This week, on Tuesday and Wednesday, we observe Rosh Chodesh as we begin the month of Elul. This is a month dedicated to preparation for the High Holidays which follow. In our synagogue liturgy, we are currently in the midst of the seven weeks from the fast of Tisha B’Av to Rosh Hashanah. During this period our haftarot each week are known as the Sheva d’Nechemta, the seven haftarot of comfort and consolation. As Tisha B’Av marks a low point in the annual cycle when we recall past periods of alienation from God, we speak of this period afterwards as an opportunity for return to a closer relationship with God and with our tradition. It is often pointed out that the four Hebrew letters that spell out Elul, alef, lamed, vav, and lamed, are the first letters of the words from Song of Songs, “Ani l’dodi v’dodi li,” I am my Beloved’s and my Beloved is mine. This verse, sometimes recited at weddings and inscribed on wedding rings, is seen by our sages as a reference to the relationship between God and the people Israel. God is the Dod, the Beloved, as we sing in L’cha Dodi every Friday night.
While Elul has thirty days, they are often linked to the first ten days of the next month Tishri, the ten days of penitence between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. While the first letters of “Ani l’dodi v’dodi li” spell out Elul, the last letters of these four words are all yuds, a letter equivalent to the number ten, thus totaling 40, the 40 days from Rosh Chodesh Elul, the new moon we mark this week, to Yom Kippur. According to the rabbis these forty days correspond to the last of three forty-day periods that Moses is said to have spent in communion with God on Mount Sinai. He ascended first on Shavuot to receive the Ten Commandments and he remained there for forty days and forty nights. He came down the mountain bearing the two tablets inscribed by the Almighty, only to find the people dancing around the Golden Calf singing “this is your God, O Israel.” That fortieth day was the 17th of Tammuz when Moses in anger smashed the tablets and punishment was meted out to the people for this great sin. However, while angry at the Israelites, Moses still defended them to God and ascended the mountain for another forty days and nights to achieve forgiveness for them. There he learned the 13 attributes of divine mercy that we recite multiple times during the holiday season. Finally, on the first of Elul, Moses went back once more, ascending Mount Sinai and seeking to re-establish the special relationship with God. Forty days later, on the tenth of Tishri, the day designated as Yom Kippur, Moses descended with the second set of tablets, his face radiating “horns of light.” Atonement was achieved on that day and, thus through the ages, we have come before God on Yom Kippur seeking forgiveness and atonement for our sins and transgressions. This Day of Atonement is when we seek to be At-One with God.
We’re told that on the day Moses went back up the mountain, a shofar was sounded throughout the Israelite camp and thus began a tradition of sounding the shofar on each weekday morning throughout the month of Elul, stopping only on the eve of Rosh Hashanah.. If you attend a morning minyan during this period, you will hear tekiah-shevarim- teruah-tekiah sounded at the end of the service each day, a clear reminder that the season of repentance and reconciliation is upon us. When Moses recounted these events in last week’s Torah portion, he reminded the people that while on Mount Sinai he observed a forty-day fast, neither eating nor drinking during that period. Various commentators attempt to explain this impossible phenomenon, imagining Moses as a visitor in heaven in such a high spiritual state that physical functions were suspended for him during that period. He is not the only religious figure who speaks of transcending physicality through spiritual enlightenment and what we should make of it is not all that clear.
Regardless of how one wishes to understand this incredible purported feat, one finds mention in the law codes and custom books of “Anshei ma’aseh,” Men of action, spiritual supermen, so to speak, who attempt each year to duplicate this practice of observing forty days of successive fasts as a means of repentance for sins they may have committed in the past year. In such a case, one does not fast on Shabbat and Rosh Chodesh however. Rabbi Ephraim Zalman Margaliot in his classic 19th century work, Mateh Ephraim, on the holidays of this season, writes about this practice and notes that in order to be certain to fast a full 40 days, some of these people even start before Elul on Tu B’Av, the fifteenth day of the previous month, or even earlier. According to the Mateh Ephraim, those who take on this practice were not necessarily expected to complete the fast each day but were encouraged to emphasize their spiritual side over their physical needs as they sought atonement for past sins. This perhaps makes the concept more feasible. I am imagining a practice somewhat similar to the Muslim daytime fasts of Ramadan which end each evening after dark, though I am uncertain how this played out in those Jewish circles who seriously took on this challenge. After all, Moses claimed not to have partaken of bread or water for forty days and forty nights, an impossibility for mere mortals.
