Dear Elul Writers,

Pride is a funny emotion. It arrives at some of the times you’d expect it, when a child graduates from kindergarten, when a niece celebrates her bat mitzvah, when a parent is honored for their achievements. But, sometimes it also shows up unexpectedly. I felt strangely and profoundly proud when my copy of The Place of All Possibility arrived a few weeks ago. The book’s author, R’ Adina Allen of the Jewish Studio Project, was a classmate for six years at Hebrew College and has remained a dear friend ever since. I didn’t give birth to Adina, I didn’t watch her grow up, I claim no credit for her wisdom, but I felt so much naches holding her book.

If I felt pride in just handling the book, all the more so when I opened it up and encountered the beautiful Torah in its pages. What was emerging when we were students in the beit midrash had bloomed into a fully-formed theology of creativity. In one of my favorite passages, R’ Adina makes the connection between the work of tending to the aish tamid, the eternal flame of the mishkan, the portable wilderness sanctuary, and our own task of igniting and guarding the light of creativity within us. She writes:

“The eternal flame is a symbol for our creativity — the passion, purpose and inspiration that is the connection point between us and the Divine, always burning, never to go out. Like the priests, who cultivated the eternal fire of their connection and devotion through daily practice, we are wise to create a few regular habits to keep this internal fire alive. Towards this end, the creative process is both a form of release, offering us a way to clear out what has accumulated (physically, spiritually), and a practice of cultivation, offering us a way to touch and to tend to our own inner radiance. Born from this burning, both the product and the process of creativity become our offering.”

I am moved by this notion of a process that can serve both as a form of release and a practice of cultivation. If creativity can both help us let go and help us build up, then it must be an essential tool in this season of assessment and recalibration.

DAY 7 PROMPT

It struck me recently that if there is any area in people’s lives where they carry as much baggage as they do around religion, it might be around making art. So, my friends at JSP have the double challenge of reintroducing people to spirituality and art-making, all at once. Luckily, as R’ Adina regularly teaches, the two processes inform and nourish each other. “There is a powerful feedback loop between our hands and our hearts.” So, on this seventh day of Elul, I encourage you to consider how your creative work, whether that manifests itself in writing, sewing, drawing, cooking, childcare or photography, affects your hearts. How might you tend the flame of your creativity in the year to come? What can it help you clear out? What might it help you cultivate?

Laila tov,

Jordan