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Rosh Hashanah Prayers: Gevurot III



Continued: So imagine, on Rosh Hashanah when we’re asking Hashem for life, it’s not simply asking, okay G-d, you know, hand over some cash, you know in years and give us an extra year and give us some extra money and give us some extra blessings, but as Hashem is giving us the gift of life, Hashem is making a commitment to every second of that life Hashem is going to give us.

Hashem is making a commitment, if I am going to give you life, I want it to be a life of meaning. I want it to be a life that you will be able to use to maximize your olam habo, therefore, mechalkel chaim b’chesed – I will sustain you every second of that extra life I am giving you now. I am making a commitment, make sure that I give you every opportunity that is possible for you to maximize your existence to give you the strength you need to maximize that existence so that every second of your life that I am going to give you this Rosh Hashanah can be a life of olam habo even while you are living in olam hazeh. That’s mechalkel chaim b’chesed.

It’s so important to remember. It’s not simply asking for a year of life. It’s not that Hashem just, you know, adds on a few numbers into the calculator but every second of that life that we are asking for in which we are asking Hashem, Hashem makes a commitment to every one of those seconds. I am going to do whatever is necessary for you to use the skills you have, the insights you have, the powers you have, the abilities you have to maximize every second, so that every second of the year you are asking for now can be a second of reaching higher and higher into olam habo.

This is an awesome blessing. Every second of life we ask for on Rosh Hashanah is a second of techiyas hameisim. It is a second of Hashem is saying, I am committing myself that every second of the life I am about to give you for this year is a second of olam habo existence.

And that’s why, this is one of the rare occasions when we say, not that Hashem does something with compassionate, but we say Hashem does it with abundant compassion – mechayei meisim b’rachamim rabim – abundant. What do you mean rachamim rabim? Hashem’s rachamim, Hashem’s compassion is always abundant. So why do we say here mechayei meisim b’rachamim rabim?

Because before the sin of Adam and Chava, it already says that Hashem combined the attribute of din – of justice, with the attribute of rachamim. B’yom barah Hashem Eloikim, so that even before the sin of Adam and Chava there was an element of rachamim, but after the sin when we began to misuse the world Hashem had given us to perfect ourselves and attach to Hashem, it’s no longer sufficient for Hashem to give us rachamim.

Now we are asking Hashem for rachamim rabim – please give us another year of life, a life which You have sustained from second to second with love, with care, with commitment to our earning olam habo despite the fact that we do things to sabotage the very life You’re giving us, because we lose awareness, we don’t use our time effectively.

So the rachamim rabim goes beyond the rachamim, the compassion of the gift of existence. Rachamim rabim goes to the point that Hashem actually will overlook the fact that we sabotage ourselves and will help us move forward and forward, that’s rachamim rabim. That’s the second beracha.

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