Rosh Hashanah - 5776

Rosh Hashanah - 5776

Rabbi Hal Miller

Restrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears for there is reward for

your accomplishment, the words of Hashem, and they will return from the enemy's

land. [Yirmiyahu 31:15]

The prophet here is relating Hashem's words to Rachel, promising her that the Jews

would some day return from exile. But we can read these words from our second day

Haftorah as relating also to the process of teshuvah, return from our faults to the

observance of Torah. Hashem here promised Rachel that He would accept our return.

We know we are supposed to constantly be working on teshuvah, and we know the

what and how for implementing that. But what does the process actually involve? What

causes sins to be either "remembered" or "erased"? Does G-d have a selective

memory issue?

In Selichos this week, we read that the prophet Yeshayahu speaks words for Hashem in

43:25 and 44:22: "I am He who wipes away your willful sins for My sake, and I shall not

recall your sins." "I will have wiped away your willful sins like a thick mist and your

transgressions like a cloud." He is offering us a clear opportunity to return, but we don't

all do so.

Who succeeds with teshuvah, and who does not?

The Gemorah Rosh Hashanah in [17a] tells us that there are three groups of people:

those righteous who will skip Gehinnom, those wicked who will go to Gehinnom either

long term or permanently, and those of us in the middle who will go to Gehinnom for a

short time (typically a year) then ascend to the World to Come. We can, for the present,

leave off the truly righteous and truly wicked, and concentrate our discussion on the

vast majority of the rest of us, who fall somewhere between. How do we achieve

repentance and return? How do we improve our position?

Beis Hillel tell us that kindness is an answer. For those who are abundant in kindness

Hashem "tips the scales" with His mercy. Those who are weak in this area will have

to make up for it in Gehinnom. Thus there is something positive we can "score high"

for, and gain points, if you will.

But how about getting rid of the negatives? That seems to be a bigger issue for

human beings. R'Yitzchak has some answers for us in the Gemora on [16b].

"Three things cause a person's sins to be recalled (by the Heavenly Court). These

are: a leaning wall, expecting prayer (to be fulfilled), and submitting judgment of

one's fellow to Heaven." What do these mean? The first, the leaning wall, is a matter

of relying on a miracle without doing hishtadlus, expecting Hashem to, so to speak,

clean up after us and protect us as if we believe we bear no responsibility for due care.

The second, expecting our prayers to be answered the way we want even though we

do nothing toward earning it, again is a matter of relying on Hashem to bow to our will

instead of the reverse. The third, submitting our neighbor for judgment, is a matter of

one who feels wronged not following Torah rules about mending relations, or at the

least, following earthly court processes to resolve the problem, but instead asking

G-d to punish the 'offender'. All three require us to do what is right before just expecting

Hashem to fix things for us. So much for Hashem "remembering" our sins.

How about "erasing" them? The Gemora continues, "And R'Yitzchak said: Four

things cause the decree against a person to be torn up. These are: charity, crying out,

change of name, and change of action." These can be summarized as tzedakah,

tefillah, and taking action to show "I'm a new person".

The day of judgment is upon us. As we go before the Heavenly Court, we make our

case. Our actions could have caused our shortcomings to be remembered, or they

could cause those shortcomings to be erased. And in any case, doing kindness

puts the Judge in a positive frame of mind about us. Seems like a simple formula,

so why have we, for thousands of years, ignored it? Time to concentrate on making

this be our last pre-redemption day of judgment! Shanah tovah.