Restarting the Heart

Our GLT team had a CPR course this morning for renewing certification or first time training. I learned something new about the AED, the automated defibrillator devices that provide a shock to the heart in an emergency situation. Even after having learned how to use the device initially I had thought that the shock restarts a heart that has, G*d forbid, stopped beating, temporarily replacing the normal cardiac stimuli with an electric current. However, in fact the shock delivered during cardiac arrest serves to stop the heart which has been thrown into an abnormal rhythm and allow the cardiac system to restart again properly. So the AED allows the heart to shut down and reboot itself, apparently the universal way to solve a malfunction.

The lesson for Elul, this time of teshuva, renewing and repairing ourselves preceding Rosh Hashana, is that we cannot restart our selves by running on an external current; cannot, even temporarily, rely on the shock or the awe to take over our hearts. Instead, the capacity to renew ourselves - to re-create or repair or return to G*d - is within us. The experience of the Days of Awe lets us arrest whatever destructive impulses may have grasp us so that our heart can do what it already knows how to do. Reboot and start again with new commitment to purpose and meaningful life.

May the New Year be sweet and healthy, gladdening and strengthening our hearts.