{"id":2728,"date":"2014-10-23T16:56:51","date_gmt":"2014-10-23T20:56:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/?p=2728"},"modified":"2014-10-23T16:56:51","modified_gmt":"2014-10-23T20:56:51","slug":"among-my-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/among-my-people\/","title":{"rendered":"Among My People"},"content":{"rendered":"

As always, the days of Rosh Hashanah immerse us in a unique atmosphere, a strange blend of holiday joy and fear of judgment at one and the same time. On the one hand, \u201cWho will be found righteous before You in judgment,\u201d yet on the other hand, the prophet encourages us, \u201cEat rich foods and drink sweet beverages\u2026 for the joy of Hashem is your fortress\u201d (Nechemiah 8:10).\"pr<\/a>
\nChazal pointed out this apparent contradiction: \u201cOn the day when the Books of Life and Books of the Dead are opened up \u2013 how can we sing?\u201d That is why we do not say Hallel on Rosh Hashanah. And yet, it is a Yom Tov in every other way; it is a mitzvah to rejoice, to eat and drink, and to wear Yom Tov clothing.
\nChazal provide one answer to this duality, to these two apparently conflicting principles, when they explain that on Rosh Hashanah, the day the world was created, mankind faces two judgments: a general one and an individual one. In the general judgment, the Creator judges the nation as a whole \u2013 and every year anew, He chooses the Jewish people, His chosen portion, for as we know, \u201cHashem will not abandon His people\u201d (Tehillim 94:14). To this judgment, the Jewish people comes in festive garb, secure in the knowledge that in spite of everything, in the end, Hashem will be compassionate and sweeten the judgment.
\nThe second judgment takes place on the personal plane. Here, every human being passes before his Creator like sheep, like a flock being checked by the shepherd, and the final decision is what will determine the future of each and every one of us: Who will be decreed life, and who, chalilah, death, who will have health, and who, sickness, who will be humbled and who will be raised up. This is the judgment that we fear, and it is in preparation for that judgment that we search feverishly for special merits, for \u201cWho will be found righteous before You in judgment.\u201d
\nThe Chofetz Chaim explains that in practice, every person determines his own ruling in the Divine Court. Each individual\u2019s judgment is a direct outgrowth of the way he judges others. How so? Many people have a tendency to criticize society and its members. These people have a habit of critically sizing up every act done by another, and at times even derive pleasure from this practice. The Chofetz Chaim says that Hashem dons the \u201ceyeglasses\u201d of the person who stands before him to be judged. If that person is accustomed to looking through a lens of positivity and habitually judges his fellow man\u2019s deeds favorably, the Divine Judge will judge his deeds favorably as well. But if the person on trial is one who always finds something negative in his fellow man, who always focuses on the flaws in his deeds, then it will be difficult for Hashem, looking through those same lenses, to see glimmers of light in that person\u2019s own deeds.
\nOne of the women who judged the Jewish people favorably was the Shunamite woman (Melachim II, 4). According to the Zohar Hakadosh, it was on Rosh Hashanah (\u201cIt happened one day\u201d) that the prophet Elisha, who wanted to repay her for her generous hospitality to him, expressed his desire to mention her special merits to the King of the universe \u2013 yet she declined his offer. \u201cI live among my people,\u201d she said. She did not seek \u201cprotektzia,\u201d did not want personal favors. She relied on the Klal, on the community of which she was a part. The Shunamite woman knew very well that as great as a person may be, no one is so perfectly righteous that he does only good and never transgresses. Yet, she judged Klal Yisrael favorably, secure in the knowledge that the Klal will emerge from the judgment exonerated, and she among them.
\nWhen we \u201cpermit the congregation to pray together with the sinners\u201d in the Kol Nidrei prayer, it is not because the sinners need our \u201centrance pass.\u201d The opposite is true: For our sake, we need our prayer to include everyone and become a prayer of the entire tzibbur. A tzibbur includes the righteous, the wicked, and those in between. As we say in the tefillah, \u201cB\u2019fi yesharim\u2026 – By the mouth of the upright, by the lips of the righteous, by the tongue of the pious, and in the midst of the holy \u2013 and yet, there is a fifth level, higher than all these \u2013 and that is \u201cthe mouths of your entire nation, the house of Yisrael.\u201d
\nThis is our message for the length of the entire year. Ezer Mizion does not distinguish between those who need its services. Ezer Mizion unites \u201cyour entire nation, the house of Yisrael,\u201d with all its tribes and sectors and ethnic backgrounds. Every day of the year, Ezer Mizion\u2019s volunteers and supporters try to help every single Jew in distress and in the throes of illness, with a depth of understanding and faith that this is our greatest merit: to feel the pain and troubles of every Jew and do whatever possible to help him and his family in their time of crisis. We call upon Klal Yisrael to become our partners, to give a hand, to volunteer, and to donate, to unite worlds and save lives. And with this, may it be Hashem\u2019s will that we all merit a ketivah v\u2019chatimah tovah.<\/p>\n

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As always, the days of Rosh Hashanah immerse us in a unique atmosphere, a strange blend of holiday joy and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[345,344],"class_list":["post-2728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ezer-mizion","tag-judgement","tag-rosh-hashona"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2728"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2728\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2730,"href":"http:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2728\/revisions\/2730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}