Leil Selichot and the Month of Elul: Forty Days of Return

Elul in the Bible and in tradition

The name

Elul is a Babylonian month name, like the other month names Israel brought back from exile. It appears only once in the Bible: “So the wall was finished in the twenty and fifth day of the month Elul, in fifty and two days” (Nehemiah 6:15). The exiles finished Jerusalem’s walls in Elul, a fitting image for a season of repair.

Moshe’s forty days

The tradition that Elul is a time of grace rests on the story of the golden calf. Moshe went up Mount Sinai three times for forty days. The first time, he received the tablets; he came down, by the rabbinic reckoning on 17 Tammuz, saw the calf and broke them (Exodus 32:19). The second forty days he spent pleading for Israel’s life (Deuteronomy 9:18). Then Hashem told him to carve two new tablets and go up once more:

And be ready in the morning, and come up in the morning unto mount Sinai, and present yourself there to Me in the top of the mount.

The Torah says this third ascent also lasted forty days (Exodus 34:28; Deuteronomy 10:10), but it does not give dates. The rabbinic chronology, found in Seder Olam and the midrash and summarized by Rashi, counts the days: Moshe went up on 1 Elul and came down on 10 Tishrei with the second tablets and the message that Israel was forgiven.¹ That day became Yom Kippur.

Pirkei deRabbi Eliezer, an early medieval midrash, adds a detail that shaped the season. When Moshe went up on the first of Elul, the shofar was sounded throughout the camp so that the people would not go astray again, and Hashem was exalted with that shofar, as it says, “God is gone up with a shout, Hashem with the sound of a trumpet” (Psalm 47:5).² Elul, then, is forty days of approach, ending in new tablets and forgiveness.

“I am my beloved’s“

A well-known teaching finds the month’s name in a verse from the Song of Songs:

I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine.

In Hebrew, Ani l’dodi v’dodi li (אני לדודי ודודי לי). The first letters of the four words spell Elul (אלול). The acronym is recorded by the fourteenth-century commentator David Abudarham and cited in the Mishnah Berurah’s introduction to the laws of Elul.³ The connection is homiletical, a play on letters rather than an explanation of the Babylonian name, but it expresses the mood of the month: repentance as renewed love, with Israel turning toward the Beloved and finding Him already turned toward her.

Customs of the month

The daily shofar

Following Pirkei deRabbi Eliezer, Ashkenazi communities sound the shofar after the weekday morning service from Rosh Chodesh Elul (communities differ on whether they start on its first or second day) until the day before Rosh Hashanah. It is usually a short set of tekiah, shevarim, teruah, tekiah. It is not sounded on Shabbat, and it is not sounded on Erev Rosh Hashanah, to separate the voluntary blasts of Elul from the commanded blasts of the festival.⁴ Sephardi communities generally sound the shofar during their Selichot.

“Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid?” (Amos 3:6). The daily blast reminds the community that the Day of Judgment is near.

Psalm 27

From Rosh Chodesh Elul until Hoshana Rabbah (or Shemini Atzeret), many communities add Psalm 27 at the end of the morning and evening prayers:

Hashem is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? Hashem is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?

A midrash reads the psalm as a map of the season: “my light” is Rosh Hashanah and “my salvation” is Yom Kippur.⁵ Later teachers added that “He shall hide me in His pavilion” (sukkah, Psalm 27:5) points to Sukkot. The custom of reciting it daily spread from the eighteenth century onward and is recorded in the Mishnah Berurah.⁶ It joins confidence with longing, “that I may dwell in the house of Hashem all the days of my life” (Psalm 27:4), and ends with patience: “Wait on Hashem” (Psalm 27:14).

Taking stock

Other Elul customs include extra charity, checking tefillin and mezuzot, and sending wishes for a good year. The principle behind these customs comes from the Mishnah: Yom Kippur atones for sins between a person and God, but sins against another person are not atoned until that person has been appeased.⁷ Elul is the time to go and make peace.

