A prayer in the month of Elul

Master of the World, Elul has come. Something in the air is changing, and I feel that the year is about to close. I want to use these days, and not arrive at Rosh Hashanah as I do every year, surprised and unprepared.

Let me make a true accounting of my soul. Not a long list of guilt that will break me, but an honest look at the year: where I was better, where I drifted away, which habits took hold of me.

Let me repair while there is still time. To call a person who was hurt by me, to return what is not mine, to close a matter that remained open and weighs on me.

And let me forgive in these days. If there is someone I am waiting for to ask my forgiveness, let me already release part of the anger now, so that I can ask forgiveness myself with a cleaner heart.

And above all, let me draw close to You. I want to get up earlier in these days, to pray with heart, to speak with You quietly as I did not speak all year.

And on the mornings when I hear the sound of the shofar, let me hear it as a call to me, and not as a familiar sound I no longer notice.

Let me come to the Days of Awe not in fear but in longing, like someone returning home after a long journey.

And let me rejoice in these days. Not to see in them only days of judgment and fear, but days of closeness, in which the door is open and the way home is shorter than ever.