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In this Elul shiur, Rav Dov Ber Cohen explores the courage it takes to begin again — not once, but year after year, with the same list, the same struggles, and the same invitation to grow. Drawing fro
The Rabbi Dov Ber Cohen Podcast explores Jewish mindfulness, emotional mastery, relationships, and real inner avodah.
In each shiur, Rabbi Dov Ber shares practical Torah wisdom for navigating anxiety, deepening connection, strengthening emunah, and living with greater presence and purpose.
Rooted in Chassidic depth yet grounded in everyday life, these teachings are experiential, honest, and transformative.
If you’re seeking clarity without pressure, growth without guilt, and spirituality that actually changes how you live - this podcast is for you.
Okay, shalom. Is this the beginning or the end of the year? End. Isn't that cool? Some people said beginning, some people said end. Jews always find something to argue about. So the truth is it very much feels like the beginning of the year to me because yeshiva goes back, school goes back, it's like the beginning of the year, but obviously it's the end of the year. It's the last month of the year, but in a way in Judaism, the last month is really the beginning of the year because we're in a cycle. And we say the Gemara says two opposite things, which is very strange, you wouldn't expect that. But it says הכל הולך אחר הסוף, hagmar really, everything goes after the end. הכל הולך אחר ההתחלה, everything goes after the beginning. It also says everything goes after the end. It's cool. And they're both true and they're both real because how you finish something, if you finish on a high, that uplifts everything, brings it up with you. But also how you start, the stronger you start, the better your momentum, the more likely it is you're going to succeed. So Judaism's really taken the month of Elul and made it the end and the beginning. Finish strong, which is a strong beginning. The best offense is defense. No, what is it? The best defense is offense. Just got back from America. The best defense is offense. So this is what we're doing, we're tapping into Elul again and we're going to learn from Beyam Darkecha, student of Rav Morgenstern, we're going to learn a little bit deeper what we're trying to achieve here. And really it all begins with our attitude, our attitude to Elul and our attitude to growth because some people are a bit worn out at some point. It's like I did Elul last year, and I did Elul the year before, and I did it the year and I'm really trying to get excited about Elul, but it's tiring, I'm a bit worn out. How do I get how do I live fully with hislavus, with enthusiasm? Am I living with enthusiasm whilst I've got all stuff going on in my life? People have got lots of stuff going on in their life: their relationships, and finances, and stuff. There's so much stuff to deal with, it's like I'd really like to do avodas Hashem and I'd really like to just be a happy, playful person and I'd really like to be tapping into spirituality and that's really important to me, but I've just got so much stuff to deal with. So I'm just it's a bit heavy, life's a bit heavy, I'm carrying lots of stuff. So how do I deal with life when I'm carrying all my stuff? So we're going to learn. So here we go. So what's the purpose of this book? What's the purpose of our life? What's the purpose of Elul? What's the purpose of our learning together? להורות את הדרך. That's it. We don't even need to translate that, but we do. It means to show the way, to light up the path. What is the path that we're meant to be walking? Now you always want to be walking on a path. In fact, you're always on a path. Life is you're on the treadmill of life, you are going, your life's happening. But you've got to be consciously on the path and you've got to choose your path. What path am I on? Am I on the right am I on the right path? And do I know how to walk that path? Am I on the right mountain? We really finished last year by saying that many people are really pushing hard and they're struggling to get to the top of the mountain. It's just that they're on the completely wrong mountain. They've just climbed they've just got the wrong mountain, they've just got lost somewhere on the way and they've started walking up the wrong path. And the further they go along the path, in a way they feel accomplished because look how far I've come. It's like yeah, but you're on the wrong mountain. So you've gone very far in the wrong direction. So this is part of what teshuva means. Teshuva means coming back and making sure that we're walking in the right direction in the first place. In the first place. What is it that I'm invested in? What is it that I'm really thinking about and yearning for? So most people spend most