He will completely forget about himself and his problems, even if he suffers regarding his material matters, he will forget his pain because of his joy in Hashem.
The above comes from realizing two things: 1- Hashem is infinite, He is the creator of all existence and beyond all limitations of existence etc., and 2- Hashem truly loves the person and is truly happy and delighted with the person, and wants to be close to him.
These two realizations together produce an unlimited joy that is so powerful it can lift the person out of his own daily problems and bring him to fully experience a closeness with Hashem.
As it is written: “Who do I have (besides Hashem) in the heavens, and besides for You (Hashem) I do not desire anything on earth.” (Tehillim 73:25)
Meaning, he will want to nullify any desire or yearning for anything besides for his yearning for the One Hashem.
This deep desire to only connect to Hashem with great joy and passion, is called the “shining face” of a Jew, when his face is lit up with an inner desire to connect to Hashem, just as Hashem has an Inner Will to connect to us.
Now, the time to awaken this “shining face” of yearning for Hashem described above is on Rosh Hashana, when Hashem “sits on the Throne of Mercy.”
Regarding that time, it is written (Shir HaShirim 2:6): “His (Hashem’s) ‘left hand’ is under my head (to pick it up to look towards Him),” which is the beginning of His showing His closeness to us, until on Yom Kippur and Simchas Torah “His ‘right hand’ embraces me.” (ibid.)
On Rosh Hashana, Hashem begins the process of bringing us close to Him on the deep level of “shining face” of inner joy and delight in connecting to us. However, the process is only completed on Yom Kippur and Simchas Torah, when His love embraces and envelops us in a revealed way.
In the first maamar in Likutei Torah for Parshas Ki Savo, entitled היום הזה, the Alter Rebbe explains this with an analogy:
A father is away from his home for a long time. His son yearns to see him, but after some time his feelings begin to subside.
Then one day the father comes home. But instead of immediately visiting his son, he hides himself in his house. He wants to see his son’s reaction when he realizes that his father is home but is hiding from him.
When his son reacts by crying and screaming for his father, his father comes out of hiding and hugs him. The purpose of the hiding was to bring out the deep feelings of the son even stronger.
Similarly, the whole year we yearn to see Hashem, but His Presence is hidden, and we lose the intensity of the yearning over time.
On Rosh Hashana, Hashem “comes home,” as it were, but He is “hiding.” When we realize that He is present more strongly that the rest of the year, but we don’t feel it, we cry and scream in teshuva, in yearning to experience Hashem’s closeness.
At the conclusion of the Ten Days of Teshuva, we do experience that closeness of Hashem on Yom Kippur, and even more strongly on Simchas Torah. This is like when the father comes out of hiding and hugs his son.
This is the idea of “His left hand picking up my head”: Hashem’s Gevura-Severity (the left hand) is expressed on Rosh Hashana, by coming close to us, but at the same time “hiding,” as it were, so that we should pick up our head to look for Him.
Since the purpose of this “hiding” is only to bring out our deep feelings for Him, it is also considered Hashem’s “shining face,” in a certain sense, since He delights in our revealing our deep feelings for Him.
When Hashem’s “shining face” is more obviously revealed on Yom Kippur and Simchas Torah, this is called “His right hand embraces me.”
Embarrassment and Forgiveness During the Ten Days of Teshuva
Now, during the Ten Days of Teshuva (from Rosh Hashana through Yom Kippur), a person needs to feel embarrassed in front of Hashem.
The embarrassment comes from the fact that Hashem brings us close to Him, He “shines His Face” towards us, as described above, yet, we are very far from Him (as it were) because of our sins that separate us from Him (as it were), as it is written: “I am embarrassed and ashamed to lift up my face to You, My G-d, for our sins have increased above our heads...” (Ezra 9:6)
And as it is written in the Zohar (vol. III), at the end of Parshas Bechukosai (115b) on the verse (Vayikra 26:44): “And even then, when they are in the land of their enemies, I (Hashem) will not despise or be disgusted with them ‘לְכ ל ַׁוַֹׁתָּם- to the point of destroying them’ (Heaven forbid).”
This word ‘לְׂכַל וֹ תָם-to the point of destroying them,’ is written similar to the word “לְכ ל ָּתַָּׁם-because they are His bride.”
This is comparable to a bride who works in a market of animal hide tanners, and because the groom’s great love for her, it seems to him like it is a perfume market, and he enjoys visiting her in the tanners’ market, despite the smell.
In other words, because of Hashem’s great love for us, he enjoys our closeness, despite the “smell” or our sins.
This is why we ask Hashem to forgive us, so that He shouldn’t have to smell the bad smell of our “tanners’ market,” i.e., our sins.
