Tisha B'Av is the day that we acknowledge our estrangement - from God, from each other, from ourselves. That's how you being a journey of reconciliation - by acknowledging your estrangement. It's exactly seven weeks before Rosh Hashanah. Seven weeks in our tradition is always the time it takes to prepare for a significant spiritual event - like the time between Pesach and Shavuot. Here we are at Tisha B'Av, sitting on the floor mourning this broken house (the Temple was called the house). We're crying and reciting dirges of lamentation for this broken house.

Months later, at the end of the journey, we're sitting in another broken house, the sukkah. Only now, we're rejoicing. We're singing and dancing. At first we saw the fact that the house was broken was a great catastrophe. And now we see we don't need it. We can sit outside with the stars in our hair and the wind in our face, and we're perfectly fine. And that's the real journey. It has two major parts--the first coming to the realization that we are completely unprepared, that we are in a state of urgent and desperate emergency. And then second realizing that it's alright.

On the first of Ellul Moshe went back up the mountain to try again.

. . . . the people immersed themselves in prayer and Teshuvah hoping for Hashem's reacceptance of them as the Chosen People. In order to avoid making the same miscalculation as before, the people sounded the Shofar at the end of each day that Moshe was on the mountain. Moshe returned after 40 days on Yom Kippur, 2449, bearing the 2nd Luchos and Hashem's full acceptance of their Teshuvah. From then on, the 40 days, starting with Rosh Chodesh Ellul and culminating with Yom Kippur, have been designated as the period for soul searching, and Teshuvah.

Starting with Mariv on Thursday, we add Psalm 27 at the end of Shachris and Mariv. Friday morning after Shachris, we will begin sounding the Shofar every day. The saying of David continues through Succoth. We do this because of the references to Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Succoth made in that Psalm.