As we find ourselves in the days surrounding ראש השנה, יום כיפור, which we call the ימים נוראים, the days of awe, so it's very important to review what is the meaning of ראש השנה, עשרת ימי תשובה, and יום כיפור, all the days between ראש השנה going through יום כיפור. And even though everyone knows what it is, it's always best to review it again, so we should be familiar again of what exactly they mean to us. And even the simple things that apply to ראש השנה and the days between ראש השנה and יום כיפור and יום כיפור, things that everyone knows, is also important to review. And this is what I'm going to do today. We're going to review some of the things that it says in the holy ספרים and חסידות concerning ראש השנה and through יום כיפור, and not going into the deepest thoughts that are explained in these ספרים, but just the more elementary things, simple things that we all have to remind ourselves about and keep in mind. Basically, when we talk about the days starting from ראש השנה going through יום כיפור, we find that there are three main points that we have to stress to realize what ראש השנה going through יום כיפור means to us. And the three points are: one is that these are days called ימי הדין, days of judgment. These are days that we are judged in שמים, we are judged in the heavenly court, and in the heavenly court they decide what is going to be with us throughout the whole year. And that starts ראש השנה and continues through יום כיפור, even though the day of judgment actually is ראש השנה, but it's not sealed till ten days later towards the end of יום כיפור. So these days from ראש השנה through יום כיפור are called the ימי הדין. Then we have the second thing concerning ראש השנה through יום כיפור. It's called ימי תשובה, days of תשובה, of repentance, days of return. These are days that we should return to השם, return to God, days we should repent for our things that were not so good the past year and take upon ourselves to become better and do things right in the coming year. And that also is from ראש השנה through יום כיפור, because all days from ראש and through יום כיפור are called עשרת ימי תשובה, ten days of תשובה. So the time to do תשובה, the days of תשובה, is from ראש השנה through יום כיפור. And then we have the third thing, which is ימי הכתרת המלך. These are days that we crown the king. Every year, when it comes to ראש השנה, we have to again keep in mind that we should now renew our coronation of God as our king, crown God as our king. And this also starts on ראש השנה, but it goes through יום כיפור, because as we all understand, when they used to, in olden days, coronate or crown a king, so they would celebrate many days. So even though the day of coronation is known the day of ראש השנה, nevertheless it goes through יום כיפור because all these days are the continuation of what we started doing on ראש השנה. So what we're going to discuss today is these three points, but actually today we're going to discuss one of the three, and we're going to break it up into three segments, and the other two we'll discuss in two more sessions that will be later. These three points that we made, really because they start on ראש השנה, we find them specifically in the special מצוה of ראש השנה. We know that ראש השנה has a very, very special מצוה, and that's the מצוה of blowing שופר. So when we think about blowing שופר, and we look through what it says in the holy books concerning שופר, we find that the שופר represents or hints to all of these three things. Number one, שופר is a representation of crowning השם as king, because when they used to do a coronation, they used to blow trumpets and blow שופרות. So too, when we coronate God as king, we blow the שופר. And the פסוק actually says, בחצוצרות וקול שופר הריעו לפני המלך השם, with trumpets and the שופר you shall blow in front of the king, God. So when we coronate השם, we blow the שופר, so blowing the שופר represents the fact that this is the beginning of the coronation of God. The שופר also represents the concept of תשובה, of returning to השם, the concept of repentance, because we know what the רמב״ם, Maimonides, says concerning the מצוה of שופר. He says that אף על פי שגזירת הכתוב היא, even though blowing the שופר is a commandment of השם, of God, of the תורה, and the reason we do the מצוה is just because God commanded us to do it on ראש השנה, nevertheless the רמב״ם says, רמז יש בדבר, there is a רמז, there is a hint in the מצוה of שופר. שופר represents the con- concept of עורו ישנים משנתכם, when we blow the שופר, what we're saying is, \"Wake up, those that are sleeping from your sleep, ונרדמים מתרדמתכם, those that are in a deep sleep, wake up from your deep sleep.\" And he continues with different expressions, and he says, \"וחזרו בתשובה.