Elul (אלול) is the name of the month in our Jewish calendar that immediately precedes the Jewish New Year and High Holy Days. The month of Elul is one that fulfills the promise of drawing closer, awakening our inner lives through the call of the shofar, and preparing ourselves for the joy and renewal of the holiday season.
A recently published companion to Mishkan T’filah provides us with additional liturgical and poetic sources, allowing us to deepen our sense of approaching High Holy Days. We also begin to blow the shofar in the month of Elul, the sound piercing our souls and reminding us to engage in the process of introspection and preparation.
In an average year, the month of Elul tends to fall on August, with only a tail of it landing in September — and so it often gets ‘lost’ in the end of the summer routines, the beginning of the new school year and all that goes with it. This year, the High Holy Days fall in October, so we get a chance to experience the month of Elul in its fullest.
Before we arrive at Rosh Hashanah, we get to pause and consider our lives, engage in the practice of cheshbon hanefesh, accounting of the soul. Before we come together for the full liturgical experience of the holiest days of our year, we get to slowly prepare. The culmination of the month of Elul is the Selichot service on the last Saturday night before Rosh Hashanah, when we begin to recite the penitence prayers and chant the haunting melodies that are so familiar to us from the Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur liturgy.
Four New Haven area Reform synagogues come together for Selichot services, taking turns in hosting the gatherings. This year, on Saturday September 28th at 7pm we will gather at Temple Beth David in Cheshire. We will say goodbye to Shabbat with a brief Havdalah ceremony, and we will get a chance to hear from Judge Douglas Lavine, the co-chair of the Connecticut Hate Crimes Advisory Council (of which I am a member), who will speak about Restorative Justice and Forgiveness, an incredibly fitting topic for the night of Selichot. The evening will conclude with a special service, led by all of the rabbis and cantors and choirs from all of our synagogues, a very special annual gathering that will allow us to prepare for the holy days ahead.
This year the ‘late’ start for the High Holy Days offers us a gift: experiencing the month of Elul in its fullness. Come and enjoy Friday night Shabbat service, join Saturday morning Torah study and get ready for the Days of Awe together!