Rosh Hashanah is the Day of Judgement, a day when Hashem looks at each one of us individually – like a shepherd examining each sheep in his flock, as the Sages say. Thus, this is a time when our fear of punishment awakens us to do teshuvah and daven as best we can. We know that there is so much that we need from Hashem. Most importantly, we begin to ask for forgiveness on Rosh Hashanah with all our hearts, and we daven slightly bent over in order to surrender ourselves to Hashem and show our embarrassment for what we’ve done. We plead with Him to help us to return to Him.
At the same time, however, we have to be very careful not to get depressed. We can’t let ourselves feel as if we’re so far away from Hashem that there is no hope for us to have a good judgement. We shouldn’t think that our sins are so great that there is no atonement for them.
In particular, we have to make sure that we don’t get sad over the mistakes we make on Rosh Hashanah itself. Most of the time, we have a lot of ups and downs on Rosh Hashanah. Sometimes, we wake up on time and we’re able to daven with clarity of mind. We feel connected to Hashem when we hear the powerful blast of the shofar. Other times, we sleep in, or we fall asleep during the prayers. We get distracted and end up worrying about our income, health, children, and so on. When this happens, we must watch out for the yetzer hara. The lack of success in our own eyes is the main tool that the yetzer hara uses to throw us into depression and take away our ability to do teshuvah and serve Hashem.
Furthermore, we often have a lot of doubts on Rosh Hashanah: Maybe we’re not davening in the right place. Maybe we’re not praying well enough. Maybe we didn’t fulfill all the mitzvos properly, and so on.
Recognizing the True Compassion of Hashem
Therefore, Rebbe Nachman teaches us that in addition to approaching Hashem with humility and embarrassment over what we’ve done and our spiritual situation, we must also remember the true nature of Hashem. The Shepherd Who counts His sheep has a deep love for each and every one of them. He is full of compassion and mercy for them. He is good to all of them!
Thus, regardless of our sins in the past and our mistakes on Rosh Hashanah itself, we must rely on Hashem’s compassion and believe with all our hearts that He judges us favorably. We should be mevatel ourselves to the reality of Hashem’s immeasurable love for us. Without any doubt, He sees our good points and He will give us a good verdict on the Day of Judgement. Certainly, He focuses mainly on our yearning to do teshuvah and treasures our desire to serve Him better, despite what the end results may be (see Likutei Mohoran II, 1, where Rebbe Nachman explains at length that on Rosh Hashanah, Hashem understands the difficulties of the situations that cause us to sin, and thus, He judges us favorably).
In fact, the embarrassment that we have before the King of all kings on Rosh Hashanah should come from this realization itself: since Hashem is so good and compassionate, how could it be that we left His path of truth? How could we betray our loving Father?
In this way, we should go back and forth from awakening our fear of Heaven by recognizing our shortcomings and being embarrassed before Hashem, to lifting up our hopes and being joyful by remembering the immense kindness of the Creator and His incredible mercy for us. We plead with Hashem to give us the power to crown Him King through Torah and tefillah, and then we concentrate on the incredible nachas that Hashem gets from every little thing that we do for Him, even if we’re full of imperfections. We do our best to overcome our yetzer hara and daven with kavanah on Rosh Hashanah, but if we fall, we focus on the goodness of the Master of the Universe. When our thoughts drift away from the words of tefillah, all we have to do is feel embarrassed in front of Hashem for this, and then pick ourselves up by remembering that Hashem’s love for us is so great that in an instant we can return to Him. “Hashem created the entire world just to reveal His compassion to the Jewish people (Likutei Mohoran I, 64).”
