As I said in the previous שיעורים, there are three points when it comes to ראש השנה through יום כיפור, and the three points are: one is that they are ימי הדין, days of judgment; and the second is that they're days of תשובה; and the third thing is ימי הכתרת המלכות, days that when we crown השם as king. So in the first שיעור I explained a little bit the meaning of what it means to accept God as king; and the second שיעור I explained a little bit what it means that ראש השנה is the day of דין, and from ראש השנה on through till יום כיפור we're being judged, and it finishes up on יום כיפור; and today we're going to discuss the concept of תשובה. What is the meaning of תשובה that we have to do from ראש השנה through יום כיפור in these 10 days called עשרת ימי תשובה? In order to understand what is תשובה, we have to first understand what's a מצוה. תשובה means to return, or use the regular English translation, it means to repent. That means if someone did something wrong, you have to do תשובה, you return to השם, you return and do the right thing from then on, you repent. That means if you were supposed to do מצוות or a certain מצוה and you didn't do it, now you have to do תשובה. If you did something that you were not allowed to do, you have to do תשובה. That means if you did not do the a מצוה, you have to do תשובה. If you did an עבירה, an עבירה is a sin, you have to do תשובה. So in order to understand what תשובה is, we have to first understand what is the meaning of a מצוה, and what is the meaning of an עבירה, and then we can understand what the meaning of תשובה is to fix the mistake you made in connection to a מצוה and עבירה. The concept of a מצוה is we know that people, human beings, creatures, are very, very far from God. That means he is the creator and we are the creation. The creation from the creator is so far that basically it seems like they would have no connection. They are what we call in לשון קודש, in Hebrew, in חסידות, באין ערוך. באין ערוך means there is no comparison. They're further away than anything you could imagine. When we say באין ערוך, it means not far as far as a let's say a simple person is from a smart person, or far as a poor man from a rich man, or an ordinary person to a king. They're also very far. You could have a person who owns billions of dollars compared to a person who's very poor. They're very, very far apart. But it's not באין ערוך. It's not that there is no comparison. It just very far. A one compared to a million, as much as far as it is, but still a million is made up of a million ones, so we call it it has an ערך. An ערך means it has a comparison. This is just much more. In quantity, it's much more, but in concept, in quality, it's the same. This is a dollar, this is a million dollars. One, or even a million or a billion, compared to infinity, that's באין ערוך. Cuz infinity is not made up of infinite ones, because if it would made be made up of infinite ones, then if you take off one, if you made if what you'd be less, you'd be missing one. Since it's infinite, you can't make it less by taking away one, obviously it's not made up of ones. So, one or a million or a billion compared to infinity is the same. We compared to God is באין ערוך, there's no comparison whatsoever. And therefore, basically what it seems like is that we cannot have any connection to God. But God wants us human beings to be connected to him. So what did he do? He commanded us to do certain things. The mere fact that he commanded us to do certain things, before we even do it, already makes a connection between us and him. The fact that he, who is so great, nevertheless lowered himself to us and asked us to do something, that means he's gives us some importance. Oh, so we feel we have some connection to God. Just to use an example, imagine if the, I don't know whom to use as an example, the President of the United States would come over to a simple person in the street and say, \"Please do me a favor. I'd like you to do something for me.\" He'd be in the seventh heaven. He'd jump. He feels, ooh, you know, I spoke to the President, I got connect to the President, he asked me to do something. So imagine if God, who's באין ערוך, not like a President of a country or a President of the United States to a simple person, much further away, and he comes down to us and he says to us, \"You know, I'd like you to do something.