We may think that we stopped our work in Egypt around the time of Pesach but the Gemara in Rosh Hashanah (11a) tells us that we stopped working as slaves on Rosh Hashanah. The Gemara also tells us of Rabbi Eliezer’s opinion that Mashiach will come in Tishrei. Our relief from slavery and our soon to come redemption both being in Tishrei teaches us an important lesson for our personal Rosh Hashanah. Throughout the year we inevitably become attached to certain sins, whether they are mistakes we made or actions we did willingly, they happened. Amazingly we can fix our errors through Teshuvah but until we erase these mistakes from ourselves we feel weighed down – enslaved – by our misdeeds. That weight is like the laws of nature. We can take a big rock and with a lot of effort we could get it airborne but almost instantly it comes back to the ground, for this is the natural inclination of a stone ruled by the laws of gravity, to rise slowly and fall fast. But our soul, our Holy soul, is like a fire; drawn upwards by its very nature. For our soul is inclined toward Heaven. When we sin we alter the nature of our soul, making it incline downward and making any upward motion painful, difficult and slow moving as if our soul was enslaved by a negative traction. But now we come to Tishrei and just like our ancestors before us were removed from their slavery we are removed from our slavery to the mistakes in our past. Rosh Hashanah is the day where we are freed from our chains and allowed to go strong towards redemption without any gravity working against our soul.

May we truly break free from our mistakes and arrive in a new year with a pure stature and a holy mindset.