This morning I woke up to some messages from friends, “did you feel it? did you feel it?” A few said they didn’t feel it. Others said they lost a whole night of sleep, but no damage otherwise.  Still others wanted to know what in the world we were all talking about.

I felt it, and felt it big. It could have been in my own backyard for all I knew.

“It” was an earthquake. Epicentered near Beverly Hills, a few miles from where I live.  Only a 3.2 – which for Southern California standards, that’s pretty low and unimpressive. But nevertheless worthy of mentioning during the time of Ellul, the month before Rosh Hashanah,  when we need to shake ourselves out of our complacency and oblivion, and get down to brass tacks of fixing up our ways – both to G-d and to our fellow man.

So the fact that it was a small one is a kindness. Some say the “Big One” is coming….and it’s only a matter of time. To me that’s a scary notion, and it makes me want to prepare and prepare (water, batteries, canned food…huh? what else?).

But for now the real preparation is for the Big Day in a few weeks when we will stand before our G-d in prayer on Rosh Hashanah. Praying for a sweet new year. For a non-shaking year…

Sometimes we need to shake things up, change and better ourselves down here, so that G-d shakes things up for us in a good way for the coming year. May we all have a sweet, happy,  and healthy New Year. And safe.