Meaning, that He should “pour upon us pure waters,” (see Yechezkal 36:25), to wash away the bad smell of our “tanners’ market” or sins.
I.e., we aren’t just asking Hashem to forgive us, but also to cleanse us spiritually.
The idea of these “pure waters” is that they represent the “13 Attributes of Mercy” of Hashem, which are also called “13 Rivers of Pure Afarsemon Oil.”
Afarsemon Oil has a very good smell, which is able to cancel out even a very bad smell. So too, Hashem’s Attributes of Mercy are able to wash away the bad smell of our sins.
These (“pure waters”) are drawn from a level called “Hidden of all Hidden,” and “Desire behind all Desires.”
Meaning, by way of analogy: The (underground) source of a spring of water is not openly revealed, only the rivers that flow from it are revealed, so too, the level of Hashem’s Light that is called “the Hidden of all Hidden” is the source from where the 13 Attributes of Mercy are drawn from.
That is why on Rosh Hashana, Hashem is called “the One who sits on the Throne of Mercy,” since at that time He is revealing His “Desire behind all Desires.”
Meaning, He reveals His innermost desire to connect to the Jewish people and cleanse them of their sins. At this deep level, He is the source of the 13 Attributes of Mercy, that clean us like “pure water” and “Afarsemon oil.” Because he reveals Himself as the source of the 13 Attributes of Mercy, He is referred to as “sitting on the Throne of Mercy.”
The Innermost Desire: Yechida
Now, this idea of the “desire behind all desires,” i.e., the innermost desire, exists in every Jew.
This is the innermost essence of the heart, which is above (precedes) the faculty of logical explanation, and it is called “Yechida-One and only Essence.”
This is referred to in the verse: “Save my soul from the sword, and my ‘Yechida-Essence’ from the ‘dog.’” (Tehillim 22:21)
The ‘dog’ is a metaphor for the forces of unholiness, who wish to drag down the essential desire and passion of the soul into coarse physical desires.
Meaning, to remove one’s passions and desires from material matters, and instead to connect to Hashem with passionate yearning, so that his deep innermost desire to only connect to the One Hashem should be revealed.
With the call of the Shofar, he awakens this level that was “sleeping,” that exists in each and every Jew.
Through this level (of Yechida), he brings down the 13 Attributes of Mercy during each day of the Ten Days of Teshuva, which are the "rivers” of Pure Afarsemon Oil, which come from their source in Hashem’s “Desire behind all Desires,” as explained above, and will be understood to the discerning.
These (13 Attributes of Mercy) are also called “Pure Waters,” since they wash away the bad smell of the sins.
To summarize:
- Hashem’s Attributes of Mercy clean us of our sins.
- They come from Hashem’s Innermost Desire to connect to the Jewish People.
- This Innermost Desire of Hashem is revealed when we reveal our Innermost Desire to connect to Him.
- To do that we need to pull ourselves away from getting caught up in our other desires.
- A very important time to do this is in on Rosh Hashana, when Hashem gives us the strength and ability to look past our external desires and reveal our innermost desire to connect to Hashem.
The Extended Sound of the Shofar
Now, it says in the Mishna (Rosh Hashana 3:3) that on Rosh Hashana in the Beis Hamikdash “the sound of the Shofar was greatly ‘extended.’”
In the Beis Hamikdash, in addition to the sounding of the Shofar on Rosh Hashana, they also sounded the silver trumpets. Since the mitzvah of the day is the Shofar, they made sure to sound the Shofar louder and longer than the silver trumpets.
This “extending” of the sound of the Shofar represents in a general way the level of “‘Arich’ Anpin-an Extension of a Gracious Countenance.”
The level of “Arich Anpin” is a level that precedes Atzilus, and is the hidden source of Atzilus. Atzilus is the level that processes all of our actions in a manner of reward and punishment. Receiving from the level of Arich Anpin is like receiving an extension of grace on a level that goes past the judicial system. This is similar to how a king can extend a “royal pardon” to commute a sentence of someone convicted.
In other words, through the sound of the Shofar, we reach a level in ourselves that is higher than our own “judicial system” of logical processing and analysis, and experience our core-essential desire to connect with Hashem. This is reflected in Hashem’s extension of grace towards us.
More specifically: Each day of the Ten Days of Teshuva, we reconnect one of our ten soul powers with Hashem, which are the three aspects of intellect, Wisdom, Understanding, and Knowledge, and its (seven) emotional aspects (which are Kindness, Severity, Beauty/Mercy, Perseverance, Self-control, Connection, and Action).
