Overcoming Arrested Development in Elul- by Maya

I just finished watching the series Arrested Development, and enjoyed it very much. Its interesting to me, though, that I viewed many episodes in the Jewish month of Elul, the weeks leading up to the High Holy Days, in which we are supposed to reflect on ourselves and ponder how we want to act in the coming year.


The TV series follows the Bluth family, a group of corrupt and eccentric individuals, as they face the criminal trial of their father figure while dealing with the responsibilities of running their real estate business and keeping their family together. As I watched it, I noticed how consistently each character maintained his or her quirks, making similar mistakes over and over again because that's how they functioned as people. While this strong character development is a mark of great writing, and definitely one of the main factors that makes the show so hilarious, not repeating our mistakes in the coming year is something that we as Jews think about during Elul. While we watch as characters like Gob (pronounced like the biblical character, which in itself demonstrates the kind of person he is) hilariously produce magic tricks that continually fail, or Lindsay neglect her daughter and desire to cheat on her husband all fit together into an insanely clever and funny story-line, our own personal errors and negative qualities are usually far less humorous, and when we make mistakes it is generally not for the sake of entertainment.


I see Elul as a tool for us to overcome our own arrested development. It is a time in which we can take a step back, attaining a wider perspective on how we act and the choices we make, and how those choices define our lives as a whole. We have the power to break out of cycles of error, to grow and develop in such a way that we are not characterized by our negative quirks and the mistakes we make, and Elul, which leads up to the most important days in the Jewish calendar, reminds us of that.  Unlike the oblivious characters on the show, we have the ability to realize our errors, which is the first step in eliminating them.


This Elul, I am hoping that I do not end up like the members of the Bluth family. I hope that I can be self-aware enough to learn from my mistakes, realizing when I make them and striving to not fall into a cycle of similar errors. I hope that my good intentions will not, in turn, create more disasters, which usually happens to the characters on the show, but instead generate positive impacts on myself and others. As much as I loved the show Arrested Development, I hope to arrest my own arrested development as I reflect on the past and look forward to the coming year.