What are your signs and signals that Elul has arrived? 

It’s a month of anticipation: end of summer, start of schoolyear, end of vacation season, start of Yom Tov season, end of relaxation, start of preparation. Elul may look different for each of us, but beneath the varying sights and sounds, smells and tastes is the call that unites us all: the shofar’s blast, heralding the Days of Awe

FORTY DAYS PRIOR

Name: Rabbi Moshe Douek

Occupation: Rav of Congregation Shaare Tefilah Bene Moshe

Location: Eatontown, New Jersey

I know it’s Elul when... the shul fills for hatarat nedarim

IN our community, and I’m speaking for Egyptian, Lebanese, and Syrian Jews here, we know it’s Elul long before it’s Elul. On Tishah B’Av afternoon, at Minchah, the custom is that the first line of Kedushah, Naaritzach v’nakdishach, is sung to the tune of Selichot. Following Minchah, we sing one of the well-known Selichot piyutim. That is the earliest sign of us getting into the Elul mode.

Immediately after Maariv on the Motzaei Shabbat 40 days before Rosh Hashanah, the shul fills up for a very public hatarah. This is equivalent to the Ashkenazi custom of doing hatarat nedarim on Erev Rosh Hashanah, but our custom of doing it 40 days before is linked to what is written in the Zohar Hakadosh, that certain aveiros need to be absolved 40 days before your prayers can be accepted.

The cars fill up the street outside as soon as Shabbat is over, and men, women, and children, pile into the shul for hatarah. We use the Rosh Hashanah tunes for Maariv that night, then we make Havdalah, followed by the hatarah. Our shul is almost as packed as Kol Nidrei night! With the beit din seated on the platform at the front, the entire crowd — hundreds of people — says the nusach together, “Bechulhon, icharatnah behon,” and the beit din responds accordingly: “Mutarim lachem, sheruyim lachem, mechulim lachem.” Then there are three responses from the kehillah, and the beit din responds again each time.

The day after Rosh Chodesh Elul we begin daily Selichot, and then the season is really in full swing. Also early in Elul, the Syrian stores start stocking gourd, leek and Swiss chard, black-eyed peas, and sheeps’ heads. My wife’s grandmother used to prepare these simanim for the entire family, and now my wife does it for us — and gives out containers to her siblings, too. As was the tradition in Aleppo, the peel of the gourd gets grated and candied. My wife goes through the Yehi Ratzon booklet, cooks the simanim early in Elul, and freezes them for Yom Tov. It’s true that you can now buy all this ready-made in a Syrian grocery, but still, the women are discussing the simanim, whether to buy the black-eyed peas frozen or canned, and whether they are infested this year or not. There’s already an excitement for Yom Tov with the smells wafting from the kitchen creating the atmosphere, letting us know that Rosh Hashanah is coming.

Obviously, I need to practice tekiat shofar and the tefillot and prepare my derashot; my stomach is churning once I start, because for a rav, there is a lot at stake — it’s a big responsibility. It is so important that the people who come to pray enjoy it and are inspired, and on the technical side, it’s also important that the selling of seats and aliyahs goes smoothly. Our members want to be inspired on Rosh Hashanah, but they also want the tefillah to end by 1 p.m., which can be very stressful to organize. As we get closer to Yom Tov, in the last week of Elul, sh’eilot start to come in, as well as many requests for the rav to help make shalom between families or quarrelling friends before the Yamim Noraim.

And most important, let’s not forget, the One Above has to be happy with us and all that we’re doing.

MINDING THE SHOP

Name: Mrs. Miriam Esther Levine

Occupation: Owner, Gibbers (Kiamesha Lake) branch of Catskill Kosher 

Location: Kiamesha Lake

I know it’s Elul when... the bears come back

“The country” — by that I mean the Catskill Mountains area — has a routine of its own: visitors, traffic, bears, and all. In our grocery, which is open year-round, mainly for the approximately 120 families who live in the Vizhnitz community here, we serve visitors from the surrounding bungalow colonies. Things start winding down already in early Av — we can feel it!

It goes like this: during the Nine Days, when there is no pool and no laundry, we have a rush on people buying flour and round bekelach (foil pans) because they’re baking challahs and leaving them in the freezer for when they come back up for Succos. Then, the week of Shabbos Nachamu, the distributors bring the last big orders up to the Catskill camps and the groceries.