of their life just dealing with their issues. Most people spend most of their life just dealing with their issues. That's not what life's meant to be, just dealing with the next issue. I'm just kind of staying afloat and spending my life dealing with issues. Well actually, we're not meant to just deal with issues. We're meant to spend our lives getting somewhere: climbing, growing. Last week's parsha, the mitzvah not to cut down fruit trees. One of my favorite mitzvot, you're not allowed to cut down fruit trees. Why? Firstly, the Torah just says because you're an idiot, that's how you eat. Why are you cutting down the thing that you eat? But it's really the source of the mitzvah of not wasting, bal tashchis. Don't waste. And I think many people are wasting a lot of their lives, investing in the wrong things. So we've got to make sure that we're not wasting our lives, we're using our lives, but once again, not with some kind of neurotic urgency. We want to really be growing, but not from a place of neurotic urgency. We want to be growing from a place of, I'm really excited to live a better life and I realize that the journey is quite challenging sometimes and I'll fall down, and that's okay. Neurotic urgency. If I was going to make an album of my favorite rock songs that I wrote, I'd call it neurotic urgency. Maybe I'll bring that out. I'll bring it out. Al yede, how are we doing this? Al yede hamo'adim hakdoshim vehamitzvot. Moadim vemitzvot, moadim vemitzvot, moadim vemitzvot. Do you know what the Torah is? It's a book of moadim and mitzvot. Moadim and mitzvot, moadim and mitzvot. Do you know what the Torah is? It's a book of moadim and mitzvot. Moadim comes from the word va'ad which means a meeting place. So all of the holidays, all the festivals are meetings where we get to meet Hashem, which is nice. And mitzvot are connection points, which is where we get to meet Hashem. So really, just in case you didn't realize, the whole point of life in this world is spirituality. That's why we're here. We're here to live a spiritually conscious existence in this world, and that's really, really, really, really, really, really hard because spirituality is not tangible, and your problems are. Hooray! So what we're here for is to wade through the sea of physicality and materialality and Trader Joe's and Target. I just got back from America, I know. And somehow you've got to find within that spirituality. And once again, Judaism says this is where the greatest spirituality is found: in Trader Joe's and Target. Trader Joe's gematria teshuva. Target gematria neshama. Not true, don't write that down, but I'm sure I could make it work somehow because I'm a rabbi, I can do that. You have to find spirituality in those places. Well, Target is where you're going. And what's my target? Where do I want to arrive in life? And Trader Joe is all talking about Yosef who was sold, they traded Yosef HaTzaddik. So they sold him into Mitzrayim. I just mamash made that up on the spot. Shows you once you've got a beard you can make up anything at any time. People find it impressive, but it's not. Anyway. So המועדים והמצוות שבהם נזכה לדבוק בהשם יתברך להשיג את ייחודו. So basically we want to be spiritually conscious people, and that's what teshuva means. teshuva means coming back to a state of presence. Presence, being present. Present and spiritually connected. That's all. Now some people seem to think that spiritual connection is some out-of-body crazy experience, psychedelic crazy. Now there might be some space for that kind of experience through meditation and breathwork. But spiritual experience, really on a more simple and practical and daily level, is I'm just looking at life through higher eyes. I just see the world through Godly eyes. I see my, which means kindness. Just kindness and and more lofty perception. A loftier perception of I believe that the physical world that I'm going through, I'm like running the gauntlet of this physical world, but it's actually there to refine me. To refine my lower parts of myself and then to be able to express my soul in the world. As I say every time I come home from America, but I do get very excited every time. Whenever I arrive in the airport, I see people walking around with jackets that say TSA on their jackets. And I'm like, that's great, thought, speech, and action. Thought, speech, and action are the garments of your soul. It's how you express yourself in this world. So we're here to refine ourselves on all these levels. שזה כל תכלית בריאת האדם ותכלית כל המצוות. That's the whole purpose. The whole purpose of the mitzvot, the whole purpose you were created. Why were you created at all? What's the point of creation? Twenty-fifth of Elul was the Big Bang. Isn't that cool? The Big Bang happened on the twenty-fifth of Elul. That's very, very