It is told that in 1957, a large edifice in Tibet needed to be relocated, and so all the furniture, including a large, ancient clay statue, had to be moved.
As the people were carrying this statue, they slipped, causing the statue to fall and crack slightly.
As they examined the crack, they saw something unusual – it was glowing. There was a shine from the place where the stature cracked.
It turned out that this statue had actually been made of pure gold, and then covered by a layer of clay.
Evidently, centuries earlier, there was a war, and before going out to war, the people decided to cover the statue with clay so that the enemy would not know its value. But all these people died in battle – so nobody knew that it was actually made of gold.
This story, in my view, teaches us exactly what the month of Elul is about.
It’s about chipping away at the “clay” exterior to reveal the “golden” interior.
The Gemara brings the view of Rabbi Yehuda – which has been accepted – stating that Am Yisrael are always considered Hashem’s children, even when we do not act properly. Even if it appears that we are “clay,” the truth is that deep inside, we are gold. We have a treasure of goodness inside of us, and Elul is the time to discover this priceless treasure.
This process is especially challenging in our generation, which faces problems which no generation before us ever faced. In fact, the problems we face are precisely the OPPOSITE of the problems faced in earlier generations.
Throughout human history, the single most urgent problem was scarcity. Food and water were hard to come by. It was hard for people to obtain the knowledge and information they needed. People had precious little free time for relaxation and enjoyment.
Today, we have the exact opposite problem. We have too much food. We have too much information. We have too much recreation. We have too much free time.
We have so much, that we’re distracted. We’re distracted by food, by cars, by clothes, by video games, by media, by news, by sports.
All this becomes the “clay” that covers the gold inside of us. We all have such a precious soul, and so many beautiful qualities, but the deluge of distractions around us diverts our attention from the gold. We get preoccupied with all this “stuff” until our golden interior is no longer visible.
Elul is the time to find our gold. This month is, primarily, about focus. About focusing more on what’s really important in life. About trying to avoid all the distractions, so we can rediscover our priorities.
If we make this effort, looking to change our focus, to pay more attention to the important things in life, then we will truly strike gold – we will realize that we are capable of so much more greatness than we ever imagined.