Things quiet down after that because after Nachamu, no one stocks up their home in the country. You don’t want to leave your bungalow fully stocked, and you don’t want to schlep food back to the city, so you just use up the groceries you have. The WIC items, like cereal and milk, slow down a lot; at the beginning of the summer customers shop in the country, but now they don’t want to empty their cards up here because they can use them until September back home in the city.

The last few weeks of summer here are quiet also because while city people don’t usually make weddings in Av, people from Monsey do, so some families head out for those weddings. Others are itching to get back to real life at home, and they pack up a little earlier (especially if the weather here is rainy). Some leave when camp ends a week and a half after Nachamu rather than staying for the last week of the summer season. The camps bus kids back to the city, and since families know they can’t fit everyone and all their stuff into a minivan, they also go back earlier to meet their campers and avoid additional transportation costs.

Murphy’s law dictates that the last couple of weeks of summer are chilly here, so people want to go home — but the first week of Elul is always glorious and they wish they hadn’t. Those who have their own homes often do come back that first weekend, because the weather is so nice. As for us, we love when the summer visitors come up, and we love when they go (the one thing we wish would change is the way they take our cleaning help).

Here, you know it’s almost Elul when you can shop at the local Walmart without waiting in a long line. You feel it in the traffic, too; the drive from our store in Kiamesha Lake to our other branch on Route 42 takes exactly two minutes when nobody is here, but in the summer, it can take more than triple that amount of time, like seven minutes.

Once everyone leaves we also start to see more bears around Gibbers, because after the bears finish “partying” at the bungalow colonies, they come back to us to scrounge.

One thing Elul does not mean for us is a new zeman. Our yeshivah is on the chassidish schedule, which means the bochurim don’t have summer bein hazmanim; they learn straight from Pesach through the Shabbos before Selichos, and then they have Tishrei off. When the yeshivah empties, Rosh Hashanah is really at the doorstep.

BY THE BOOK

Name: Rabbi Aron Taplin 

Occupation: Owner, Capitol Seforim 

Location: Lakewood, New Jersey

I know it’s Elul when... the masechta BMG plans to learn this zeman flies off the shelves

IN a seforim store, Elul means the masses are coming. Since a large part of our business involves supplying yeshivah and school seforim requirements, peak season is the beginning of the zeman — which in our store actually starts right after Tishah B’Av, because people have learned to come early.

Lakewood is one of the frum world’s main shopping destinations, so summer bein hazmanim brings people from all over the United States — it’s not hard to identify the vacationers and shoppers from out of town who pile into the store.

Closer to Elul, the locals arrive. There are hundreds of yeshivahs here, and baruch Hashem, our store is mobbed. You feel this sense of camaraderie, everyone meeting each other, an atmosphere kind of overflowing from the beis medrash: “How are you?” and “What are you learning?” and “Are you still learning by X?”

Our hottest items are Gemaras — we specialize in them and have over 100,000 in stock — and the very hottest volume of all is whichever masechta Beth Medrash Govoha is learning this zeman (right now, Yevamos).

The masechta is typically announced a couple months before the zeman starts, so we know there’ll be a run on it. But since we’re a secondhand store, there’s not much we can do — we don’t order from distributors. We get a lot of our seforim from yeshivahs at the end of the year, remove names, and make them ready for new owners. We have five branches, so we can maneuver to bring stock of Yevamos from Monsey, Passaic, and Monroe to our Lakewood branches.

The bochurim who really want to get that bargain get here early, because a bound Gemara and bound Kovetz Mefarshim cost between $85 and $100 new, and our stock of seconds, or used seforim, is around a third or half of the price. It’s hard to see a customer’s despair when we don’t have what they need in stock anymore.

Another part of the Elul rush means we’re organizing stacks of mussar seforim. The most popular ones are still the classics — Shaarei Teshuvah, Mesillas Yesharim, and Orchos Tzaddikim — which fly off the shelves.

After the yeshivah and kollel rush comes the next wave — the school rush, first elementary boys, then seminary girls, then girls’ schools. For each demographic, we prepare stacks of the relevant items in a special area. The younger ones want the basics: Chumashim, dictionaries, Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, Pirkei Avos, and children’s siddurim.

Before we know it, students are all back in yeshivah and school, and people come to buy Selichos, machzorim, and seforim for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. At that point, we know Elul is here — and time is slipping through the hourglass.