Margaliot mentions other practices followed during Elul as well. We are familiar with the addition of Psalm 27, L’David Adonay Ori v’Yishi, to the services morning and evening throughout the month and on into the holiday season up to Hoshana Rabbah or Shemini Atzeret. Among the Sephardim, people rise early before dawn each weekday of the month to recite Selichot, prayers of forgiveness, prior to the regular morning worship. Ashkenazic custom limits the recital of Selichot to the week of Rosh Hashanah beginning on the Saturday night before and continuing each morning up to the holiday as long as there are at least four days prior to Yom Tov after the start of the Selichot prayers. Those years when Rosh Hashanah falls on Monday or Tuesday, Selichot begins a week earlier to provide sufficient days. Most non-Orthodox synagogues nowadays, however, hold Selichot services only once each year on the Saturday evening prior to the holidays as a kind of introduction to the Days of Awe that are soon to begin.
In addition, the Mateh Ephraim also mentions a practice in some synagogues of reciting the entire book of Psalms twice during the month of Elul, reading ten Psalms each day after the morning service. If one doubles the 150 Psalms in the Psalter, that gives us the number 300 which is the numerical value of the word “Kaper,” Atone, the same root as in Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Yet another practice that he suggests is for a person to take some time prior to each meal and also before going to bed at night during the month of Elul to reflect on one’s past actions and to seek forgiveness for sins and missteps, to do teshuvah, to return, to repent before the Lord.
I have written some time back about a custom some observe of Yom Kippur Katan, marking a fast day with special liturgy on the eve of the new moon most months of the year. Margaliot mentions that while not everyone observes Yom Kippur Katan on a regular basis, there are communities that make it a point of observing it specifically before the new moon of Elul as part of these preparations for teshuvah, returning to divine favor, by changing our course, repenting past sins, and working to improve our lives.
Reading through all these customs and practices as my Monday night class did earlier this week, is a reminder of how very seriously our forbears took this season of judgment; how much thought they gave to the concepts of the Days of Awe that were upon them. No doubt, in some circles even today some or all of these practices may still be followed. A person who adheres to these prescriptions will certainly find him- or herself well prepared emotionally and spiritually for Rosh Hashanah in its role as Yom HaDin, the Day of Judgment. Any of these practices are commendable, though I doubt that many in our community would want to take them on personally. Intermittent fasting, the eight-hour diet, works for weight loss for those who are repenting from over-indulging in food, but I’m uncertain how well it works as a spiritual discipline. It does, however, occur to me that we already have a prescription provided us for a different kind of fast that might be more acceptable and reasonable for modern Jews and might have a more beneficial impact both on our own lives and those of our community.
On Yom Kippur morning, following the Torah reading from Leviticus which details the ritual of the High Priest in the desert Tabernacle for Yom Kippur and concludes with the commandment to “afflict our souls” on this day, we turn to the Book of Isaiah for our haftarah. The rabbis enumerate five types of “affliction” to be practiced on Yom Kippur: abstention from food and drink, from bathing, from anointing, from sexual relations, and from wearing (leather) shoes. The prophet in this selection from the book of Isaiah voices the complaint made to God which was heard from some people, “Lama tzamnu v’lo ra’ita?” “Why when we fasted, did You not see? When we starved our bodies did You pay no heed?” The prophet explains that the fast days of such people are superficial and that the actions of these folks too often contradict the values they profess. He describes God replying: “Because on your fast day you see to your business and oppress all your laborers! Because you fast in strife and contention and you strike with a wicked fist! Your fasting today is not such as to make your voice heard on high.”
The prophet goes on speaking in God’s name, “Is such the fast I desire, a day for people to starve their bodies? Is it bowing the head like a bulrush and lying in sackcloth and ashes? Do you call that a fast, a day when the Lord is favorable? No, this is the fast I desire: to unlock fetters of wickedness and untie the cords of the yoke to let the oppressed go free; to break off every yoke. It is to share your bread with the hungry, and to take the wretched poor into your home, when you see the naked to clothe them, and do not ignore your own flesh.” Fasting, prayer, and other rituals whether on Yom Kippur on throughout this season are empty practices unless accompanied by the type of actions outlined here in the book of Isaiah. Afflicting one’s soul is not an end in itself, but rather intended to focus us on the actions which must follow.
This message of the prophets may resonate more with modern Jews than the rites and practices prescribed by Mateh Ephraim, all the fasting and the supplications. The month of Elul may be the right time to respond to some of the many appeals which come in the mail every day. It might be a good time to consider volunteering at the Food Bank or the local shelter or getting involved in some local civic organization that responds to the needs of others in our community. Reciting selichot, reading from the Psalms, may bring spiritual uplift, may lead to self-reflection, but helping others in some more concrete way is ultimately the response required to the prophet’s message. Such activities the prophet assures us can lead to a true spiritual renewal.
As the new month arrives, we extend our blessings to one another: L’shanah tovah t’kateivu v’teichateimu, may you and your loved ones be inscribed and sealed in the book of life for a good, prosperous, and happy new year.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Edward Friedman
Comments