22 Aug KI SEITZEI: 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.
Feeling Uneasy
This cute analogy help crystallize for us one
of the purposes of Elul, and that is to engender
within us a certain degree of uneasiness as we
head into the season of Rosh Hashanah and
Yom Kippur.
Rav Yisrael Salanter said that in his time,
when the hazan announced on the Shabbat
before Rosh Hodesh Elul that the month of
Elul was starting that week, the people would
begin trembling. It is told that the Hafetz
Haim was seen crying in terror when Elul was
announced. The very word “Elul” would evoke
fear. While we are certainly very far from this
level, the general concept is relevant even to
us. The period of Elul is intended to shake
us, if only slightly, from our complacency. It
should make us at least a little uncomfortable
and uneasy. Elul is like the bill from the credit
card company which is sent for the third time,
warning of the consequences if we fail to
pay. We know it’s time to “pay,” and we are
worried that we won’t have enough to cover
the bill.
The story is told of a Russian soldier during
the reign of the brutal Czar Nicholas I who
once approached a man and informed him
that the Czar wished to see him. This man was

inebriated at the time, and so he ignored the
command. The soldier repeated the order, but
the drunken man again ignored him.
Later, the man was put on trial for ignoring the
soldier’s orders. The man pleaded innocence,
noting that he ignored the soldier only because
he was intoxicated.
The soldier then retorted, “It doesn’t matter
how drunk you are. If you hear the words
‘Czar Nicholas,’ you should immediately be
scared and respond!”
The word “Elul” should have an immediate
effect upon us. It doesn’t matter how “drunk”
we are, how preoccupied our minds are with
summer vacation, with our work, or with our
myriad responsibilities. When we hear that
Elul has arrived, we must come to attention,
recognizing that this is serious.
This is the first concept of Elul – feeling a bit
uneasy, a bit tense, a bit uncomfortable with
ourselves knowing that we will soon stand
trial.