10 Sep UNDERSTANDING ELUL

There was once a man
who was mired in financial
ruin, drowning in oceans
of debt and without a job,
and who was walking with
his son when they passed by
a store. The son said he was thirsty, and
so they went into the store. The father
picked up a can of soda and approached
the shopkeeper.
“Please, kind sir,” the man said, “I am
very poor, I cannot pay my bills. Might I
ask that I be given this can for free? My
son is thirsty.”
The shopkeeper graciously agreed.
The impoverished man then thrust his
hand into his pocket, and pulled out some
small change.
“Actually, I have a small amount of
money with me,” he told the
shopkeeper. He counted his change, and
it turned out that he had precisely half the
price of the soda can. The man smiled

and handed it to the storekeeper.
The storekeeper, surprised, warmly
expressed his appreciation. “Wow, thank
you so much!”
After the man and his son left, the son
turned to his father and asked, “Dad, if
you knew you had some money, why did
you first ask if you can have the can for
free?”
The father replied, “You see, if I would
have right away told the storekeeper that
I have only half the price of a can, and
asked if he could give it to me for that
price, this would have sounded very
rude. He would not have let me do it. But
once I explained that I am poor, and
asked for a free gift, offering half the
price sounded like a very kind gesture on
my part.”
This story has been told as an analogy to
explain the meaning of the Selihot prayers
which we recite throughout the month of
Elul in preparation for Rosh Hashanah,

the day when we are
judged for our conduct
over the course of this
past year.
Comparing mitzvot to
money, we are all like that
poor man. If we are
honest with ourselves, we
will acknowledge that we
are very deficient. We
have not always acted the
way we should. We have
not always spoken the
way we should. We have
not always prayed when
or the way we should. But
this does not mean that
we have nothing. We
all, baruch Hashem, perform mitzvot. We
do a lot of things right. So, like the poor
man in the story, we come before Hashem
and plead for mercy and compassion,
saying that we have nothing. In
our Selihot prayers, we openly admit our
failings, we confess to have fallen far

short of what is expected of us, and we
beg Hashem to mercifully forgive us, to
accept our prayers and grant our requests
even though we have nothing. Then, on
Rosh Hashanah, we come with
the mitzvot we have performed, and

Hashem graciously accepts the “half-
price” that we give Him, as it were.