The Rosh Hashanah Shift: From Egoism to Pure Bestowal

We often find ourselves trapped in a familiar spiritual paradox as the New Year approaches. We want connection, we want purpose, and we want to feel the presence of something higher in our lives. But the moment we try to hold the Creator in our thoughts, our focus drifts and we forget. In a recent morning lesson, a student raised this exact question, wondering how we can actually fulfill the main advice of never forgetting the Creator even for a moment, and whether the advice for not forgetting is simply to remember. The answer lies in understanding the psychological and spiritual mechanics of effort.

Nature gives us a clear template for how focus works. A mother never forgets her child. From the moment of conception through birth and raising the child, her mind is naturally and effortlessly attached because the child represents her absolute highest priority. In spirituality, however, we don't start off with natural love for the divine or for others; we start with our ego and the desire to receive for ourselves. The only way to generate that same level of absolute priority toward spiritual development is through exertion. Whatever you invest effort into automatically becomes important to you. The sweat, time, and emotional energy you put into a goal builds its value in your mind. Once something becomes genuinely important, you no longer need to remind yourself to think about it, because you simply cannot forget it. Effort leads to importance, importance leads to continuous attention, and attention leads to remembrance.

To reach true spirituality, we have to replace all abstract names with a single,

uncompromising concept: Bestowal, the force of pure, unconditional giving.

To make this transition, we have to redefine what we're aiming for during this pivotal time. When people hear words like God, Creator, or Spirituality, the ego immediately imagines a powerful divine entity designed to fulfill personal desires or guarantee a good life. But worshiping a concept because it satisfies our ego is just another form of self-interest. To reach true spirituality, we have to replace all abstract names with a single, uncompromising concept: Bestowal, the force of pure, unconditional giving. When you swap the word "Creator" for "the quality of Bestowal," the spiritual mirror becomes instantly clear, allowing you to see where you act out of self-interest and where you genuinely act for what lies outside yourself.

This journey doesn't happen overnight. It's an internal development where we learn to navigate three distinct elements within ourselves: the heart with its natural egoistic desires, the point in the heart which seeks something beyond this world, and the observing "I" that must choose between them. You don't need to destroy your natural desires, as they are inherently neutral. What matters is for whose benefit you use them. When you place the effort to bestow at the center of your life, you perform the true shift of Rosh Hashanah - placing a new intention at the head of your development. By making the effort to give through study, environment, and daily practice, you build the value of bestowal until it becomes the primary lens through which you experience reality.