\" He gave us a Commandment, He gave us a מצוה, He likes us to do something. That itself makes a connection between us. Actually, the רמב״ם writes that when you do a מצוה, you have to do it with שמחה, you have to do it with joy. And the expression he uses, why do you have to do it with joy? So he says, השמחה שישמח אדם בעשיית המצוה, the שמחה, the joy a person has to have when he does a מצוה, ובאהבת הקל שציוה בהן, with the love of השם, that He commanded us. Basically what he's saying, why should you do a מצוה with joy? Because if you start thinking and realizing, what does it mean a מצוה, before you even get to do it, the mere fact that we got the מצוה is supposed to make a person very happy. Just like the person who was asked by the president to do something, before he even does it, the mere fact that he asked him to do it makes him very happy. So, if a person does a מצוה and is not happy about it, that means he doesn't realize what's going on here, because if he really realized what's going on, he'd realize that here we have this great God gave us a commandment. So you can imagine what this does. This makes us feel close to God. This is even before you do the commandment, the mere fact that we know that we have a commandment of God. Imagine after we do it. When we do a מצוה, doing the מצוה is even a greater connection to God, because we're actually doing what He asked us. So if we're fulfilling His will, that connects us to Him. This is the other meaning of the word מצוה. Normally we know the word מצוה, literal translation is commandment. The word מצוה has another meaning in Hebrew: צוותא וחיבור means connection. When you do a מצוה, you get connected to God. Just getting the מצוה is a connection, but the actual doing the מצוה, you are fulfilling the will of God, that connects you. רש״י in חומש quotes many times concerning different מצוות, קרבנות, that God says, נחת רוח לפני שאמרתי ונעשה רצוני. I have pleasure that I asked you to do something and you did it. When you make God have pleasure, you could imagine what kind of connection this makes between you and God. And that's by doing a מצוה. Learning תורה, when you learn תורה, you get connected to God, because in the תורה that you learn, you have God. And when you have the תורה in your head, you actually have God in your head. The גמרא says the first word of the עשרת הדברות, of the Ten Commandments, is אנכי, I. I am God your God that took you out of Egypt. The word אנכי is an abbreviation. That's what the תלמוד says: אנא נפשי כתבית יהבית, which means: I, Myself, wrote it and gave it. השם, in the first word of the Ten Commandments, said that I, Myself, wrote the תורה and I gave it to you. But in חסידות it says a deeper meaning of what the תלמוד says: not only that I, Myself, wrote it and gave it, I, Myself, wrote Myself in, I gave Myself in. That means השם put Himself, כביכול, so to speak, into the תורה. And actually it makes sense even from a physical point of view. If a person, להבדיל, writes a book and he wants to write it properly, you have to put yourself into the book, you have to write it with feeling and an emotion, you put yourself in. So השם, when He wrote the תורה, put Himself in. And then when we study תורה and we have the knowledge of the תורה in our head, in our intellect, in our brain, and since that השם is in the תורה, we connect ourselves with Him. So when we do a מצוה, we connect ourselves with Him. When we learn תורה, we connect ourselves to Him. When we daven, we do תפילה, we connect ourselves to Him. תפילה means prayer, but תפילה has another meaning. In Hebrew, תפילה means connection. Actually, that's the meaning, one of the words in Hebrew, meaning of the word תפילה in Hebrew is connection. When the חומש says that she called נפתלי, the name נפתלי, she said, כי נפתולי אלקים נפתלתי, that means I was connected, whatever, not to get into the details, she used the word נפתלי for connection, because תפילה means connection. When you daven, you connect yourself to השם, and this is all part of אידישקייט. So the concept of מצוה and everything else that's included in the general word of מצוה, which is davening and learning and all the great, good deeds that we do, is a connection to God. And the reason we're connected with these מצוות to God is because He told us to do the מצוות. If He wouldn't tell us to do it, then this wouldn't connect us. Now I want to just say for a moment, it's not like some people think, when you ask some people to do a מצוה, and you say, what is that, a מצוה, well, by doing this, you connect, you communicate, you connect to God. So you have the answer that they give many times, \"I have my own ways of communicating with God. And I have my way, I communicate and I connect to God.