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Elul Elul Preparing for the Days of Awe This article was written by Stephen Butterfass for Religious Living on the Web. Maimonides teaches us that the sounding of the Shofar on Rosh Hashanah is a call to awaken Israel from its spiritual sleep. "Awake, you sleepers from your sleep, rouse yourself you slumberers... Examine your deeds, return in repentance and remember your Creator. Those of you who forget the truth in the follies of the times and go astray the whole year in vanity and emptiness, which neither profit nor save, look to your souls, improve your ways and works, abandon your evil ways everyone of you! (Mishnah Torah, Hilchot Teshuvah 3.4) The month that precedes Tishri, and Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, is called Elul. It is traditionally a time of reflection, introspection, study and prayer, of preparation for the turning or Teshuvah, that is necessary for atonement and God's forgiveness, the themes of the Days of Awe. The month's passage is marked by the blowing of the Shofar during the morning service, except for Shabbat and the last day of the month. Temple Israel has had a tradition of blowing the Shofar during Elul at the conclusion of the Friday evening service. According to the Midrash, the first of Elul was the day Moses returned to Sinai to fast and pray for forty days to obtain God's forgiveness for Israel's worship of the golden calf. The Rabbis also taught that the word 'Elul' is made up of four Hebrew letters, Alef, Lamed, Vav, Lamed. They are the first letters of the verse from the Song of Songs, Ani Ledodi Vedodi Li, "I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine." Since the rabbinic tradition considered the love poetry of the Song of Songs an allegory for God's love of Israel, the forty days from the beginning of Elul to Yom Kippur is considered an opportunity for reconciliation with God. There is also the tradition of the Selichot service, the gathering together on the Saturday night before Rosh Hashanah to offer special prayers for forgiveness, Selichot being the plural for a Hebrew word meaning forgiveness or pardon. One of the prayer books used for this service by Reform Judaism is called Shaarei Selichah, Gates of Forgiveness. Its editor, Rabbi Chaim Stern, describes the Selichot service as one "in which the House of Israel individually and collectively, struggles to return to God as we prepare for the Days of Awe." The liturgy is meant to introduce the mood, music and themes of the Days of Awe and the prayers are both confessional and penitential. Beginning with a reminder that "We are your people, your children...You are our Ruler, our Father..." the prayers address "El Melech, yoshev al kise rachamim", God or Ruler, seated on the throne of compassion, who forgives sin and pardons trangression, and a recitation of the Thirteen Attributes of God's Merciful Name: "Adonai, Adonai, el rachum v'chanun, erech apayim v'rav chesed v'emet, notzayr chesed l'alafim, nosey avon vafeshah v'chatah-ah v'nakey. Adonai, The Eternal, the compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and full of loving-kindness and truth, assuring love to thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression and error and pardoning. The congregation prays "Shema Kolenu" " hear our voice, have compassion upon us" and recites several confessional prayers, "Ashamnu" an alphabetical litany of offenses and "al chet schechatanu lefanecha" "for the sin we have committed against you." The service concludes with a long blast from the Shofar. Some congregations including ours, have offered different programs including films, lectures and discussions in an attempt to address the issue of how to truly change behavior and right wrongs done in the previous year. It has also been a tradition during Elul to give tzedakah, contributions to charity and to visit family graves during this period and during the ten days that separate Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, a reminder that both the dead and the living have contributed to the eternal cycle of being.
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