Chodesh Tov to our Friends and Community. With the global events in the world during the last year and half, we want to acknowledge all those who have suffered, and offer our support and prayer for healing and our commitment to you – our community – to engage you in ways that are considerate, healthy and safe. We care so much for you, and we look forward to growing and celebrating life with you. We, here at Vital Transformation, are happy for the support and learning we were able to provide in the last month, and we’re committed to providing courses in the month ahead.

If ever you miss a class, or want to deepen your study, we invite you to check out our youtube channel for all the latest studies. We post every week.

As we welcome the month of Elul (Virgo), we’re welcoming a month with an energy in pursuit of purity, repentance, and perfection. There is an opportunity to work on restricting our impulses. There is also an opportunity to perfect our internal self in order to create more harmony and peace in the external world. We can use the energy of this month to perfect which parts of ourselves and our actions we know are too much and which parts we know are not enough.

This month starts 30 days before Rosh Hashanah and 40 days before Yom Kippur, which is giving us an opportunity to have a conversation with G-d and with ourselves in order to transform ourselves into a higher spiritual being. This is a long time for that conversation, indeed, but a true transformation is not something easy to do.

Rabbi Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman, the Vilna Gaon (Genius of Vilna), gives us an instructive paradigm for this. When he was a boy, he declared that his purpose was to change the world. As he grew up, married, and had his first child, he stated that his purpose was to change his country to make it spiritual (Vilna, at the time, was under the Russian Empire). By the time he was a grandfather, seeing the contraction of his reach, he said that his purpose was to change his family. As a very old man, looking back at all the work he’d done and wisdom he’d accumulated, the Vilna Gaon said, “I would be very happy if I can transform myself into a better person.”

A real transformation is not easy. So by even telling ourselves ‘no,’ and denying ourselves an action we know is bad for us, it’s important to acknowledge that we are taking a step toward transformation. By doing something we know we should do, but may not want to do, we are taking a step toward that transformation.

As you continue taking steps this month on your journey of transformation, we encourage you to reach out to us at Vital Transformation for counsel and support.