\" The answer is, your own way won't work. It's impossible for a human being to connect to God. As I said before, we're באין ערוך, there is no comparison. We're so far apart, there's nothing that could connect us. The only one that could make the connection is Him, because He is beyond, He's the Creator, He could do anything, so He could connect us. So if we do what He asked us to do, then we're connected, because we're doing something that He asked us. As the famous משל, there's once a person that met a new friend, so he made friends with him. And after a while, when before he departed, he says to him, \"You know what? We want to stay in touch, so I'll give you my phone number, and you'll call me, and we'll be in touch.\" Came home, a while later, he feels, \"I want to call my new friend.\" Takes out the phone number and he looks at the number and he says, \"Well, I don't like this number. I have a different number I'm going to call him.\" So he starts dialing the other number. You'll never get to him. You have to dial the number he gave you. You can't dial your own number. If you dial your own number, that's not him. So to connect to God, you've got to do the מצוות that He gave us, do the commandments that He gave us. So מצוה is commandment, is is commandment which is a connection to God. Even though every Jew is connected to God anyway, a Jew, because he has a נשמה, the holy נשמה called the נפש אלקית, the godly soul, which is, as it says in תניא, the אלטר רבי, the בעל התניא says in תניא, it's a חלק אלוקה ממעל ממש, it's part of השם from above, ממש, really, really part of השם. So every Jew has it within him anyway, but it's not revealed. It's hidden. It's there, someplace deep down. When you do a מצוה, it brings it out into the open. It connects you. When you do a מצוה, you learn תורה, you דאוון, you do all these things, you connect yourself in a revealed way. That's a מצוה. What's an עבירה? An עבירה is the simple translation of עבירה means to pass away, to go away, not do the right thing. It has another meaning. עבירה means you're passing away from this connection. If you don't do the will of God, or you do something that God doesn't want you to do, or you don't do what He does want you to do, so you are ruining the connection that's there. Just like a מצוה makes a connection, an עבירה spoils the connection. And that's the meaning of עבירה. עבירה means עבר, עובר, you go through, you go away. You're connected, and you go away from the connection by doing something that He doesn't want you to do. There's another word for sin, and that is חטא. But חטא has another meaning. חטא in Hebrew means missing. There are different פסוקים, verses in תנ״ך which have says the word חטא and it means missing. When you do a sin, you cause the connection that you had to God to become missing. You ruin the connection. So, מצוה is a connection you have to God, עבירה is taking away the connection, making ruining the connection. And we have to take this very seriously. And it's not just ruining a connection that you have to God, so you don't have a connection. The reason we were created is to do His will and to connect ourselves to Him. אני נבראתי לשמש את קוני, the תלמוד says that every ייד knows that he was created to serve his Master. God created us, brought us into this world with a mission. And the mission is to do what He wants, and that's how we connect to Him. Now, the truth is, why He wants it, why He did it, why He sent us here, why He gave us these commandments, why He wants us down here to do things to connect to Him, the truth is, we don't really know. It says in the מדרש, נתאווה הקדוש ברוך הוא להיות לו יתברך דירה בתחתונים. השם desired to have a dwelling place down here. השם desired, God desired that down here in this physical world, we should be here and make it a dwelling place for Him, which means bring Him into here, connect us to Him. So they once asked the אלטר רבי, \"Why did השם do this? What was the reason?\" So he said, \"That's why the מדרש uses the term נתאווה, which means he had a desire, because\" in Yiddish he said, \"אויף א תאווה פרעגט מען נישט קיין קשיא. When a person just has a desire, you can't ask questions why.\" So we use that term to show that this is something we can't ask questions, we don't know why. So we don't know why, but we know what. We know what He wanted. He told us exactly what He wanted. He wants us to do the מצוות and not to do any עבירות. He wants us to connect to Him through the things that He told us to do. And if we don't, it's not just we're missing the connection, so we're missing the boat, we're missing the point. We're not fulfilling the reason why we were put into this world. And even if a person does one little thing wrong, so you say, \"Okay, it's only one. Most of the things I do right, one little thing I do wrong.