Our cherished early-morning slumber is often marred by the jarring shrill or melodious chimes of our alarm clock. And in the daily battle of sleep versus accomplishment it’s our hand sneaking out from under the covers to blindly hit “snooze ” that seems victorious.

The shofar blast teaches the Rambam (Hilchos Teshuvah 3:4) is calling “Uru yesheinim mi’shinaschem — Wake up you sleeping ones from your sleep.” The tragedy is that often we respond to the shofar as we respond to our alarm clock: We reach out a hand and simply press our neshamah’s “snooze” button.

How can we approach Elul if we’re lost in a dream of spiritual indifference and apathy? How can we awaken that latent spark as we approach Yom HaDin? If we attempt to fake it can we possibly still be zocheh ba’din?

I recently encountered someone blessed with impressive yichus. He mentioned that his grandfather knew Shas Mishnayos by heart by his bar mitzvah. “I don’t have much Torah of my own” he added.

I quickly shared my view of what yichus is: 1) Something great to aspire toward; or 2) Something about which to say “I give up; I’ll never be like my ancestor anyway.”

“I’ll go with option number two.…” he replied sadly.

How can we wake up when we’re resigned to stay asleep?

MAKING A QUICK EXIT

When someone denies his neshamah’s purpose in This World and its need to accomplish he’s living with a spiritual dissonance. In his Alei Shur Rav Shlomo Wolbe ztz”l comments on the “mekalel” the vagrant who left his tent and cursed Hashem in the desert.

The Torah introduces the incident with the words “vayeitzei ish — and a man went out.” The Midrash asks “From where did he go out?” The answer: “He left his world.”

What does it mean to “leave one’s world?” Clearly this describes a person’s spiritual world. We attest daily about the neshamah Hashem invested in us: “It is pure You created it You fashioned it and You placed it in me.” Leaving one’s world means living in denial of the reality of our neshamah and its mandates.

How then can one truly return to one’s world?

Rav Wolbe’s answer is based on the words of the Gemara (Menachos 29b) on “Ki b’Ka Hashem tzur olamim — With His Name of ‘KA’ Hashem fashioned the worlds.”

“Which worlds?” Chazal ask. Olam HaZeh and Olam HaBa.

These worlds were fashioned on the basis of the letters of the name “KA” consisting of a “yud” and a “hey.” With the small letter “yud” Hashem created the World to Come as those who merit it are few. This World was created with the letter “hey ” as the “hey” has an opening on the bottom and whoever wishes to leave it can literally drop out!

Rav Wolbe points out the obvious message conveyed by the very shape of the “hey”: How does one return to his world? It would take quite a climb but there is always an opening to return. Teshuvah.

Teshuvah a return to Hashem is a return to oneself.

It is Elul and the usually quiet whisper of our lofty neshamos is now roaring via the alarm clock of the shofar. Our spiritual malaise is somewhat interrupted by the thought of “Who will live and who will die?”

Our trek back into our world begins with a clear awareness of self and our placement in this world vis-à-vis where the One Who placed us here expects us to be. Our main and greatest obstacle to change is how much we like ourselves and are accustomed to “the way we are.” We lose our sensitivities and hardly feel anything is wrong. It’s unfortunate that only once the fall has become painful do we realize how far we’ve fallen but that’s when we might reach out and return to Hashem.

NEVER TOO LATE NEVER TOO FAR

The Torah guarantees us an attainable goal if we reawaken our striving for spirituality: “It is not too far from you.… It is not over the sea … It is in your mouth and your heart to do so” (Devarim 30:11–14).

The Meshech Chochmah describes the closeness of this inner call to awaken.

“This is why it says ‘You will listen to the Voice of Hashem to keep His mitzvos.’ When? … When you do teshuvah … with all of your heart and all of your soul. When you do teshuvah and you distance yourself from illusions and lies. Then you will be able to keep the mitzvos because you will hear the Voice of Hashem which is in every Jew’s heart pounding on his insides to keep the Torah.… Because the Voice of Hashem screams in the spirit of a Jew: ‘You heard and must keep what you accepted at Sinai!’$$separator$$” (ibid. v. 14)

In fact Pirkei D’Rabi Eliezer (chapter 41) describes that at Sinai we heard the same call: “Uru yesheinim — wake up sleeping ones!” The call of our neshamah is the call that says “Listen to me; we were there! You know you have something to strive for. We all have very impressive yichus; our neshamos were all there at Matan Torah.”

The Meshech Chochmah teaches that illusions and lies prevent us from hearing the voice of our neshamos. Our egos and all that feeds them are the ultimate barrier to our listening to our own inner message. When Hashem placed our neshamos inside us we were “encoded” with the age-old message we heard at Sinai.

It is interesting to note that the Rambam in Hilchos Mezuzah (6:13) again invokes this powerful message of “Uru yesheinim in one other context — mezuzah. He says the mezuzah on our doorposts declares: “Wake up pay attention! Look around and see what really matters in life! Before you move on to the next room pay attention to where you’re going and why you’re going there.”

As we look around the internal “rooms” of our lives “Uru yesheinim” is repeatedly asking: “What in this room makes me so sleepy that I don’t want to wake up? Of the ‘furniture’ I’ve allowed into my space which may do better on the back of a moving truck?”

Our Elul “moving list” cannot be too all encompassing or overwhelming. Realistic goals are those that are small and attainable. The first step in waking up is saying “hello” to your self. Remind your neshamah that you’re aware of it. Get up in the morning and say “Elokai neshamah” with heartfelt kavanah even read the translation if it helps.

You may not be strong enough to motivate yourself. Find a mentor rav or teacher who can help give you that jolt to awareness. Together make a list of what may need to be tempered and cut back for you to have more spiritual awareness — and more meaningful time to work on it. Make another list of things that could be added to your life that would enrich and enhance that awareness. Once those lists are complete set yourself realistic goals in both areas.

Hopefully you’ll then be strong enough to resist that “back-to-sleep” urge and use each day of Elul as an opportunity to jump “out of bed” and wake up!