Welcome to the Daily Chizuk (encouragement). On Rosh Hashanah, we recognize that Hashem is our King. Hashem is the only one in charge. Nobody else has any say about what goes on in our lives. Everything that happens on a day-to-day basis is just a manifestation of the will of Hashem. Nobody could take away anything from us or give us anything if Hashem didn't decree it first. And on Rosh Hashanah, Hashem will decide every single detail of a person's life for the upcoming year.
But it's a golden opportunity. We could have a fresh start, a new beginning. What was yesterday doesn't have to be tomorrow. A whole new world opens up. If people are waiting for a Shidduch (match), now it could be decided that they'll find one. If people are waiting to have children, now it could be decreed that they will be blessed. If people need a Refuah (healing), now it could be decreed that they'll be healthy. If people are having trouble with their businesses, now it could be decreed that they will be blessed. Now it could be decreed that they will prosper.
Chazal (the Sages) tells us: On Rosh Hashanah, Yosef was let out of prison in Mitzrayim (Egypt). What's the message? Rabbi Ephraim Waxman explained: Yosef was thrown not into a cell but into an underground pit. Could you imagine what the prison conditions must have been like in ancient Egypt? And nobody knew he was there. No one could possibly help him get out.
Here he is, a 17-year-old boy, all on his own, from a very wealthy family, a distinguished family. He used to be study partners with the Gadol HaDor (greatest of the generation), Yaakov Avinu. And now he's rotting away in a dungeon. And why is he here? His own brothers sold him. And here in Egypt, he was Mekadesh Shem Shamayim (sanctifying the Name of Heaven). He had a very difficult test with Eshet Potiphar (Potiphar's wife), and with tremendous strength, he overcame it. He could have said, "This is what I get for being a tzaddik (righteous person)."
And there he was, year after year, without hearing from anybody, without hearing anything happening that might get him out soon. And it looked like it was never going to end. And all of a sudden, after 12 years, on Rosh Hashanah, Paro needed an interpretation for his dream. And out of nowhere, they're rushing Yosef out of jail. They give him a haircut. They dress him up. They stand him before Paro. And everybody is telling him, "You're the wisest. You're the cleverest. You are the melech (King)." He knows 70 languages. They tell him, "You will reveal secrets. You will become the leader of the entire civilized world." The whole world economy was up to him. From the depths of despair and hopelessness, from nothingness, he went to the top of the world in an instant.
That is Rosh Hashanah. On Rosh Hashanah, a person could go from being the lowest, the most forgotten, the most hopeless to being elevated to the highest, to the highest positions.
Let us go into the day wanting to get closer to Hashem. Let us focus on what's really important in life. We say, we ask Hashem for life, but we have to know Hashem is—He wants to give us life more than we want it. He's pulling for us. We should all be inscribed in the book of Yeshuah (salvation), in the book of Refuot (health), in the book of health, in the book of life. Tizku leshanim rabot, ketiva vechatima tova.