Lakewood’s Rav Chaim Mayer Roth shares how we can maximize the day that sets the entire year in motion

Endless layers of depth lie within Rosh Hashanah’s awesome 48 hours. It is at once a day of immense tefillah, a day defined by the stirring, mystical mitzvah of tekias shofar, a day of judgment and also a celebrated Yom Tov as we coronate the King of the Universe.

How do we connect all of these many facets together, and how do we connect to them?  

Rav Chaim Mayer Roth shlita, rav of Lakewood’s Sterling Forest Sfard, av beis din of Beis Din Maysharim, and sought-after adviser for his brilliant Torah and clear direction and counsel, shares invaluable insights and practical tools to access the power of this incredible Yom Tov that sets the entire year in motion.

Question

The Yerushalmi (quoted in Tosafos, Rosh Hashanah 16b) teaches that when the Satan hears the first round of tekios, he becomes disoriented. When he hears the second round, he says, “This is certainly the shofar of Mashiach!”

Is this simply an ignorant mistake on the Satan’s part? Or is there, in fact, a connection between the shofar of Rosh Hashanah and the shofar of Mashiach?

Answer

There is certainly a connection between the shofar of Rosh Hashanah and the shofar of Mashiach. We see this from the Shofros section of the Mussaf Shemoneh Esreh where we recite the pasuk of “V’hayah bayom hahu yitaka b’shofar gadol — And it will be on that day a great shofar will be blown.” Clearly, the shofar blown on “that day,” which refers to the coming of Mashiach, is integral to the general theme of Shofros on Rosh Hashanah.

Why? Before explaining the concept, let’s ponder another question. Many of the pesukim in the aforementioned Shofros section refer to the shofar that was blown at Matan Torah. Similar to the question asked above, what is the connection between the shofar of Matan Torah and the shofar of Rosh Hashanah?

Delving even deeper, what was the purpose of the shofar of Matan Torah? And what is the purpose of the shofar of Mashiach? Why do these experiences need a shofar at all?

Rashi quotes the Pirkei D’Rabi Eliezer which teaches that the shofar of Matan Torah comes from the ram that Avraham sacrificed in place of his son Yitzchak. The Ramban expounds upon this idea, saying that in it lies a sod, a secret. While we aren’t here to delve into the secrets of the Torah, we will draw from the words of the Ramban that which is understandable and relevant.

The Ramban tells us that communication, for the most part, is accomplished through words. But there are times that a message is too deep, too soulful, to be conveyed through words. Because words are limited. They start and they end — they cannot retain more than their own definition. A kol, on the other hand, is that which transcends words — it communicates the infinite and the undefinable.

Hashem created the world with words:“B’dvar Hashem shamayim na’asu — with the word of Hashem, Shamayim was made.” The Torah was also given with words — the Aseres Hadibros.

But along with it came a kol. The kol at Matan Torah conveyed that these finite words are far from the whole picture. They are just a glimpse into a world that is absolutely infinite.

The world of the kol is the world beyond ours. It’s the world of Olam Haba.

When Yitzchak Avinu allowed himself to be sacrificed as a korban to Hashem, he was performing the most supreme act of mesirus nefesh. He was countering everything that logic dictated. In other words, he was transcending the mandates of the world as we know it.

By doing so, he gave Klal Yisrael the eternal gift of being able to access Olam Haba, even from This World.

Every once in a while, we get a flash of illumination from Olam Haba, the world beyond, the world of kol.

The shofar of Mashiach is there to usher us in to a transformed reality. When Mashiach comes, we will all live with the inarticulable experience of an otherworldly kol.

When the Torah was given, we entered this world.

And each year, on Rosh Hashanah, we touch it as well.

The Satan’s anxiety upon hearing the sound of the shofar is because he senses that we have entered this sublime reality. He perceives that we are now in the realm of kol — in a place above and beyond This World.

In that place, the Satan is powerless. And that’s what lies behind his fear.

On a practical level, the lesson to be learned from this is the awesome achievement gained through mesirus nefesh. When a Yid acts with mesirus nefesh, he, like Yitzchak, accesses a world beyond our own.