R. Chaim Benveniste was a renowned scholar who served as rabbi in Tire, a town near Izmir, Turkey, and then in Izmir itself. His most famous work is Kenesses Hagedolah, a collection of halachic material arranged according to the order of the Code of Jewish Law.
Other notable members of the Benveniste family include Don Joseph Benveniste and Dona Gracia Mendes-Nasi.
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 55</ br> Chapter 56 </ br> Chapter 57
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
When the Mighty Waters cover your head, suffocating the soul and the flame that burnt inside . . .
When raging torrents of confusion drag you away in their current, ripping you from your hold on Life . . .
Look deeper. Beyond the soul.
For the soul itself, as well as the flame it holds, are rooted in a serene G‑dly World of Emanation, a world of quietness and sublime harmony.
But the turbulence of this world is rooted even beyond that, stemming from a World of Confusion, of light unbounded and untamed, before the orderly emanation of defined being, “and the world was confused and void, with darkness over the face of the deep.”
So you must dig deeper than those roots, to find the coals from which the flame arose and the flint rock from which the spark was struck. Deeper, until you reach the primordial essence of the soul, beyond Emanation, beyond Light—even beyond the unbounded light of pre-creation. Where there is nothing but the seminal thought which inspired all that is and was and will come to be.
And what was that thought? It was the thought of you here and now, in your struggle with this world, and the delicious taste of your victory.
And, since in that thought there is no past and future, there, in that thought, you have already won.
Now you must make it happen.