cool. Why? Why did God make the universe? Why did Hashem create the universe? What's the point? So we say it's to be able to reveal spirituality in a world where spirituality isn't revealed. To reveal spirituality. And once we reveal spirituality, it's much more appreciated and experienced. It's called in Kabbalistic writings nahama d'kissufa means when you receive something that you didn't work for, you didn't choose, you didn't invest in it. So the soul when it existed before the universe was just having a spiritual experience but it didn't choose or invest. or create it. So Hashem created a training ground where the soul can actually bring spirituality into the physical world. ברוך אתה ה' אלוהינו מלך העולם שהכל נהיה בדברו. V'hinei, and therefore, לפעמים יראה ללומד כאילו הדברים חוזרים על עצמם. Someone who's trying to be frum, I don't know if I like that word frum. Someone who's trying to be consciously and joyously observant, CJO, sometimes it can feel like things are just, we're doing it again. We're just doing the same thing. Or it's very, on Rosh Hashanah night we're going to do the Simanim. Yeah, Simanim, and you have the apple and the honey and the... but it might be like ach, how do I make it exciting again, you know? And we really, really try hard and we learn deeper Torah and we try and it's just like, but still, it just gets, we're just doing things over and over and over again. How can you read the same book every year? Have you read any other book every year for your whole life? Apart from Robin Hood. I read Robin Hood almost every year. But you're reading the same book. We're reading the parsha. You read it, how many times did you read that same parsha? And the same, Judaism is just like, let's go over the same thing again and again and again to the point where it's just like, 'I've had enough now', you know? It's very, very hard to find inspiration and connection in something that you're doing all the time over and over and over again. אבל באמת מלבד שבכל מקום יש נקודה מסוימת. Apart from the fact that really every time we do something there's a new something to be gained from it. Every time we go over something you learn something new. צריך לשים לב שעל ידי החזרה פנימיות הדברים מתבארת. You got to understand by going over and over and over and over and over something, that what you're actually doing is you're bringing it deeper and deeper into yourself. You're bringing it deeper into yourself. So how does this work? This works in modern psychology with positive affirmations. Positive affirmations. You're just saying positive things over and over again. Now, most people are doing an amazing thing called negative affirmations. You're just walking around with negative affirmations - 'I can't do this, I just can't do this, I just can't do it.' It's the beginning of the yeshiva year, often you get boys who are like, 'I can't do this', or 'I just can't do it'. So people are very, very wallowing in their negative affirmations. Not good enough, I can't do this, I'll never be able to do this, what's wrong with me, I'm such an idiot... and it's just wallowing in negative. And what you're basically doing is you're drilling into your psyche this reality that I'm not good enough or I can't do it. What a positive affirmation is, is drilling the opposite into your... what message you're sending to yourself is really creating your experience of reality. So you want to be sending the right message, but that means you have to go over and over and over it again and again and again to just get it into you. And that whatever you tell yourself, that's going to become your reality. Veheim mityashvim balev. And they then settle in your heart. They become your reality. So we say every day וידעת היום והשבות אל לבבך. You should be aware today, but then you should start integrating that into your experience. And we said that the difference, the way you get something from your head into your heart is through your nose and your mouth. Because what's in between your head and your heart is your nose and your mouth. So how does that work? Breath and repetition. Breath and repetition. And we say the world was created through speech, so how you speak to yourself is going to create your world, create your experience of reality. So the more you speak to yourself positively and healthily, 'I can do this, I'm going to be okay', that's creating your experience of life. But it also takes breathing through your nose because breathing through your nose brings you into the present moment, connects you to your soul, all the good things about breathing through your nose. So what we're going to start doing is dripping the reality from our head into our heart. But first you at least have to understand what the reality is. So that's what we're going to be doing. ובאמת עניין זה אינו נוגע רק לדברי הספר