By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz
There are times when we become so focused on doing the right thing that we fail to notice the opportunity to do something even greater.
On the Rosh Hashanah before her passing, Rebbetzin Shayna Chana Elyashiv was not well and was unable to go to shul to hear the shofar. My friend, Rav Gedalya Sheinen, told me that after davening, he would blow shofar for Rav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv according to all the different shitos.
That year, when he finished, he asked Rav Elyashiv if he should go to the rebbetzin and blow shofar for her so that she could fulfill the mitzvah.
To his surprise, Rav Elyashiv told him not to.
It was the second day of Rosh Hashanah, he explained, and the obligation to hear shofar on the second day is only miderabbonon. Additionally, women are not obligated to perform the mitzvah, but have accepted it upon themselves. Since blowing for the rebbetzin would involve extra tircha—a burden for Rav Sheinen—it was not necessary and he should go home.
Rav Sheinen left and began walking home.
Then he heard Rav Elyashiv calling after him.
“Kumt tzurik. Come back.”
Rav Elyashiv told him that after telling him to go home, he had thought about it and reconsidered. He said that it was true that the mitzvah of shofar on the second day is only miderabbonon and returning to blow more kolos would be a tircha.
“However, my wife will be so happy to hear the kol shofar,” Rav Elyashiv said. “By blowing for her, you will be doing a chesed and chesed is a mitzvah mide’Oraisa. I can be matriach you for a de’Oraisa.”
What an extraordinary way to look at life.
Rav Elyashiv had initially viewed the situation through the pure lens of halacha and concluded that there was no reason to impose upon Rav Sheinen. But then he thought about his wife. He thought about the happiness those sounds would bring her. Suddenly, what had appeared to be an unnecessary tircha became an opportunity to fulfill a mitzvah de’Oraisa.
The story reminds us that, sometimes, we can become so preoccupied with the mitzvah we are trying to perform that we fail to see the mitzvah standing right in front of us.
We look for lofty opportunities to serve Hashem while overlooking the person beside us who needs a little of our patience, a kind word, a smile, a favor, or simply the knowledge that someone cares about him. We get involved in performing the “big” mitzvos and let mitzvos that we consider minor fall by the wayside.
There is something especially powerful about this message as Rosh Hashanah is upon us. We spent the past weeks of Elul examining ourselves and thinking about what we need to improve. We thought about our davening, our learning, our mitzvos, and our bein adam laMakom.
But the Rambam (Hilchos Teshuvah 7:3) teaches us that doing teshuvah involves more than repenting for improper actions. It also includes doing teshuvah for bad ideas, as well as anger, hatred, jealousy, chasing after money and honor, gluttony, and the like.
When we do teshuvah, we should also be examining ourselves by considering how the people around us feel because we are in their lives.
“Do I make life easier for them or more difficult? Do I notice when someone needs something from me or do I see only the inconvenience it will cause me? Do I recognize the opportunities for chesed that Hashem provides me with every day?”
Rav Elyashiv’s greatness was not merely that he knew the halacha. It was that he understood that beyond the halacha was a person, and beyond the person was an opportunity to do the will of Hashem.
Sometimes, the greatest avodah is hidden in the smallest act of consideration.
And sometimes, before we go rushing down the stairs, we need to stop, turn around, and listen for the voice calling, “Kumt tzurik. Come back.”
Rav Sheinen was already walking down the stairs. The decision had been made. The matter was settled. But Rav Elyashiv stopped him and said, “Kumt tzurik. Come back.” He had reconsidered. He had looked at the situation differently. What a moment earlier had seemed to be an unnecessary tircha had suddenly revealed itself as an opportunity for a greater mitzvah.
There is something almost prophetic about that scene as we stand at the threshold of a new year.
