Rosh Hashanah is the day of God's coronation as King of the universe. Through prayers and the sound of the Shofar, we crown God and proclaim Him King. This concept is directly related to the self-nullification of one's own will in order to accept the King's sovereignty. However, when we examine the prayers established by the Men of the Great Assembly for this important day, we find that many of them address our requests for worldly things in our personal lives. How can we, at the same time, set aside our own will (to crown the King) and ask for all that we need (which implies having a will of our own)?<\/p>\n
The truth is, the same question applies to prayers throughout the year. The most sublime moment of prayer is the Amidah, where one should see oneself as standing before the King of all kings, the Holy One, blessed be He. When one stands before such a being, one is supposed to be completely surrendered to His majesty. This surrender is so profound that one sets aside one's own will to fulfill the King's. However, when we analyze the twelve blessings that comprise the Amidah, which were established for every Jew, regardless of their spiritual or material status, we see that these are blessings in which we ask for health, money, and other personal needs. How can it be that at the most sublime moment of prayer, when one sets aside one's own will for the King's, one asks for all kinds of material and necessary things according to His will?<\/p>\n
To understand the answer, we must know that every object in the world possesses a divine force that creates and sustains it. In Kabbalistic literature, this force is called the "divine spark." When a particular object is used to serve God\u2014for example, when a coin is given to a poor person as charity\u2014the vitality within the object, in this case the coin, rises to its source and fulfills its purpose, revealing the divine presence in the world and making it a dwelling place for God. Every Jew has a certain number of "divine sparks" that they must cultivate throughout their life, thus fulfilling their mission on earth.<\/p>\n
When one asks on Rosh Hashanah (and throughout the rest of the year) for a blessing for children, health, and sustenance, one is not asking as an expression of one's own will, which would contradict the main theme of the day, which is accepting the yoke of heaven upon oneself. Rather, one asks, so to speak, for God, so that through God's blessings and abundance, one may use them to serve Him and thus reveal His reign on earth. This type of request arises from a state of complete surrender to the Divine Will, where one completely forgets one's own needs and asks only for what, so to speak, God requires.<\/p>\n
One might wonder if all this sounds very nice, but the truth is that when one asks for well-being for oneself, and each one knows oneself very well, one is not thinking of God, but of oneself!.<\/p>\n
The Baal Shem Tov, founder of the Hasidic movement, comments on the verse from Psalms (107:5), "Hungry and thirsty, their souls within them fainted," explaining that the body's hunger and thirst arise from the soul's hunger and thirst to awaken the "divine sparks" hidden in food and drink. According to this explanation, even though outwardly one may feel they are asking for blessings on Rosh Hashanah for their own benefit, inwardly it is the soul that thirsts to elevate and refine this world, to make it a dwelling place for God.<\/p>\n
The lesson for everyone in the Rosh Hashanah prayers is that it is not enough for a Jew's inner self to be as it should be. Rather, that inner self must come to light and be expressed outwardly. At the most sublime moment of prayer, one must know that all the blessings one asks for, and which one will surely receive, must be used in the service of God.<\/p>\n
May God bless us all with a good and sweet year, both in material and physical aspects.<\/p>\n
Extracted from Likutei Sijot, vol. 19, p. 292.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rosh HaShan\u00e1 es el d\u00eda de la coronaci\u00f3n de Di-s como Rey del universo. A trav\u00e9s de las plegarias y del sonido del Shofar, coronamos a Di-s y lo proclamamos Rey. Este concepto est\u00e1 directamente relacionado con la auto anulaci\u00f3n de la propia voluntad para aceptar por sobre s\u00ed la soberan\u00eda del rey. Sin embargo,… Read More \u00bbThe Rosh Hashanah prayer<\/span><\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3756,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[1003,1040],"series":[],"class_list":["post-1177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rosh-hashana","tag-rezo","tag-rosh-hashana-2"],"episode_featured_image":"https:\/\/tuviaserber.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/Chispas.jpg","episode_player_image":"https:\/\/tuviaserber.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/avatar1400.jpeg","download_link":"","player_link":"","audio_player":false,"episode_data":{"playerMode":"light","subscribeUrls":{"castbox":{"key":"castbox","url":"","label":"CastBox","class":"castbox","icon":"castbox.png"},"rss":{"key":"rss","url":"","label":"RSS","class":"rss","icon":"rss.png"},"spotify":{"key":"spotify","url":"","label":"Spotify","class":"spotify","icon":"spotify.png"}},"rssFeedUrl":"https:\/\/tuviaserber.com\/en\/feed\/podcast\/rabino-tuvia-serber","embedCode":"La plegaria de Rosh HaShan\u00e1<\/a><\/blockquote>