I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but even tonight you can tell it’s getting darker earlier and earlier. It’s pitch dark by 8 PM now when a few weeks ago it seemed like it was light until 9 PM. The days are getting shorter, we’ve even had a few cool nights here and there—I think I speak for all of us when I say I wish tonight were one…
In gardening terms, the tomatoes and basil are pretty much done for the season. We’re in late-summer now with a taste of fall around the corner. The shelves are filling up with pumpkin spice bagels—I am not making that up! There are pumpkin spice Milanos, Oreos, and Cheerios, oh my. Of course, this means the actual pumpkin spice lattes are just around the corner.
There is even—heaven help me—pumpkin spice Spam.
Anyway.
For us, starting tonight, we enter a critical month — the month of Elul.
Elul is the 6th month of the Jewish calendar, and from here until Yom Kippur, we have forty days to get our spiritual house in order through teshuvah. This is related to the amount of time Moses spent on Mount Sinai.
Elul is a haven in time, a refuge from the material concerns that occupy us most of the year. We hear the haunting cry of the shofar at weekday prayers, awakening us to turn and repent. We recite Psalm 27, a psalm of protection and encouragement.
These forty days are known as Y’mei Ratzon, days of favor. It was during this time that God forgave the people of Israel for the sin of the golden calf.
Now I don’t know about you, but forty days seems like an awfully long time to be in a state of repair and repentance. Wouldn’t a long weekend be ok? Maybe four days? Come on!
I kid. This time is intentional, it parallels Sinai according to the Medieval commentator Rashi. Moses ascended Sinai not once, not twice — but three times! Bet you didn’t know that!
Let’s break it down to understand the importance of the forty days.
The first ascent was on the 6th of Sivan, fifty days after the Exodus, when Moses received the Torah and began to study it. This is what we celebrate on Shavuot.
When he descended after forty days, he saw the people dancing and worshipping the golden calf and smashed the tablets. According to tradition, this occurred on the 17th of Tammuz on which I preached while discussing the three weeks earlier in July.
On the 18th of Tammuz, he burned the golden calf and judged the idolators. The following day, the 19th of Tammuz, he again ascended Sinai and interceded for the people for forty more days until the 29th of Av.
He descended without an assurance as to what would happen next. The next day, Elul 1, he was called to ascend a third time for another forty days where he would receive a new set of tablets.
At last, he descended with these tablets and assurances of forgiveness, help, and strength on—can you guess the day? That’s right, the 10th of Tishrei, or in other words, Yom Kippur.
As I’ve taught in my calendar classes, Judaism operates on multiple levels of time. All this has happened before, is happening now, and will happen again. Time is a spiral, not a straight line, nor even a flat circle. What occurred during Passover thousands of years ago with redemption creates a season of redemption at the same date every year, and future redemption will fall during that very same time.
These weeks of ascent and forgiveness during Elul and Tishrei create a time infused with forgiveness and the energy of repair. All this is to stress that forty days is neither optional nor random. It’s a window of opportunity. The gates are open. And the chassidim understand this through the story of the King in the Field per Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi.
The king’s usual place is in the royal palace in the capital city. Anyone wishing to approach the king must go through appropriate channels in the palace bureaucracy, currying the favor and gaining the approval of a succession of secretaries and ministers. They must journey to the capital and pass through many gates, corridors, and antechambers that lead to the throne room. Their presentation must be meticulously prepared, and they must adhere to an exacting code of dress, speech, and manner upon entering into the royal chamber.
However, there are times when the king comes to the fields outside the city. At such times, anyone can approach—the king receives them all with a smiling face and radiant countenance. The peasant behind his plow has access in a manner unavailable to the highest ranking ministers in the royal court when the king is in the palace.
The month of Elul is when the king is in the field.
Now on Shabbat, we may live in the palace, but most of the time we live in the fields. We work and strain to make ends meet out here in the world. During the year we can approach God with prayers, special holidays, and observances. During Elul, God is with us in return, not a far away sovereign, but a friend to whom we can turn in dark times to look inside and take stock of where and how we are.
How many of you have ever painted a room in your house? What is the hardest part? It’s not the painting, it’s the prep! The preparation often takes twice as long as the actual painting. A lot of people come to Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur and, as much as they want to have a meaningful time, they haven’t done the prep work.
They want to walk in and have something happen. But they didn’t do move the furniture and tape the corners, they didn’t line up the brushes and buy the paint. They don’t start the process of looking inside. During Elul, the air is charged with holiness. We are supposed to pray with more fervor, to give more tzedakah.
We are supposed to start that long hard turn to being the best we can be.
Many websites offer inspiration. I recommend Jewels of Elul as a good place to start. It was put together by Craig Taubman and Rabbi David Wolpe. Every day of Elul an inspirational thought, quote or prayer is sent right into your inbox, a little nudge to get you in the right headspace.
Another good resource is a guided journal called “Preparing Your Heart for the HHD” by Rabbi Kerry Olitzsky. This outlines forty steps of repentance—see, forty again—with reflections from Jewish tradition and a blank page for your own thoughts. There are many more resources, just ask us, we can help point the way. However you prepare, the key is to look inward, think about where we can improve, apologies we need to make. Whatever else, don’t walk in cold on Rosh Hashanah!
The rabbis teach us that the Hebrew in the word Elul— Aleph, Lamed, Vav, Lamed—is an acrostic of the very famous line from Song of Songs, I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine Ani L’dodi v’Dodi Li. It speaks of the intimate relationship with the holy one of blessing that we seek at this special time of year.
So get that pumpkin spice latte or Oreo or I guess bagel ready—really? Really? Anyway. Let’s start looking inward, doing the prep work, practicing the shofar, and then…let us meet the King in the field together.
Shabbat Shalom.