19 Sep MISSION POSSIBLE

The story is told that
Rav Levi Yitzhak of
Berditchev once
summoned all of the Jews
to assemble in the town
square the next day
because he had an
announcement of the
greatest importance to make. He ordered that the
merchants close their shops, all nursing mothers
were to bring their infants, and that everyone,
with no exceptions, was to be there to hear the
announcement. The people wondered what the
announcement could be. Was a pogrom imminent
or a new tax? Was the Rebbe going to leave? Or
was he perhaps seriously ill? Did he know the
time when the Moshiach would come and was he
going to reveal it? The entire community was
assembled the next day with no exceptions, and
everyone waited with baited breath to hear what
the Rabbi would announce.
Precisely at twelve the Rebbe rose and said: “I,
Levi Yitzhak, son of Sarah, have gathered you
here today in order to tell you that there is a
Ribono Shel Olam, there is a God in the world!”
That was it? Yes, that was the important
announcement. Something so basic and yet so
easily and regularly forgotten.
The holiday we call Rosh Hashana is never
called that in Chumash. In Parshas Emor, the
Torah refers to Rosh Hashana as zichron teruah
and we therefore refer to it (for example, in our
davening kiddush, and bentching) as Yom
HaZikaron. The Day of Remembrance. What
does memory have to do with the New Year? The
simple understanding is that on this Day of
Judgement, Hashem invokes the memory of all
we have done, for good and for bad. We describe
Hashem as zocheir kol ha’nishkachos, He
remembers all that is forgotten; indeed, one of the
central components of our Mussaf, Zichronos, is
dedicated to this idea.
But perhaps there is a deeper meaning to the
aspect of zechirah and zikaron on Rosh Hashana
and in the Teshuva process.
Zichron teruah, yom ha’zikaron. What Teruah is
the Torah commanding us to remember?
ו ַי ְהִי בַיֹום הַשְלִישִי- בִהְיֹּת הַבֹּקֶר, ו ַי ְה-ִי קֹּלֹת
ּובְרָקִים ו ְעָנָן -כָבֵד עַל-הָהָר,- ו ְקֹּל שֹ ּ פָר, חָזָק- מְאֹד;
ו ַי ֶחֱרַד כָל-הָעָם, אֲשֶר בַמַחֲנֶה-… ו ַי ְהִי קֹול הַשֹ ּ ׁ פָר,-
הֹולְֵך ו ְחָזֵק מְאֹד
It came to pass on the third day when it was
morning, that there were thunder claps and
lightning flashes, and a thick cloud was upon
the mountain, and a very powerful blast of a
shofar…The sound of the shofar grew
increasingly stronger; Moshe would speak and
God would answer him with a voice.
Rosh Hashana is a day of remembering but it
isn’t Hashem who is remembering us, it is a day
for us to remember Him. For us to remember the
day that we heard the unadulterated voice of
Hashem at Har Sinai. Hashem spoke to us then
through the sound of a shofar and He speaks to us
again through the sound of the same shofar, an
echo reverberating from that great day of
revelation, a day when we received our mission
from headquarters. A mission to be a Mamleches

