Rosh Chodesh Elul to Yom Kippur
Forty days.
From Rosh Chodesh Elul until Yom Kippur is forty days, the same forty Moshe spent on the mountain the second time, when the sin of the calf was forgiven. It is the season when a person is heard. Here is how to use it, free, and how to have a name carried to the Kotel through all of it.
The custom
Three chapters of Tehillim a day.
The widespread custom is to say three chapters of Tehillim each day from Rosh Chodesh Elul, finishing the whole book by Yom Kippur. Day one is chapters one to three, day two is four to six, and so on. On Yom Kippur the last thirty six chapters are completed.
You do not need to buy anything or sign up for anything to do this. Open the text and say it.
The texts open on Sefaria, free, in Hebrew with English beside it. Nothing here is written by a machine. The words are the words.
Also said every day of Elul
LeDavid Hashem Ori.
Chapter twenty seven of Tehillim is said morning and evening through the whole of Elul and on into Tishrei. It is short, and it is the psalm of a person asking for one thing only: to stay close.
At the Kotel
Forty days, one name.
Rav Weinreb goes to the Kotel and davens for the names families give him, for forty consecutive days. People ask for this when someone is ill, when a child is waiting for a shidduch, when a family is struggling, or before a judgment they are dreading.
Send the name below. You will be told when it begins and when it is finished. There is no set charge. Families give toward the learning program if they wish to, and many do not, and that is fine.
The rest of the year
The other places, the other seasons.
Rashbi at Meron, Amuka for a shidduch, the Arizal in Tzfat, Rabbi Meir Baal HaNes in Tiberias. Rav Weinreb lives among them.