הזה. This isn't just to do with our spirituality and what we're learning together here, אלא ונכון בכל כלליות העבודה. This is true in every area of your life. Every area of your life, the messages that you're sending to yourself and the actions that you're doing, the habits that you get into, that's going to create your reality. What am I doing? And we always say that you don't want to do things habitually. You want to do things consciously, but there is actually something good about having good habits. You brush your teeth at least twice a day. I hope. See, going to the habit of brushing your teeth, so some people say, well, habits are not a good thing. No, there are some good habits. So what we want to do is we actually want to start training our systems and our bodies to get into the habit. I'm in the habit of doing exercise. I'm in the habit of getting up early. I'm in the habit of and actually starting to and what is a habit? A habit is this idea of chazara. Doing the same thing again and again and again. When that just becomes who I am, that's what I do. I am a person who davens three times a day. Now I've got to make sure I'm doing it consciously each time I do it, but I want to start training my external world, not only my inner world of what I'm saying to myself. How am I habitually speaking to myself? Is my mind itself habitually positive and kind? But also my external actions taking me to where I want to go. Am I doing what I need to do in order to become who I want to be? In order to live the life that I really want to live? כי הנה כל מצוותיך אמונה. It says in Tehillim 119, Kol mitzvotecha emunah. Basic meaning is that all of the mitzvot are established, loyal, trustworthy, faithful. emunah really means two things. Well, emunah means lots of things, but emunah means faithfulness. When I say I have emunah in Hashem, it means I trust Hashem, I, but also Hashem can trust me. Which means I'm going to show up even when I don't feel like showing up. Hashem can trust me. Hashem knows that I'm going to turn up even when I'm not feeling it. דהיינו כל מצוות עניינים ותכליתם להעמידנו אמונה. Every mitzvah we do, everything we're doing in our lives, is actually to tap us into emunah. So emunah means on this level, I believe that there's a higher reality. I believe that the whole of my life is much higher than all of my issues that I'm dealing with. That there's actually a reason I'm in this world, that I am intrinsically good and connected, that the Torah is actually the right guidebook for me, that I can do what I need to do in life, that I can achieve everything I'm meant to achieve, just as it's a general sense of positivity and trust. Trust in God, trust in yourself, trust in the system. I just feel at peace. I'll give you an example. I was just in America and I went to Disneyland California Adventure Park and Nickelodeon in American Dream Mall. Awesome. I love rollercoasters. I love rollercoasters. They're awesome. So I just love rollercoasters, but I came up with a whole mashal on the rollercoaster. Rollercoasters are very thrilling and very exciting, but some, it's quite scary. Some people are very scared. Now what do you have to be scared of on a rollercoaster? Think about it. It's going up and down. I hate it. I used to. No, but is going down, is that something to be scared of? What's actually statistically more dangerous, getting into a car or getting into a rollercoaster? Plane or rollercoaster? Crossing the road or rollercoaster? Eating food or rollercoaster? Many, many more people get food poisoning than get damaged on a rollercoaster. Rollercoaster is one of the safest things you could possibly do. I'm serious. A rollercoaster is one of the safest things you could possibly do. Statistically, I'm talking statistics. Isn't that cool? So what are you afraid of? You've got, especially with the big ones, you get a whole over-the-body, you pull it down. You're very, very secure. That's not going to come, maybe you think to yourself it might open. It's not going to open. Maybe the rollercoaster is going to fly off the rails. It's not. That doesn't happen. It's just the feeling. I used to go on them. I hated it. And then, you know, I really used to like just, I loved rollercoasters. We're in, hated it, but then now I can't even watch my grandchildren because it scares me so much. But what's going to happen? Just the way it looks. It's just, I know, but I think you should be more worried every time they get in the car to go to school. More likely something will go, but actually don't, by the way. Thanks, you just made me more worried about everything now. But then everything, it feels very, very thrilling and it's a bit scary. You think you're going to bump your head. Sometimes you go down, you go, I'm going to bump my head. You're not going to bump your