Kohanim v’Goy Kadosh. And this mission is
more important now than ever.
On Rosh Hashana, we blow the shofar to
coronate Hashem as our King and proclaim that
we are His loyal subjects. But we need to connect
with the shofar on a personal level as well. The
Rambam (Hilchos Teshuva Perek 3) famously
states:
ּ אַף עַל פִּי- שֶׁ תְּקִיעַת ׁשֹופָר בְּרֹאׁש -הַשָ ׁ נָה גְּזֵרַת
הַכָּתּוב- רֶמֶז י ֵׁש ּבֹו -כְּלֹומַר עּורּו י ְשֵׁ נִים- מִשְ ּ ׁ נַתְכֶם
ו ְנִרְדָּמִים הָקִיצוּ- מִתַּרְדֵּמַתְכֶם ו ְחַפְּׂשּו בְּמַעֲשֵׂיכֶם-
ו ְחִזְרּו בִּתְׁשּובָה ו ְזִכְרוּ- ּבֹורַאֲכֶם
Even though the sounding of the shofar on
Rosh Hashana is a decree, it contains an
allusion. It is as if [the shofar’s call] is saying:
Wake up you sleepy ones from your sleep and
you who slumber, arise. Inspect your deeds,
repent, remember your Creator.
Many know the beginning of the Rambam that
the Shofar wakes us up, but to what? The
Rambam continues, it wakes us up to remember
something, something that we can easily forget,
someone we can easily be lulled to sleep about. In
our day-to-day slumber of life, we can forget
perhaps the most important thing of all, that we
have a Creator.
The Rambam uses this language in describing
teshuva gemura, complete teshuva too (Hilchos
Teshuva 2:1):
אֵי זֹו הִיא -תְּׁשּובָה גְּמּורָה. זֶה- שֶׁ בָּא לְי ָדֹו דָּבָר-
שֶׁ עָבַר ּבֹו ו ְאֶפְשָׁ ר- בְּי ָדֹו לַעֲׂשֹותֹו… ּופָרַׁש ו ְלֹא עָבַר
.-“)קהלת יב א( ”ּוזְכֹר אֶת- ּבֹורְאֶיָך בִּימֵי בְּחּורֹתֶיָךזֶהּו- בַּעַל תְּׁשּובָה גְּמּורָה-. הּוא שֶׁ שְ ּ ׁ לֹמֹה אָמַר
Who has reached complete Teshuvah? A
person who confronts the same situation in
which he sinned when he has the potential to
commit…nevertheless, he abstained and did

not transgress. This is a complete Baal-
Teshuvah. This was implied by King Solomon

in his statement “Remember your Creator in
the days of your youth, before the bad days
come and the years draw near when you will
say: ‘I have no desire for them.’”
The Rambam quotes a pasuk to prove tshuva
gemura and what is it? “Remember Hakadosh
Baruch Hu, remember there is a Ribono Shel
Olam.” Rosh Hashana ultimately is really as
simple as that, it is a day of going back to the
basics and making the main thing the main thing:
that there is a Creator, He brought us into this
world for a reason and to make a difference.

When we remember Him, we live a mission-
driven life, we ask how we can serve Him. When

we forget Him, we get confused, we show poor
judgment, and we make mistakes.
To be clear, we daven for ourselves today, for
our families’ health, wellbeing, livelihood and
more. There is nothing wrong with that, and in
fact, that is our responsibility. But why are those
things important? What is our argument to have
them? Because we remember there is a Ribono
Shel Olam, because we want to fulfill His vision
and mission for us, because we think we can be
most efficient and productive, we can accomplish
the most for Him and His vision if we have them.
Sometimes it feels like momentum is carrying
us. We continue to keep Shabbos, we daven daily,
we pay the tuition and buy the expensive Kosher

food. We are running on a religious hamster
wheel, but why, why are we doing those things?
Do we remember there is a Ribono Shel Olam?
Are we in a relationship and ongoing conversation
with Him? Do we talk to Him and do we interpret
events in our lives as His talking to us? Do we
talk to our children and grandchildren about Him,
sharing when we see Him in our lives, modeling
for them when we lean on Him and turn to Him?
Mark Twain once said, “The two most important
days in your life are the day you are born and the
day you find out why.”
Rosh Hashana is the birthday of man, and we
pause annually at this critical juncture to ask and
to try to provide the answer to why.Rosh Hashana
is Yom Hazikaron, it is the day we give a big
klop, not on the bimah but on our hearts, and like
R’ Levi Yitzchak, we announce, there is a Ribono
Shel Olam, there is a Creator, we are here to serve
at the pleasure of the King.
In February 2008, Esquire Magazine published
an article entitled: “10 Who Tasted Greatness
(and Choked on It).” The column mockingly
counted down “the people who nearly reached
the Heavens only to have hubris or plain bad luck
trigger an unexpected return to the muck.”
Number 10 on the list was Thomas E. Dewey –
The “Almost President” who is most remembered
for the Chicago Daily Tribune headline that
published “Dewey Defeats Truman” before the
full election returns were in. Others on the list
included athletes who came close to historic
achievements and music groups that just missed
their moment. Who might you ask is number 1 on
the list? None other than Steven Hill, who was
described by a legendary theater instructor as
“one of the finest actors America has ever
produced.” Hill, born Shlomo Krakovsky, was
one of only 50 actors to be accepted to the newly
created Actors Studio in 1947, landed his first
Broadway role in 1948 and for the next two
decades Hill was busy in theater, motion pictures
and the so-called “Golden Age” of live TV

