Preparing for Elul

After the command to destroy an Ir HaNidachas, the Torah adds a promise: Hashem "will give you rachamim and have mercy on you." Why does mercy appear in the middle of the harshest mitzvah in the Torah? And why does the pasuk say it twice? The Or HaChaim answers with how our own actions shape us, which Rav Chaim Shmulevitz applies to the weeks before Rosh Hashanah. On an Erev Shabbos in Bnei Brak, a man stopped beside an elderly woman at a large garbage bin, and what came of it may explain his success.