The Yeshivah "Tomchei Temimim Lubavitch", the first to integrate the "revealed" part of Torah (Talmud and Halachah) with the esoteric teachings of Chassidism in a formal study program, was on this date founded by the fifth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Sholom DovBer Schneersohn.
As the last month of the Jewish year, Elul is traditionally a time of introspection and stocktaking -- a time to review one's deeds and spiritual progress over the past year and prepare for the upcoming "Days of Awe" of Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur.
As the month of Divine Mercy and Forgiveness (see "Today in Jewish History" for Elul 1) it is a most opportune time for teshuvah ("return" to G-d), prayer, charity, and increased Ahavat Yisrael (love for a fellow Jew) in the quest for self-improvement and coming closer to G-d. Chassidic master Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi likens the month of Elul to a time when "the king is in the field" and, in contrast to when he is in the royal palace, "everyone who so desires is permitted to meet him, and he receives them all with a cheerful countenance and shows a smiling face to them all."
Specific Elul customs include the daily sounding of the shofar (ram's horn) as a call to repentance. The Baal Shem Tov instituted the custom of reciting three additional chapters of Psalms each day, from the 1st of Elul until Yom Kippur (on Yom Kippur the remaining 36 chapters are recited, thereby completing the entire book of Psalms). Click below to view today's Psalms.
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Elul is also the time to have one's tefillin and mezuzot checked by an accredited scribe to ensure that they are in good condition and fit for use.
Links: More on Elul
“Nothing G‑d creates is for nothing. If not for the frogs, how would G‑d have taken retribution on the Egyptians?” (Midrash)
Now, this is a strange statement. Why should G‑d need frogs, of all creatures, to deal with Ancient Egypt? He's G-d. He has no shortage of means to accomplish His ends.
The answer: Because, to Pharaoh, the whole world was a frog.
Pharaoh was not like Bilam. Bilam understood there was one great G‑d. Only that he imagined that there were little gods, too. Such as himself.
Neither was Pharaoh like Sancherib, King of Assyria. Sancherib denied G‑d’s existence altogether. He perched himself upon a throne as the supreme deity and scoffed at the notion of any entity being greater than him. (Ezekiel 28:2)
But to Pharaoh, the existence of G‑d was simply irrelevant. He had a nation to run, business to take care of, and this "Let my people go that they may serve Me" annoyance was getting in the way.
The heavens belong to the gods, or maybe even one G‑d. But business is business.
Today, we call that a secularist, a kind of agnostic.
The secularist has no problem with the possible existence of G‑d. The atheist vehemently denies it—and thereby makes himself his own god. Yet, in a way, the secularist sits on a lower plane than the atheist.
At least the atheist has a relationship—albeit a negative one—with something beyond himself. At least he finds it necessary to oppose it.
But this utter coldness of Pharaoh, this notion that he lives in a world that’s “just here,” and that G‑d and all this spiritual business has nothing to do with life on Planet Earth—with him, how can you even start a conversation?
For him, the entire world is a frog.
Why a frog? Some plagues involved domesticated animals that serve their master. Others involved vicious beasts that endanger human beings. But the frog is a seemingly benign creature that neither harms nor services anyone, a creature that appears to be “just here,” without any apparent purpose.
That’s why G-d’s first cure for Pharaoh's coldness was to enlist the frogs to perform a miracle
To demonstrate that, in truth, there is absolutely nothing in this world without divine meaning, nothing that is not intimately wrapped up with G-d’s light. That everything in G-d's world burns with divine purpose.
Even the cold, benign frog.