gmar chasima tovah

Chazal tell us that since Hashem is “rav chessed” he tilts the scales in a person’s favor.  If it’s a 50/50 toss up, you win.  So what are all the beinonim worried about these 10 days?  A tie goes in our favor!  One of the answers given in Rishonim is that these 10 days are the chance to prove that we deserve it.  Sure, Hashem would give us a break anyway, but there is a difference between getting off due to G-d’s good graces, due to his being “rav chessed,” and getting off because you’ve earned that right to a chasimah tovah. 

I think the more popular answer to that question is that given by R’ Yitzchak Blazer.  Hashem is so accessible this time of year that to not take advantage of the opportunity to do teshuvah, to simply remain sitting on the fence as a beinoni without making a resolution to do better and to be better, is a tremendous strike against a person. 

In slicha 93, which we said this morning, the author of the slicha bemoans “B’reosi kol ir al tilah benuya v’ir ha’Elokim mushpeles…”  The Shem m’Shmuel homiletically interprets the word “ir” not as city, but rather from the same root as “u’ru yesheinim,” wake up.  When it comes to other areas of life, we don’t need any his’orerus to get us excited.  Whether it’s the Jets or the Giants that you root for, comes Sunday afternoon, “ir al tilah benuya.”  But when it comes to avodas Hashem, our ability to be “ir,” to be awake and enthusiastic, is too often “mushpeles.

I'm confident that we are all in fact awake this time of year and we are all striving to do what's right and hopefully we will all merit a gmar chasima tovah, not just because Hashem is "rav chessed," but because we have truly earned it.