. . . . why visit in Ellul? How does that prepare one for the yamim nora’Im? There are two opposing views.

Since we are about to be judged, we need all the help we can get. For centuries, Jews have visited their ancestral graves in Ellul to ask their parents and grandparents to put in a few good words with the Almighty on their behalf. The Rabbis didn’t care much for this “superstitious” request for intercession.

The Chafetz Chayim, for example, points out that since you can talk to G-d directly, why use an intercessor? Besides, he argues, the dead can’t hear you anyway (a complex topic – there’s a long discussion in the Talmud as to whether the dead know or even care any longer about the living). The role of the Ellul visit, then, according to him, is for you to invoke your parents’ merits before G-d, not to talk to them.

Whether you think it’s you invoking your parents’ merits, or it’s your parents who are arguing your merits or neither, standing at their graves reminds us of where we came from and where we’re going, inducing a mindstate opposed to arrogance and conducive to teshuvah.

I’m one of those who likes going to the cemetery, and I am also one of those who talks to the dead. I ask my parents to bestow on me a small measure of their good qualities: My father’s passion, and my mother’s kindness.

Can they hear me? It doesn’t much matter. But when I get there after 120 years, and if it’s possible, and if someone who loves me talks to me, I’ll be listening.

*** The Angel Song (Shlomo Carlebach)

In the name of Hashem, God of Yisrael
Michael is on my right, Gabriel on my left
Before me is Uriel, behind me Raphael
Above my head, Shechina, the holy presence