In the Days of Awe, we will request our needs with the consciousness of our mission – we must crown God over the entire world, and for this, we need all means in the greatest expansion – exceptional wealth, righteous children, and the attainment of Divine inspiration!
The holy books state that in the "Keter" (Crown) sanctification of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur – during the recitation of "Ayeh" – one can choose one of three great blessings: exceptional wealth, righteous children, or the attainment of Divine inspiration. These three blessings are essentially an 'expansion' of every person's basic needs – sustenance (specifically in the form of exceptional wealth), children (specifically that they should be righteous), and life (that it may be true, inner-directed, and purposeful life, a life imbued with Divine inspiration – no less!).
There is a twofold question here: On one hand, why should we choose only one of the blessings? After all, we want and need everything – children, life, and ample sustenance (and all in abundance, as the Lubavitcher Rebbe emphasized)! On the other hand, why 'exaggerate'? Isn't good livelihood enough for us (even if it's not exceptional wealth), upright children (even if they're not completely righteous), and long, healthy lives (even without Divine inspiration)?
Indeed, during the days of crowning God, we are not merely occupied with requesting our 'small' needs – we must think 'big', about rectifying all of reality. The Ba'al Shem Tov teaches that reality is composed of three layers: Worlds-Souls-Divinity, each of which needs rectification – the Worlds need to ascend, the Souls need to connect (with each other), and Divinity needs to unify (meaning, to manifest in reality). To effect this rectification, we need all three blessings, which manifest in these three layers:
Drawing down sustenance, good livelihood, belongs to the layer of Worlds. To elevate all the Worlds, we need exceptional wealth – "There is no king without a people," ( עם, an acronym forעושר מופלג , exceptional wealth) for exceptional wealth gives the power to influence all of external reality (every change in reality costs money, and when there is enough money, all the Worlds ascend).
Children are souls – each child is a soul. But to effect the connection of souls, we specifically need righteous children – children who live together in love, brotherhood, peace, and friendship.
The attainment of Divine inspiration obviously belongs to the dimension of Divinity – Divine inspiration is the revelation of Divinity within the soul. Indeed, the unification of Divinity is the revelation of Divinity specifically within the world. The attainment of Divine inspiration, for which we pray, is not just a heavenly Divine experience (and certainly not 'entertainment' of foreseeing the future or knowing hidden things) – it is knowledge, in practical terms, of what God wants from us. This is an attainment that one merits only when one is freed from all external fears and is focused solely on revealing God's will for us (out of true fear of Heaven, which belongs to the Days of Awe). Then we merit that the Divinity manifesting through the souls will unify in the worlds – and God shall become King over all the earth!
Why, then, ask for only one request? To merit something 'big', one needs to 'go all in' – to choose it with full intensity, and not just as part of the general basket of needs. Nevertheless, Jews are wise merchants, and in the end, we will not give up on anything (in order to rectify all of reality!): On the first day of Rosh Hashanah we will ask for exceptional wealth, on the second day we will ask for righteous children, and on Yom Kippur we will ask for the attainment of Divine inspiration. May we be inscribed and sealed for a good and sweet year!
