We are approaching the end of the year 5770 and the beginning of the year 5771. It is common to hear about taking stock, reviewing past goals, and setting new short- and medium-term objectives. However, in the whirlwind of rectifying and completing the past year and venturing into the new one, we sometimes forget the transition itself, Rosh Hashanah.
I'm referring specifically to the time it takes for the transition from one year to the next. Although, technically speaking, the change takes a very short time, the truth is that God gave us 48 hours to process that change in our minds and hearts.
To understand this process, here's a short story the Rebbe told: Once, the Alter Rebbe, founder of the Chabad Movement in the late 1700s, asked one of his sons, Rabbi DovBer (who would later become the next Rebbe), after Rosh Hashanah, what he had used to pray that Rosh Hashanah. Rabbi DovBer replied: "With the idea that 'Everything kneels before You.'" Then the son asked his father: "And you, what did you use to pray this Rosh Hashanah?" To which the Alter Rebbe responded: "With my shtender (the pulpit where he rested his book).".
Beyond explaining the conceptual content of "Everything kneels before You" or a simple shtender (because it is obvious that the Alter Rebbe wanted to express something very profound and not mock his son by saying that he rested his book on a pulpit during prayer), it is fundamental to highlight the idea that both, father and son, had prayed "with something" on Rosh Hashanah.
Herein lies the key to making the most of the 48-hour transition between one year and the next. This year, when we arrive at the synagogue on Wednesday afternoon/evening to begin services, we must understand that prayer is not simply about reading the words in Hebrew or Spanish, following the cantor (the hazzan), or merely appreciating their beautiful singing. We must pray "with something." The text of the prayer book is merely a guide, presenting us with a series of ideas, a few "somethings" with which to pray and connect with God.
May God grant us the merit to reflect and meditate on who we are, what is expected of us, what our mission is, and whether or not we are fulfilling it. May the 48 hours of Rosh Hashanah be the right and necessary time for God, through our prayers and the sound of the Shofar, to grant us all a good and sweet year, a year of joys and gladnesses revealed to our very eyes, until the greatest joy of all, the coming of our righteous Messiah, speedily in our days.
""May they be registered and sealed for good, for a good and sweet year.".