At the time of the technological revolution, during the beginning of the twentieth century, when the world suddenly began exploding with innovative inventions, the Chofetz Chaim wrote in his sefer Sheim Olam that these new inventions serve to strengthen our emunah. Regarding the camera, he noted that it demonstrates that the Mishnah’s admonition that we should always be cognizant of Hashem’s “ayin ro’eh,” an eye that sees, is not merely an allegory. The development of the telephone similarly reinforces the reality of “ozen shoma’as,” an ear that hears.
The Chofetz Chaim taught us to look at the inventions of man and discover in them reminders of the wisdom and truth of the Torah.
If there is a technological invention that seems to symbolize our situation this week, perhaps it is the reset button.
The remarkable thing about a reset button is that it tells us that what happened until now does not necessarily determine what happens next. You can be working on a computer when it freezes, something goes wrong, everything stops working or a process becomes corrupted, and then, with the press of a button, the computer can be shut down and started again, and the problem is gone.
Rosh Hashanah is our Divine reset button.
We look back at the past year and see mistakes, failures, disappointments, and habits that we wish we could undo. We wonder how we can break patterns that have become deeply ingrained. We may feel that because we have been the same person for so long, we are destined to remain that way.
Rosh Hashanah comes and tells us that this is not true.
“Zeh hayom techilas ma’asecha.”
On this day, everything starts over again.
Rosh Hashanah is not merely the commemoration of the first day of creation thousands of years ago. It is an opportunity to experience creation anew, to recognize that Hashem is recreating the world today, and that He is giving each of us the opportunity to renew our own personal circumstances as well.
Rav Yisroel Salanter famously asked why Rosh Hashanah precedes Yom Kippur. Would it not make more sense, he reasoned, for us first to cleanse ourselves through teshuvah and then afterward be judged and celebrate Hashem’s dominion over the universe? Would it not bring greater glory to the King if His subjects, who gather to proclaim His sovereignty, were already purified of their sins and fully devoted to His will?
Perhaps the answer lies in understanding the essence of Rosh Hashanah.
Rosh Hashanah tells us that there is no status quo.
Nothing is guaranteed to continue into the coming year simply because it existed during the previous one. There are no chazakos. We cannot assume that what was will necessarily be.
And that is both frightening and comforting.
It is frightening because we realize that we have no lease on the blessings we enjoyed during the past year. We cannot assume that good health, parnossah, nachas, simcha, peace, or any of the other gifts Hashem granted us will simply continue because they were ours yesterday.
But it is also enormously comforting.
Because if there are no chazakos for the good, there are also no chazakos for the bad.
The person who struggled this past year is not condemned to continue struggling. The person who failed does not have to remain a failure. The person who was distant can become close. The person who was weak can become strong. The person who made the same mistake again and again can choose, with Hashem’s help, to make a different choice this time.
We pour out our hearts on Rosh Hashanah precisely because we believe that nothing has to be the way it was. We daven for a good new year because the future has not yet been written.
“Hayom haras olam.”
Today is the day of creation.
Not only then, when the world was first created, but today. Now. At this very moment.
“Hayom yaamid bamishpot kol yetzurei olamim.”
Today, the forces of creation are once again present, as Hashem judges every one of His creations and determines the course of the coming year.
Rosh Hashanah marks a new beginning for every person.
And that new beginning is itself a source of comfort. It tells us that we are not locked into our present spiritual state. We are not prisoners of our past. We can press the reset button. We can choose a different path. We can become different people.
We can say that Rosh Hashanah comes before Yom Kippur because, before we can undertake the difficult work of teshuvah, we need to know that teshuvah is possible.
Before we can confront our shortcomings, we need to believe that they do not define us, and before we can begin the journey toward becoming whole again, we need to know that we can have a new start.
Remember when we were kids and we would have a race, and if we didn’t get off to a good start, we’d call for a do-over? Rosh Hashanah is that new start. It’s the do-over.
The person we were yesterday does not have to be the person we are tomorrow. What happened last year doesn’t have to happen next year.
