TISHREI - The Month of Return and Renewal

After Elul, when we prepared our hearts with hitbodedut (personal prayer and reflection), we enter Tishrei — a month not about being perfect, but about showing up as we truly are. Teshuvah — return — means returning to our authentic selves, to our divine spark. It is the will to connect, even in imperfection, that creates space within us to host divine energy, to reveal it in the world, and to serve it.

Tishrei overflows with holidays that fill our spiritual cup for the year ahead. Afterward comes Cheshvan, with no hagim holidays, inviting us to carry this energy into ordinary life. But now, in Tishrei, the calendar is full:

Rosh Hashanah, with its seder of symbolic foods, aligning us with divine energy for the year.

Yom Kippur, a day of cleansing and intimacy — like a wedding between HaShem and His people.

Sukkot, where we sit in fragile huts and humbly feel the Shechinah dwelling over us.

Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah, when joy peaks as we embrace and dance with the Torah.

Letter of the Month: ל (Lamed)

The letter Lamed towers above all other letters of the aleph-beth, its form stretching upward like a flame. It symbolizes learning and aspiration. Its very name means “learner” lomed.

In Tishrei, Lamed teaches us to stretch higher while remaining grounded — to let divine wisdom flow down through us and take form in our daily lives.

Practice: Visualize the Lamed in meditation as a channel between heaven and earth. Imagine wisdom flowing through it, entering your heart, and radiating into your words and deeds.

Embody the Lamed, as a flame, feeling your neshama connected to the divine and universal consciousness.

Learn something new you wished to learn since long time!

Organ of the Month: Gallbladder

The gallbladder breaks down bitterness and aids digestion — and symbolically, it represents our ability to process experiences. In Kabbalah, it is linked with the challenge of bitterness, and the task of transforming it into clarity and sweetness.

In Chinese Medicine, the gallbladder governs courage and decision-making. When balanced, it gives us clarity and strength; when weak, it brings fear or hesitation.

This month, like the gallbladder, we are asked to filter our lives with courage — keeping what nourishes and letting go of what poisons.

Practice: Place your hand on your side and breathe, asking: Where do I need courage to decide? What bitterness can I release so sweetness can enter?

Sense of the Month: Touch (מישוש)

The sense of Tishrei is touch — direct, grounding, and intimate. Touch reminds us that spirituality is not only in the mind; it must be embodied.

We are touched by the vibrations of the shofar, the walls of the sukkah, the Torah scroll as we dance. Touch is connection — with life, with others, with the Divine.

Practice: Use your hands in meditation. Place them over your heart or belly, and feel your body as a vessel of divine presence. Be touched by the life energy flowing through you. Let your spirituality be something you can touch.

Mazal of the Month: Libra (מאזניים)

The constellation of Tishrei is Libra — the scales. On Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, we imagine our lives weighed on divine scales of justice.

But Libra is not only about judgment — it’s about balance and harmony. It asks us to align body and soul, justice and mercy, action and intention.

We’re not approaching Kippour as a judgment day, but more as a reunion, even a wedding, a reconnection, a return to who we are - which is one. We simply meet where we are at, with authenticity and honesty, with the profound and true desire of connection.

And as it is a time of forgiveness, we first learn to forgive ourselves, practicing self-love, then others, practicing kindness. It’s not about forgetting or easily forgiving, but about letting it go, and opening the mind and the heart, knowing that we all do mistakes in this seemingly chaotic world, and it’s not ours to judge what is wrong or bad / to take upon us the emotional burden of trying to understand why and what is right… We surrender to HaShem, Dayan HaEmet, the true judge.

Practice: When faced with choices, pause and imagine the scales before you. Ask: What brings greater balance to my life?

🌬 The Shofar — Breath of the Soul

Breath comes from within the body. This breath evokes the “nishmat chayim” ‏נשמת חיים — the divine breath that HaShem breathed into Adam on the day of his creation. This breath is our soul. Rosh Hashanah is not the anniversary of the world’s creation, but of the first human being.

Blowing the shofar recalls the neshama of man in its original state of purity. On Rosh Hashanah, the Yom HaDin (Day of Judgment), we sound the shofar so that we are not judged only by our exterior — our actions, what we do — but also by our interior, our hidden capacity to return. Like the face of the new moon, what is unseen counts: our ability to do teshuvah, to return to our essence.

The shofar awakens within us the call of teshuvah, the way back to our pure essence — the answer to all existential questions. The sound of the Shofar has the power to shake us, like dust shaken from carpets, stirring emotions and awakening thought.