Look into the Mirror

ONRosh Hashanah, we stand facing a mirror.

Rosh Hashanah is the day of Hashem’s coronation, when His sovereignty is reaffirmed. The tefillos of Rosh Hashanah give us a glimpse into the world of Malchus Shamayim. In that world, we see Hashem’s glory, but we also see ourselves. If we look into the mirror of Malchus Shamayim, we’ll see things about ourselves we never saw before. But as with any mirror, we’ll only see ourselves if we look inside.

I once saw a famous painting by the surrealist Rene Magritte. We see a man from behind, looking into a mirror. But the mirror, instead of showing the man’s reflection facing him, shows him the same view we see of him: his own back.

For many of us, that painting is a good illustration of how we daven on Rosh Hashanah. Rather than focusing on the tefillah itself, we focus on our own performance. All too often, we spend the whole tefillah thinking and fretting about our own davening. Did I have kavanah? Did I remember the peirushim I studied beforehand? Did I feel inspired? Was I emotionally moved?

Instead of finding ourselves in the mirror, we see ourselves looking at the mirror. Like the man in the painting, we see ourselves engaged in tefillah — facing the mirror of Malchus Shamayim — but we don’t peer into it. We don’t experience the wondrous journey of the tefillah, and we learn nothing about ourselves.