We're back!

I was talking with a friend who left teaching after many years in the field.  He old me, that even though he worked all summer, he felt bad for me having to go back to school.  I like the first day of school; seeing friends and students I haven't seen all summer; seeing how much so many people have grown and matured while they were away.  Still, I think I know what he means.  No matter how much I worked and prepared over the summer, I always feel like if I just had another day or two, then I could truly be ready.  What wouldn't I give now to have one of those mid-July summer lazy summer days that wasn't quite as productive as it could have been.  Just one more day.

It's a similar feeling to the one I get on Yom Kippur.  The day didn't sneak up on anyone.  If we didn't notice it ourselves, the call of the shofar each morning reminds us that we have work to do.  Still, somehow when standing on the yemei hadin, I'm often wishing for just a little more time for preparation to finally get this teshuva process right - time that was readily available to me just hours before.  You may have once felt this way about a big test or project that you kind of left for the last minute.

Well, it's too late for the first day of school, but Elul is still very much here.  Now are those minutes whose stock is going to skyrocket in a couple of short weeks.  These are the days we will be wishing we had another shot at come Rosh Hashana.  Why do we need to go through this charade.  Maybe this can be the year that we get it right the first time.  This is what chazal mean when they say
 "יפה שעה אחת בתשובה ומעשים טובים בעולם הזה, מכל חיי העולם הבא. ויפה שעה אחת של קורת רוח בעולם הבא, מכל חיי העולם הזה".
"One hour of repentance and good deeds in this world is better than the entire life of the World to Come."

Let's try to avoid that feeling this year.  Yom Hadin is coming soon, but now is the time to do something about it.