Chazal tell us that the malachim ask Hashem where the
hallel is for the Yom Tov of Rosh haShana and Yom Kippur, to which Hashem
responds that Klal Yisrael cannot possibly recite hallel on a Yom haDin when
the books of judgment are open. What’s
the hava amina of these malachim to ask such a question? Don’t they know it’s Yom haDin; don’t we say
in our tefilah that even “malachim yei’chapeizun… chil u’re’ada yocheizun…?”
Yesterday we discussed the GR”A’s pshat that the malach which
appeared to Avraham after the akeidah was created from his desire to do the
mitzvah of offering Yitzchak. I found that
the Sefas Emes says that same thing here.
Yes, it’s Yom haDin, but, as the Shem m’Shmuel writes, we will still
recite a “she’hechiyanu v’keymanu v’higiyanu l’zman hazeh” tonight because we are
glad to be at this moment. The Tur
quotes the Midrash that a person has to dress nicely, get a haircut, act like
it is any other Yom Tov where there is a mitzvah of simcha. It’s Yom haDin, and on the outside we do
stand trembling in awe, but b’pnimiyus inside, we all know that Hashem wants it
to be a good year for us, and therefore, it is a mo’ed as well. Just like the malach was created by Avraham’s
intent to do akeidah, there are malachim created by our desire to say hallel and
acknowledge this simchas hayom, even if we cannot bring ourselves to utter the
words, because, after all, as Hashem tells them, it is Yom haDin.
On a different theme, there is one other idea I wanted to
share. The haftarah we read on Rosh
haShana speaks about Chanah’s tefilah for a child. Why after years of being barren did Chanah
choose this visit to the Mishkan to daven with such force that she merited to
have Shmuel haNavi?
I saw an amazing answer from R’ Avaraham Shapira. The navi tells us that when Chanah’s husband
Elkanah saw that she was so despondent and refused even to eat, he said to her,
“Halo anochi tov lach m’asarah banim!” “I am as good to you as 10 children
would be.” (Shmuel 1:8) Until this
moment Chanah felt that Elkanah shared her desperate longing for a child. However, when Chanah heard these words, she
realized something had changed. The very
fact that Elkanah could give voice to the possibility that he or anything else could
be “as good as” having a child meant that he had started down the road to making
peace with the idea of Chanah being barren.
His passion and longing for Chanah to have a child were cooling. He was starting to accept the “reality” of
the situation.
Chanah, however, refused to give up.
Chanah knew that there was no “reality” that could not be changed by
rachamei shamayim, there was no goal that was out of reach, there was no
surrender that was necessary. What was
needed was simply more tefilah…
Let’s be real – there are a lot of difficult situations, there is
a lot of “reality” that we feel cannot be changed, at least not so easily, and
we are not Chanah by any stretch of the imagination. Teshuvah and tefilah do hold the potential to
change things by 180 degrees, but that’s an ideal that few of us can
reach. For myself and many people it
would be an achievement to just be able to move a few degrees in the other
direction, or maybe even just stop from tilting even further away from where we
should be. The lesson from tefilas Chanah
is not that we can accomplish whatever we want through tefilah, but rather that
like her, we should never surrender our goals, we should never become less
passionate about our commitments and ideals, even if the journey to achieve
them is a long and difficult one. A few degrees in the other direction is a good start.
Last but not least, I want to wish everyone true simcha even as we stand in Din, and
wish everyone a kesiva (v’chasima) tovah.
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