A CUT ABOVE

Name: Mr. Alter Hacker

Occupation: Owner of Hackers Butcher Shop

Location: Jerusalem, Israel

I know it’s Elul when... the yeshivah cooks start calling in chicken orders

O

ur store in Sanhedria is very quiet during summer bein hazmanim — the city seems to empty out — but my wife and I don’t go on vacation, because as far as we’re concerned, there is no better place to be than Yerushalayim.

As Av comes to a close, the store starts filling up and the phones start ringing again. The bochurim return to their learning (every zeman there are more of them taking their places on thousands of benches in dozens of yeshivos, kein ayin hara) — and the yeshivah cooks start calling in their orders.

We supply many yeshivos, some of whom order fresh chicken daily. We meet demand by getting fresh deliveries from our supplier once or even twice a day sometimes.

By the second week in Elul, balabustas are starting to get themselves organized; they’ve sent the boys off to yeshivah and the kids to school, and now it’s time to think about Yom Tov. Many families around here don’t allow themselves the luxury of meat during the year, only chicken and turkey, but they will plan meat meals for Yom Tov.

Different customers request different cuts — there isn’t the one cut everyone asks for. I like to say Hashem made every cow with ten parts, and each customer has his own taste; there’s something for everyone. The Gemara in Rosh Hashanah speaks about eating fattened meat for Rosh Hashanah, as does the Rema, so some people like to buy a fattier cut like brisket or rib steak. And of course, we have customers asking for heads. Both Ashkenazim and Sephardim like to have a rosh keves or rosh bakar for the Rosh Hashanah table. Neither has a lot of meat on it, but this is the minhag, and it can be an expensive one, because calves’ heads are in short supply! People also ask us to stock heads of fish, so we supply plenty of carp heads, too. (Those are the only ones I’m allowed to sell, because the other breeds have infestation problems, and each one has to be checked by the mashgiach.)

Another part of our pre-Yom Tov business is supplying the various chalukot, in which organizations help families in need make Yom Tov. We have longstanding accounts for Yad Eliezer, a major food distributor for widows and orphans, as well as other chalukah organizations that give out vouchers according to family size, usually 500 or 700 shekels. It’s all done in a respectable way: They order what they want and pay in vouchers, and we treat them the same way we treat all of our customers.

In our industry, there is a big emphasis on freshness, so the greatest pressure comes much closer to Yom Tov, but because there are no complete weeks between Rosh Hashanah and Succos, many customers want to buy all their meat and poultry before Rosh Hashanah for all the Yamim Tovim. I can’t expand the store opening hours because we’re already working 12 hours a day, so we just keep going and serve more people in that time.

People seem serious during Elul — there is less chatter in the store, people are mevater their places in line to each other and show more rachmanus. It’s well known that Clara Hammer, “the Chicken Lady of Jerusalem,” started by paying for poor families’ chicken in our store.

I was once serving a customer who asked for only bones and necks, the cheapest parts of the bird.

“Give her what she really needs, I’ll pay,” murmured another lady who was waiting for her own order.

I wrapped up a chicken, and when the first customer left, the second settled up for her. Of course, that happens during the year as well, but that exchange sums up the Elul feel here.

ROOM AND BOARD

Name: Rabbi Yonaton Hirschhorn

Occupation: Young adult educator and seminary teacher  

Location: Neria, Israel

I know it’s Elul when... I feel that longing to be a better person

I

always want Elul to be spiritual, a time of yearning and awakening, so I spend the month preparing, sending WhatsApps and voice notes and videos of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov’s philosophy out to help people. I approach Elul as a 30-day challenge, during which I can become the person I want to be, building my aspirations into habits and hopefully second nature.

Meanwhile, I can’t sleep, because my brain goes into overdrive with what I might have forgotten to arrange for our upcoming trip to Uman — I go every year for Rosh Hashanah. For the past 12 years, I’ve been in charge of board and lodging for around 70 friends and friends of friends in an apartment building. By the time Elul comes, most of our slots are already reserved, and the physical arrangements are taken care of — because I’ve been preparing for Rosh Hashanah for three months already, since the moment Shavuos is over. Not a minute before Shavuos, though, because Rebbe Nachman said that a person should focus on one Yom Tov at a time.

The first thing I do each year is reach out to Luda, the woman whose apartments I rent on a 25-year lease. (I don’t want to buy real estate in Uman because I am makpid to own land only in Eretz Yisrael). I need Luda to feel calm, respected, and appreciated so things will go smoothly. I make sure she has everything we need, like a backup generator, and can take care of repairs to the premises.

