There’s a particular feeling that comes with the start of a long journey. Maybe you’ve felt it. That moment when the bags are packed, the destination is set, and you’re standing on the threshold, full of confidence. You’ve got the map. You know the way. Nothing can possibly go wrong. It’s a wonderful feeling, that initial burst of certainty.
And then, somewhere along the road, the map no longer matches the territory. The sun that was shining so brightly is hidden by clouds, the clear path becomes overgrown, and unease begins to creep in. You start to wonder if you’re lost. You start to feel very small and very alone.
This evening, we stand at the beginning of such a journey. We have just stepped into the month of Elul, the month that leads us toward the High Holy Days. Our tradition gives us a travelling companion for this journey, a spiritual map of sorts. It is a poem, an ancient song: Psalm 27. For the next month, our tradition invites us to read it every single day. It is a beautiful practice, because this psalm understands the journey perfectly. It knows all about that first burst of confidence, and it knows all about the moment when the ground suddenly falls away beneath your feet.
It begins with a roar, a declaration of absolute faith. “The Eternal is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Eternal is the stronghold of my life, of whom shall I be afraid?”
You can almost feel the swagger in those opening lines. The poet imagines armies massing against them, wars breaking out, and they just shrug. “My heart would have no fear, still would I be confident.” It is the kind of faith we sometimes wish we had. Unshakeable. Bulletproof. The kind of certainty that feels like a fortress. For six verses, the psalmist builds that fortress of faith, brick by confident brick. It is a powerful and inspiring start to the journey.
And then suddenly, at verse seven, the fortress crumbles.
The confident declarations stop. The swagger is gone. The voice changes completely, from a public proclamation to a private, desperate whisper. “Hear me, Eternal, when I cry aloud. Do not hide Your face from me.”
What happened? The armies and the wars the poet was so sure about turn out not to be the real threat. The real terror is not the enemy outside the gates. It is the silence within. The fear of being abandoned, of calling out into the darkness and hearing nothing in return. The poet who just a moment ago was fearless is now pleading, “Do not forsake me, do not abandon me.”
This is why Psalm 27 is our perfect companion for Elul. Because it is honest. It tells the truth about our spiritual lives. Life is not one long declaration of confidence. It is a journey of highs and lows. Some days we feel like we are in verse one, standing in the light, secure. And some days we are in verse nine, lost in the dark, pleading not to be forgotten. The psalm gives us permission to be human. It teaches that real faith is not the absence of fear or doubt. Real faith is spacious enough to hold both.
This is the shape of teshuvah, the journey of return. We begin with an ideal, we confront the reality of where we are, and then we take the hard steps of turning back.
And where does this psalm leave us? It does not circle back to the easy confidence of the beginning. That would ring hollow. Instead, it offers something more profound. It offers hope.
“Hope in the Eternal. Be strong. Let your heart take courage. Yes, hope in the Eternal.”
The Hebrew word for hope here, kaveh, is related to the word for a cord or a rope. It suggests twisting together fragile strands until they become something strong. Hope, the psalm teaches, is not passive. It is not waiting for feelings to change.
It is an act of courage. It is the gathering up of our fears, our doubts, our joys, our trust, and weaving them into something that can hold us. It is about strengthening our own hearts.
That is the work of Elul. Not to arrive at Rosh Hashanah pretending to be fearless, but to arrive honest. To know that we can be both strong and afraid, both certain and questioning.
So I invite you to take up this tradition. Let Psalm 27 walk with you this month. Read it, sit with it, let it tell you where you are in its story on any given day. Let it be a spiritual alarm clock, waking you to the journey ahead. Let it remind you that you are not alone in your feelings, whatever they may be.
And may it give you the courage to keep twisting those fragile threads together until they form a rope of hope strong enough to carry you forward.
Shabbat Shalom.
