The word אלול – the name of this special month before Rosh Hashanah – is associated with several pesukim . Most famously, of course, it is associated with the pasuk in Shir Hashirim which describes the mutual love between Hashem and the Jewish People: אני לדודי ודודי לי – “I am for my Beloved, and my Beloved is for me,” as the first letters of these words spell אלול . But there is also a lesser-known connection between the name of this month and a stage of the עבודת יום הכפורים – the special service performed by the kohen gadol in the Bet Ha’mikdash on Yom Kippur. As we recite during the musaf prayer on Yom Kippur, special sacrifices were offered on this day, and the kohen gadol sprinkled the blood of the sacrifices inside the קודש הקודשים , the inner room of the Bet Ha’mikdash . He would sprinkle אחת למעלה ושבע למטה – once upwards, and seven times downward. This procedure is very significant. The Gemara teaches that the yetzer ha’ra – our evil inclination – has seven names. There are seven different ways in which the yetzer ha’ra can pull us down, and prevent us from growing, from going where we need go, from being the people who we are supposed to be. Without discussing what these seven “names” are, it suffices for our purposes that the Rabbis identified seven different types of vices, of weaknesses, ways the yetzer ha’ra holds us down and tries stopping us from achieving greatness. With this in mind, the sprinkling of the blood אחת למעלה ושבע למטה is extremely important. It represents what might be the single most important thing we need to remember during this season of teshuvah . And that is – although there are seven forces bringing us למטה , trying to pull us down, there is a much more powerful force that is pulling us upward. The אחת למעלה is stronger than all שבע למטה . We might have within us many negative impulses, but we also have a force of goodness which is more powerful than all of them. Our inner spark of kedushah (holiness) can overpower all the different forces of the yetzer ha’ra . This is, perhaps, the central message of this time period. And thus the name אלול represents the words א חת ל מעלה ו שבע ל מטה . During Elul, we are to remind ourselves that we can change, we can be better, we can grow, we can reach higher. Sometimes we feel that we’re just trapped in place, that we are hopeless against the forces that bring us down. Elul is the time for us to remember that we have within us a force of goodness that is more powerful than all our evil inclinations. This is what we need to remind ourselves during this time of year: we can change!! We are not powerless! Yes, as human beings, we have many challenges and many temptations, and we will do things wrong. But this does not mean that we are trapped. We can do better! Let us take full advantage of this period of א חת ל מעלה ו שבע ל מטה . Let’s stop telling ourselves, “I can’t,” and start believing that we can. We can be so much better – and this is the time of year to show just how much better we can be!