\" It's telling you do תשובה. Basically, blowing the שופר is like an alarm clock that wakes you up when you're asleep. This wakes you up from your spiritual sleep and tells you do תשובה. So here we see also in the מצוה of שופר the hint to the second point of ראש השנה through יום כיפור, the concept of doing תשובה. Actually, the word שופר itself, besides being meaning a שופר that we blow, the word שופר also comes from the word שפיר, שפרו. שפיר means nice, good. What it means is it's telling you, \"שפרו מעשיכם\", make your actions better, beautify your deeds, become better, do תשובה. So this is the second נקודה, point of ראש השנה through יום כיפור that we find in שופר. And also the third one, which is ימי הדין, the days of judgment, the days when we stand stand trial in front of the בית דין של מעלה, in front of the holy heavenly court, is also represented by שופר because in the olden days, when they used to start a court case, certainly a very special court court case, they would always start it by blowing trumpets. So too, we're blowing the שופר to represent the concept that now we are being judged. And actually, when we look in the writings of the great sage who lived about a thousand years ago, רבינו סעדיה גאון, he gives actually 10 reasons for the מצוה of שופר. The first one he says is the fact that we are coronating, we are crowning God as King. And then one other reason he says is because this is a day of דין, the day of judgment, and therefore we blow the the שופר, which is like a trumpet, because that's what they used to do at that time. So this is generally the three things that we have concerning ראש השנה going through יום כיפור. But as I said, we're going to discuss one of them in this session, and then the other two in the other session. The first one that we're going to discuss is the concept that by blowing שופר, we are crowning השם as King. What does it mean to crown השם as King? Crowning a king literally means that you give yourself over, using the terminology of חסידות and קבלה, you're מבטל yourself, you give yourself over, you nullify yourself to השם, to the one that you are crowning. When you crown a king, what you're saying really is that, \"I am now accepting you as my king, and I accept,\" which we call in Hebrew, in גמרא, in שולחן ערוך, we accept upon ourselves the עול מלכות שמים, the yoke of the kingship of השם. Now I want to make it clear, this is not the concept of accepting the yoke of doing מצות. We find that there is a concept called קבלת עול מצות, accepting upon oneself the yoke of keeping the commandments, keeping the מצות. קבלת עול מלכות, accepting upon ourselves the yoke of the king of the kingship of God, that is something that comes even before קבלת עול מצות, before we accept the yoke of מצות. Accepting the yoke of מצות means that we accept to do what you want us to do. True, that's what we have to do, we have to accept upon ourselves, telling God, \"You know, whatever you will ask us to do, we will do.\" Accepting the kingship of God, that's something that comes before that. Before you accept to do the מצות, which are individual acts that you have to do, you accept the general concept that I give myself over to you, you are my king, and I am מבטל myself, I nullify myself to you. Actually, this is what the מדרש says on the first words, the first פסוק of the עשרת הדברות of the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments start with the words, \"אנכי ה׳ אלקיך,\" \"I am God, your God,\" \"אשר הוצאתיך מארץ מצרים,\" that I took you out of מצרים, I took you out of Egypt. And the מדרש says that what happened was when God came to the Jews after He took them out of מצרים, He said to them, \"Before the first thing I do before I command you to do anything, I am telling you, 'I am your God,' which means I took I want you to accept Me as your king, as your God, then I will be able to give you commandments.\" And the מדרש gives a parable, a משל, a parable of a king who conquered a certain country, and then after he came into the country as the new king, he met some of the people, and the people said to him, \"Now that you are our new king, tell us what you want us to do. Give us your commandments. Tell us what you want us to do.\" So the king said to them, \"Wait a moment. תחלה קבלו מלכותי ואחר כך אגזר עליכם גזרות. First accept my מלכות, accept my kingship, accept me as your king. Generally speaking, accept me as your king, give yourself over to And then we'll talk about the details, then we'll talk about doing the מצוות, giving you commandments. So too, when God was going to give us the תורה, which is basically commanding us what to do, the first thing He said was, before anything, אנכי ה' אלקיך אשר הוצאתיך מארץ מצרים, I am your God. Accept Me as your God. That's called קבלת עול מלכות, accepting the yoke of Him as our King, giving ourselves over to Him. Actually, the Talmud, the גמרא says, למה קדמה פרשת שמע לפרשת והיה אם שמוע? We know that there is a מצוה to read the שמע every day. The first portion of שמע is שמע ישראל ה' אלקינו ה' אחד, listen, hear, O Israel, God our God, God is one. ואהבת את ה' אלקיך, you shall love your God, etc., etc. The second portion of שמע starts והיה אם שמוע תשמעו אל מצותי, you will listen to My מצוות, etc., etc. Why is the order that first comes the פרשה that deals with accepting, listening, hearing