One of the reasons we blow the shofar on Rosh Hashanah is to, so to speak, remind Hashem of Akedat Yitzchak and the great mesirut nefesh of Avraham Avinu. And in that zechut, Hashem has extra mercy upon us.
One of the ways in which we can bring more of Hashem's mercy upon us now is through mesirut nefesh. But what exactly does it mean to show self-sacrifice? Rabbeinu Bachya describes how unfathomable the test of Avraham Avinu was. He waited one hundred years to finally have the child he had been waiting for, and it came about through the greatest miracle. Avraham loved Yitzchak so much. He taught him all of his Torah, and with every passing year, his love for him grew even more. Avraham knew Yitzchak was going to be his future and was going to continue the job that he had started. And then, when Yitzchak was thirty-seven years old, at the prime of his life, when everything Avraham had worked for was right there in front of him, Hashem told Avraham to bring his son as a korban.
At that moment, Avraham had to overcome his natural will and desire, put it aside, and focus on one thing: What is Hashem's will? What does Hashem want? Avraham understood that our main purpose in this world is to do the will of Hashem. And therefore, as difficult as it was, he was prepared to put aside everything he had worked for. He said, "Hashem, I want to do what You want." That is mesirut nefesh—putting aside our will and focusing on what Hashem's will is.
This year, we had an opportunity to do that ourselves on the first day of Rosh Hashanah. The Gemara tells us how powerful the blowing of the shofar is, how it causes Hashem to go from the Kisei HaDin and sit upon the Kisei HaRachamim. We need the shofar so much. We want every possible zechut to bring us a happy and blessed year. Yet this year, on the first day of Rosh Hashanah, which was Shabbat, because of a rabbinical decree, we did not blow the shofar. We were saying, "Hashem, it's not about what we want. We don't want Your Torah to possibly be violated by someone carrying a shofar on Shabbat. Even though we would love to have the great zechut of shofar, Your will is more important to us than our will." We put aside what we wanted for what Hashem wanted. That is mesirut nefesh, and that mesirut nefesh, be'ezrat Hashem, brought about an outpouring of love and mercy from Hashem.
Now, during the Aseret Yemei Teshuvah, part of our avodah has to be having more mesirut nefesh in our own lives. There are so many times when doing what Hashem wants conflicts with what we want. Maybe we want to say something, but we know Hashem doesn't want us to say it. Maybe we want to do something, but we know Hashem doesn't want us to do it. At that moment, we can ask ourselves the same question: What is the will of Hashem? And if we put aside our will for Hashem's will, then we are practicing mesirut nefesh.
There is another area in which this can be very difficult. There are people who are not happy with the way their lives are going. Maybe they did not get what they wanted so badly. Maybe they have been waiting such a long time for something that's so important to them. Here, there is a great opportunity to say, "Hashem, my will is to live the life that You want me to live. As long as my life is meant to be like this, without having what I want right now, I'm going to be happy to live it. I'm going to continue serving You with happiness. I'm going to continue growing and doing everything I can in avodat Hashem, because what matters to me most is what You want from me."
That is tremendous mesirut nefesh—living the life Hashem wants us to live, even though it may not necessarily be the life that we want for ourselves at this moment. To continue on strong, to serve Hashem with happiness and joy, and to continue committing ourselves to growing stronger and stronger. And with Hashem's help, if we focus on the will of Hashem and what He wants from us, it will arouse an abundance of mercy from Hashem upon us.