Sephardic Torah from the Holy Land | Eleven Months Later, Elul is Here…Finally

Eleven months. In the Jewish tradition, these two words represent an intense period of mourning when we recite Kaddish.

It’s been eleven months since October 7, and it’s been the most intense, painful, tragic and traumatic period of mourning and Kaddish in recent Jewish memory. This summer I turned 60, and I don’t remember anything quite like this – here in Israel, or in any Jewish community in the world.

But where there is despair, there must be hope. That’s the Jewish way. So just when darkness seems to prevail, here comes the light – eleven months after the tragedy – in the form of a beautiful month: Elul.

As Israeli poet and author Yair Assulin wrote in last Shabbat’s Ha’aretz newspaper:

“More than ever, we are in dire need of Elul this year. Why? Because Elul is a time of self-examination and soul searching. Elul is the time that tells us: pay attention to your soul. Elul is the month that asks us to contemplate where we came from and where we are going. Elul is the month that gives us a renewed opportunity to take hold of our world, just before the judgment of Rosh Hashanah and the atonement of Yom Kippur. We need Elul this year, perhaps more than we’ve ever needed it.”

Assulin’s beautiful depiction of Elul mirrors the teachings of two spiritual luminaries who worked together as Chief Rabbis in Jaffa-Tel Aviv in the early 20^th century: Rav Uziel and Rav Kook.

Both Rav Uziel and Rav Kook teach that during Elul, the process of teshuva – commonly translated as “repent” but literally means “return” – marks our collective return to our natural origins as human beings created in the image of God. Deeply embedded in our souls – the soul Assulin reminds us to pay attention to – is our innate desire to repair that which is broken. During Elul, our soul searching enlightens us to find the holes in our souls, caused by the many sins we have committed. Through acts of charity and justice, we fill those holes.

When approached with sincerity, says Rav Kook, teshuva during Elul “awakens the secret light of the Messiah, and, ultimately, the Light of God over all of the earth.” We are in dire need of those lights.

It is customary to sound the shofar every weekday morning during Elul. What message does the shofar bring this month?

“While the notes of the shofar sound like wailing and weeping, they are not sounds of sadness or depression,” says Rav Uziel. “They are sounds of hope that uplift our downtrodden souls.”

It’s been a long eleven months. Welcome, Elul, so glad you are finally here.

Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi Daniel Bouskila is the international director of the Sephardic Educational Center.