Throughout the year, in spite of our struggles for living our beliefs, there were times when we lost our balance and overstepped our boundaries. Ego eruptions burst out in all directions and our intense feelings, not yet purified, over shouted the serenity of wisdom. This caused ourselves to become scattered and caught in snares where our thoughts and feelings became trapped as wings of a bird in barbed wire fences. our sense of separateness and fragmentation dominated our deeper intuition of unity. Now we are given a special Divine energy to help us gather all of our diffused life force back into the prenatal Yud (the letter through which this month was formed(, the embryonic purity of wholeness, the reclamation of fragmentation.

Last month, amidst the fiery passions, we lost sight of our borders, our personal boundaries. Gad, the tribe connected with this month, was a master of boundaries. He, being the warrior who lead other tribes in conquering the land, was gifted in the ability to fight for and maintain the borders of Israel. Tshuva (return: the special quality of this month which precedes the New Year) depends upon one's ability to recognize one's borders and limitations and refocus oneself within them. This involves redefining our boundaries and returning within their borders. Coming to terms with our limitations leads to true freedom; disentangling the wings of the soul so that it may soar towards the Creator.

The background of this painting depicts the land inheritance of Gad on the other side of the Jordan River. The kaleidoscopic effect can be understood in relation to the blowing of the shofar that is sounded this month in preparation for Rosh Hashana. The first sound of the shofar is the long unbroken blast of the takia - the primal scream, the return to the steady heartbeat, the concentration of life's energy in one place and moment. Next comes the broken sounds of the shavorim which recalls the shattering and fragmentation of the soul during its journey through life while wrestling with truth as it falls from the path of light and shatters in many places. The trua, the final sound of the shofar, represents the healing of our fragmented selves through the wisdom of the Torah. The result is a new, more beautiful kaleidoscopic unity in which all of the fragments are uplifted as they return to the Yud. This final process is illustrated in the painting.

Being reconnected to the moment through our present actions in the meditation of this month. The limb of the body that was formed in this dimension is the left hand. Concentrating on its movement and its function opens our consciousness to experience the depths of the present. The left hand, associated with mundane activities, grasps at the physical reality of the present through the storms of the mind that are seducing one to travel out of space/time contexts, trying to claim rather than be reclaimed. The battle is to reclaim oneself from out of the contexts of the moment, not only by doing whatever is necessary to correct past wrongs, but by rectifying each and every action through awareness and wisdom.