To put it in rock concert terms, Elul is the “opening act” leading into Rosh Hashana. Since I'm always on the lookout for Jewish holiday customs which speak to kids and can be easily adapted to the classroom, even home life, I asked myself what in the world am I going to do this year for Chodesh Elul? It marks the end of a fun summer vacation (some schools are already back in full swing), there's nothing amusing about it or for that matter, contemporary. Thanks to Jerusalem's Yeshiva Ohr Yerushalayim I was surprised to find that I was wrong about the latter. Since its establishment in the 1980's, this Yeshiva began its own “opening act” Chodesh Elul custom of wishing friends A Good Year when sending them a letter. The minute I read about this custom I had an Aha! moment. What better practice could there be for our social networking age? Put a Chodesh Elul wish on your school's Facebook page, have students “Like” each other's pages and post a “good year” comment. Get whole families involved. It's a wonderful warm-up to the main event – Rosh Hashana.
A good year to everyone...Tami
