40 Days of Return: Psalms for the Days of Awe
Forty psalms for the forty days from Rosh Chodesh Elul to Yom Kippur. This is the Tanakh's season of return: Moshe climbed Sinai for a final forty days and came down on Yom Kippur with the second tablets, the sign that God forgives (Exodus 34), and Leviticus 23 sets these days apart as appointed times. The plan opens with Psalm 27, recited daily through Elul, walks the classic selichot psalms of teshuva, sounds the shofar psalms of Rosh Hashana, and climbs through the Aseret Yemei Teshuva to the closing gates of Yom Kippur.
40 days
- Day 1: The Psalm of the Season
- Day 2: Show Me Your Paths
- Day 3: The Joy of Being Forgiven
- Day 4: Create in Me a Pure Heart
- Day 5: Out of the Depths
- Day 6: For You Are Forgiving and Good
- Day 7: As Far as East from West
- Day 8: Do Not Rebuke Me in Anger
- Day 9: Weeping at Night, Joy at Dawn
- Day 10: Taste and See
- Day 11: He Heard My Cry
- Day 12: The King Who Sees Every Heart
- Day 13: You Crown the Year with Goodness
- Day 14: Teach Us to Number Our Days
- Day 15: What Is Man?
- Day 16: Shelter of the Most High
- Day 17: Serve with Joy
- Day 18: He Hears My Voice
- Day 19: Open the Gates of Righteousness
- Day 20: I Lift My Eyes to the Mountains
- Day 21: You Search Me and Know Me
- Day 22: Do Not Enter into Judgment
- Day 23: Prayer of the Afflicted
- Day 24: Near to All Who Call
- Day 25: He Heals the Broken-Hearted
- Day 26: Who May Ascend His Mountain?
- Day 27: Cleanse Me of Hidden Faults
- Day 28: The Shepherd
- Day 29: As a Deer Longs for Water
- Day 30: For God Alone My Soul Waits
- Day 31: God Ascends with the Teruah
- Day 32: Sound the Shofar at the New Moon
- Day 33: Longing for His Courts
- Day 34: The Thrones of Judgment
- Day 35: When Hashem Returns the Returnees
- Day 36: The Beginning of Wisdom
- Day 37: Today, If You Hear His Voice
- Day 38: Man Is Like a Breath
- Day 39: A Quieted Soul
- Day 40: The Last Shofar Blast