By Rabbi Aharon Seleh: Elul is upon us. The Chofetz Chaim brings a parable about a thief who would stealthily steal from a certain house, taking just one or two small items at a time. One day the owner noticed things missing and got suspicious. He started paying more attention. For the next two weeks the thief was careful to not take anything; but once he realized the owner was no longer on guard, he reverted back to stealing.
The yetzer hora is always getting us to make mistakes. Once Elul comes and people start paying attention to their actions, he stops trying to fool people to sin, and even helps them along to do a couple extra mitzvos, to make them feel good. Rosh Hashanah arrives and we pat ourselves on the back…but so does the yetzer hara! Right after the high holidays he’s back to his occupation of trying to bring about our downfall.
The word Elul is Aramaic; it means to search. One must search his actions of the past year and see what needs improvement. The first step of teshuva is learning the laws and seeing where our behavior falls short of the actual halacha.