Rosh Hashanah - Turn to the Tears | Rabbi Aharon Weinberg

Dear Yidden, Approaching Rosh Hashanah, I would like to share a story I remember when I was a young bochur and my uncle, the Slonimer Rebbe, the Nesivos Sholom זכותו יגן עלינו, was in his elder years. And when it came to say לשנה טובה, to wish the blessing of a good year after the davening Rosh Hashanah night, they came running from the whole Yerushalayim. It took literally two hours. And he held his hand, stretched out, and he shook for many hundreds of Yidden his hands. I had the Zchiyah to eat by him the Seudah Rosh Hashanah night, and when he came into the dining room, his son asked him: Tatte, you held your hand stretched out for two hours. Didn't your hand hurt you? Didn't you feel pain in your hands? And I remember his eyes filled with tears, and he looked at him and he said, מיין קינד, my dear son, Believe me, when I saw those faces of those yungerleit and those elderly people going in front of me, and their eyes and their whole being were yelling and crying out to me, Rebbe, please, please, remember me. Remember everything I'm going through. Remember to daven for me. Have me in mind on this day. Woe, that this hurt me so much more than the pain in my hands, how much suffering is there in Klal Yisroel. And maybe we could say this is exactly what happens this day by the Ribono shel Olam. In the Zohar Hakadosh it’s brought down that the Satan, the Mekatreg, the Yetzer Hara, brings mountains and sacks of Yiddishe sins, of Yiddishe חטאים, and he wants to prosecute Yidden. But on this day, the Gemara says, it's a day Every single person goes in front of the Ribono shel Olam, just like sheep go in front of a shepherd, and the Ribono shel Olam takes a close look at every single Yid. And the Ribono shel Olam sees all the pain and anguish, all the tears, all the sufferings that we're going through spiritually, physically. And the Ribono shel Olam turns to the Satan and says: What? You want to bring me חטאים, sins, that caused me pain? Woe, does it hurt me and pain me more to see the suffering of my children, Klal Yisroel. I don't want to know of חטאים. And this is what we cry and we plea in our opening words of Selichos. We say: Ribono shel Olam, please, Turn to the sufferings, turn to our tears, ואל לחטאות and turn away from our sins. But the best way to get the Ribono shel Olam to turn away from the חטאות is when a Yid says: I'm going to look down. I'm going to look away. I'm going to turn away. I'm going to turn and change, not go in that area. I'm going to make a turn in my life. Then he could say: Ribono shel Olam, I turned away. I turned something over in my life. Ribono shel Olam, You please turn away and turn over all the Dinim into Rachamim and give us a good, blessed, sweet year, ברוחניות ובגשמיות.