Elul 5782. Another year flew by and came to an end before we turned around.
How did your year go? How many happy gifts did you receive – and how many troublesome issues fell upon you? How many times did you stop and say to yourself: it’s a shame I didn’t daven for this better, during the Yamim Nora’im!
We would invest so much to start the new year at the Kosel Hamaaravi! To bend down before the holy stones and cry out to Hashem. To ask that 5783 should be sweet and good. That no more children will be orphaned this year. That we will not hear any shocking new tragedies.
But we are at home, thousands of miles from Yerushalayim – and the Gedolei Hador are our sheluchim at the gate of Heaven.
Four hours before Rosh Hashanah, the Tzaddikei Hador prepare for Rosh Hashanah by going to the Kosel Hamaaravi to daven for us. The most significant moments, just a few hours before Yom Hadin, the Gedolei Hador dedicate to Vaad Harabbanim’s donors.
Today the World is Created
On Rosh Hashanah, everything we have is judged and evaluated anew, and nothing is guaranteed. Even our own body is not to be taken for granted. sight, hearing, breathing. The ability to get up and walk, to hold a cup of coffee… To swallow the liquid. Many people, lo aleinu, have lost the ability to stand on their own legs, due to serious traffic accidents. Many families sat shivah over a parent or a beloved child, rachmana litzlan.
Then there is mental health and emotional stability. Significant issues which encompass so much pain and suffering.
And what about parnassah? Will we be able to keep up the mortgage or rent along with everything else? Will the business take off or go downhill?
And our children. Look at them, go over them from oldest to youngest. What are we asking for them, for the coming year?
The Gedolei Hador are crying out for our 5783! They, who truly feel the depth of the judgment, who know what and how to attain merit, are tearing the heavens open for us, in the holiest place in the world.
The judgment is awesome and fearful. Who will live and who will die, who by fire and who by water? Who by plague, who by strangulation and who by stoning?
A quick glance at some of the recent requests for aid from Vaad Harabbanim is sufficient to understand how much we need to cry out to Hashem Yisborach.
We need to get up and shake the gates of heaven! Everything depends on Rosh Hashanah, on our sanegorim, on our tefilos and our zechuyos. The clock is ticking. Too many lives are teetertottering on the scales of judgment. Too many critical issues are lying here, and we must have for ourselves the tzedakah of Vaad Harabbanim and the Tefilah of the Gedolei Hador!
These two days contain the keys to the coming year. This is where evil or good will come from. The first and second of Tishri 5783 will write and dictate the days until 1 Tishri 5784.
We approach this fateful Heavenly decision with the zechus of the Tefilah and Torah of Gedolei Olam, and with tens of thousands of advocates. Tens of thousands of poor families that, thanks to us, will breathe easier. There is nothing more important when we stand before the Melech Hamishpat.
The Tzedakah, the same Tzedakah that Hashem promised will save even from death, is ascending to the heavens before the Tefilos, and throwing open another gate, and another one. And it raises our prayers and pleas higher, closer.
We send in our names and those of our loved ones to the Tefilah session at the Kosel Hamaaravi. Out of a sense of responsibility, seriousness and recognition of the awesomeness of these days! These are not just words. Life itself is hanging in the balance. We, our children, our spouse, our extended family.
5782 is coming to an end. May the year and its curses finish. The coming year is already spreading its wings, and we greet it with tremendous Tefilah, with tremendous Tzedakah. Enwrapped in the zechuyos and fervent pleas of the Gedolei Hador. We are protected.
May the year and its blessings begin.