that השם is our God, השם is one, and loving השם, loving God, and then comes the second portion that deals with שמוע תשמעו, to listen to His commandments? And the גמרא says, the Talmud says, because first you have to accept עול מלכות שמים ואחר כך עול מצוות. First you have to accept the yoke of the מלכות, of the kingship of השם, which is the first portion of שמע, ה' אלקינו ה' אחד, you declare that God is our God, God is one, He is our God, He is the boss, He is the only one, and to Him I give myself over, Him I love, then could come the second portion of שמע, which is והיה אם שמוע תשמעו, you listen, and then it goes into the details of different מצוות, and it mentions תפילין and מזוזה, all the different specific commandments that it mentions. So here too we see that there is a concept of accepting the yoke of מלכות, the yoke of accepting השם as our King, before even accepting מצוות. And this is what happens on ראש השנה. ראש השנה is a day when God says, I want you to accept Me as your King. Actually, we know there is another דין, מצוה that we do on ראש השנה, that in the דאווענען of מוסף we have to mention different verses, different פסוקים of מלכיות, זכרונות, and שופרות. מלכיות means פסוקים, verses that talk about השם being our King, then there are certain פסוקים that deal with השם remembering us, and then we deal with פסוקים, we mention פסוקים that deal with blowing שופר. And the Talmud says, why did השם want us to say these different פסוקים? So, concerning why He wants us to say the פסוקים of מלכיות that deal with השם being the King, so the expression in the גמרא is אמר הקדוש ברוך הוא, השם says, אמרו לפני מלכיות, say these פסוקים that deal with My kingship, כדי שתמליכוני עליכם, so you should make Me the King upon you. That means He wants us to make Him King, meaning He wants us to give ourselves over to Him in a form of like a person gives himself over to a king. And then השם will give us the gives us the מצוות. But before that, we have to have the קבלת עול מלכות. Actually, the reason this takes place on ראש השנה is because that's what happened in the first ראש השנה. The first ראש השנה in the beginning of creation, we always say ראש השנה is the first day of creation, which actually it's not. ראש השנה was the sixth day of creation. ראש השנה was the day that אדם הראשון, the first human being, was created. It was Friday, the sixth day of creation. And it says in a מדרש that first השם created the animals and the birds, etc., etc., then on the sixth day He created a human being. When all the animals saw the human being, and they saw he's a being with שכל, with logic, with understanding, so they thought for a moment that this is their Creator. So they all came and they bowed down to אדם הראשון. And אדם הראשון said to them, sorry, you're making a mistake. I'm not your creator. We have to bow down to the Creator who created you and me, all of us. And he quotes the פסוק where it says that he said בואו ונשתחוה ונכרעה לפני ה'. אדם הראשון said to the whole creation, let's come, and let's all of us bow down to השם, instead of you bowing down to me, which is wrong, let's bow down to השם. What does it mean let's bow down to השם? What is the concept of bowing down? When you would walk into a king, you would bow down. Bowing down is an expression of your giving yourself over. When you bow down your head, you bend your head, your head is the place where you have your intellect. When you have intellect, that's the most important part of the human being. And when you bend it down, that means you're showing to the one you're bending it to that I'm giving myself over to you. So when they used to bow down to a king, this was the way they showed that you You are the king and I am completely given over to you. And this is what אדם הראשון, the first human being, said to the whole creation, to all the animals and everything in the creation, \"Let's all bow down to השם. Let's acknowledge the first thing, that He is our God, He is our King, He is the King.\" Then we could think further of what we're supposed to do. And since this happened on the first ראש השנה, which is the first time that we consider it ראש השנה, so, too, every year when it comes to ראש השנה, this is what we do again. השם wants us to renew this feeling that we accept God as a king before we even accept the מצוות which will come afterwards. Actually, there is something very special in the concept of accepting השם as King. There is a difference between accepting the מצוות which comes afterwards and accepting השם as King. When a person accepts commandments, he tells a person, \"You know what? Whatever you'll tell me, I'll do.