New Life #773 – Rosh HaShanah Customs

New Life #773 – Rosh HaShanah Customs
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

Summary

The root of Rosh HaShanah (Head of the Year, New Year) is the spiritual birth of the first man who discovered the general force of nature. This is a hidden force that includes all the laws and forces of nature that can be discovered if we become equal to it. Rosh HaShanah is considered to be the day when Adam HaRishon (the first man) discovered the Creator, Bore, from the Hebrew words “Bo-Reh” “come and see.”

We were created with an egoistic desire to receive and we must recognize the evil in it, to keep ways from it and to turn to goodness. Rosh HaShanah is a phase on the way to correction in which we want to crown the good force on top of the evil in us. All our customs are a replica of the internal spiritual actions of correcting the evil in us.

Blowing the Shofar symbolizes sublime spiritual actions, which are very hard to explain in plain language. The greeting “a good and sweet year” symbolizes the need to sweeten the evil inclination, to peel the desire to receive from the egoistic intention, and to cover our raw desire to enjoy with a good intention of in order to bestow. This is the good inclination. The key to a sweet year is how we use the desire to enjoy and whether it is for my own sake or for the sake of others.

The saying “may we be the head and not the tail” means that we should not follow our egoistic thoughts but that the Creator should control us, that by the power of love, bestowal, and connection, He should reign over us and guide every action in our life.

“That our rights (Zchuyot) should be many as a pomegranate” stem from the root “Zachut,” which means “purity” and refers to the purification of our ego, to bleaching it, to performing as many actions for the sake of others, and on the way, also for the sake of the Creator. Good actions are actions that come after the correction of the evil inclination and before that everything is ego.

Rosh HaShanah is in fact the time for the recognition of evil, the desire to change our head and to crown the Creator instead of having the force of receiving, which we were created with, manage us, we want the force of bestowal to manage us.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #773 – Rosh HaShanah Customs,” 9/27/16

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