Jewish life

Rosh Hashana and awareness

What happens on Rosh Hashana ?

Rosh Hashana is not a day of repentance; it is a day of Teshuva.
What is Teshuva ?
Teshuva means return. It is a day where we return to an awareness.
Which awareness ?
The awareness of our true relationship with G-d.
what is it ?
The first relationship Adam had with G-d when he was created , was based on the awareness that G-d is the King of the univers.

This is what happens on Rosh Hashana : We some back to the beginning of creation, we come back to Gan Eden (in the Bais Midrash) and we fix Adam mistake after he sinned.
What did he do ? he was hiding.
Why ? he lost the awareness that G-d is everywhere ,
that G-d knows everything = that He is the King.
All what G-d wanted is that Adam should stand in front of Him an d admit his mistake, G-d will have forgiven him, Adam only realize that when Kayin became partially forgiven.
Therefore we come on Rosh Hashana with all our sins and we say :
“G-d ! we are sinners, and we are aware that what we did was wrong,
we accept it, but still , we come in front of You , even on a day of danger for us, on the day of judgment. We are coming back to you and still want you as our King, whatever sentence you will give us, because we love You , we know who You are, we are aware of it.”
And we say this with Joy, with awe, with love, with confidence, because we know that behind the throne of justice lies a G-d of Rachamim(mercy).

This is also the meaning of the Shofar : what is the meaning of blowing the Shofar ?
We are here all in the Bais Midrash and connect ourselves to the biggest Tzaddik, who can include all our Neshamos(souls) in his , (this is the power of the Tzaddikim ) , and he takes the Shofar and blows in it , he gives away his Neshama to Hashem and therefore our too.
The Tzaddik is showing G-d that we are ready to give our lives back to Him , because all what we want is that He should be King.
In a sens the Tzaddik tells G-d a little bit what Moshe Rabbeinu told G-d after the sin of the Golden Calf : “save them or erase me from your book”.

This is actually the secret of Nefilas Hapayim and probably connected to our bowing on the floor during Aleynu Leshabeach.We tell G-d:”If we can’t give you Nachas Ruach (satisfaction) this next year then we are ready to disappear, to go back on the floor , back to earth and disappear, as long as You stay King of the world and You are glorified , that’s all what we want.”















Yom Kippur and potential

One’s we come back to this awareness on Rosh Hashana then we can regret that we misused our potential.
What potential ?
Rosh Hashana gives us a second awareness : The fact that G-d is judging us teaches us that everything we do matters.
If everything we do matter it means that G-d gave us some of His power to affect the world.

If G-d gave us some of His power it has to be infinite power since He is infinite.
Rosh Hashana is therefore a preparation for Yom Kippur:
We realize that Hashem gave us an amazing potential and that last year it was misused. Just the fact that G-d is our King should be amazing to us, and bring us to awe. We therefore reconsider who we really are in the same time as we make G-d King and we declare that “we want this year to reveal the King to the world by using our tremendous potential He put into our hands. All our actions we from now on be for the sake of our King .
Realizing that what we do matters to Him brings us to the awareness that He loves us and that He cares about us , it should bring us to love our King even more.

If one can get a glimpse of his own potential then he can feel a little of the power of Adam Harishon before he sinned, an infinite amount of potential.
We are now back to before the Sin of Adam , how am I going to use my potential this year ? Am I going to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil or am I going to eat from the Tree of Life.
If I make the right choice I can just by myself elevate the whole world and bring Moshiach.
[ I just want to point out here why we see in many books about the fact that those Holy days (Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur) are essentially a Tikkun (rectification) for the sins connected with the Bris(sexual immorality).
This is because the Bris Milah symbolizes infinite potential ,
the semen can bring millions of souls to the world and it can even bring the soul of Moshiach ! Controlling this potential is the purpose of our creation because it implies refining ourselves through our potential ,refining our Middos(character traits) , this is what purifies us so that we can come closer to G-d, this is one of the meaning of eating from the tree of life].







To conclude : thanks to the awareness on Rosh Hashana that G-d is my King ,
I am able to feel and understand what my mission is, therefore during the 10 days , I work on myself to understand my true nature , my true mission and potential until I am able to internalize it and connect to it.
Then on Yom Kippur I can stand in front of the King of Mercy and show Him that I understood who I really am and you tell G-d: this is who I am , this is what I will do.
We therefore become greater than angels and Hashem is having Nachas from His children.