THEMES of Featured Ascent Lights

Beginner

G-d helps in our battles to overcome negative personal characteristics.

"When you go out to war against your enemies"

Chassidut explains that the "war" we face daily is during prayer, which is called "purification through war". This is an obligatory war in which the G-dly soul toils to control and usurp the body's animalistic tendencies.

Warring Against One's Dark Side

We must bring the light of repentance into all aspects of our lives.

"When you go out to war…"

The Lubavitcher Rebbe teaches that a person's spiritual growth during the month of Elul includes both bringing the light of holiness to those parts of our environment with which we are in regular, "obligatory", contact (family, friends, and co-workers), as well as trying to elevate the more peripheral zone of our lives, our social life, what we do for entertainment, how we use our spare time - the "extras".

Intermediate

Boundaries for Our Pride

We must strive toward humility - for the sake of the community.

"And you should make a fence on your roof"

The Shelah connects the concept of a roof - a high place - to haughtiness, which makes a person feel superior to others. Just as we are instructed to make a boundary around a roof, so, too, we must make a boundary around our pride.

Elul: Exposing our Perfection

During the month of Elul, we prepare for the high holy days by dealing with our past and accounting for our previous deeds. We do battle, as it were, with our deepest insecurities, negativities and challenges.