Tefillah

The Tur (תקפ"א) states, וכל המוסיף לבקש רחמים זכות הוא לו, "The more you ask from Hashem [in Elul, and the more you invest in tefillah] it is to your benefit." One only gains from tefillah in Elul.

A religious Yid, who has a chain of grocery stores in Eretz Yisrael, sometimes does things that are, let's call it "unusual." Like a couple of years ago, before Chanukah, he sold olive oil for one shekel a bottle. Last year, close to Pesach, he came up with another "unusual" idea. He came to one of his stores and announced loudly to all the consumers, "Whatever you have in your shopping carts at this moment, you can take home for free."

He wanted the people to pass by the cashiers to record what was taken from the store, but they didn't have to pay for it. As people stood in line by the cashiers, one person said to his friend, "I saw an expensive wine that I wanted for the seder, but I decided against it. Now I regret that I didn't take it."

His friend said, "I took one box of kosher l'Pesach cereal. If I had known that everything would be free, I would have taken three boxes. I wish I knew beforehand."

A similar story occurs when two friends go out to eat a meal in a restaurant. One of them is wealthy, and he buys the foods he enjoys. The other one is poor, so he keeps his eyes on the prices and buys within his means. When it is time to pay, the wealthy friend takes out his credit card and says, "It is on me." The poor friend thinks, “If I had known beforehand that you would pay for everything, I would have ordered what I really wanted."

The lesson for us is, as the Tur writes, "The more you ask from Hashem [in Elul], it is your benefit." We know beforehand how much we can gain with our tefillos in Elul, so we should take advantage of this great opportunity.

The Rebbe Reshab zt'l said, "Elul is the season for Tehillim." Soon, we will say Selichos. All tefillos are worthwhile this time of year. Say techinos, say tefillos in your own words. We were told beforehand how much we could gain from it.