Page 14 - HaMizrachi # 22 Rosh HahHana - Yom Kippur 2020 USA
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TORAT MIZRACHI MIZRACHI SCHOLARS-IN-RESIDENCE
Sivan Rahav Meir and Yedidya Meir
What’s New
About Our
New Year?
e are so used to the word Elsewhere we read “On this day you allow our relationship to the Land of
“new” but the Torah asks have become the L-rd your G-d’s own Israel to become old or stale.
Wus to stop and contem- people” (Devarim 27:9) and Rashi, in
plate. To truly renew ourselves. What the same spirit of perpetual renewal, As the verse states, “And it will be
actually becomes “new,” in our world comments: “Let every day be in your when the L-rd brings you to the land
and in ourselves, at this time of year? eyes as the very same day you entered of the Canaanites as He swore to you
Our Sages ask us to contemplate three into a covenant with Him.” and to your forefathers, and He will
things each day, as if they were new: give it to you” (Shemot 13:11), upon
Now is the most appropriate time of which Rashi elaborates: “‘And He will
1. Torah the year to refresh and renew our con- give it to you,’ that is, you should con-
nection to the Torah, to think of it as a
One of the most popular words in gift we just received this morning, and sider it as if He gave it to you on that
Devarim, which we read throughout to visualize how the new year will look same day and not as an inheritance
the month of Elul, is םֹוי ַ ה – “today.” when a completely new light of Torah from your ancestors.”
Again and again, as we read about – one never seen before – shines It does not matter where we live. We
entering the Land of Israel, we are upon it from within.
asked to relate to past events as if they must create a personal, vibrant and
are actually happening to us this very 2. Eretz Yisrael emotional connection with the Land
morning, and not 3,000 years ago in of Israel. We cannot rely only on what
the desert. “On this day the L-rd your The Land of Israel is the Promised we were told by our great-great-grand-
G-d commands you” (Devarim 26:16). Land, the Holy Land, but is it a new parents. Again, the months of Elul and
Rashi comments: “Each day, let them land? Indeed, we justifiably tell our- Tishrei are the perfect time to think
(the commandments) be brand new selves and the entire world that we about how to bring a new and authen-
as if you had just been commanded to have an ancient, historical right to this tic connection with the Land of Israel
perform them.” Land. Nevertheless, we should never into our lives.
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