Elul, Prep Time
Elul, the Jewish lunar month that began September 1, is a mysterious, emotionally fraught time in the ritual year. It is an annual event that has its own distinct message and special rituals. Elul’s meaning derives from proximity: It is the month leading up to the New Year, Rosh Hashanah, which in turn kicks off the Ten Days of Penitence ending in Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.
And Elul is the preparation period for the New Year. It’s a big job.
Those 10 days are a solemn time when individuals and communities are commanded to look within and give a personal accounting of the year gone by. We seek forgiveness from individuals we may have wronged. We try to summon the self-awareness needed to understand our weaknesses and to change. We look up and try to make peace with the Oneness of the universe that is so beyond our grasp.
It’s a lot to get done in those one or two holy days, or even in 10. And so Elul is the time to prepare, so that when the New Year comes, we’re ready to swing into action.
It’s a tribute to the power of the High Holy Days that they require such elaborate advance work. No other holiday draws remotely as many Jews to synagogue in search of spiritual connection. It is the one moment in the year when millions of Jews around the world literally stand together as one.
All that summoning and peacemaking is going to be hard this year, harder than it’s been in years. It’s hard to think of a time when Jews were so bitterly divided among themselves. Something resembling road rage is taking over relations between hawks and doves, between liberals and conservatives, and among Reform, Conservative and Orthodox. Seeking and giving forgiveness, coming together and standing as one mighty congregation around the world — these things are difficult to do when we are so angry at each other.
Accordingly, there is a certain urgency to Elul this year. We’ve only got a few weeks left to find that forgiveness within ourselves, to start coming to terms with the things that really are our fault and to imagine what it might mean to be members of one global community of spirit. But if we don’t make it, there won’t be much atonement in the new year ahead.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Opinion The dangerous Nazi legend behind Trump’s ruthless grab for power
- 2
Opinion A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on US soil. I think I know why no one objected.
- 3
Culture Did this Jewish literary titan have the right idea about Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling after all?
- 4
Opinion I first met Netanyahu in 1988. Here’s how he became the most destructive leader in Israel’s history.
In Case You Missed It
-
Opinion Gaza and Trump have left the Jewish community at war with itself — and me with a bad case of alienation
-
Fast Forward Trump administration restores student visas, but impact on pro-Palestinian protesters is unclear
-
Fast Forward Deborah Lipstadt says Trump’s campus antisemitism crackdown has ‘gone way too far’
-
Fast Forward 5 Jewish senators accuse Trump of using antisemitism as ‘guise’ to attack universities
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.