Opening the Gates of Heaven Perry Stone

It has been taught among devout Jews that the month o f El u l is a month that overflows with heavenly compassion. This can be seen when examining the Hebrew spelling of the Hebrew month of Elul : the Hebrew letters are aleph, lamed, vav, and lamed . This forms the acrostic, “ Ani LeDodi VeDodi Li ,” which means, “I am my beloved (Hashem) and my beloved is to me (the Jewish people).” It is noted that in Hebrew, the last Hebrew letter of the four words (an i in the English translation) is the Hebrew letter yud , whose numerical equivalent is the number ten. These four yuds add up to forty, which is also a cryptic reference to the forty days from Elul to Yom Kippur. 4 On the fortieth and concluding day of Teshuvah , climaxing on the Day of Atonement (called Yom Kippur ), the gates of heaven are then shut (in the spiritual sense that the heavenly decisions for the coming year have been sealed in the heavenly temple). This shutting and sealing is called neilah, or “closing the gates.” An example of the twelve-month decision period may be alluded to in the story of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. The proud king was given a warning dream that despite all of his skill as a world leader leading a wealthy empire, in the future he would experience a complete mental breakdown lasting seven years (Dan. 4:10–18). The main verse states:

This decision is by the decree of the watchers, And the sentence by the word of the holy ones,