The significance of Elul, the Hebrew month before the High Holidays

The Hebrew month of Elul precedes the High Holidays on the Jewish calendar, but it is significant in its own right. While Tishrei – the Babylonian name for the seventh month – is when the Fall Feasts are celebrated, Elul is viewed as a time of preparation for these appointed times.

The first day of Tishrei marks the Feast of Trumpets, also known as Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish civil new year. Just as many make resolutions on Jan. 1, the High Holidays are seen as a time for a fresh start – a blank slate. Repentance and forgiveness are the hallmarks of the month.

The Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, comes just ten days after the Feast of Trumpets on the 10th of Tishrei, and is considered the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, when God gave Israel the chance to press “reset” and receive forgiveness as a nation. The month of Elul together with these ten “Days of Awe” between Trumpets and Yom Kippur is seen as a time to get right with God and with our fellow man. These 40 days are known as the “Yemai Ratzon,” or Days of Favor.

It has become traditional to blow the shofar every day of Elul (except Shabbat) calling the nation to repentance, and to pray special prayers asking for forgiveness. These prayers are known as “selichot” and draw tens of thousands of people to the Western wall, where they call out to God together confessing sin and asking for God’s mercy, singing, “Chatanu lefanecha, rachem aleinu," meaning, “We sinned before you, have mercy on us.”

While Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews observe Elul differently, special services, prayers, songs, and events are now common in synagogues and public spaces across Jerusalem.

Elul is the Akkadian name for the sixth month in the biblical calendar meaning “harvest” and according to rabbinic tradition, during Elul God is particularly attentive to those calling out to him, an idea encapsulated in the expression, “The King is in the Field”. In an obscure reading of Ecclesiastes 5:8, Hasidic rabbis have taught over the years that the Lord of all creation has made Himself especially available at this time, just as a king strolling in the fields of his kingdom would make himself open to encountering his subjects.

Those who also believe the New Testament can agree that the King certainly came and walked among us – not just during the month of Elul. Yet all who love the Lord can respond to the call for repentance during this season.

The Hebrew for repentance is “lachzor l’tshuva”, which means to return to the answer. Repentance is a matter of making a decisive turn in our thinking and our lives, our attitudes and our practices, as we turn to the One who has the true answers that we need. The Hebrew word for answer is also built around the word for return, in the way we might say that we “respond” to a question, or “get back” to someone with an answer. 

Elul is a time for introspection and meditating on the ways we have left God’s ways. It’s a time to make things right with people we have wronged. In the Sermon on the Mount, Yeshua taught that it’s no good coming to worship God at the temple if we are not in right relationship with others:

“If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.” (Matthew 5:23-24)

Many will send messages to cover all bases to friends, colleagues, and acquaintances, asking for forgiveness if they have hurt anyone in any way over the previous year. Others have jokingly announced in the run up to Yom Kippur, “If I have hurt anyone in any way over the last year, think about what you did to deserve it!” But restoring right relationships with others, both asking for forgiveness and granting it, is essential if we want a restored relationship with God. Indeed, Yeshua taught that God will not forgive us if we refuse to forgive others. 

It has been pointed out that the very letters of Elul, א-ל-ו-ל, stand for the well-known phrase from the Song of Songs 6:3, “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine” - ani l’dodi, v’dodi li. This is the time to turn to God, trusting Him to forgive our sin as the One who truly loves us.