\" There is one big mission that we have that if you miss one little bit, it hasn't effect on the whole thing. It's not the meaning that you only miss one little bit, everything else is also missing something because it's all one unit that it's not complete if you're missing one thing. And I have to go a step further. Not only does it mean that you will be missing something, you will be ruining it for everybody else. Because the mission that השם gave us, as much as He gave every individual his mission, there is a master plan. There is a mission He gave to the whole universe, to all of יידן, it's all one big, big plan. If one ייד misses in fulfilling what he is supposed to do and his connection to God, then it ruins it for everybody. The famous parable, משל, of somebody who paid for a seat in the ship, and then he took a drill and started drilling a hole. So they asked him, \"What are you doing?\" He says, \"I paid for my seat, I could do what I want.\" It's his seat, but by making a hole in his seat, he's going to ruin it for everybody, everyone is going to drown. Or I remember once the רבי gave another parable. It was the time when the first astronaut landed on the moon, and the רבי said, everything that we see in this world, the בעל שם טוב said, is a lesson to us in השם. We have to take some kind of lesson in how we supposed to serve God. He says, we see from this whole project of sending people to the moon with the with the rockets and things like that, he says millions and billions of dollars were put into it, and so many people working on it. But when the astronauts are put into the into the rocket, they're given instructions exactly what to do every moment. They're told when to eat and when to sleep, even when to tie their shoes, he said. But one of the astronauts will say, \"Big deal, I'll do my thing myself.\" You know what's going to happen if he does something not the way he's supposed to? It could ruin for him, could ruin the whole ruin it for the other astronauts, it could ruin the whole project which was billions of dollars, was hundreds of people thousands of people working. One little thing. So when a person does an עבירה, he not only ruins his connection to God, he ruins the connection he spoils some way the connection of others also. So we could imagine how terrible it is to do an עבירה. So we see both sides: how great it is to do a מצוה, because doing that you connect yourself to God, how terrible it is to עבירה. So it's טאקע terrible. So what do we do if somebody did do an עבירה? So what, so spoiled already, finished, that's it? There's nothing else we could do about it, and now we ruined it for ourselves and ruined it for everybody? השם says no. I gave you a way out. You could do תשובה. You could return to Me, you could repent. And if you do תשובה, I will wipe out everything, all the negative things that happened. The fact that you ruined to a certain degree your connection and other connections, if you do the proper תשובה, then I will wipe it out, as long as you promise never to do it again. Just like a father who was upset with his child for some reason that he didn't behave properly, and when the child comes back and he says, \"You know, I realize my mistake, I promise never to do it again.\" The father says, \"Okay, take you back, I'll forget about everything that happened.\" God is our Father, He's our King as we said before, He's our Father, we say in prayers אבינו מלכנו, He's our King, He's our Father, so He does the same. He said, \"I'll wipe it out if you do תשובה.\" What is תשובה? So we know really there are three parts to תשובה. To fulfill the מצוה of תשובה, there are three parts. But one is the most important one and that's the main part of תשובה. One is קבלה על הבא, acceptance for the future, accepting upon ourselves not in the future to do it again. Another one is חרטה על העבר, to regret why I did it in the past. Another one is וידוי, which is confession. You have to say outright to God, \"I sinned.\" Not to other human beings, no, to God you say, between you and God you say, \"I sinned.\" And when you do that, you have the complete תשובה. But the אלטער רבי in תניא says, in אגרת התשובה, that the real, real point of תשובה is the first thing: that you make up your mind never to do it again. That's called קבלה על הבא, accepting on the future not to do it again. If you do that, you have done the מצוה of תשובה. You maybe don't have the called the שלימות התשובה, the completion of תשובה. You have to do you have to feel bad for the past, you have to have the וידוי, the confession. But the main תשובה is to accept upon ourselves for the future not to do it. Whether it's concerning one specific thing that we did wrong or a certain lifestyle that we did wrong and we realized it, we realized what we are doing by not doing what השם wants, and