I have my menus ready for a two-day Yom Tov or a three-day Yom Tov, but the electric grid in Ukraine can’t handle 40,000 people arriving and cooking at once, so I use a mixture of gas and electricity and an extra generator to cater for my group over Yom Tov. The food order and travel and delivery logistics, as well as arranging for refilling the mikveh, are usually completed before Tishah B’Av.  Neither I nor my partners make any money out of this operation; we do it out of love.

I travel close to Yom Tov, whenever my wife prefers. My wife is the unsung hero here — it’s not easy for her to stay home with our kids. For the last three years, with Ukraine at war, there are no flights to the airport in Kyiv, and getting to Uman means flying to Poland. I go two or three days in advance, which I’m able to do because over the years, I’ve built connections with helpers and kitchen workers who know the drill; I don’t cook and manage operations alone.

When my guests come, the mikveh is operating, there are filling and delicious meals, and there are American mattresses as well as soap, shampoo, and towels.

Every year we have some regulars and some turnover. That’s fine — it’s not for everyone — but what I say is if your relationship with G-d is not working out, maybe you should try Uman. If you do try it, go with someone who is passionate (you wouldn’t go to Six Flags amusement park with someone who is only interested in the kosher hot dogs!). I’m passionate about Rebbe Nachman, and I’m passionate about Rosh Hashanah in Uman. That’s why I run this operation: I take care of the physical side of the Uman experience so people who come for Rosh Hashanah can focus on the spiritual experience.

THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE

Name: Mrs. Rochelle Freilich

Occupation: Humanistic integrative counselor and educator and wife of Chazzan Avromi Freilich of Hampstead Garden Suburb United Synagogue

Location: London, United Kingdom

I know it’s Elul when... the machzorim emerge

IN

our house, the machzorim come out at the beginning of Elul, and as I move about the house, the sounds of the classical Selichos and Rosh Hashanah liturgy accompany me for an entire month. There is a feeling of awe in our home as my husband, who has been a chazzan for 33 years, sings and chants the momentous words in the proper nusach.

Although he has decades of experience, my husband prepares and practices every single part of the tefillah every Elul. He knows he will lead the davening for the 1,000 congregants of different levels of observance and education. Many of them don’t fully understand the words of the tefillah, and he takes his responsibility to connect with them and elevate them through the tefillah quite seriously and passionately. To ensure he himself is newly inspired each year, my husband researches different peirushim on the words of davening.

On a practical level, Elul in London means a chill in the air, and I start to see my husband wrapped in his scarf. He’s paranoid about catching a cough or a cold and losing his voice before the Yamim Noraim. During the week, he works as a pediatric speech and language therapist in his clinic at the end of our garden, and if a client arrives sniffling, he’ll actually meet outdoors, sitting on our garden bench with the parents and children, to protect himself from germs.

I give a class on Tehillim every Friday, and during Elul, I give extra shiurim, because this is a time women want to connect. As part of the rabbinic team here, I’ll be speaking at our shul’s special educational events a week before Rosh Hashanah. The events of this year have made us all a lot more passionate and fragile. Last Rosh Hashanah, could we have imagined the devastation our people would face soon after? Thinking of the families going into Yom Tov without loved ones, with family and friends severely wounded — some not even knowing whether their loved ones are alive — affects us all, and we will pray for each other as one nation particularly strongly this year. It’s not just our own hopes and dreams that we’re focused on, but what awaits Klal Yisrael in the year ahead.

A person has a body as well as a soul, so for women, Elul also means preparing for Yom Tov on the culinary front. In the first weeks of the month, I slot in which guests are coming for which meals, and work in advance with the freezer. It’s time to bake those round challahs, and the aromas of honeycomb ice cream and chicken cooked with pomegranates and dried apricots fill the kitchen.

Education is important, but it’s the fragrance of Yom Tov cooking that helps the anticipation of Rosh Hashanah penetrate the family’s hearts. There is nothing menial about cooking and baking for a Yom Tov and creating that atmosphere for your family. I buy beautiful flowers and take out my best dishes, getting the Rosh Hashanah table set the day before Erev Yom Tov.

Through it all, I find myself relying on the unconditional love of our Father Above; the assurance that He will do what’s best for us carries me through.

FIT FOR A KING

Name: Mrs. Rivky Braver

Occupation: Co-owner of The Peppermill

Location: Brooklyn, New York

I know it’s Elul when... we start getting all those round pans requests

E

lul in the store means an uptick in shopping; some people like to start even earlier, though. The last week of June this year, before people in Boro Park drove up to the country, a lady came in looking for round challah bekelach (pans) for her round Rosh Hashanah challahs.