When we hear the sounds of the shofar, we hear echoes of the sounds that were sounded at Har Sinai, when Klal Yisroel stood together and was transformed into the nation of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. The shofar at Har Sinai heralded a new beginning. The world had reached the moment toward which it had been moving since creation. Klal Yisroel was about to receive the Torah and enter into its eternal covenant with Hashem.
At that moment, there was only hope and promise.
The shofar was also sounded at Yovel, the year of freedom and renewal. When we hear the shofar on Rosh Hashanah, we can hear within its sound an echo of Yovel, the great declaration of freedom that accompanied the return of the eved to his family and his home, and the return of each person to his ancestral property.
The sounds of the shofar sounded at Yovel proclaimed that the past does not have to imprison the future.
A person who had spent years as a slave could go home and begin again. A family that had lost its ancestral field could reclaim it. The world could be restored to its original order.
We, too, can begin again.
We can receive a fresh start, a new lease on life. We can return to the place where we belong.
This helps us understand the remarkable fusion of simcha and awe that characterizes Rosh Hashanah. It is the Yom Hadin, the awesome Day of Judgment, when every person stands before Hashem, and at the same time, we are commanded to celebrate the day as a Yom Tov.
Why the simcha? How can we be expected to be joyous when the judgment is upon us?
The answer is that the simcha is not despite the judgment. We are joyous because we think about what the judgment makes possible.
We are not simply being judged on the person we were. We are being given the opportunity to become the person we can be.
As far removed from Hashem as we may feel, as much as we may regret what has happened during the past year, and as dark as our situation may sometimes appear, the shofar comes to remind us that the story is not over. It’s just starting. There is a new beginning.
And there is teshuvah, the bridge between the person we have been and the person we can become. Rachmana litzlan, the plane crashed and we were thrown into a stormy sea. Teshuvah is the life vest provided to us, enabling us to hang on to life and return safely to shore.
The shofar calls us to reach for it.
We slip. We make mistakes. We commit aveiros. We fail to perform mitzvos as we should. When the shofar sounds, we look back and see the places where we fell short, the opportunities we missed, and the things we could have done better.
But one of the greatest chassodim that Hakadosh Boruch Hu does for us is that He gives us a way out of the rut.
He gives us Rosh Hashanah.
He gives us the ability to make a new beginning, to start from scratch, to press the reset button on our lives.
To be happy, even if we were sad.
To be upbeat, even if we were down.
To learn well, even if we didn’t last year.
To daven with kavanah, even if our tefillos have become rote.
To become better people, even if we have been disappointed in ourselves.
To scrub ourselves clean from aveiros, from the dirt and silliness in which we allowed ourselves to become entangled.
Rosh Hashanah gives us the ability to press reset on all the components that make up our lives and begin anew.
When we were children, we would sometimes search for the colon—the famous “two dots”—in a Gemara. We would be struggling through a difficult sugya, confronted by a question we could not understand, an argument that seemed beyond us, or a line of Gemara that had left us hopelessly confused. So, we looked ahead to find those two dots, which meant a new sugya and a chance for a new beginning.
Whatever had gone wrong in the previous sugya, we knew that here we could start fresh. Perhaps this sugya would be easier. Perhaps we would follow it better. Perhaps this time we would finally understand.
Rosh Hashanah is the two dots in the shvere sugya of life.
We pick ourselves up, we turn the page, and we begin again.
We are arriving at the end of another year, and some of us are staggering toward the finish line. The past year had its share of difficulties. When we express the annual hope of “tichleh shanah vekileloseha,” there is no shortage of tzaros and challenges to which we refer.
Yet, the Gemara in Rosh Hashanah (16b) teaches that a year that is “rosh,” impoverished, at its beginning will be rich at its close. Rashi explains that this means that Klal Yisroel approaches Rosh Hashanah like poor people, with our hands outstretched, recognizing that we have nothing of our own and that everything depends upon the generosity of Hashem.
