When Hashem looks at the world in judgment, He includes every aspect of the world. He judges each nation individually to determine their fate for the coming year—every country and every society. Every community and every individual is judged.
But there is another type of judgment. It comes from the fact that Rosh Hashono is the anniversary of creation, so Hashem looks at the world globally. How well is it achieving its ultimate purpose? He created the world so that there would emerge one group of human beings who would recognize the Creator and accept the special task of bringing ruchniyus and awareness of Hashem into this physical world. He created the world at Ma’aseh Bereshis specifically on condition that there would be a nation who would accept His Torah and His mitzvos unconditionally and without compromise.

Every year, Hashem assesses if that condition is being met. On every Rosh Hashono Hashem scrutinizes His creation to see: if this group accepts Hashem and His Torah, then the world will continue. If not, the world will revert to emptiness and void.

What justifies the continued existence of this world?

The Rambam writes in his Introduction to Peirush Hamishnayos a critical understanding of the ma’amar Chazal that the only thing Hashem has in this world is the 4 amos of Halacha. He says clearly that Hashem keeps the entire world going only for the sake of those people whose lives are preoccupied with knowing Hashem and knowing and fulfilling His will -those who are dedicated to the 4 amos of halacha.

So who is or what is going to make or break that decision to keep the world going? The Rambam says don’t look at all the millions of idol worshippers and all the non-religious members of Klal Yisroel. The world isn’t justified by them. Our dedication to Hashem and His Torah is what justifies the world. And they in turn are justified by providing a functional society where Jews can dedicate themselves to the 4 amos of halacha.

This is what the Nefesh Hachayyim writes about the phrase “Chayei olam notah biso’cheynu”. Through our limud Torah, Hashem implanted within us the means for the world to continue to receive it’s vital life force Through our holding on to the Toras Emes, there is Chayei olam.

When Hashem evaluates each nation individually, they will be brought to an accounting to justify their continued prosperity. The gemara in Avodo Zoro tells us that there will be another judgment on each individual nation at the end of history. Rome will come forth demanding its reward because it created an enormous and elaborate economic infrastructure for Klal Yisroel to take advantage of to learn Torah. Similarly, each nation will come forth with a list of their national achievements that facilitated Klal Yisroel learning Torah. Hashem will reject all their clams to reward with the same response. All the things you built and achieved which helped Klal Yisroel weren’t done for the sake of heloing Klal Yisroel. It was purely motivated by greed and self-interest. You will be punished instead.

The question that begs itself is how could these nations stand before Hashem and lie to His face claiming that all that they did was for the sake of Klal Yisroel? How could these nations have imagined that they could fool the middas hadin?

Based on the Rambam we just mentioned, the Brisker Rav answered with a beautiful pshat. The Rambam tells us that all the prosperity and success achieved by the wealthy and powerful individuals and nations throughout history, was only possible because Hashem calculated in His infinite wisdom that in some way shape or form, that wealth and prosperity will benefit the tzaddikim in the future.

In reality, all of Rome’s vast economic resources where only developed in order to serve Torah. The Romans were saying absolute the truth—everything they were able to achieve was only for the sake of Klal Yisroel. Their mistake was in trying to take credit for that reality when they had no conscious intention to bring about that result. They only wanted that prosperity to serve their own interests, not Hashem’s.
It will somehow serve the purposes of Torah. Hashem allows that business to proper and that mansion to be built in order to support Torah. So Hashem justifies the continuation of his creation by those who serve the purpose of Creation. The Craetion and all that it contains doesn’t justify itself. We, who are members of that group of people who are dedicated to recognizing Hashem and dwell in the 4 amos of Halacha carry a tremendous responsibility. He is looking to us to justify the Creation and His arrangement of everything to facilitate those people who justify the world. He is asking: how seriously do they take their responsibility? How dedicated are they? Is there devotion to Torah and mitzvos strong enough to justify the continued existence of the entire cosmos?

The seriousness in which we take our avoda is critical for the coming Yom Hadin. And it is multi-faceted. It requires taking our davening seriously and our learning seriously our dikduk bemitzvos seriously and taking our lives overall with a sense of purpose and mission. As we approach the Yom Hadin, we need to make cheshbon hanefesh, and a different stages of life, or cheshbon must mature and develop.

