An earthquake in Virginia? DC? Is this for real?
Growing up in New York I always felt like these things don't happen here. Not to us. Y'know, volcanoes, hurricanes, tsunamis and earthquakes!
With the High Holidays just around the corner, I have to say, that the shaking of the plates really got me thinking.
Elul is the last month of the Jewish calendar and the preparation month for the High Holidays. The days when we are judged. Who will be rich and who poor, who will be healthy and who will be sick, who will live and who will die. But, we are told that G-d doesn't just make hasty decisions, he actually gives us time to show what we've got and why we deserve only the best.
Like a mighty king, so removed from his subjects in his majestic palace that he takes a stroll in the fields thus, making himself available to the common folk to come over to him and beseech anything they so desire; too, the month of Elul is the time when G-d takes to the fields making himself conveniently accessible to all of us so that we can have our chance to make our own royal appeals.
But sometimes, we get so busy with our very important lives, that we forget that the king is in our front lawn, just waiting for us to step outside and greet him.
It is for this reason that we sound the shofar every single day of the month of Elul, reminding us to take this opportunity and not to miss out. Soon will be the High Holidays when we will be praying, fasting and hoping for a year full of good things. But by then, the king will have surely returned to the royal palace.
It seems however, that even G-d's commanding trumpet can get droned out in the hum hum of our daily lives and being made aware of His presence so nearby takes something much bigger. This year G-d must have taken matters into his own hands and shook the earth! Literally!
As if to say, Ladies and Gentlemen, get yourselves ready. In one week exactly I take to the fields!