What happened? His mother drenched her Tehillim with her tears. She davened to Hashem, “I want my child to be an ehrliche Yid! I want him to enjoy his learning!”
Every one of us experiences something similar, whether we’re born neurologically in this way, or we’re so inundated and hyper-stimulated by the nonstop avalanche of news that is so hard to avoid, or the mind is being pulled to different ta’avos, one after another, in rapid succession.
For this reason, it is such a shame that when a Yom Tov like Rosh Hashanah comes along, the person’s mind is hyper-stimulated with a million thoughts, and there is very little space for thoughts about the essence of the Yom Tov—and thus, it is very difficult to connect to the Yom Tov, to be present with the Yom Tov.
We cannot allow these stimuli to pull us away from enjoying the spiritual pleasure and connection of these holy and awesome days. Just as when a person makes a wedding, he tells callers, “Please call me next week, my child is being married this week,” so too, we must tell the yetzer hara that we’re unavailable for trivial matters in these days as we prepare for the Yom HaDin.
A person must be able to prepare his nefesh, as only then can he be present. Preparing the nefesh for an important event means spending the days leading up to it in meditation and concentration. He enters the mode of these days. We see this concept before a wedding: We celebrate the aufruf on the Shabbos before, and then spend the intervening days in preparation for the wedding.
Similarly, we are given Elul and Shabbos Selichos as a time to enter the mode of the Days of Awe—to allow all the aspects of our nefesh to be present. May we utilize the remaining days before Rosh Hashanah to truly arrive at the Yom Tov with all our הנפש, חלקי and truly tap into the incredible potential of these holy days.
