Power of the Head
The Tur wrote that the three festivals of Pesach, Shavu’os and Sukkos correspond to Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov.
What about Rosh Hashanah?
The year’s holidays, according to Kabbalah, correspond to the various parts of the human body. Rosh Hashanah is the year’s “head.” That is, in fact, the literal translation of the words. The difference between Rosh Hashanah and the other holidays is the difference between the head and the other parts of the body.
And that’s a big difference.
When a person stretches up his arms, he reaches a couple feet higher. If he stands on a chair, a couple feet higher than that. If he goes up on the roof of a high building, he gets a couple hundred feet higher. With his feet, he can scale a height of tens of thousands of feet. Nonetheless, all this has its limits.
By contrast, the powers of the head know no limit. The sense of smell enables a person to pick up scents from a distance. The ear can hear sounds from even further distances; we hear the rumbling of thunder from miles away. The eyes can perceive stars at inconceivably vast distances. And with the mind, a person can reach all the way up to the Heavenly Throne of Glory!!
This is what Chazal say about the distances involved with that:
From the earth to the firmament is the distance that can be walked in five hundred years. The thickness of the firmament is the distance that can be walked in five hundred years. And so it is between each [of the seven] firmaments. Above them are the chayos hakodesh... above them is the Heavenly Throne of Glory....
The distance from earth to the Kisei Hakavod is thus millions of years. Yet, a Jewish person stands on the ground, says “Ana Hashem hoshi’ah na,” and mentally attaches himself to Hashem. In that very moment, he reaches the Kisei Hakavod.
Along these lines, the Rambam wrote that a person who puts his thoughts on Hashem is actually attached to Hashem at that time.
This is the significance of the day called “Rosh” Hashanah. A person’s power on this day, as compared to his power in the rest of the year, is like the head’s powers as compared to the body’s powers. Rosh Hashanah is the “head.” Its capabilities are virtually unlimited.
This is because Rosh Hashanah is yom haras olam, the day of the world’s creation. Adam Harishon was created on this day. (Although the Six Days of Creation began on 25 Elul, the world’s central focus – Adam Harishon – was created on Rosh Hashanah, day six. Therefore, this day is singled out as the day of the world’s creation.)
Man’s very first day was when he possessed all the powers granted to him at the time of his creation. If we want to know who Adam Harishon really was, and what his powers were, we can learn this only from his first day on earth. Because the next day, he was no longer the same man whose height stretched from earth to the firmament, whose arms reached from one of the world to the other. He was diminished. He was shrunk down to a mere 150 feet in height.
After a thousand years had passed, in the generation of the Mabul, people no longer had a lifespan of many hundreds of years like they used to. Another thousand years passed by, and in the generation of the Tower of Babel, humanity was spread over the face of the earth. They were not the same anymore by any means.
There is a saying of the Brisker Rov that we could relate to this matter. He commented that a person’s basic qualities can be recognized only during his first week of life. Afterward he already starts to imitate others, and it is no longer truly him.
Only on the first day of his creation was a human being “from the earth to the firmament, and capable of seeing from one end of the world to the other.” This is not just in terms of his physical dimensions; his height and arm-span, his distance of eyesight. It also describes his powers of spiritual perception.
People have varying personal powers. An ordinary person can squash a few ants under his shoe, but Og Melech Habashan can squash a whole town in a single step.
So it was with Adam Harishon. Since his dimensions were so tremendously great, it was only natural that with one sin, he destroyed the whole world. Whereas if he had refrained from sinning, he would have rectified the whole six thousand years of the world’s duration. The world would have achieved its purpose, and the Ge’ulah Sheleimah would have come right away.
On Rosh Hashanah, a person has his natural, true dimensions, as he was in his original creation. On Rosh Hashanah, a person can destroy a world, and he can build a world.
The rest of the year we don’t have the strength to stand in judgment. Even Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov were not free from judgment. Even Shmuel Hanavi, when his soul was called back to earth by Shaul HaMelech through a necromancer, shuddered in fear because he thought he was being brought to judgment, and he called in Moshe Rabbeinu to testify for him that he had fulfilled the whole Torah.
What about us? In this world, on yom hadin, a Jew stands up and blows shofar, and Hakadosh Baruch Hu arises from the throne of din and seats Himself on the throne of rachamim.
So to speak, a Jew moves the Heavenly Throne of Glory!
This is the power of Rosh Hashanah.