when you do תשובה, the main thing is to say to השם, to yourself and to השם, that's it, not doing it again. And that's what we're supposed to do during these weeks, this week, the main The whole month of אלול is for this. But from ראש השנה to יום כיפור, which is ימי התשובה, עשרת ימי תשובה, the ten days of תשובה, this is what you're supposed to feel, this is what you're supposed to think about ראש השנה, in דאוונינג, and throughout עשרת ימי תשובה, and on יום כיפור, that I promise השם I will be better and I will not do those things that I wasn't supposed to do or missed out on what I was supposed to, I won't do it again. And תשובה has the power of affecting the past. It's an interesting thing. We all know you can't change history. Something that happened, happened. That's it. You can't go back, you can't turn the clock back, we don't have a time machine to go back in time and say, well, we'll change what happened in the past. Whatever happened, happened. From now on, you can change. השם says no. If you do תשובה, I'll change the past. Things that were negative in the past will be wiped out, and if you do a proper תשובה and you really do it from the depth of your heart, השם says, I will transform the negative things you did, the עבירות, which we call זדונות, עבירות you did intentionally, into מצוות. The עבירות we did before, the sins, will turn into מצוות. And there's a logic behind it also, because a person that does תשובה serves השם, serves God much, with a stronger feeling than a person who didn't sin. Example of a person who is thirsty, doesn't have water for a long time, finally he reaches water, he drinks it with such feeling. Person who always had water drinks it regularly. A person who always did what השם wants continues doing it, but a person who didn't, or in a specific thing didn't, and then he changes, and he realizes that this is the right way, he feels he was thirsty before, so he drinks it, he does that מצוה or the מצוות with a greater feeling. That's what it says in the זוהר, that when a person does תשובה, he serves השם בחילא יתיר, which a much stronger stronger feeling that he has to השם than before. And therefore, you look back and you say, what brought this person to serve God with greater feeling? The עבירות that he did before. So this transform, the עבירה really was basically a stepping stone, a means to serve God better. So השם changes and it becomes a מצוה, because it leads you to serve God better, which is a מצוה. But whichever way we'll explain it, it says clearly that השם says that if you do תשובה properly, He will transform your עבירות into מצוות. If we do תשובה properly anytime of the year, השם will transform the עבירות into מצוות. This is something that only happens in this case, other way, otherwise it's not possible. Besides the fact that when you do תשובה, you connect yourself much stronger to השם, and השם is beyond time, there's no such thing as past, present, and future, so the past is really now, and that's why you're able to change it, and many more explanations that we find in the different ספרים concerning how to explain the idea that תשובה changes the past, but that's the bottom line. And as I said, this is anytime of the year. Whenever a person does תשובה, this is what he accomplishes. But there's a certain time of the year when השם says, it's easier to do תשובה. Easier to do תשובה, because it's not so easy usually to do תשובה. A person who does some things gets into a habit and continues doing it, it's hard to change, we all know that. השם says there are certain times of the year where it's easier, and not only it's easier, it's more important then. And that is starting from the month of אלול. We know the famous parable that the אלטער רבי gives of מלך בשדה, the king in the field, that there is a time when the king goes out into the field and he says, anybody wants can come and see me. When the king is in his palace and sits in his on his throne, you have to make an appointment, and they won't even let you in, only some people could come, and you have to prepare yourself, and you have to be dressed properly, all kinds of things you have to do. When the king comes to the field, he says, this time, who how you are, any peasant, any farmer who wants, you don't even have to change your clothes, you can come into your farmer with your farmer clothes, I'll accept you and I'll talk to you. Which means the king makes himself available to the people. In the month of אלול, השם makes himself available, and He says, always to do תשובה you've got to go search for Me, because you ran away from Me, you disconnected from Me, so now you've got to try the connection again. I'm far away because you