24 Sep HASHEM: I WANT A BETTER YEAR

Every morning during
Elul, we hear the shofar
in shul. One of the
reasons for this custom
is that it is similar to
the court giving a debtor
thirty days to pay up his
debts. So too, the shofar
reminds us thirty days before the Day of
Judgment to get our spiritual debts taken
care of. The Rambam explains that the
shofar serves as an alarm. “Uru yesheinim
m’shinaschem – Wake-up you sleepers from
your slumber.”
Of course, we are not speaking about
physical sleeping. We refer to spiritual
sleeping like the wicked Haman said in his
famous slander against the Jews, “Yeshno
ahm echad,” which the Gemora interprets
to mean, “Yesheinim hein min hamitzvos –
They are sleeping from the mitzvos.” What
this means, of course, is that we do the
actual commandments but we do them like
one who is sleeping, without concentration,
feeling or passion. Thus, the shofar serves
as a wake-up call for us to do our daily
mitzvos such as prayer, tefilin, mezuzah,
and others more meaningfully.
The Ksav Sofer, Zt”l, Zy”a, says that
shofar also means prettiness like in the

expression “Shufra d’Rebbi Yochanan –
The beauty of Rebbi Yochanan.” Therefore,
one of the messages of the shofar is “Shapru
maaseichem – Make prettier your deeds.”
All of us petition Hashem for another year
of life, for ourselves and our loved ones.
But, we don’t simply ask for another year
of life. We ask for a better year with better
health, with better shalom bais, with better
parnassa. Better, better, better. Answers
Hashem, “It’s a pleasure to do so. Just one
thing… How are you going to be better?
It’s only fair that if you ask for a better year
that you too should be better in the coming
year.” This is why I always recommend
that people have a “To Do Better” list in
their Rosh HaShanah machzor and to have
on this list, as much as possible, a realistic
list of goals. This is a simple quid pro quo
arrangement with Hashem and of course,
Hashem, the Merciful One rewards us
greatly for our change for the better.
How do we go about making such a To Do
Better list? The answer is that, sometime very
soon, we must make a cheshbon hanefesh, a
spiritual accounting, analyzing our day from
our Modeh Ani when we open our eyes to
the Krias Shema al hamitah, when we go
to sleep – and everything in between. We
must place special emphasis on improving

our vital relationships such as with our
spouse, our children, our parents, our Rabbi,
and our friends and neighbors, co-workers
employees, and employer. We should also
pay extra attention to such essential mitzvos
as Torah study, our prayers, charity, kashrus,
Shabbos observance, and family purity.
After we pinpoint some specific areas
upon which we would like to improve, we
can then employ the wonderful advice of
the Tzetl Katan, who recommends that if we
want to change our nature in a specific area
(for example, to start smiling daily at our
spouse), we should make a commitment to
do it for forty consecutive days. The “magic”
of forty days is that if we succeed in doing
so we will have created for ourselves a new
nature and will have successfully broken
the old habit. This is derived from the fact
that the fetus is created in a mother’s womb
after forty days. And this is why to go from
tumah to tahara, the mikvah has forty sah
of water, and why a corrupt world needed a
flood of forty days and forty nights in order
to be repaired, and why Moshe Rabbeinu, in
order to become the man of Torah, needed
to go up to heaven for forty days and forty
nights.
So, let’s start getting busy making our
cheshbon hanefesh. Let’s start filling

up our To Do Better list and in that merit
may Hashem bless us all with a year of
good health, happiness, and everything
wonderful.