In the Christian world, the New Year is a time of “drink and be merry for tomorrow we die”. That is not so far from the truth for the “wicked” are considered to be dead even if they are medically alive. However, how does Judaism define wicked? Hitler would boast in all of his speeches of how he was doing G-ds will, yet no one however will say that Hitler was a good person. The answer is quite simple. We open the Torah and see what is in it. In every single Parsha of the Torah, all 54 of them, one can find mention of the importance of a Jew living in G-ds beloved garden and raising arms to defend it. This is not the case regarding Shabbat or Kosher or even learning the Torah.
The primary goal of the Jewish New Year however, is to proclaim G-d as the King of the World. We do this by inserting many prayers of G-ds kingship over mortal man. We also blow the shofar to remind us of the attempted sacrifice of Isaac. Our Rabbis inform us that the reason Isaac was selected, as a sacrifice was his half brother Ishmael mocked Isaac saying, “I had my circumcision when I was a thinking person while you had yours when you were only an eight day old baby”. Isaac retorted, “All you had was an amputation while I would be willing even to die for G-d”. This story happened however 4000 years ago. As a result, our Rabbis inform us that the merit of the forefathers has run out. They do not say except for the merit of the “sacrifice of Isaac”.
So why do we need to remind G-d of something that has no relevance to our generations? Whenever a Jew puts on the uniform of Tzahal (I.D.F.) he is not just defending one of the 230 countries in the world. He is defending the beloved garden of G-d. His merit in defending what G-d values more than anything else is incalculable. (Rav Nachman from Jerusalem points out the entire book of Bereishet does not mention one word about receiving the Torah, yet mentions ad nausea about receiving His beloved garden.) In the world of today when the descendents of Ishmael have no objection to kill themselves alleging they are doing it for G-ds sake, we need every merit we can raise. In Parsha Toldot, Rashi informs us that the righteous son of a righteous individual is better than simply a righteous descendent of a wicked person. Therefore, upon blowing the Shofar we are not simply reminding G-d of a single mitzvah performed thousands of years ago by someone else that has no relevance in the world of today; rather we are reminding G-d of our tradition of hundreds of generations of being willing to make the Supreme Sacrifice for the true religion.
How does someone however know what is the true religion if both the Jewish and Moslem teach the need to fight for ones religion? Rav Nachman from Jerusalem points out that one cannot go to heaven by stepping on others. When a religion teaches the importance of blowing up civilians, in as painful a way as possible, one needs no further examination of that religion.
