All but one of the benches were soiled, sticky with mulberries dropped from the trees, which in full summer leaf formed a canopy above the small garden. They scanned the park and settled upon the only bench unsullied by the fallen fruits. There Nadav laid his duffle bag down beside her and took off, streaking from tree to tree, gathering berries.

In the far left corner of the park, a chassidic man spoke to invisible beings seated on the bench beside him. A teenage girl with sulky blue hair ate a schnitzel sandwich. Two men drank beers, their legs spread wide as they hollered at passersby. A woman’s head bobbed above the rim of the fence circling the garden, calling for someone to toss down keys from the window of an old limestone building. It was early summer in Jerusalem and the sun was just beginning to set. Stretching out upon the bench, she shaded her eyes against the sleepy sun, blinking through the rainbow orbs its glare had cast upon her vision. She swooned and nestled deeper into her memories; she could remember a time she had sat on this bench years ago.

It was past midnight on a moonless night. They had wandered drunk and directionless into the garden, passing through alleyways littered with notices for neighborhood funerals and stricter adherence to the codes of modesty. It was empty, save for a homeless man who sat idly on a bench. Tell me your story, Nachman asked the man and the man told them how he’d been thrown out by his wife who urged him to stop drinking. Most nights he sat alone and destitute in the park, preferring this than yielding to his wife’s demands. Nachman said he could understand why, that he too liked to crawl into what hollow corners the world offered, to bellow into its dark shaft and wait for what might echo back. Tonight it was you, my brother, he said, passing the man a cigarette, and the man asked if they’d seen a small plastic bag filled with powder maybe somewhere beneath the bench.

How funny is this love, she could not help thinking, which has brought me to this seedy park. And how funny it is, she grinned, doing her best to hold back her laughter, how he sees his reflection in this man. He, whose mother tucks cakes and coins for the needy into his coat pockets before he sets out, as though the merit of a good deed ahead of him might smooth his passage through the world. It was an old segulah, the idea that one would never be harmed so long as they carried the intention to provide charity along their way. But there they were, twin flames alight in the dark garden, peering around the benches for lost drugs. Sighing she said come wild one, I have to use the bathroom.

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Ok here’s what happened: we met one night in a dark field. We came hungry and wild and sick on dreams. One dreamed to love purely taking nothing for keeps; another to hang by his finger tips from the edge of the crescent moon. A third dreamed of dancing until we’d all grow dizzy and fall in a heap deep within the tall wet grass.

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From the start of Elul to Yom Kippur there are 40 days.

40 is an auspicious number

If you were to pray for same thing for 40 days, that thing would become real.

If you were to work on one thing for 40 days, you would succeed.

If you were to go to the kotel everyday for 40 days, you would certainly meet your soulmate one day.

And if you were to wander in a desert for 40 years, eventually you would find your way to a promised land.

Likewise, the time between the start of Elul to Yom Kippur should be consecrated. It isn’t to be ignored and should be spent deliberately. Like the night before the weekend, in which you have no plans and no particular thing in your way, so you choose to light incense, curate a playlist, lay on an assortment of pillows on the floor and become who you are, spilling secrets every now and then to the Forever Friend. But if you spent the first week spiraling in the white space between who you wish to become by the time of Yom Kippur, and who you are now, you have not desecrated the 40 days. Rather it is part of the sanctification. Arrive as you are, and then strip down to the soul. The soul which loves like a saint and forgives all, including the self.

Here are 5 ways to return this month:

1. returning home = returning to God / returning to God = returning home

• God is where you live. The Sufi poet, Rumi, wrote:

I have traveled East and West not knowing

which way I was going, following the moon,

lost inside God.

(The Visions of Daquqi)

The moon, the rooftop, the notebook laying unattended in the chair, the dove on the railing, the leftover stem of grapes just eaten, the neighborhood drunk, the velvety music wafting from the wine bar down the street: God. Wherever it is you live, city or countryside, east or west, in fear or in courage, certain or confused, you’re in God’s lands. (When I remember this, rough edges are swallowed by soft, teeming moss and every bend feels like a safe place to tumble. I believe I can call anywhere home). Take special attention of this this month, you are absorbed in Hashem.

• Home is what we’ve inherited: parents, hometown, body, etc, and home is God. What’s been predetermined is God’s will. It’s where God chose for you to be, and so it is good. The Kabbalist’s journey is to understand a thing at its essence, to encounter the ten attributes of Hashem as they appear in the world and to then decipher when a thing is restraint or kindness, wisdom or understanding, splendor or eternity. Comb through your inheritance and label each one with the gift it was made to present.

Example:

North Eastern upbringing : long nights

isolation : freedom

curly hair : war with heat

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