Our tefillos are like the pleas of a poor person before a wealthy benefactor. We say in Selichos every morning, “Kedalim ucheroshim dofaknu delosecha.” We say to Hashem, “We stand here as poor people, as paupers, and we knock on Your door and have faith that You will open it and grant us a good year.”
Rav Yitzchok Blazer would say in the name of his rebbi, Rav Yisroel Salanter, that the yesod of Rosh Hashanah is to recognize that we have no guarantees and no chazakos, but we recognize that we are standing before the Source of all blessing.
We are like a poor man who was given an appointment with the most generous baal tzedakah in the world, and we are filled with hope that he will give us what we ask of him.
Rav Eizik Sher expands on this idea.
On Rosh Hashanah, everything in creation and every creature is judged individually. The Mishnah in Rosh Hashanah (1:2) teaches, “Kol bo’ei ha’olam ovrin lefonov kivnei maron.”
Think about what that means. The entire world is standing in judgment. Billions of human beings. Nations and countries. Kingdoms and governments. Each one is being judged. Who will have hunger and who will have plenty. Who will have drought and who will be flooded. Who will experience war and who will experience peace. Who will prosper and who will suffer.
And in the midst of this enormous gathering, there is only one nation that knows the secret, only a tiny percentage of the billions who stand before the Borei Olam who understand what it means to be zoche badin.
Only Am Yisroel knows the secret of standing before the King like an “oni bapesach,” like an impoverished person who knows that he has nothing to rely upon except the rachamim of the One who holds everything in His hands.
Our sense of frailty is our strength. We know that on our own, we are nothing and have nothing. We have no guarantees and no chazakos. But we know that we have Hashem, and when a person comes before the Source of all blessing with that recognition, anything is possible.
Thus, on Rosh Hashanah, the first two days of the Aseres Yemei Teshuvah, we do not recite vidui or al cheit. The teshuvah of Rosh Hashanah begins somewhere deeper. It begins with how we think.
Because before we develop a new course of action, we need to develop a new perspective. Before we can change what we do, we have to change how we see ourselves, how we see our lives, and how we see our relationship with Hakadosh Boruch Hu.
The kol shofar awakens us to the realization that we are beginning again. On this day, we don’t look back. We look ahead. We look at everything that we can do right. We do teshuvah on our thought process. We hear the shofar call out to us, saying, “Kumt tzurik. You can do it. You can be great. You can do all the mitzvos properly. You can be a baal middos. You can be a kind and gentle tzaddik who performs the mitzvos perfectly. And you can have a great year.”
On Rosh Hashanah, the person who struggled with his davening can begin to approach tefillah differently. The person whose learning was inconsistent can open a Gemara with renewed determination. The person who has been carrying anger or disappointment can choose to let go, and the person who has become discouraged with himself can lift his head and remember that Hakadosh Boruch Hu has not become discouraged with him.
The call of the shofar is simple, without an elaborate melody or complicated words, because teshuvah begins with a call that comes from somewhere deep within a person and says, “I want to come back. I want to be better. I want to begin again.”
And we are not starting the journey alone. Hakadosh Boruch Hu is right there with us, holding our hand and helping us. We make the first move, but Hashem promises to help us complete the journey, to strengthen us when the road is difficult, and to enable us to accomplish what we could not accomplish on our own.
As we stand at the beginning of another year, whatever our situation is, we should not be intimidated. The shofar calls out to us, “Uru yesheinim mishinaschem.” Don’t fear the future. Awaken from your sleep, from your nightmares and fears. New opportunities, new accomplishments, new nachas, and new growth await you.
We know Who holds the year in His hands, and that knowledge allows us to approach the Yom Hadin not only with awe and trepidation, but also with the simcha that comes from knowing that we are being given another chance.
We will hear Hashem calling each one of us and saying, “Kumt tzurik. Come back. Begin again. It’s a do-over. You can do this. You can win. You can have a winning year.”
May we all be zoche to a great year, filled with yeshuos, refuos, hatzlocha, brocha, and geulah.
Kesivah vachasimah tovah.
