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.
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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
Every year, our sages taught, with the cry of the shofar, the entire universe is reborn.
And so, at that time, with our resolutions and our prayers, we hold an awesome power: To determine what sort of child this newborn year shall be—how it will take its first breaths, how it will struggle to its feet, and how it will carry us through life for the twelve months to come.
In truth, it is not only once a year. At every new moon, in a smaller way, all life is renewed again.
And so too, every morning, we are all reborn from a nighttime taste of death.
And at every moment—in the smallest increment of time—every particle of the universe is projected into being out of absolute nothingness, as it was at the very beginning.
Which is why there is always hope. Because at every moment, life is born anew. And we are the masters of how this new moment will be born.