The month of Elul is a time of deep spiritual preparation, moving day by day closer to Rosh Hashanah and ultimately Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

But we are physical beings. We imagine the spiritual in terms of the physical. And so, during this month of spiritual preparation, we imagine ourselves physically interacting with the Divine.

In Jewish tradition, God is envisioned during Elul as a king who leaves his castle and goes out into the fields, where the people can approach him freely.

Judaism gives us no physical image of God. We have descriptions of God’s attributes, metaphors for God’s presence, names for God, but no face to picture, no form to reach toward.

Perhaps that is why our experiences of God can be so ephemeral — quick as a deer leaping through a clearing. There for a moment and then gone, existing only as a snapshot in memory.

But during Elul, the king leaves the castle. God is no longer behind walls, but out in the fields and valleys where humanity resides. And there we bring our needs, our wants, our desires, our deep-seated urge to be in the Presence.

We reach for God in the calm of our daily prayers and in our darkest moments. We want God to be present. We crave reassurance and guidance.

Am I on the right path, God?

This week’s Torah portion begins with the words ki teitze — “when you go out.” In context, it refers to human beings going out to war. But we are in the month of Elul, when our tradition imagines God going out, too.

And the metaphor of God as a king leaving a castle leads me to wonder: Does God choose to be walled off from us? Is that what God wants?

I hope not.

I pray that God yearns for me as much as I yearn for God.

And so I am comforted by this month, when we imagine God moving freely among us. Still Divine, still more than human, and yet somehow less divinely distant.

During Elul, we blow the shofar every morning. I was taught that the daily shofar blast is meant to startle me awake, to stir my soul and prepare me for the intensity of the coming holy days.

But this morning, I hear the shofar differently.

I hear it as a call not only to me and my fellow Jews, but also to God.

Ki teitze.

Come out.

Come out of the castle and into the fields.

Come into my world.

Come into my heart.

Awaken my soul to You.