ran. But comes the month of אלול, I'm running to you, I'm coming to the field, that's אלול. ראש השנה, עשרת ימי תשובה, יום כיפור, it says it's a time when השם is קירוב המאור אל הניצוץ, which means the the the great light is stronger, closer to the small sparks, and when a big fire is close to a small fire, it pulls the small fire to it. So we have the small fire within us, but when He comes closer, it pulls it to Him, so we are able to do תשובה much better. The רמב״ם says that even though תשובה is always, nevertheless in the ten days from ראש השנה to יום כיפור, היא יפה ביותר, it's much nicer, much better, ומתקבלת מיד, and it's accepted much faster. יום כיפור itself, it says, is a מצוה לעשות תשובה. Then besides any type of תשובה you might do during the year, it's a special מצוה to do תשובה on יום כיפור. And when you do תשובה, that's when השם forgives us, and erases everything, and as I said before, transformed the past into the good. And this time of the year, specifically for it, when it's easier, is this time of the year. And as I said, this time of the year means from ראש השנה through יום כיפור, starting actually with אלול, as I said before, as a preparation, but really, even more, it is a ראש השנה going through יום כיפור. And as I said before, since it starts more or less on ראש השנה, that's why it's hinted in the מצוה of שופר. And I said in the first שיעור that the רמב״ם writes concerning the מצוה of שופר that it is a רמז, it's a hint to the fact that we have to do תשובה, because שופר is like we're saying, עורו ישנים משנתכם, wake up those who are asleep from your sleep, ונרדמים מתרדמתכם, those that are in a deep sleep, wake up from your deep sleep, וחזרו בתשובה, and do תשובה. It's a wake-up call, that's what it is, it's a wake-up call to do תשובה. And the truth is, when we talk about שופר being a רמז, a hint to the concept of תשובה, there is a משל from the בעל שם טוב, also in כתר שם טוב, in the הוספות, in the additional part to the ספר כתר שם טוב of the בעל שם טוב, and I'll read it from inside, not word for word, but generally from inside, what the בעל שם טוב said concerning how שופר represents the מצוה of תשובה. And he gives a משל of a king who had a בן יחיד, an only son, who was a great scholar, very smart, and he was beloved by the king, כבבת עינו he says, like the apple of his eye. And the father and the son once decided that in order for him to gain knowledge and even to grow even more, the best thing would be to send him away someplace in other someplace far, other countries. He should learn more languages, he should learn other cultures, and learn other חכמות, other wisdom and science, and he'll come back, he'll be much smarter and much better. As hard as this was for the father to send away the son, but they felt that this is for the benefit of the son and it's good that he should get all this knowledge and wisdom that he's supposed to get. So the father gave him some people to go along with him, and he gave him a lot of money, and he said, \"Go ahead, and eventually you'll come back, and I'll see you even greater and better than you are now.\" He went, but he went very far away. He went far away where people didn't even know anything about his father. He used up all the money, and he had no money even to buy food, so he had to go beg. He had no money for clothes, he started wearing rags. And he started behaving like the people in that faraway country, which were very low-class people. He forgot even the language of his father, he was there for a long time. And he completely changed, went away from the mission that he was supposed to do 100%, that he had nothing left of it almost. But after a long time he decided, he said, \"Wow, look what happened to me. Look how far I got. I'm going to go back.\" So he tried to go back, and he started telling people when he got closer that, \"I'm the son of the king.\" He couldn't even talk their language, so he started motioning, and people were laughing at him, they didn't know what he was talking about. Here, look, a person, a poor person with rags, and his face was blackened, and a person hardly could speak well, that's the son of the king? They didn't believe, they were making fun of him. Till finally he got himself through to the capital city, got close to the palace of the father. And he told the guards, motioned to the guards, \"Let me in.\" They said, \"What? To let you in? A guy, a person like you to let you into the king?\" And he begged them, without speaking, but he begged them, and they wouldn't let him in. So the בעל שם טוב says they even beat him up, so he was hungry and hurt and bleeding and torn clothes, but he had to get to the king, and he wants to show the king, \"I'm here, I'm back, and I want to come back to you, and I want to start behaving again like the son of the king.