Tending the Soul This Summer

We’ve finally made it.The summer air is hot and humid—heat shimmers on sidewalks, air conditioners hum overtime, and (if we’re lucky) we take respite by a lake glistening under a star-filled sky. And yet, beneath the surface of this season, something quieter stirs. We may not feel it yet, but the Hebrew month of Elul—a time of soul-turning and return—is just around the corner.

There’s a Hasidic teaching that Elul is like a field where the Monarch—meaning holiness and divine presence—comes to walk among the people. Not in a palace behind locked gates, but right here, where we are, with grass under our feet and the sun on our backs. The invitation isn’t to panic or perform, but rather to begin noticing,to plant a seed of intention. To be ever aware of what might be shifting in us, even before the season’s end.

Our tradition teaches that in Elul, we are invited to meet the Divine panim el panim—face to face—but first, we must uncover our own true face. Summer, with all its looseness and space, gives us room to ask: What am I really feeling? What have I been carrying? What part of me wants to come home?

This moment in the year feels like a paradox. The world outside is fiery—sometimes literally, with wildfires and heatwaves becoming more frequent, and sometimes emotionally, with the intensity of our personal lives and the wider world around us. Anger, passion, heartbreak, urgency—they can all flare up so quickly. Jewish tradition doesn’t ask us to extinguish those fires, but it does ask: How will you tend the flame of your soul? Will it warm or consume? Will it kindle insight, connection, and change—or burn through what’s still becoming?

Our mystical tradition describes the soul as “a divine flame”—ner Adonai nishmat adam (Proverbs 20:27)—“God’s candle is the human soul.” A flame always reaching upward, flickering with longing and possibility. But a flame needs tending—with care and with love. Flame alone can’t sustain us. We also need water.

Water, in our tradition, is Torah: wisdom, nourishment, and the calming force that softens hard edges. The Mishnah teaches:  “In a place where there are no people, strive to be a person.” Sometimes that means holding compassion when others burn with rage. Sometimes it means stepping back, cooling down, so we can respond rather than react.

What might it look like, this summer, to balance your inner fire with spiritual water? To pause by the lake or on a shady porch and ask: What am I being called to return to? What part of me is longing to be seen, softened, or rekindled?

We don’t have to figure it all out now. But a seed planted in July—an intention, a question, a gentle turn—can blossom by the time Elul arrives. As Rebbe Nachman of Bratslav taught: “If you believe you can destroy, believe you can repair.” The soul’s return doesn’t begin with the shofar blast. It starts now, in the quiet, in the summer.

Wishing you rest, renewal, and a season of thoughtful tending,

Rabbi Ilyse Glickman

Please let me know what you think about today’s offering: rabbiglickman@djctoronto.com. I look forward to the conversation.