Dear Friends,
Rosh Hashanah isn’t the world’s birthday, but that doesn’t mean that the words “Hyom Harras olam”, “This day is the world’s birthday” are a misprint in your handy Artscroll machzor. It is the day that Adam was created, and with him the entire world was “born” as the backdrop of being the place where an Adam’s potentials, which are the potentials of all future humans, came into being. Something of him is in all of his descendants.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
Many people have life and fire, and yet it is as though they are never truly born. You don’t have to be one of them. No one like you was ever born. The music you bring has never been played in the Divine Symphony. Hashem created your nefesh with love and it is up to you to move beyond mere survival. You can rise above the silencing of inner fear that tells you that you are somehow not enough.
We by nature are afraid to go against the flow because we are often unaware of our inner truth. Rosh Hashanah is a day when all of the barren were remembered by Hashem. He saw their capabilities; Sarah, Chana, Rachel became more, and brought new life into the world.
ALL SORTS OF BIRTHDAYS
Rav Chaim of Volozhin, the Nefesh HaChaim, was not crazy about school. He was brilliant, and the pace was too slow to grab him. School (not surprisingly) was not run by people who were crazy about him. He got past boredom by the kind of antics that made the school-day less boring to him, but empty of any real achievement for the rest of his class. The administrator came to have a talk with his parents. The suggestion was for him to leave school and be an apprentice (which in those days was fairly common). His rebirth came about by his by overhearing his parents’ plan to send him to be an apprentice.
That was all it took for him (and later his mother) to plead for another chance. When he came to school the next day, he was a little angle, and slowly he became best friends with the chumash and later the Mishneh, and Talmud. When he told his students this episode, he added an important sequel; if he hadn’t heard that conversation, he would have grown into a decent man – his parents were good people and their home was full of yiras Hashem.
The day would come when he would face Hashem to account for his life. Hashem would have asked him, “Where are the Nitziv’s sefarim?” Hashem knew his potential and gave him the chance to hear that conversation. Hear what you can be.
BORN TO SERVE – THE QUESTION IS WHO IS YOUR MASTER
Yosef was released from prison on Rosh Hashanah. It is a day on which we can become free, like Yosef – not free to escape from ourselves. We are inherently in need of submitting ourselves to higher goals; a person is made to struggle. You can be a servant of Hashem, which only liberates you from everything that is limiting. Or you can be a slave to this world’s limitations. We were enslaved in Mitzrayim, which literally means “the place of limitation.” We were freed from labor on Rosh Hashanah.
WHAT IF YOU ARE JUST YOU – NOT YOSEF OR THE NETZIV? YOU CAN STILL HAVE A HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ONE THAT YOU CELEBRATE EVERY DAY
A tale of one of us, with very few changes to disguise identity: Terry* has a mild physical issue. She is very short – not the kind of short that means “five feet,” but the kind that means she dreamed of being five feet tall. Shidduchim were a challenge, but the Great Shadchan took care of her. She found a job in a firm located in a commercial tower. The man in the adjoining office (who had recently taken a job after years in a BT yeshiva) was “tall”— all 5 feet of him, making him at least an inch taller than Terry. They married, but soon after discovered that life was more complicated than just sharing height in common.
Terry decided she would make it work. She chose to build, not to fall into the trap of bringing negativity and criticism into her marriage. Her rabbi, the man upon whom she leaned for strength and wisdom, became ill. She then relied on the only One you can always count on. She did, and the result was not only a marriage that is in many ways an example of what sharing a journey really means, but also one blessed with two wonderful children.
Her son was diagnosed with autism. This did not lead to denial or rejection. She gave him every opportunity – and more, she gave him patience and love. Today, he is a young man (perhaps looking a bit younger because of his diminutive height) but with a smile on his face and a meaningful job. Her daughter was no academic star and constantly needed extra help.
It was clear that the usual career choices – teaching, accounting, high-tech, social work, therapy – would not suit her. She began her path in the kitchen, where her natural love of cooking and serving blossomed. In her current position with one of the government ministries, she recently served brunch to none other than Binyamin Netanyahu!
And yes, Terry herself has a job now that her children are grown. She is a “shadow,” attending school with a child in need of extra help. For Terry, it is never boring—she sees each child as a new adventure. A six-year-old who neither spoke nor was toilet trained received her open-hearted love, and now he can say, “Terry, help me.”
LET YOUR SOUL AND YOUR HEART, NOT JUST YOUR MIND AND EARS, HEAR THE SHOFAR THAT TELLS YOU AND TELLS ALL OF US THAT IT IS GOOD TO.
The shofar can wake you up, letting you hear what we all heard at Mattan Torah: the shofar of the ram offered in place of Yitzchak, the voice of mesiras nefesh. Is this hard and painful? Giving yourself over to Hashem means moving beyond the distractions of ego and forgetfulness. Hashem is accessible even in the world of distraction; He can be found even here.
APPLE AND HONEY AND MORE – IT’S YOUR BIRTHDAY
That is why we do “experiential prayer” with the special foods of Rosh Hashanah—open your heart to feel and know Hashem’s malchus.
When you hear the shofar in shul, you hear various sounds. One is tekiah, a long blast. It reminds us that we can all hear one uniting sound. All of us are expressions of what Adam was. The goal is to be awakened to your light, hopes, and willingness to be like the Kohen Gadol, who prayed that all things come to their moment of fulfillment—each person in their own way. He prayed that no miscarriage should take place
May we all find the place where the way we were designed will find its fruition. May this happen for each of us, and for our entire people. May the bnei Torah bring down the greatest treasure we have, and may it save and protect us as promised. May this be joined with the mesiras nefesh of the soldiers of Am Yisrael, giving us the merit to overcome our countless enemies, and may all of the hostages be free to be who they were created to be.
Kesiva v’chasima tova,
With love,
Tziporah
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