\" What happens is you will do it. If you accepted it, you will do it. But what it means is that there are still two entities. There is you, and you will do what that other person will tell you to do. When there is a moment when you're not supposed to, there is nothing for you to do to fulfill that person's commandment, then you're free to yourself. The truth is, even an עבד, in the olden days they used to have slaves, in גמרא we talk about there was such a concept of slaves, and a slave was a person that belonged to his master. Still, even that slave, which constantly belonged to his master and always had to do what his master wanted him to do, he also had times when he felt he had free time for himself. When the master didn't need any work and everything was done, he was able to go and do things for himself. But when you accept, what we're talking here about accepting השם as King means to say not only we're accepting to do what You want us to do. What we're saying is our whole being is completely given over, nullified to You. Even those moments that I'm not involved in doing something for You, in my mind I feel, I know that I am still under You and You are my King, You are my Master, and every moment of my life and every act that I do is with the feeling that I am all under You, and therefore there is no moment in our life that we are not serving God. Every moment of our life we're serving God, whatever it is. Whether we do a מצוה, when we're eating plain meal, we're also serving God because we're eating, we're making a ברכה, we're serving God because we eat with the proper intentions of becoming healthy and be able to serve God. When we go to sleep so we should rest, every moment of a Jew's life is supposed to be to serve God. And that is only because he accepts the מלכות. If you accept just the מצוות, that means you're telling God, \"I'm accepting to do what You want. I am still my own being. I am still\", what we call in חסידות using the Chassidic terminology, \"I am a מציאות, an entity for myself. I'm an entity that's going to listen to another entity, and I'm going to do everything You want.\" That's if you're only מקבל, you accept the מצוות. But what's supposed to be on ראש השנה, the day when we crown השם as King, that means we're telling Him, \"We are nothing but Your servants and we're given over completely to You.\" And that's what's supposed to happen on ראש השנה. And that is something that comes before all the other things that we're going to speak about, about as we said before this is ימי הדין, a day of judgment, a day of תשובה. This comes even before that. That's something that's much deeper. The day of מצוות, let's say, the day of תשובה, it's all concerning specific acts, as I'll explain. You do something wrong, you have to repent, you have to do תשובה. But this is something that comes before it and something even beyond it. This is something that you give yourself over completely. I remember I once heard, I was once speaking to Rabbi Soloveitchik, so he told me when he was a little boy he had a teacher, a מלמד who was a ליובאוויטשער חסיד, even though his family were ליטוויש, but he was a ליובאוויטשער חסיד, his מלמד, and it was a few days before ראש השנה, and he saw that he was very serious, very tense, and he said to him, \"Why are you so serious these days? I know that every person is serious days before ראש השנה because we're preparing for the day of judgment. Imagine you're going to be judged, very serious. But I know you, you're such a צדיק, you have nothing to worry about.\" So he said, \"What do you think? I'm nervous, I'm all involved because it's a day of judgment and I'm afraid of the judgment? I'm preparing myself to\", and the way he said it then I remember with such enthusiasm, \"to the coronation of God! Imagine, you're the coronation, you're crowning השם as King! That's what I'm preparing myself for.\" Crowning השם as King is much more than that, because then when you crown השם as King, then when you do the מצוות, there they're done in a complete different way. When you do a מצוה, you're not doing a specific act. Sure, you're doing a specific act, that's what a מצוה is, but that specific act is permeated with the feeling that there's nothing but השם, and my whole being is only here to serve Him, and that's why I'm doing this מצוות. And this is what is supposed to take care of take place on ראש השנה. That's the feeling we're supposed to have. Actually, when we look through the prayers of ראש השנה, so, mainly in שמונה עשרה specifically, in the עמידה, what we say is ומלוך אתה השם לבדך, you yourself should be king, that's what we're mentioning. מלוך על כל העולם כולו בכבודך, we're saying השם, please be the king. So what we're really asking more for is for השם to be our king, which is not because He needs for us to ask, but He wants us to show that we are giving ourselves over to השם on this day of ראש השנה. And actually, this is hinted in the מצוה of שופר. Besides what we said before, that the מצוה of שופר represents the crowning of השם, because when you crown the king, by the coronation they would blow trumpets and blow שופרות, so we blow the שופר to crown, it's more than that. It's also from our side. We all know in the name of the בעל שם טוב and other great צדיקים that they explained: what is the reason for the מצוה of שופר? The מצוה of שופר is an expression of a person. You're blowing the שופר. Now, there are many