“I want everything ready before we leave home for the summer,” she explained.

I think that was the earliest we’ve had; most people like to get back from the country and settle the kids into school before getting into the kitchen and rolling up their sleeves for Yom Tov. That means in a year like this, there is enough time in Elul, but in an “early” year, when Rosh Hashanah is at the beginning of September, the store gets busier by mid-August.

From my position here, I don’t see much of the serious, spiritual part of Yamim Noraim preparations, but I do I see the enormous efforts women are making in the kitchen. Those preparations, I think, are the way many women connect to the significance of Yom Tov as they extend themselves in the kitchen, cooking and baking.

It’s clear that for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, people want to keep to tradition. Everyone is baking round challahs. Our customers need to buy big pots to serve a crowd; they may be making kreplach and honey cake, but they’re not getting carried away with culinary diversity. I’ve met customers who don’t even serve meat over the Yamim Noraim — they stick to chicken. Where I’m based, simanim are minimal, as it’s the heimish and chassidish crowd, although more people are picking up on the ideas and adding this to their Rosh Hashanah traditions. A few customers request nice dishes to present simanim on, or for gifting.

Later in Elul, as people prepare for Succos, those who enjoy cooking and baking get ready to give their all. For them, making everything they serve special and beautiful is a way to express simchas Yom Tov. People come in looking for specialty dessert items like cookie cutters and stamps. It has become very popular to create a special dessert for the “Ushpizin day” of family members (if a husband or son is called Avraham, for example), and our specialized decorating tools to garnish and personalize desserts in honor of the Ushpizin sell well. We also sell delicious, ready-to-use tart shells you can easily fill to make something unique and semi-homemade.

While some people hire personal chefs for Yom Tov, the average Jewish woman is still cooking for the season herself. She may have help with the peeling and cleanup, but it still falls on her. Yes it’s a lot, and yes it’s long, hard work, but honoring the tradition and celebrating the majesty of the Yamim Noraim is extremely gratifying.

DAYS OF AWE

Name: Rebbetzin Shani Herzka

Occupation: Menaheles of Bais Yaakov D’Rav Meir High School

Location: Brooklyn, New York

I know it’s Elul when... we schedule speakers but not breakouts

IT

starts with Rosh Chodesh bentshing. “Rosh Chodesh Elul,” we chant — and suddenly, we chap a tzitter (tremble) as we realize that we are a month from the Yom Hadin.

When I was growing up, our home in Wickliffe, Ohio, felt saturated with the eimas hadin (fear of Hashem’s judgment) this time of year. The air felt thicker in Elul, to the extent that when my brother, Rav Yitzchok Sorotzkin, first went to learn in Eretz Yisrael, he wrote in a letter to my parents that it was wonderful to be there, but he missed the Elul atmosphere in our home.

As we got closer to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, anticipation increased, so much so that to this I day I remember that at our Seudah Hamafsekes, nobody spoke — not because my parents told us not to, but because of the awe we felt. That was part of the Telshe yeshivah experience, although when I recently mentioned this to my aunt, Rebbetzin Shoshana Gifter, she replied, “What you had in Telshe in Ohio did not come close to what I felt in my childhood in Telshe in Lithuania.”

I am not a dugmah (model) of this eimas hadin; I cannot recreate the feeling of trepidation today as I felt it in my father Telshe Rosh Yeshivah Rabbi Baruch Sorotzkin’s house. But as a mechaneches, I try to cultivate a certain Elul atmosphere in my school. Aside from arranging appropriate speakers, workshops, panels, and activities to help us prepare for the Yamim Noraim, I also try to impart to the students the message that this month is different. Of course, high school life includes fun, I tell the girls, and we’ll have breakouts and G.O. activities, but at D’Rav Meir, we don’t schedule any breakouts during Elul.

There is nothing wrong with smiling this time of year — but it has to be different from the rest of the year. There has to be a feeling of eimah. If we were one month before a crucial court case, we wouldn’t have the peace of mind to dance or to sing certain types of songs, I tell my students. We are all one month away from a crucial court case, so we try to daven with a little more kavanah and to treat each other a little more nicely and to remember that Hashem is looking down at us.

Elul is the time of year we are all trying to be bigger and better. We have to create the atmosphere that cultivates those sentiments and that growth, so we can show Hashem I’m here, and I’m trying.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1028)