The Talmud in Rosh Hashana lists the many historical events that Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua disagree on. But there are six events that they both agree on, five of them happened on Rosh Hashana:
1. Sarah conceived
2. Rachel conceived
3. Hannah conceived
4. Yosef was freed from jail
5. The slavery of the Israelites in Egypt ended.
In this class I look at these events one by one and show that none of them were deserved or earned. In each case, the blessing came despite previous behavior of these otherwise righteous people.
And the message of the two rabbis, in my opinion, is that Rosh Hashana is not about thinking we have earned the right to the blessings of the coming year, nor that we should regret our sins and repent of our wickedness (that comes later on Yom Kippur). Rather, Rosh Hashana is a time when we are given life, family, wealth, health and everything else despite the fact that we don’t deserve them. It is a fresh start, a new year, and our task is to use the undeserved blessings we receive for good in the coming year.