Holidays: Preparing to Return

by Former Chief Rabbi of Israel, Rav Avraham Shapira ZT"L, yeshiva.org.il, translated by Hillel Fendel.

The month of Elul prepares us, as it did in the Sinai Desert, for the Day of Judgement, Rosh HaShanah.

These days of the month of Elul are days of preparation for the Day of Judgement on Rosh HaShanah. This is learned from the Children of Israel's 40 days of preparations to receive the Second Tablets of the Law (after Moshe Rabbeinu broke the first set, in the wake of the Sin of the Golden Calf) – beginning on the first day of Elul when Moshe ascended the mountain for the second time. As it was then, so it has continued every year since then, for 3,336 years.

The preparations for teshuvah (repentance) are themselves a stage in the teshuvah process. Our very willingness to check ourselves and review carefully all of our deeds is itself an important rung on the ascending ladder of teshuvah. 

We find strong support for this concept in the story of Eliyahu the Prophet on Mt. Carmel. As recorded in Kings I, Chapter 18, the nation was wavering between belief in G-d and following false gods such as Baal. Eliyahu conducted a miraculous competition with the false prophets of the day, showing that his sacrifice – and not theirs - would be accepted by G-d and set on Divine fire without any human aid. 

Eliyahu introduced the contest by approaching the people with these words: 

"Until when will you hop between two ideas? If Hashem is G-d, go after Him, and if the Baal, then go after him." And the people did not answer him.

Eliyahu then said to the assembled: 

"Have them [the 450 prophets of Baal] give us two bulls. They will choose one bull for themselves, and cut it up and place it on the wood [to be burnt as a sacrifice] - but they shall not put any fire there. And I will prepare [the other] bull, and I will put it on the wood, and I [too] will not place fire.

"And you [the 450] will call in the name of your deity, and I will call in the name of Hashem, and [whoever] answers with fire - He is God." And all of the people answered and said, "The thing is good." 

As we know, G-d rained down fire only upon Eliyahu's sacrifice, showing His acceptance of it, while that of the false prophets remained untouched. The Jerusalem Talmud teaches (Taanit 3,4) that this miracle occurred in the merit of the People of Israel.

This is quite puzzling, for the People of Israel only acknowledged that "Hashem is G-d, Hashem is G-d" (verse 39) only after the miracle had taken place! What possible merit did they have beforehand, when they were still worshiping idols?

The explanation is that the very fact of their willingness to think about the situation, to check themselves and their opinions and beliefs, and to consider returning to Hashem and not hop between Him and the idols – this very consent to check is the beginning of teshuvah. [When Eliyahu first presented the challenge, they did not argue; they merely listened passively. And when he told them the conditions of the challenge – "[whoever] answers with fire - He is God" – they agreed that this would be a good idea.]

That is, even before they abandoned their idol-worship altogether, their very agreement to listen to Eliyahu and to check the truth, this is the beginning of the teshuvah process. This is what the Jerusalem Talmud meant when it said that these Jews had the great merit of bringing down miraculous fire from the Heavens – because they had started to do teshuvah.

This, too, is our job during these days of Elul – and may G-d grant that we cleave to G-d and do proper teshuvah.