Growing up in New York, the Hebrew month of Elul—the month that immediately precedes the High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur—was a time of anxiety. It generally coincided with the beginning of the school year, which was already stressful enough for a shy child. But the unease of Elul went deeper than classrooms and textbooks. With the countdown to Rosh Hashanah, the day on which God judges every human being and determines their fate for the coming year, the entire month carried a weight of dread. The prayers grew longer and more intense. Calls for repentance and self-examination filled the synagogue. Preparation for days spent in near-constant prayer loomed. All of it combined into a heavy cloud of foreboding.
Yes, Elul is also described as a time of closeness to God, of renewal and reconnection. But that message was usually drowned out by anxiety. Take, for example, the classic confessional prayer we repeat during this season: “We have trespassed against God and man. We have betrayed God and man. We have stolen. We have slandered. We have caused others to sin. We have caused others to become resha’im (wicked). We have sinned with malice. We have taken by force. We have layered falsehood upon falsehood…” And this is only the beginning of the prayer! A litany of guilt upon guilt, piling one sin on top of another.
Is this really what the month of Elul is meant to be?
To answer this, we need to look at the difference between Elul in the Land of Israel and Elul in exile.
After the destruction of the Second Temple, the Jewish people were scattered into exile, with many of the masses settling in Europe. There, the month of Elul took on a dark tone. In September, the days grew colder and darker, the rains turned roads to mud, and people naturally dreaded the long, hard winter that was soon to come. That seasonal reality seeped into Jewish life and shaped the spiritual atmosphere of the month. Elul became a month of foreboding and anxiety.
But in Israel, the natural rhythm of the seasons is entirely different. In Israel, the hardest time of the year is not winter but summer. Israel’s summers are scorching hot, bone-dry, and relentlessly brown. The land looks parched, lifeless, dead. Spiritually as well, the summer holds the saddest day of the Jewish year, the 9th of Av, when we mourn the destruction of the Temple and remember terrible tragedies throughout Jewish history. But then comes Elul. The heat begins to break, the air cools – and hope returns. Elul brings the first signs of change, the anticipation of rain, and the promise of green fields once more. In Israel, winter is not dreaded but longed for, because it brings life back to the land.
In biblical times, Elul was one of the happiest months of the year. It was a season of joy, deeply connected to the agricultural cycle of Israel. The Sages taught: “There were no better days for Israel than the fifteenth of Av and Yom Kippur.” In other words, the happiest period of the year stretched from the grape harvest in mid-Av through Yom Kippur—covering the entire month of Elul. This was the traditional matchmaking season, when the daughters of Jerusalem would go out in white garments to dance in the vineyards and meet potential suitors.
The grape harvest of Elul was a time of music, dancing, and celebration, as the Bible itself recounts. In the days of Abimelech, “they went out into the field and gathered their vineyards and trod them and made a festival” (Judges 9:27). It was customary to celebrate the harvest with flutes and music in the vineyards. At the end of Judges, we read of the daughters of Shiloh dancing in the vineyards: “Behold, there is a feast of the Lord in Shiloh yearly… and see, if the daughters of Shiloh come out to dance in dances, then come out from the vineyards…” (Judges 21:19–21).
Elul was never intended to be a month of gloom. It was meant to be a time of life, of song, of dancing, of drawing close to God with joy.
Now, after two thousand years of exile, the Jewish people have returned to their land. And with our return comes the possibility of restoring the original spirit of Elul. No longer is it bound to the shadows of exile. In Israel, Elul can once again be a season of anticipation, renewal, and joy.
Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, the visionary rabbi of Israel’s rebirth, gave us a glimpse of what this restored Elul might look like. Instead of reciting only the heavy confession of sins, “We have sinned. We have betrayed. We have stolen. We have slandered,” he urged us to reflect on our lives in a more positive way. He composed a parallel prayer of joy: “We have loved. We have matured. We have grown. We have spoken beautiful words. We have influenced. We have merited. We have begun. We have absorbed truth. We have given good counsel. We have yearned. We have learned. We have relied on You. We have acted, we have hoped, we have awaited Your light. We have remembered that You have promised…”
The days of exile are behind us. God’s people have come home. Yes, Israel still faces wars, threats, and hardship, but the return of the Jewish people to their land is nothing less than the fulfillment of God’s promise, the dry bones coming back to life. In this land, Elul need not be weighed down by fear. It can once again be marked by joy, rebirth, and light. It is still a time of repentance and return to God, but it should be a return in joy, not in dread. This is the true power of Elul in the Land of Israel: not a month of anxiety, but a month of life.
