So it is that the Mateh Moshe proclaimed, “Every person must prepare himself for thirty days beforehand with repentance and prayer and charity for the day when he will appear in judgment before God on Rosh Hashanah. Therefore let every person scrutinize their actions with a view to mending them. Let them exclude themselves for one hour every day and examine themselves,” and Rabbi Chaim David Azulai declared, “During Elul [the month before Rosh Hashanah], one should devote less time to study and more time to fixed periods of introspection and self-evaluation,” and the Kav Hayashar recorded that
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