The Journey Home: Rashi, Elul, and Returning to Who We Were Created to Be

There is something powerful about encountering the words of Rashi while walking through France, the land in which he lived and taught nearly a thousand years ago. During our Jewish Heritage Journey this summer, we have been exploring what I have called the “Top Ten Rashis”—teachings that have accompanied the Jewish people for generations. Remarkably, Rashi’s very first comment on the Torah contains a profound lesson about home.

Before sharing the teaching itself, Rashi begins by quoting his father, Rabbi Yitzchak. Think about that. Rashi is about to embark upon one of the most influential works in Jewish history, yet before offering his own voice, he remembers the voice that came before him.

None of us arrives where we are alone. We carry within us our parents and grandparents, teachers and mentors—people whose values have become part of who we are. Rashi’s opening invites us to ask: Whose values am I carrying forward? Who helped make me who I am? And how will I ensure that what they gave me does not end with me?

Rashi then quotes his father’s question: Why does the Torah begin with the creation of the world? If the Torah is a book of Divine instruction, why not begin with the first mitzvah given to the Jewish people? His answer ultimately turns our attention toward Eretz Yisrael and its eternal place in Jewish destiny.

The setting makes the teaching especially poignant. Rashi lived in France, but his heart was turned toward Jerusalem. He understood that Jews might build lives in Troyes, Paris, Stamford, or countless other places while never forgetting where the Jewish heart ultimately calls home.

And as we enter Elul, I have been thinking that Rashi’s teaching points us toward an even deeper kind of homecoming.

Home is where we come from. Home is where we belong. But home is also who we were created to be.

That is the essence of teshuvah. We often translate the word as “repentance,” but its literal meaning is return. Rav Kook taught that teshuvah is not only returning to God after we have sinned. At its deepest level, it is returning to our truest selves—to the person we know we can become and the person God created us to be.

Perhaps that is why we need Elul so badly. It is surprisingly easy to become a stranger to ourselves.

Life moves quickly. Emails, appointments, errands, responsibilities. We devote enormous energy to what is urgent and can slowly lose sight of what is important.

There is an old story of a pilot who announces over the intercom, “I have good news and bad news. The good news is that we are making excellent time. The bad news is that we have no idea where we are going.”

Sometimes that is life. We are moving quickly. Accomplishing things. Checking boxes. But Elul interrupts the momentum long enough to ask: Where are you going?

Are the things consuming your days aligned with what matters most? Are you investing in the people you love? Are you becoming more patient, generous, courageous, and grateful? At the end of a day, can you identify something you did that was not merely productive, but meaningful?

The Jewish tradition calls this a cheshbon hanefesh—an accounting of the soul. It is not an exercise in guilt. It is an invitation to honesty: Where am I? Where have I drifted? Where do I want to go?

Sometimes it takes a crisis to awaken us to those questions. While visiting the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, I encountered a painting of a dying soldier with an angel hovering above him. I stopped in front of it. Moments of mortality have a way of stripping away the superficial. Suddenly, the urgent becomes less urgent and the important becomes unmistakably clear. We think about the people we love, the good we have done, the relationships that need healing, and whether we have used our lives well.

Elul gives us that awakening without requiring the crisis.

God is essentially saying: You don’t have to wait. I am giving you this month. Come home.

And coming home does not require transforming ourselves overnight. Teshuvah begins with a turn. One conversation we have been avoiding. One apology. One relationship deserving more attention. One renewed commitment to prayer or Torah. One act of generosity. One decision to be truly present. One small turn in the direction of home.

Perhaps that is why Rashi’s opening words resonate so deeply as Elul begins. Remember where you came from—the people and values that formed you. Remember where you belong—Rashi could live in France while keeping his heart turned toward Jerusalem. And remember who you are—the person God created you to become.

As we enter this sacred month, let us ask ourselves: Whose values am I carrying? Where is my life actually heading? What have I allowed the urgent to crowd out? And what is one step I can take today to return to what matters most?

We do not need to wait for a crisis to come home. No matter how far we may have wandered, we can return.

The door is already open. Elul is our invitation to come home—to God, to what matters most, and to the person we were created to be.