Read our Teshuva Magazine for essays, poems, book excerpts, and more.
Read our Teshuva Magazine for essays, poems, book excerpts, and more.
Where does change come from? All of us have a subtle suspicion, a humble hope, in the possibility of our own betterment, but what does it take for us to get there, wherever ‘there’ is for us? Is it therapy that does the job, or prayer, or is it gumption, grit, dedication, or some other word? For many Jews, Elul is the month of change, or at least the aspiration for change.
1. The Process of Change: How can we appreciate the process of change on its own terms?
2. The Psychology of Change: Why is the road to change so challenging?
3. The Philosophy of Change: What do our hopeful attempts to change say about the human condition?
With every day, and every decision, we change, experiencing life in a way that we couldn’t imagine or envision earlier. Heraclitus, the storied pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, is famous for noting that one cannot step in the same river twice, which is a statement both about time and change. Both the river and the foot (or person wielding the foot) change with every moment, so that the circumstances will never be identical; a person can never step in the same river twice. How then can we aspire for better, for change, if we don’t know who we will become through the process of that change? How can we work towards a new way of seeing the world, if we are still guided by our old lenses? This book is an exploration of the questions about change you didn’t know you struggled with, and provides an intriguing road map to thinking about ourselves along the way.
