The Year of Salvation, Delight and Moshiach
The Ba’al Shem Tov would frequently encourage us to break through the internal barriers that prevent us from expressing all of our latent potential, and to even go beyond our capabilities in doing good in all matters that involve our relationship with G-d and our relationship with others.
A Special Year
This year Rosh Hashanah will usher in the year 5770. Much has been written about the significance of this year, which is pregnant with multitude layers of meaning.
When referring to the year we usually drop the millennia. So this year is known in Hebrew as the year: tesha which comprises the Hebrew letters: tav, shin, ayin, which adds up to the number 770, inasmuch as Hebrew letters also serve as numbers.
The word tesha comes from the root that means salvation. In the Jewish context, salvation means for the Jewish people and indeed the entire world to be saved from all forms of adversity. In our most important daily prayer—the Shemoneh Esrei—we beseech G-d “For Your salvation we hope every day,” a reference to the salvation that will occur in the Messianic Age.
The Number Nine
The word tesha is also the Hebrew word for the number nine. The number nine has significance on multiple levels.
First, it is the highest number. The number ten, is actually a repetition of the sequence of numbers that go from one through nine. That the name of this year is nine suggests that this year has the potential to become the year of highest achievement. But high achievement in and of itself is not sufficient if it doesn’t endure.
And here is where we have a second connotation of the number nine:
According to the Midrash, nine is the number of consistency. No matter what you do to the number nine— multiply it by any other number—you will always get the number nine. To illustrate: Nine multiplied by two equals 18. One plus eight is nine. Another example: 9 multiplied by 613 is 5517. If you add up these numbers you will get nine in the end (5+5+1+7=18. 1+8=9). This suggests that the highest good that we will receive will be a good that does not dissipate.
T’hei Shnas Oneg-May it be a Year of Delight
But, even the highest and most consistent good can come with a price. It can be associated with pain and suffering.
To dispel the notion that the good that we will experience will come with a heavy price tag, there is yet another hint associated with the three letters that comprise this year: Tav, shin, Ayin:
These letters form an acronym for the phrase: “T’hei shnas oneg-It will be a year of delight.” Pain and suffering are not absolutes. The only absolute is G-d and His promise that a time will come that all sorrow and negativity will be erased. This year is certainly a good time for that to happen!
Indeed, the message of delight for this year is compounded because the first day of Rosh Hashanah occurs on a Shabbos, the day of delight. So powerful is the influence of the Shabbos and its message of peace, rest and delight, that we do not blow the shofar on the first day of Rosh Hashanah. One of the reasons for this is that the power of delight engendered by the Sabbath is capable of achieving the same objective of the shofar, which is designed to make the Divine power of delight enter and engulf the world.
All this implies that the ultimate and consistent good we will experience will be one that will be punctuated with delight. According to the teachings of Kabbalah and Chassidut, there is no more potent energy than delight that derives from the essence of the soul.
But even delight can be restricted to one place. This year the message of delight will spread to the entire world inasmuch as the number of this year, 770—a number made famous because it is the address of the Rebbe’s synagogue and the center of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement—is the numerical value of the word “parazta”— which occurs in the Biblical blessing G-d gave the Patriarch Jacob: “and you shall spread forth from the west and the east, the north and the south.”
Thus the message of delight that this new year represents will spread forth to all parts of the world in the literal sense of the word, as well as the figurative sense of the word. The delight we will experience will—as the word break-forth connotes—break through all the external and internal barriers that prevent this G-dly delight from extending to all parts of the macro world as well as the micro world.
But delight, even as it spreads to the far reaches of the world can be a limited form of delight. Once again the term “paratzta”dispenses with that notion because it connotes that the delight has no boundaries; nothing to confine or limit it.
And, finally, the words, “Beis Moshiach-the House of Moshiach” also adds up to the number 770. This implies that this year will be one in which we transform our lives, homes and the entire world to be one huge Home for Moshiach.”—a world that is hospitable to the ideal of G-d and His teachings.
In summation: May this year—as its name implies—be a year of salvation, uninterrupted, unrestricted and unlimited delight. A year of Moshiach!
Our Role
So far we’ve discussed what G-d’s role will be in the shaping of this year. What is our role?
We might suggest that our role in the above is to follow the Rebbe’s direction and persistent plea that we all should add to all the good that we already do and—as the Rebbe (who is the ninth generation of leadership from the Ba’al Shem Tov, the founder of the Chassidic movement) would frequently encourage us—to break through the internal barriers that prevent us from expressing all of our latent potential, and to even go beyond our capabilities in doing good in all matters that involve our relationship with G-d and our relationship with others.
May all of you—amidst all of Israel—be inscribed and sealed for a good and sweet year in all matters material and spiritual. And may we all greet Moshiach will delight and joy.
From the book Light from the Future: Rosh Hashanah by Rabbi Heschel Greenberg, published by the Jewish Discovery Center.