Selichot: prayers for forgiveness

What Selichot are

Selichot are penitential prayers said before dawn, or late at night, in the days leading up to Rosh Hashanah and during the Ten Days of Repentance. A typical service includes:

1. Ashrei (Psalm 145) and a half-Kaddish.
2. Opening verses and piyyutim, liturgical poems, many composed by medieval poets of Ashkenaz, Spain and the Land of Israel. Each day’s poems differ.
3. The Thirteen Attributes of Mercy, introduced by El Melech Yoshev, “God, King who sits on the throne of mercy,” and repeated several times.
4. Confession (Ashamnu, “We have been guilty”), an alphabetical list of sins said in the plural, because the community stands together.
5. Pleas such as Shema Koleinu (“Hear our voice”) and Aneinu (“Answer us”), and a closing Kaddish.

The Thirteen Attributes

The heart of Selichot is the revelation Moshe received on his last ascent:

And Hashem passed by before him, and proclaimed, Hashem, Hashem God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty.

The Talmud explains why these verses became Israel’s prayer. Rabbi Yochanan said: “Had the verse not been written, it would be impossible to say it.” Hashem wrapped Himself like a prayer leader and showed Moshe the order of prayer, saying: “Whenever Israel sins, let them perform this order before Me, and I will forgive them.” Rav Yehudah added: “A covenant has been made with the Thirteen Attributes that they will not return empty-handed.”⁸

The liturgy stops at the word venakeh, “and clearing,” and does not continue to lo yenakeh, “He will by no means clear.” This follows a rabbinic reading that Hashem clears those who repent and does not clear those who do not.⁹ As communal prayer, the Thirteen Attributes are said only with a minyan (ten adults). An individual praying alone may read them with the biblical cantillation, as Torah study.¹⁰

The attributes do not describe a lenient God, but one whose mercy is greater than His anger, “keeping mercy for thousands.” Israel comes back to God on the basis of His character, not its own merits: “not for our righteousnesses, but for Your great mercies” (Daniel 9:18).

When Selichot begin

Customs differ between communities:¹¹

• Sephardi and Mizrahi communities say Selichot every weekday morning of Elul, beginning on the second of Elul (the day after Rosh Chodesh) and continuing through the Ten Days of Repentance, so that the whole season of Moshe’s forty days is filled with prayer.
• Ashkenazi communities begin on the night after Shabbat (Motzaei Shabbat) in the week before Rosh Hashanah, provided at least four days of Selichot remain before the festival. If Rosh Hashanah falls on Monday or Tuesday, there would be fewer than four days, so they begin on the Saturday night of the week before.

Why four days? The Mishnah Berurah gives two reasons. First, some pious people used to fast for ten days of repentance. Four of the ten days before Yom Kippur cannot be fast days: the two days of Rosh Hashanah, Shabbat Shuva and Erev Yom Kippur. So four days were added before Rosh Hashanah to complete the ten. Second, the Rosh Hashanah liturgy speaks of offering ourselves like a sacrifice, and sacrifices were inspected for blemishes for four days before they were offered. So we examine ourselves for four days before the Day of Judgment.¹² Saturday night is chosen because people have rested and studied Torah on Shabbat and come to prayer refreshed and joyful.

Leil Selichot

The first Ashkenazi Selichot service is often held after midnight on that Saturday night, rather than before dawn on Sunday. Many synagogues mark it with a special service in which the High Holy Day melodies are heard for the first time. In Jerusalem, crowds gather at the Western Wall for Selichot throughout the season. The night has become a doorway into the Days of Awe.

The King in the field

The most beloved image of Elul comes from Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi (1745–1812), founder of Chabad Chassidism, in his collection of discourses Likkutei Torah. He compares Elul to a king traveling back to his palace. Before he reaches the city, the people go out to greet him in the field. There anyone may approach him, and he receives everyone graciously, “with a pleasant face.” In the palace, by contrast, one may approach only with permission and after passing through many gates.¹³

On the holy days of Tishrei, approaching the King is solemn and formal. In Elul He is “in the field,” close to ordinary people in their daily work, before they have put on festival clothes.

