Dvar Torah for Shabbat-Rosh HaShanah

Based on Likutey Halakhot, Shabbat 1

In many places throughout Likutey MoHaran Rebbe Nachman teaches us that the face is indicitive one of one's inner intelligence. Intelligence doesn't mean mere IQ. Intelligence means fear of God, which is what the "fool" of Psalms lacks (Psalms 92:7). About a person who has such intelligence it is written, "A person's wisdom makes his face shine" (Ecclesiastes 8:1).

This light is off anytime we're spiritually asleep, unconscious, as it were. Interestingly, this is also the situation we find ourselves in at the start of Rosh HaShanah. This state of unconsciousness parallels the deep sleep that God placed upon Adam on the sixth day, the day Adam was created (Genesis 2:21). That day was the very first Rosh HaShanah. How do we wake ourselves up? How do we turn on the light of fear?

The call of the shofar is what stirs us: the simplicity of the tekiah (the long, straight blast), the brokeness of the shevarim (the three short blasts) and the shattered crying of the teruah (the nine very short blasts) each has its lesson, its message that can pierce our stone hearts and bring us to the realization of God's love and patience, of His strength and claims upon us. The three notes parallel the Patriarchs, Avraham, Yitzchok and Ya'akov (Abraham, Isaac and Jacob), respectively.

However, what happens this year, when the first day of Rosh HaShanah, the more holy of the two, falls on Shabbat and we DON'T blow the shofar? Certainly when our Sages legislated that we not blow the shofar on Shabbat-Rosh HaShanah they did not leave us without any means to "regain consciousness." What do we do?

Rebbe Nachman writes (Likutey MoHaran I, 57) that the eating, the oneg (delight), of Shabbat can bring one to the aspect of, "A person's wisdom makes his face shine." For the eating of Shabbat is 100% pure holiness. One of the simpler meanings of this statement is that the eating of Shabbat affords us the ability to more clearly recognize that God is in total control of everything that happens in the world at large and in our (very) personal lives as well. And not only that. It also produces within us the "heart of flesh" (Ezekiel 35:26) that allows us to accept His loving authority.

Like the three notes of the shofar, the three meals of Shabbat also parallel the Patriarchs. Thus with our eating of Shabbat we can accomplish the same consciousness-raising as we would with hearing the shofar. This is true not only on Shabbat-Rosh HaShanah, but every Shabbat the whole year long! So listen well to what the wine and challah have to say (that's a different lesson!).

To you and yours and to kol Beit Yisrael (the entire Jewish people) a gut gebenshet yor (a good, blessed year). May we all be inscribed in the book of the tzadikim (righteous). May we all be worthy of seeing the ultimate redemption, with the coming of the Mashiach and the building of the Holy Temple, speedily, in our days. AMEN!

Agutn Shabbos! Shabbat Shalom!