Rosh Hashanah: Give everyone a chance to begin again

One of the most important aspects of Rosh Hashanah is not to say bad things about another person. As you want G-d to give you a chance, give everyone else a chance to also begin again. So my dearest brothers and sisters, it’s only after Rosh Hashanah when our beginning is so strong, when we get a taste that our inside has never been blemished and we go to the Holy Cleaner, the Master of the World who takes out all the stains from our hearts, and the dust from our souls. And He is doing it while we are singing and dancing — on Yom Kippur we tell Him all our mistakes because we have so much inner strength already.

Please, please, give each other strength. Don’t ever stop giving compliments to each other and most of all to your children, whose self confidence depends on you! On Rosh Hashanah, every second counts like a thousand years. Our holy master Reb Nachman says, “The greatest gift we can give somebody is to give him back his self confidence.

When we make a mistake, not only we do wrong, our soul is shriveling and we look down at ourselves. A whole year of mistakes — Gevalt! How do we look at ourselves? It doesn’t take much to give up on somebody else — but to give upon ourselves is always Federal Express. To have the guts to really begin again, takes a lot of inner strength.

So Rosh Hashanah, the holiest day of beginnings, we don’t mention our mistakes in order to have the strength to stand before G-d like newborn babies.

Our holy rabbis teach us that the sound of the shofar is the sound of our innermost soul and heart but also the sound of a newborn baby. It is everything. It wakes us up, gives us strength, reminds us how holy we are and how holy we can be, and also how close we are and how easy it is to be the best and most exalted.

Blessings and love. Shlomo

One of the last written messages Reb Shlomo gave over to the chevra