longed to return to Eden. The Israelites in the desert longed to return to the land. And the Torah itself ends with Moses gazing down from a mountain, knowing that he will die before he completes his journey.

And against this, one man stood out: Abraham, a man who was called upon to begin a journey that would last until the end of time. “Go from your land, from your birthplace, from your father’s house, to the land that I will show you,” God told him, “and you will be a blessing.”

God’s message to Abraham was profound. They only way to build a world of kindness, God told him, is to move forward. The world that we dream of, the loving home that we imagined when we were children, is not in the past. That home, that dream, is in the future that we make for each other.

Perhaps, more than anything else, the sound of the shofar is the renewal of of God’s call to Abraham. “Go,” the shofar reminds us. “The home you always dreamed of – the kind and loving world – is not behind you, and it is not a dream. Work hard, change, and you can make it happen.”

And like God’s voice, the shofar calls out, “Lech leech,” go to yourself. Return to the person who’s inside you. There is a spark of holiness within you. Find it and nurture it, and share it with other.

In the sound of the shofar, in the voice without words, we find all of the the brokenness in the world – all of the pain, all the times that we have hurt each other, all the times that we have failed. The shofar calls us to be honest, to face our loneliness and our frailty. And it reminds us that we are not bound to stay the same. The yearning for kindness, our yearning for love, can be painful. But they do not have to last forever. With change, with effort, the chance of going home is there.

Going home – that’s what teshuvah is all about. It’s a word that literally means returning – not returning to the world as it is, but returning to world that could be.

All through Elul, through the forty days of teshuvah, we open up to the pain. We open up to the mistakes, to the failures, to the kindness and the love that weren’t there for us. Each day, we hear the broken blast of the shofar, and we think about how we can do better. And then finally, at end of Yom Kippur, we hear that final, cleansing blast – the voice of God, perhaps, welcoming us home.

“There is a possibility of return, of coming home,” writes Rabbi Arthur Green. “The original harmony –be it that of a parent and a child, or of a young and improperly balanced marriage – may have ended in pain or separation. But there is a way to come back. With real human participation in the terms of reunion, the way home remains open.”

The gates of teshuvah are opening, and the possibility of return is real. May we all have the courage to find our true selves, to walk through gates of teshuvah, and create a better world.

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On-line Learning Event September 20, 6:00 – 7:00 Pacific

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