ways a person can express yourself. You could express yourself by saying certain words. You say certain things when you want to express yourself. Then there is a way a person can express himself by singing a song. And you have a song with words, and then you have a song without words, where it says that that is a deeper expression, because when you have words, the words limit, they're limited to words. But when a person wants to express his inner feeling, so you can't put it into words. So sometimes it comes into a song. שופר is not even a song, not even a song without words. It's just the way they called it, the רביים called it, it's צעקת הלב, it's the screaming of the heart. It's when the heart screams out to השם, and therefore there are no words, and there is not even a song. You scream out to השם, and what do you scream out to השם? So the expression that says in ספרים is that this is an screaming out to השם, and these are the words they use: אבא אבא הצילני, אבא אבא רחמני. טאטע, טאטע, Father, Father, save me! Father, Father, have pity on me! And the רבי מהר״ש, the fourth ליובאוויטשער רבי, once explained that the stress here is not on the words רחמני, הצילני, have pity on me or save me. The main stress is that you're screaming אבא, אבא, טאטע, טאטע, that means טאטע, king, אבינו מלכנו like we say, our Father, our King, the point of expressing ourselves that we're giving ourselves over to You. That's the concept of blowing שופר, which fits to what we said before, that the concept of blowing שופר is of ראש השנה is קבלת מלכות, accepting השם as king, and we do this with what שופר represents. The שופר is the blowing of the שופר without any words, just the screaming of the heart. Actually, the שברים תרועה represent crying, because שברים is a form of crying, and תרועה a form of crying, because שברים is tu, tu, tu, and תרועה is tu-tu-tu-tu-tu-tu. Because when a person cries, sometimes you cry and sometimes whatever it says in the ספרים, it says in שולחן ערוך, because it's a cry that is not put into words, and there's nothing that we say. So what is it? It's a cry to השם that we say, השם, we're giving ourselves over to You. That's what it is. And it all fits to fact that on ראש השנה is the day that we accept השם as our king. And this starts on ראש השנה, but as I said before, it continues throughout יום כיפור, because when you crown a king, you celebrate many days, and it continues many days, till it comes to the climax. And the climax is יום כיפור. In יום כיפור itself, the end of יום כיפור, the end of יום כיפור we know is נעילה. The end of נעילה, the last part of נעילה, what do we do? After we say even the שמע ישראל, השם הוא האלקים, we blow שופר. It's not from the תורה, but it's a מנהג, and a מנהג ביי אידן has deep, deep meaning. The custom to blow שופר is not to blow שברים, תרועה, just one תקיעה גדולה, one long תקיעה. So the אלטער רבי, the בעל התניא, in his ספר, in ליקוטי תורה, explains that what is the meaning behind it. This shows even more depth than the מצוה of שופר that we do on ראש השנה with the שברים and the תרועה also. Obviously that's a מצוה from the תורה, so that's much more important, this is just a מנהג. But what the מנהג represents is that we come to a point after we started with ראש השנה with the שופר, and then we continue through the עשרת ימי תשובה, and then to יום כיפור, we come to the end, the climax is that now we really, really scream out from our heart to השם: we are giving ourselves over to You, with no words, Not even שברים and תרועה, because שברים and תרועה, as I said before, is part of שופר, is higher than singing, higher than putting in words, but still there is some kind of noise there, some kind of, not a tune, but some kind of sound, a sound of a שברים and a תרועה. A תקיעה is no sound at all, just ooh, and it's a big one. And he writes that this תקיעה גדולה reminds us of what it says that when משיח will come, והיה ביום ההוא, it will be that day, יתקע בשופר גדול, they'll blow with a big שופר. What does it mean? When משיח will come, the whole world will feel this. The whole world will feel, accept God as God and feel completely nullified to the being of God. So יום כיפור, which is the end of the ten days starting with ראש השנה, we come to the climax. We get this feeling of the תקיעה גדולה, the great תקיעה connected to the שופר גדול, the big one, which means the תקיעה which is just a scream of the heart, telling השם, we accept You as King, we do, besides the fact we'll do everything, but that comes afterwards, we are nothing but Your servants, we are given over to You. And if we do that, and השם sees us we do that, He says, well, if you're completely given over to Me, well, it works both ways, I will be completely given over to you. And השם gives us everything that we need, which is a כתיבה וחתימה טובה, He writes us and seals us and signs everything for a good, and happy, and sweet year. This is the first נקודה, the first point of ראש השנה through יום כיפור. Then we have the other two points, which אם ירצה השם will be in the other two sessions.