Elul is a place - Class Starts August 17

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ELUL IS A PLACE

Mondays at 7pm (EST), August 17, 24, & 31 ($125)

As fall approaches, the air begins to cool down, and it carries the enticing smell of ripening fall fruit. For Yiddish speaking Jews, the month of Elul meant renewing the relationship between the living and the dead, and the cemetery came alive with visitors.
 
Elul is a place where the living and the dead meet, and we will draw on all our senses to prepare ourselves for the upcoming season of penitence and renewal.
 

In Yiddish literature, the Hebrew month of Elul is a time when a previously sleepy town is suddenly busy with visitors, whether they are Hasidim come to celebrate with their Rebbe, or family members returned to visit their deceased relatives in the local cemetery. This ritual, called "geyn af keyver oves" [visiting the graves of the ancestors] is a powerful one. The living visit the dead to unburden their hearts, to ask that they carry their prayers to heaven, and to request aid in the upcoming trial of the Yom Hadin, Rosh Hashanah - the Day of Judgment. While the mood was often somber, it also had its irreverent and mischievous side, as we will see.

In "Elul is a Place," our journey will be conducted via short stories and poems, memory writing, prayer, ethnography, journalism, and song. Our focus is on lived religion: how ordinary people tasted, smelled, felt, prayed, and wept their way to a meeting with the divine and other worldly.

This exploration of the Hebrew month of Elul will be conducted in English, using Yiddish texts with English translations. All are welcome. To register, just email me to let me know you want to join us. (cjcrokhl@gmail.com)






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