The blessings before the Shema talk about G-d as the Creator and the Revealer. After the Shema, we turn to the third quality of this unique G-d Who is One: the Redeemer. The blessing rehearses the exodus from Egypt, and talks about how G-d “drowned the arrogant and helped the dear ones cross through….and for this the beloved ones praised G-d.”
Why “dear” and “beloved”? Rabbi Yaakov Chayim Sofer, a great Sephardic rabbi who came to Jerusalem about a hundred years ago, explains that when we saw the Egyptian chariots thundering toward us, we all made perfect repentance before G-d. This is in keeping with the statement in Pirkei Avot (2:15) that we should all repent the day before we die. Normally, we don’t know what that day is, so we should repent every day, but at the Red Sea, facing the Egyptian onslaught, we all thought the time had come.
And what happens when you repent? Maimonides explains in his Laws of Repentance (7:6) “The greatness of repentance is that it brings a person closer to the Divine Presence….It brings close those who are distant. The truth is that before repentance, he was disliked, distasteful, alienated and repulsive, but on the day he repents he becomes beloved and pleasant, close and dear. “
Making us live through that terrible and traumatic moment every single day (and yes, it is actually a mitzvah to remember the exodus every single day) is intended as a stimulus of our repentance, our teshuvah. Let’s be honest: When someone says “You should repent every day,” if we are generous, we’ll put it somewhere way down on our to-do list; otherwise, we blow it off entirely. But by taking seriously the threat of our imminent demise at the shore of the Sea, we could move it up to the top of the list.
The same is true of the High Holy Days. We all know that the image of G-d sitting with a big book in His/Her hand writing down our mitzvot and our averot (sins) and determining our fate for the coming year is metaphorical. But it is incredibly evocative (not to mention provocative). It’s not a Jewish version of Santa Claus writing down “who’s naughty and nice.” Instead, it is meant to stimulate that feeling of truly living your last day, and truly seeking, at long last, “at-one-ment” with G-d through teshuvah.
The profound feelings we have when our High Holy Days are meaningful to us is meant to be experienced every single day as we remember how, that one time, we all became “dear” and “beloved” through pure teshuvah before the “One” of the Shema.