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Our Sages

It is said of Chazal, Our Sages of Blessed Memory, that they would arrive early to the Bais Medrash (the house of study and prayer) an hour before the minyan began its prayers. This extra time was not spent in idle chatter but in preparing oneself to stand before the King of Kings thanking and praising Him for His past kindnesses and petitioning Him for future continuances.

To this very day, we learn about how Chazal lived their lives that we might emulate them. We then pass their inspiration on to our children.

Da Lifne Mi Ata Omed

"Know Before Whom Thou Stand" cautions that we not understand prayer so much as a conversation with God but rather as an encounter in which we stand before The Almighty, withdraw upon finishing our prayers and await His decision. The opportunity exists solely by reason of His thirteen attributes but is available to any Jew every day, week, month and year of his life. Imagine being at the opposite end of a personal relationship with God, The Creator of The Universe.

I hasten to point out, however, the relationship of a Jew to God is not one of equality. How could it be? Is a servant ever the equal of his master? When a man is a slave to another man, the former will in all likelihood never be free. A more hopeful situation was that of the slave to a Hebrew master when the former could look forward to his manumission after seven years; the Torah even recognizes that some slaves might choose to remain within their master's house.

But in describing man's relationship to God in Jewish terms, Reb Aryeh explains, "With Jews, it's an entirely different matter. We bind ourselves to a relationship of dependence upon G-d symbolized by the act of laying tefillin when paradoxically we are only then truly free.

Seems like a contradiction in terms. Since when and where can a commoner speak with the King on a daily basis? Has there been an example of this in the history of human affairs? Probably not.

Monarchy tends to devolve within a limited range from absolute despotism through constitutional monarchy and ending, as in Great Britain, with a non-governing royal family whose elitism, though off putting to some, reminds others of a past to which a good portion of the everyday folk sentimentally clings.

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But in the world of the Jews and the one and only God, things are a little bit different because there is a price to be paid. It happens on Rosh Hashana, the first of Tishrei, when every living creature must account for his merits and demerits, a time when life, as it were, hangs in the balance.

Rich with symbolism, it is a season when people, as the old expression goes, "take stock", a reminder of an earlier time when storekeepers inventoried their remaining stock with an eye toward replenishing their shelves in anticipation of the new year.

Another Chance

How often as kids did we "beg" for another chance. "I promise I won't do it again, ever ...  I promise, okay?" This same construction applies to the Jewish people for, as badly as we have sinned, we've been afforded countless second chances.

Some opine that year's end, with a successful year behind them, is an appropriate time for a well-deserved, long overdue rest. But the contrary is true in the Jewish year. When the shofar sounds for the first time on the first morning of Elul, we redouble our efforts to straighten out our many crooked ways.

Consider the grave sin of the golden calf.

Having already received the tablets of the Ten Commandments, Moses had nearly descended the mountain when he espied the abomination and the debauchery to which it had given rise. He threw down the tablets in anger, chastised his brother Aaron and expurgated the many guilty individuals who had taken part in the great step backward.

But what followed? A second chance, right? A second chance for the Jewish people to "take stock" of themselves and return to the straight path.They received it in the form of a new set of the same commandments as before, an event so demonstrative of God's great mercy that the shofar was blown to announce its forthcoming.

Therefore, to remind ourselves of this act of kindness, we begin the trumpeting of shofar at the conclusion of prayers on the first morning of Rosh Chodesh Elul, excluding Shabbat mornings, to rid ourselves of the "Golden Calves" in our lives.

May we merit that our names be inscribed in God's Sefer Chaim, the Book of Life, for another year of life's many blessings. A happy and healthy year to Klal Yisrael and to all people of good will.
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