ELLUL

Dear Family,

I hope everyone is well.

Mazal Tov to Joy on her upcoming birthday next week. Wishing you a Happy and Healthy Year Joy.

Mazal Tov to Talya Davidoff who also has a birthday next week. I hope all is going well and we wish you success with everything that you are doing Talya.

Mazal Tov to Mendel Levy who also has a birthday next week. Have a wonderful year Mendel with lots of success at school with your learning, sports etc.

From Rosh Chodesh Ellul to Yom Kippur (40 days) is when Moshe went up to Har Sinai the second time to get the second set of the Luchos.

When he returned on Yom Kippur Hashem declared 'I have forgiven, as per your request.'

This established the precedent for TESHUVAH, ie mans ability to correct our past mistakes.

So the 29 days of Ellul offer us a little island in time, a sanctuary, where we can review our past year and introspect on how the battle of our lives is progressing, and therefore how to improve.

In this regard Ellul is linked to 'The Cities of Refuge', to where someone who had killed another by accident, was allowed to flee.

The Arizal explains that the verse in Torah describing this ie inah leyado vesamti lach, spells out the word Ellul (taking the first letter of each of these 4 words).

Attached also find the upcoming weeks calendar for learning Rambam, made simple by Batsheva, who has designed it in English and including English dates, with the page numbers whereby we can at least learn the summary and associated Mitzvot, connected to the world-wide programme, from either the Concise Summary, or the Comprehensive Summary Books - Thank you Batsheva!

Gut Shabbos to all, and wishing us all a successful Ellul in preparation for Rosh Hashanah!