The book of Lamentations, traditionally said to have been written by the prophet Jeremiah after the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE and the exile of the people from Israel, ends with the recognition of God’s anger about Israel’s sins, but the custom is always that when a book ends on negative note, we repeat the penultimate verse – in this case the petition “הֲשִׁיבֵנוּ ה’ אֵלֶיךָ וְנָשׁוּבָ חַדֵּשׁ יָמֵינוּ כְּקֶדֶם  Return us God to you and we shall return, renew our day as before.

It is a verse you will know – we sing it when we return the scroll to the ark after reading from it every week. And it is a verse filled with complex layers of meaning.

It is a book filled with torment and despair, which famously begins with a description of Jerusalem as a widow, abandoned by God (her husband), empty of life and full of tears, beginning with a question “Eicha” – “How?” The suffering portrayed is overwhelming, and graphically described. God does not speak, the writer acknowledges their role in bringing this terrible situation about.

And then the penultimate verse ask God to bring us back to God, and we will return. And finally this strange request – hadesh yameinu k’kedem.  Make our days new – as they were before.  Or maybe “Make our days new – as we look towards the future. K’Kedem, which means “like in the past”(coming from the idea that the sun rises in the East and moves across the sky, so Kedem means both east and older or earlier), can also be construed as “with progression and advancement” (mitkadem references the future). So together these phrases ask for newness and renewal and for a return to an earlier state of being.

They remind us that we want to reclaim the good parts of our past while progressing into a new  position, becoming something more than we already are.

As we move through the month of Elul we are in the process of examining our past and reclaiming the parts that we feel make us a good person, while looking to a future and aiming to become the best person we can.  We recognise our role in, and responsibility for,  being the person we are now, and contemplate what we can change in ourselves going forward. And we petition God – “help us to come back to you” for we know ourselves to need such assistance if we are to make that journey.