Elul is the name of the special month of preparation and introspection that precedes the High Holidays. According to the mystics, the name “Elul” is also an acronym for a most beautiful verse in the “Shir Hashirim,” the romantic Songs of Songs composed by King Solomon expressing the deep mutual love between G-d and Israel.

The name ELUL stands for the Hebrew words “Ani ldodi vdodi li” which translate into “I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine.”

The very approach of Elul on the calendar stirs warm feelings within. Its beautiful name reminds me of how I would hear that verse sung on Friday evenings at a Sephardic synagogue on Shimshon Street in Jerusalem. Before I married, I would welcome Shabbat at this little Moroccan shul.

Feeling a little like Alice in Wonderland with legs too long and hair too blond, I would come in time for the afternoon prayer so that I could hear all of the Song of Songs sung in that pause of time before ushering in the Shabbat with the evening prayer.

All Sephardic congregations chant The Song of Songs on Friday evenings, but this particular shul was blessed with wonderful voices. The little boys belted out but didn't yell. Their fathers had young deep bass resonating voices and their grandfathers, mature sweet lilting voices. Usually Moroccans sing out their prayers in unison but here, Song of Songs and L’chah Dodi on Friday evening were multiple solo performances. Whoever jumped in first sang a few lines, until someone else glided in.

Coming as I did from a US synagogue where the members paid their cantor to allow their prayer to be as passive as possible, the spontaneity seemed so wonderful. I felt I was wandering in the Sinai with the voices of blending with the minor keys of the wind and desert.

The women's gallery was an impromptu arrangement of old wooden benches lining the walls of a narrow room adjacent to the men's section. We entered through a dark hallway with a few surprise stone steps. Nobody back in the U.S. would accept such conditions, but here old women who could hardly walk breezed their way in and out. The short older women who sat on long wooden benches with their hands cupped up to Heaven did not know how to read, but they knew the liturgy by heart. They were empowered to direct the music.

When one of the men got carried away with his solo, trilling or holding a note too long, the women would laugh, ‘Opera singer!’ pushing him offstage.

I never learned the womens’ names, but there were two whom I especially liked. One was salty, with diamond cut eyes and gaunt cheeks. The other had high cheeks like apples gracing soft sweet eyes. When we rose to greet and bow to the Sabbath Queen at the end of L’chah Dodi, she would walk to the open doorway, bow with outstretched arms, and kiss the mezuzah. As the Divine Presence lingered, all worry and weekday strife vanished.

Now that I am married, with little children thank G-d, I bring in Shabbat at home. When I reach the last verse of L’chah Dodi, I open the door and kiss the mezuzah. It is a dear moment of love and peace.

G-d is always with us, but we are not always with Him. A special day of the week, a special month of the year, enables us to come closer and welcome in the Divine. No matter the worry or strife, if we open the door, my Beloved will enter.

Ilana Attia is managing editor of B’or Hatorah, a Journal of Science, Art & Modern Life in Light of the Torah.