Messianic reflections

Forty days in the wilderness

The Brit Hadashah (the New Testament) records that after his immersion by Yochanan, Yeshua was led into the wilderness, “and when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred” (Matthew 4:2). The forty days recall Moshe on Sinai, who “did neither eat bread, nor drink water” for forty days and forty nights (Deuteronomy 9:9, 18), and Eliyahu, who walked forty days to Horeb (1 Kings 19:8). In each answer to the tempter, Yeshua quoted Deuteronomy (Matthew 4:4, 7, 10), as a faithful son of Israel where Israel in the wilderness had failed.

The Gospels do not say when in the year this happened, and nothing suggests Elul. The connection is thematic: Moshe’s forty days restored a broken covenant; Yeshua’s prepared him to call Israel to return. Both show what forty days of focus before Hashem can do.

Forgive us as we forgive

Selichot means “forgiveness,” and Yeshua taught his disciples to ask for it daily:

And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors… For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: but if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. — Matthew 6:12, 14–15

And when you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.

This matches the law of the season: wrongs between people are not atoned until the injured person is appeased, and the injured person should forgive readily.¹⁴ Yeshua said it in his own words: “first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift” (Matthew 5:24). Elul is the month to do that.

The confession of Selichot also has an echo in the Brit Hadashah:

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

“He is faithful” is the Thirteen Attributes in short form: rav chesed ve’emet, “abundant in goodness and truth.” The apostle’s confidence rests on the same faithful God who passed before Moshe. The covenant of mercy still holds. Disciples of Yeshua add that it has been confirmed through the Messiah, whom the Father sent and raised, so that forgiveness may be proclaimed to Israel and the nations (Luke 24:46–47).

The prophetic horizon: preparing for the King’s coming

The King in the field will not stay in the field. He is on his way to the palace. Malachi, the last of the prophets, speaks of that arrival:

Behold, I will send My messenger, and he shall prepare the way before Me: and the Lord, whom you seek, shall suddenly come to His temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom you delight in… But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appears? for he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fullers’ soap.

Malachi’s message is preparation. A messenger comes first to clear the way; then comes the arrival, which refines and purifies “the sons of Levi” so that they may offer “an offering in righteousness” (Malachi 3:3). The same prophet calls, “Return unto Me, and I will return unto you” (Malachi 3:7), and promises that Eliyahu will come before “the great and dreadful day of Hashem” to “turn the heart of the fathers to the children” (Malachi 4:5–6). The Gospels identify Yochanan the Immerser as the messenger who prepared the way at Yeshua’s first coming (Matthew 11:10), and they speak of a coming of the Son of Man still ahead.

Elul is a yearly rehearsal for that preparation: self-examination, reconciliation, prayer and trust in mercy. The King’s final coming cannot be calculated (Mark 13:32), but a people that practices returning every Elul will be ready when the shofar sounds in earnest.

Keeping Elul and Leil Selichot

See our calendar for this year’s dates. Some general suggestions:

• Hear the shofar on weekday mornings if your community sounds it, and let it act as an alarm clock for the soul.
• Say Psalm 27 each day from Rosh Chodesh Elul through the end of Sukkot.
• Attend Selichot, especially the first night. If you pray alone, read the Thirteen Attributes (Exodus 34:6–7) slowly and meditate on them.
• Make peace. Make a list of people you may have hurt, and go to them before Rosh Hashanah. Release grudges against those who have hurt you.
• Take stock and give. Review each day honestly before God, and give extra charity.
• Bless others with wishes for a good year: Ketivah vachatimah tovah.

Elul leads into Rosh Hashanah, the Ten Days of Repentance and Yom Kippur, and it reaches its end on the day when Moshe came down from the mountain with new tablets and the word of forgiveness. The King is in the field. It is the time to go out and meet Him.