In this episode of Underneath the Underneath, Yocheved enters Parshat Shoftim at the threshold of Elul — and finds inside it a map for the inner work of this season.
The Torah opens with a deceptively simple command: place judges and officers in all your gates. But Moshe isn’t only talking about city gates. He’s talking about the gates of the inner world — the places where fear enters, where the crowd’s opinion enters, where the past tries to determine the present. Who stands there? How do we discern what to let in and what to release?
Drawing on the archetypes of the judge, the tamim, and the prophet — and weaving in a visceral encounter with the Gobi desert — Yocheved traces three movements of Elul preparation. The judge discerns. The whole self surrenders to mystery. And from that surrender, the inner prophet arises — the voice from within, the still knowing, the one we were always meant to listen to.
This is a teaching for anyone standing at a threshold — and ready to ask who has been standing at their gate.
Ohmek Session dated August 11, 2026
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Yocheved Sidof is a mystic, teacher, trauma-informed spiritual guide and leader of Ohmek, a community of women and men pursuing deeper ways of Being.
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