My friend told me the following:
While traveling, I met a Yid named “Uriel.” His face had special chein and dignity.
“What do I look like to you?” he asked, not waiting for a response. “Do you think I always looked this way? Really not! Up until two years ago I was in a terrible situation that you can’t even imagine. It wasn’t that I didn’t know anything about keeping Torah and mitzvos; I come from a chareidi home. You don’t know what type of yissurim I went through, what type of nonsense and imaginary pleasures I was involved in. I sunk from one level to the next, until I was in complete despair. My way of living could be summed up as ‘eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we will die.’ At least I would enjoy the moment, I thought. Painfully, I reached the depth of the abyss, R”l.
One day I got a call from my father, sheyichyeh, and he told me, ‘Uriel, your mother and I want to talk to you. Can you come home?’
What did I care? I would give them that respect. I went to my parents’ home, they took me into a room, sat down, and started to cry. They cried and cried, the tears flowing from their eyes uncontrollably. They tried speaking, but they were unsuccessful. Not a word emerged from their mouths. A half hour passed. After this deluge of tears, my father finally succeeded in saying, ‘My Uriel, my son, we called you only in order to tell you that wherever you are, in every situation and every hour, we are standing at your side. You have a father and a mother who love you. You are very dear to us, and if there’s anything you want, you should come and ask for it.’”
Uriel concluded his emotional story and said, “This was the line that did it for me. The endless love brought me back home, and look at me today.”
We are now in the days of mercy and forgiveness. Tatte in heaven is coming down to us and telling us, “My dear children, I love you in every place and all the time.”
The gemara in Rosh Hashanah (11b) equates the shofar of Rosh Hashanah with the shofar of Mashiach, and the conclusion is: From here we learn that we will be redeemed in the month of Tishrei.
Maharal explains that this is the secret of the shofar. “And this is because the shofar lets out a sound to gather the dispersed ones, so that all those who are dispersed will hear and will come to one place, and that is the geulah.”
This is our redemption. Let us listen to the simple sound of the shofar, the sound that gives over Hakadosh Baruch Hu’s message: “My dear sons, in every place and in every situation, I am at your side, and everything that you want from Me – come and ask for it!”
May we be zocheh, indeed, that this be a year of geulah and yeshuah.
Kesivah vachasimah tovah,
Pinchas Shefer
