By Rabbi Aharon Seleh:
Elul is upon us. Such a wonderful month where we could destroy our sins through תשובה. We must realize that our sins actualize into harmful angels. When we repent properly, we are destroying an army of these angels! But we must realize that תפילה and סליחות are not enough.
Chacham Ovadia zatzal says the word “Elul” is Aramaic and means “to search.â€
We are supposed to search our actions to see what we are doing wrong and correct it. We must improve ourselves. If one comes before Hashem and tells Him, “If there is anything I did wrong, please forgive me.” That’s not enough. The first and foremost part of teshuva is to correct our actions. Chacham Ovadia used to say that what we should be most worried about are those sins we keep repeating without even realizing we’re doing anything wrong since those sins just stack up and תשובה is never done.
The ×¤×œ× ×™×•×¢×¥ says the first step is to come to the בית מדרש and start learning the laws – whether it’s the laws of Shabbat, brachot, or tefillah. Only then can we do תשובה. When we show Hashem we are ready to start changing and improving, we can be optimistic since that’s all Hashem wants. Let’s remember to guard our eyes from improper sights, our mouths from saying anything negative, and our ears from hearing anything negative. Step by step we’ll show Hashem we mean business.
Shabbat Shalom