drama. As a contemporary of his, another well-
known actor put it, “When I first became an actor,

there were two young actors in New York:
Marlon Brando and Steven Hill. A lot of people
said that Steven would have been ‘the one,’ not
Marlon.”
Yet, despite being well on the way to success on
Broadway and in Hollywood, Steven was still
looking for something more in life. Appearing as
Sigmund Freud in the play A Far Country in 1961
had a profound effect on Hill. In one scene, a
patient screams at Freud, “You are a Jew?!”
Freud would answer, “Yes.” Over time, Hill
found that exchange echoing in his ears for hours
after every performance. “Yes,” he would say to
himself, “Yes, I am a Jew.” He described, “I
slowly became aware that there was something
more profound going on in the world than just
plays and movies and TV shows. I was provoked
to explore my religion.”
In another interview, Hill said: “I used to ask
myself, ‘Was I born just to memorize lines?’ I
knew there had to be more to life than that. I was
searching—trying to find the answers—to find
myself—and I did.” Hill said that he had gone

home to Seattle ten years earlier and was “feeling
depressed because I seemed to be leading an
aimless existence. Oh sure, I was a star with all
the glamour and everything. But something was
missing. My life seemed empty—meaningless.”
In 1966, he landed the starring role on Mission:
Impossible. While the show would become an
international hit and run for seven seasons, Hill
was fired after the first season because he refused
to work on Shabbos.
Hill began to study Torah with the Skverrer
Rebbe, Rav Yaakov Yosef Twersky, and became
shomer mitzvos. While Rav Twersky encouraged
Steven not to give up on his acting career, Hill’s
Shabbos observance made him unavailable for
Friday night or Saturday matinee performances,
effectively ending his stage career. He lost many
film roles to actors like Marlon Brando and Paul
Newman. Hill ltimately left acting for about a
decade to focus on learning Torah and building a
Jewish home with his second wife Ruchi,
daughter of Rabbi Yehoshua Leib Shenker of
Baltimore, and great-granddaughter of Rav Yosef
Chaim Sonnenfeld.
Hill re-entered acting in 1977 and for the next
13 years he continued to struggle, landing some
voice-over work and bit roles in movies. Then, in
1990, his agent called him and said: “I have the
perfect role for you.” It was starring role in a new
show called Law and Order. The role would
accommodate his Shabbos observance and his
requirement that his wardrobe had to be checked
for Shatnez. If he was walking more than 4 cubits
outdoors he could wear a hat. And he generally
appeared on the show for 5-10 minutes each
episode which gave him plenty of time to learn in
his trailer during breaks. He finished Shas three
times.
Unlike Steven Hill many, but not all of us were
born into observant homes, we were privileged to
receive Torah educations. We have been keeping
mitzvos our whole lives and yet, like him, we
must become aware that there is something more
profound going on in the world than just plays
and movies and TV shows. We too should be
provoked to explore our religion, to stop and
remember Hashem, to be grateful He has placed
us in His world and to be dedicated to fulfill our
purpose.
כי הנה עיקר התשובה :writes Emes Sfas The
the ,הוא לתקן השליחות שנשתלח האדם לעוה״ז
core of teshuva is returning to fulfilling our
mission in this world. On Rosh Hashana, listen
to the sound of that shofar and ask yourself, what
is your mission? Steven Hill, or Reb Shlomo as
he was known in Skver, fulfilled his mission… It
was hard, it required great courage and sacrifice.
But it was not impossible, and neither is ours
once we make the effort to discover it.
Zichron teruah, yom ha’zikaron – as we
celebrate the birthday of humanity, let us pause to
find out why. Let us be zocheir boreinu,
remember our Creator, remember that there is a
Ribono Shel Olam and use these ten days to ask,
how can we be better, better husbands and wives,
better mothers and fathers, better children, how
can we be better ovdei Hashem.