The gemara in Megilla says before Rosh Hashono we are required to read Ki Savo and Nitzovim which contain the tochocho and the klolos. Why? “Tichleh shono ve’kililosehoh.” This is not just some poetic gesture to start the new year without any outstanding klolos in the weekly parsha. There is a deeper message. Approaching the Yom Hadin, we have to appreciate the awesome consequences of not accepting the responsibility we were given.

Reading the tochocho before Rosh Hashono serves to make us acutely aware that we need to take our role as the Am Hanivchar with utmost seriousness. Klal Yisroel reenacted Kabbolas Hatorah immediately before and after they entered Eretz Yisroel with brochos and klollos.

Why?

It was to impress upon Klal Yisroel that Torah is not a game. Living in this land requires them to maintain a higher standard than in any other land. The Eretz Yisroel demands that those who live on it maintain a society of kedushoh and taharoh or they will be exiled. The responsibility is real and the stakes are high. We cannot afford to take our central role in Hashem’s creation lightly. If we keep the Torah, Hashem will shower us with blessings and bounty beyond description. And if we don’t, it’s not as if we will just miss out on the good things. There will be death and destruction and exile and persecution. We read the tochocho to realize that awesome responsibility we carry before we reach the Yom Hadin. It’s not dependant on our level of inspiration or how easy or convenient it is to keep mitzvos. It is not dependant on our level of personal satisfaction or intellectual fulfillment. We need to accept the Torah absolutely with no reservations or provisions. It is not a game that is subject to our moods or whims. It is an awesome responsibility.

We are reading these parshiyos of tochocho and bris before Rosh Hashono simultaneously with the haftoros of the shivoh di’nechemtoh. These haftoros predict that someday we will wake up and Hashem will reestablish that lost bond with us. In the meantime we are working towards that goal.

We need to take this task very seriously. We live in a society where adolescence and freedom from commitments and obligations typically extends well into early adulthood and often beyond. The norm today is for people not to take their lives seriously and to brush off any attempts to make them buckle down and take responsibility for their own lives. Elul is a very serious time to reflect on what we are and who we are.

The Yom Hadin is a very serious judgment.

Two things to think about.

The last curse is upon one who will not uphold the Torah. The Yerushalmi asks, where do we find a Torah that is falling and needs to be supported? It answers that someone who personally engages in Torah and avodas Hashem to the maximum, but does not care enough to ensure that Torah is being kept by the general Jewish society is cursed. This ability to uphold the Torah for the wider community is symbolized by the person who does hagboh in Shul after krias haTorah. The idea of hagboh is to bring the sefer Torah to the attention of the entire kehilloh and have them proclaim in public that the Torah is true and we are accepting its truth.

This is an unbelievable zechus, but it should remind us of another dimension of the responsibility we accepted in Arvos Moav. At that second krisus bris we all became guarantors for our fellows Jews to help them keep their commitment to Torah and mitzvos as well as keeping our own.

We have a responsibility to every other Jew. And this brings to mind another gemara in Shabbos. At the time of the churbon habayis, Hashem instructed the malochei chaboloh to place a letter taf on the foreheads of all the inhabitants of Yerusholayim. A black taf for ‘Torah’ on the tzadikkim and a red taf for ‘toe’voh’ on the reshoim to mark them for destruction.

But then the midas hadin came to complain to Hashem about the discrimination. Hashem responds that it is oly just that the tzadikkim be spared! The midas hadin retorts that the tzadikkim are just as guilty and the re’shoim because they were passive and did not try to convince the re’shoim to do teshuvoh. Hashem responds that it is known before Him that even had the tzadikkim tried to give tocho’cho, it would not have changed anybody. The midas hadin answers back that it may have been revealed to Hashem, but the tzadikkim couldn’t have known it wouldn’t have helped. They didn’t bother because they didn’t care. Hashem says, you are right. Put a red taf on everyone.

The Torah puts a tremendous responsibility on us to use the kochos hanefesh and resources we were given to achieve the maximum in our avodas Hashem. We are judged not only for what we did or did not do, but for the ripple effect our actions or inactions had on the people around us—for better or for worse. We have enormous potential that we have to actualize for ourselves and for others. If we don’t make use of that potential because we don’t care, then Hashem has a claim on us.