In other words, not only do we reconnect our innermost desire to Hashem on Rosh Hashana, but through that we reconnect every aspect of our soul with Hashem. For example, we reconnect our Wisdom to Hashem’s Wisdom, so that the only thing we really care to contemplate on and understand is Hashem’s Wisdom of the Torah. Similarly, we reconnect our love and fear to Hashem, so that the only thing we should really love is to connect to Hashem, and the only thing we are afraid of is breaking our connection to Hashem through a sin.
Each day of the Ten Days of Teshuva has a special power to reconnect one of our ten soul powers to Hashem.
However, this can only be fully accomplished after we reconnect to Hashem on a more general level, by reconnecting our innermost desire to Hashem.
Hashem’s Availability During the Ten Days
Now, our Sages have said in the Gemara (Rosh Hashana 18a): “The verse says (Yeshaya 55:6), ‘Seek Hashem when He makes Himself available, call out to Him when He is close,’ this refers to the Ten Days between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.”
The meaning of “when He is close” is when He is expressing Himself with a “shining face,” as explained above, which is an “Awakening from Above,” when “His left hand is under my head,” as explained above.
At that time is much easier for us to have an “awakening from below,” as they said in the Gemara (Rosh Hashana ibid.): “Usually, Hashem makes Himself easily accessible only to a congregation, and a private individual must invest effort to seek out Hashem. But here, During the Ten Day between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, He does make Himself easily accessible even to a ‘private individual,’”
The deeper meaning of Hashem making Himself available to every ‘private individual’ is that Hashem comes close to every person in way that reveals the level of “essence” of the Jew, enabling him to do Teshuva on the deepest level, as explained above.
Now, at that special time (of Rosh Hashana through Yom Kippur), all the ‘sparks’ of the souls of the Jewish People receive from Hashem Above a deeper level of love and fear of Hashem.
This is a very lofty level of love and fear of Hashem, that it is impossible to achieve only with one’s own effort in an “awakening from below.”
Obviously, one must invest effort in an “awakening from below” to attain the love and fear of Hashem in order to receive any higher level of love and fear. The intent is that when someone works to attain the love and fear of Hashem, during the Ten Days of Teshuva he will attain a love and fear of Hashem that far beyond his normal capacity with his inherently limited efforts.
As it is written: “G-d, please create within me a pure heart.” (Tehillim 51:12)
The person asks from Hashem to give him a heart of pure love and fear of Hashem.
Now, this level of a “pure heart” cannot be attained by any created being by itself, through its own “awakening below,” rather, it is a gift that is given from Hashem Above, at that time of His “shining face,” as explained above.
However, in order to receive this gift from Above, a preparation is required, which is through “fasting” and “making oneself uncomfortable.”
In order to be a proper “vessel” to receive this gift of love and fear of Hashem, a person must refine and humble himself.
Now, already in the times of the Alter Rebbe it was discouraged to afflict oneself physically and to practice excessive fasting, how much more so nowadays. Rather, for the average person nowadays it means to give up on indulgences that a person doesn’t need, such as eating ice-cream on a regular weekday just for the sake of physical enjoyment.
Another person might feel that waking up early to learn Chassidus before Shachris is like “torture,” since he “needs” that extra sleep. When he makes himself uncomfortable by getting up a half hour earlier so he can learn, he is making himself a better vessel to receive the love and fear of Hashem.
Therefore, the custom is that during the Ten Days of Teshuva, “we fast part of the day, but we don’t need to complete the fast.”
In Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim, 581:2) it says: “The custom is to fast on Erev Rosh Hashana. Some people who are very scrupulous also fast all of the days between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, (except for Shabbos and Erev Yom Kippur), and so it is proper to do. All of these fasts a person is not obligated to complete (the fast until night when the stars are visible).”
The mandatory fasts, such as the Tenth of Teves, a person is obligated to fast from dawn until night (when stars are visible) unless he is sick and physically unable. However, during these optional fasts of Erev Rosh Hashana and the Ten Days of Teshuva (except for Tzom Gedalya, which is a mandatory fast), a person is not required to fast the entire day until night for it to be considered a “fast.”
It is important to note, that while this custom is mentioned in the Shulchan Aruch, nowadays, most people do not actually perform these “optional fasts” in the literal sense. Rather, they spend more time in prayer and introspection, and try harder to refrain from unnecessary indulgences.
Since, the purpose of these “fasts” is not out of the obligation to fast, but rather that the person be humbled, so that he shouldn’t feel self-satisfied and fill his belly,
The days of mandatory fasting, such as Tisha Be’av, were established to complete the fast the entire day, because of the severity of the day itself and what happened on that day that needs to be corrected. However, these “fasts” are not connected to correcting what happened during those days per se, but rather just to humble the person, so that he should be more serious and introspective. Therefore, he doesn’t need to actually fast the entire day (to fulfill that custom).
Since, a person cannot receive from Above a “pure heart” when he eats to his fill satiation and his belly is full.