\" So what did he do? He stood outside of the palace, and he started screaming on the top of his lungs. He didn't say any words, because he didn't even know the language. He just screamed from the depth of his heart. And what he was screaming was, to this father, \"I'm here, I'm back.\" And the father, sitting in the in this palace, heard from far noise, so he started listening, he recognized the voice of his son. Imagine how he felt. He was very worried what happened to him, so he himself came downstairs, went outside himself, saw his son, grabbed him, hugged him, kissed him, took him back, and the son said, \"I'm back. I behaved I didn't behave properly. I'm back to become the way I's supposed to be.\" And the בעל שם טוב said this is a parable to every ייד. Every ייד has a holy נשמה, as we said before. The נשמה is a part of God that came from all the way in the highest heavens, the holiest places. And השם decided it's better for the נשמה to come down, and down here to fulfill certain things that השם gave, like we said before, He gave him the מצוות. Why He did it we don't know, but He felt that this is going to be good for Him and for the son. So השם sent the sent the נשמה down, which is in the משל, in the parable, like the son, gave it a mission. But unfortunately, many people, like the son in this משל, went away too far, forgot about the mission, and turned away and didn't do what they were supposed to. But finally, eventually, you start realizing it's not good, you have to come back. So a ייד comes back, but in order to get back and have the father, השם who's our Father, to realize that we're coming back, so just like in the משל, the son screams, that's all he does, he just screams, and the father hears that that's the סימן, the sign he gets that the son is coming back. This is what the שופר does. We blow the שופר. By blowing the שופר, like I said before, these are not words that we say, they are not musical tunes that we sing, this is a screaming of the heart. So in the other שיעור, I explained that this has an expression of telling השם, we're accepting You as our King. That's one aspect, but there's another aspect. This is also the way we're telling השם, recognize our voice, we're returning to You, we're doing תשובה. So here we have the מצווה of שופר, which is the beginning of the ten days of עשרת ימי תשובה, how it represents תשובה. So before, we said שופר represents תשובה from the point of view that it reminds, it's a wake-up call, it's like an alarm clock to wake you up. That's from the side of השם, that He's waking us up to do תשובה. It also represents from our side how we express our תשובה to השם. We express the fact that we're returning to השם, we're telling השם we're coming back to You. And this is on ראש השנה, and this is what we're supposed to have in mind on ראש השנה, and from there we continue through the other days up to יום כיפור till we finally come to the end of יום כיפור, when we blow the תקיעה גדולה, and this brings us to the שלמות התשובה. So after all said and done, we see that there are three things in ראש השנה and the days between ראש השנה and יום כיפור, יום כיפור, these are days ימי הדין, as I explained, just that we have to feel that these are days of judgment and that we have to take it seriously, to know that we have to be ready for it and we have to feel that way and do everything that they should in the בית דין של מעלה judge us favorably. Then it's also the day of תשובה, these days of תשובה, days that we have to return to השם, cause השם says, whenever you do something wrong you have to do תשובה, but these are the special days where I make it easier, and it's more important to do תשובה because the תשובה that you do during these days, we'll use the terminology of חסידות, reaches higher levels by השם. And the third thing, this is the day that we accept the מלכות of השם. Now, in the order of things, probably it would work the other way. The first thing is that we accept השם as our King, like I said in the first שיעור, we accept השם as our King, we tell Him we're giving ourselves over. Then we accept also the מצוות and if we, God forbid, did not keep the מצוות, we do תשובה. And then when we are judged, we're judged favorably because we did תשובה. And if we keep all this in mind, and we prepare ourselves properly ראש השנה and יום כיפור, now thinking about all these concepts that we just spoke about, then השם is very happy with our service of השם, of our serving Him, and השם gives us everything that we need, He gives us a שנה טובה ומתוקה, a happy and a healthy and a sweet year.