On Rosh Hashanah, drama fills the air. There is the tension of a courtroom, as we await our judgement. There is the tension of the liturgy as we read about life's fragilty in prayers like U-netaneh Tokef; and there is the tension of the shofar blowing, as we all nervously wait to make sure that a pure sound comes from our shofar.

With all this tension, there is one emotional reaction that constantly keeps reappearing on Rosh Hashanah. Every time we turn around on Rosh Hashanah, we notice another person crying. On the first day of Rosh Ha-Shanah, we read in the Torah the story of how Hagar and Yishmael both cry after they are exiled from the house of Avraham and Sarah. In the haftorah of the first day we read about the cries of Channah, as she was a barren woman. And in the haftorah of the second day we read the pasuk, "rachel mevakah al baneah, rachel cries for her children." On the second day we also read the story of the akedah, the near-sacrifice of Yitshak, and here our midrash teaches us that both Sarah and an Angel also cried.

Maybe the most poignant cries that we hear on Rosh Ha-Shanah are the sounds of the shofar. According to the Gemara in Massekhet Rosh Ha-Shanah, the teruah sound that the shofar makes is supposed to sound like the cries of the mother of Sisera, the ancient, defeated general. So the sounds that we constantly hear on Rosh Ha-Shanah are the sounds of crying.

[Pause] Why is everyone crying? Why is crying dominating our day of judgement?

I think that the reason for these cries is tightly connected to the concept of teshuvah, the concept of repentance, which is a central aspect of our yamim noraim, our days of Awe.

In order to understand the concept of teshuvah, I want to focus on one particularly difficult passage in the Torah, which at first glance might seem entirely unconnected to Rosh Hashanah.

Says God to Moshe: I'll take you out of Egypt using great miracles and signs. And I guarantee that Pharaoh will not send you out before I punish him with the ten plagues. The reason is: "va-ani aksheh et lev pharaoh. I shall harden the heart of pharaoh." God is telling Mosheh that he will not allow Pharaoh to repent.

This is an extremely difficult idea. How is it possible that Pharaoh is denied this ability to repent? After all, teshuvah is a central idea of Judaism. And its not only central to Judaism, its also central to the world. It seemingly allows people to realize that they can always return, that they can make up for their past mistakes. To take away the concept of teshuvah from someone is to strip this person of positive energy and optimism. So how is it possible that the Torah can say that Pharaoh did not have the ability to repent? And how is it possible that anyone can ever lose the ability to repent?

There are many, many answers to this question, but right now I want to focus only on one answer, that of Rambam, Maimonides, in his Hilkhot Teshuvah, Laws of Repentance. Rambam writes (6: 3): “It is possible that someone can commit such a great sin or great sins…she-monin mi-menu ha-teshuvah ve-ein manichin lo reshut la-shuv mei-risho, that the punishment for these sins becomes that the right to repent is removed from that person and that person has no ability to abandon the wickedness."

This is how Rambam explains the hardening of Pharaoh's heart. Pharaoh had committed so many sins in his life that he reached the point of no return. He simply could not turn back the clock anymore and erase what happened. Nothing Pharaoh could do could ever change the fact that he had acted so harshly towards the Jewish people. And because he had acted this way for a certain amount of time, he actually lost the ability to repent. So Rambam is teaching us that the right to repent is not absolute! It is a privilege, and it doesn't always work. But why doesn't it work? Shouldn't we all have the right to turn back the clock and ask God for forgiveness? According to Rambam, the answer is—no. The punishment of the Pharaoh is the very sad fact that he lost the right to do teshuvah. He lost the ability to control his own life. The hardening of his heart was simply the result of his acting too wickedly for too long a time. He had reached a point from which he could no longer come fully back.

Y. Leibovitz explains that the situation is similar to a drug addict. The first time someone takes drugs, the action is a free one, the person has total control of their actions. However, the addict has no ability to control his or her life. The addict can only respond to the situation by seeking more and more drugs. The addict has lost the ability to control his life.

The addict is like the person who has the lost the right to repent. The Mishnah teaches us,” Averah Gorerret Averah,” “A sin leads to another sin.” Sometimes we choose a path in life and the path seems irreversible. The great fear is that a bad path will truly become irreversible. We must always act before reach the point of no return.

Because the reality is that there are many decisions and actions that we do in life that simply can't be reversed. If you waste away your body on drugs or alcohol, the reality is that you will feel the physical effects. Even if you are regretful of the fact that you took drugs, the unfortunate truth is that your body is physically weakened.

What works on a physical level, also applies on a mental level. The sad truth is that we often make mistakes, which affect our whole lives. If someone made a mistake and was convicted of a crime, no matter how much a person regrets and repents that crime will forever be with him. He can't physically erase the crime.

This is one aspect of teshuvah. And I think this is why everyone is actually crying on Rosh Ha-Shanah. Rosh Ha-Shanah is a time to take stock of ourselves. And often when we look closely we see that we've made mistakes. Sometimes we've made realluy big mistakes which we just can't change.

This is what teshuvah is about. Looking back at the mistakes of the past and realizing that we messed up. And when we look back at those mistakes, we cry. This is the sound of the shofar's teruah. It is the sound of our cries for our mistakes of the past.

But maybe even more importantly the sound of the teruah should cause us to realize that not all of our mistakes can be corrected. Sometimes we make a decision, and we have to live with the consequences of our decision for the rest of our life. The cries of the teruah remind us: Don't let our lives get to that point. Correct our mistakes, while we still can.

But the shofar also has another sound, a tekiah, a single long blast. And this sound points to another aspect of teshuvah. Let's say, tragically our lives have reached that point. We've made mistakes which can't be corrected--we've committed horrible sins that simply can't be erased. What then should we do?

If the teruah represents our cries, the tekiah, the single note, going on and on, represents our unlimited human potential. This is the other aspect of teshuvah that must always accompany our cries. We must realize that sometimes from our mistakes we can utilize our potential. Some of our mistakes can never escape us. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't still strive to accomplish great things in this world.

I'll always have with me the image of Mickey Mantle as a dying man. This great physical specimen cut his life short by many years probably because he drank far too much alcohol. Try as he could, once he was sick he could not undo his weakened state or the thousands of times that he drank to excess. But as a dying man he strove for a very important goal. He told people not to repeat his own mistakes. So even though he was dying from his mistakes he was still able to strive to fulfill his destiny as a leader in this world.

The blast of the tek contrasts with the cries of the teruah. It reminds us that even though are errors might be great, we can sometimes use the experience of our sins as a means to help others in the world. A former drug addict, who may never be able to fully recover his health, and on a personal level might forever be scarred, can help the world by lecturing about the evils of drugs. Or someone who made the sad mistake of entering into a disastrous marriage, can use their mistake as a way of educating others and helping other people avoid family tragedies.

This is the message of the shofar and the message of teshuva. Realize that we can mistakes in our lives that are irreversible. One aspect of teshuvah is actually crying over those mistakes and trying to stop ourselves from reaching that nadir of no return. The teruah with its sad cries, encapsulates that message. But those cries must always be accompanied by the tekiah, the single blast which symbolizes our hope and potential. And the tekiah points to the other aspect of teshuvah: the realization that we can use the lessons of our mistakes as a means of fulfilling our destiny.