To prepare for Rosh Hashanah, we have to learn to look deeper at our actions and see the story that emerges from them
The month of Elul is a priceless treasure. Hashem gave us this month to prepare ourselves for a favorable judgment on Rosh Hashanah. But we have one problem. We don’t know how. Make a list of our aveiros and try to force ourselves to feel contrite? Take on a praiseworthy practice like accepting Shabbos early, or bentshing from a siddur? We don’t really know what to do.
If we want to know how to prepare ourselves for Rosh Hashanah, we first have to understand what the judgment of the day is all about. Ultimately, after a person’s lifetime, he will be judged for everything he ever did, said, or thought. We have to keep that in mind our whole lives.
But that’s not what the judgment of Rosh Hashanah is about. Rosh Hashanah is called Yom Hazikaron, the day of remembrance. What does Hashem “remember” on Rosh Hashanah? He already knows everything we ever did, and needs no reminders. As we say in the Rosh Hashanah davening: “There is no forgetting before the throne of Your glory.”
What Hashem remembers on Rosh Hashanah isn’t the facts: what we did, said, or thought in the past year. He calls up the grand portrait that emerges from all those details: the story of our lives.
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