head. They would have been sued. They would have closed the rollercoaster if anyone ever bumped their head. Isn't that just the feeling? I don't know if. No, so that's different. So it's not afraid. It's just it feels whatever, but it's not scary. It shouldn't be scary. It is scary, but it shouldn't be. Why is it scary? There's nothing to be scared of. Pardon? Psychological. Yeah. The brain can't put together even though you're Good, so this is what I'm saying. Once you can chap, hold on, I'm completely safe. Then you can say I'm not scared, I'm just thr- it's just feels amazing. It feels amazing. So that's what you- I think that's what emunah is. That life is going to go up and down and I'm going to feel nauseous sometimes and it's going to be- but I'm okay. Nothing actually- what actually can be bad? Now, once again, we speak often that there's terrible trauma and- but even once we get into this spiritual mindset, which is olam hazeh is just a temporary roller coaster. And you are going to come off the roller coaster and go and have your- your- what is it called? What's the pizza place called? My kid says it's the best pizza ever, Bravo Pizza, whatever it is. Is it Bravo Pizza? In New York? In American Dream Mall? Yes. It's the best pizza ever. And yeah, they only had it after the roller coaster. Anyway, but you're going to get off, we're going to get off the roller coaster one day, you know? We're going to get off the roller coaster and whatever you went through on the roller coaster, you might have thrown up on yourself a bit, or even worse someone threw up on you, that would be terrible. But you'll be all right. We're going to get off the roller coaster. So that's really emunah is, however shaky and up and down and round and round it might be, I'm all right. It'll be all right. I'm okay. Everything's okay. Pardon? Do you have a fundamental difference between emunah and the emotionality of the roller coaster? Roller coaster you have statistics, right? You see how many roller coasters there are, you see how many accidents happen. You have facts, facts. Emunah, there's an unknown aspect. And so that faith is maybe the question of what's going on in my life versus the roller coaster. Yeah, it feels scary but I have statistics that I can go back to. Emunah, I don't necessarily have those statistics within my own experiences. And for most people, their- their experience statistics against emunah. True. So that's why we also have something called da'as. Da'as is higher than emunah in a way and emunah's higher than da'as. It keeps going. But da'as is that I know that- I know that there's a God. And I know that there's a world to come. And I know that there's a higher reality. And I know the Torah's true. And I know that- so- so emunah comes in when it doesn't see- that what I know to be true doesn't seem to match the reality that I'm experiencing. But even my emunah is based on a deeper sense of da'as. I know that is true. Yeah. I do- this is very big. Aish, someone came up to me once and said, you know what? Aish ruined my emunah. I said why? And they said because you proved to me that there's a God. Like logically, philosophically, rationally, you proved, scientifically, you proved that there must be an infinite conscious creator of the universe. And you proved to me that God wrote the Torah because there's things in the Torah no human being could have known. So now I know there's a God and I know Torah's true. So where's my emunah? You just ruined my old emunah. I came to Aish, I now- where's room for emunah if you know everything? So this is the answer: when the experiential reality doesn't seem to match that. If there is- I can prove to you that there's an infinite divine conscious creator of the universe who has this special relationship with the Jewish people, then how do you explain the Holocaust? So the Holocaust is when you have to fall onto emunah, where your da'as doesn't reach- it just- I just can't grasp that on a da'as level. ולכאורה נראה שהדברים חוזרים על עצמם. It feels like we're just doing the same thing over and over and over again. אבל באמת בכל פעם שיהודי מקיים מצווה ומתפלל תפילה וזוכה למציאות חדשה. Every time you do a mitzvah and every time you daven and every time you do an act of kindness and every time you have a thought of wanting to come closer to Hashem, a thought of teshuva, then you're- you're investing in a long-term reality. And you're going a little bit deeper. Sometimes we don't experience it because we're just very tired or we're jet-lagged or we're- we're upset and we're sad. But every time we do something good, something spiritually connected, we're actually inv- we're- we're pumping up our spiritual essence. I always give the example of a light bulb. Your neshama is like a light bulb and every time you do something good, you're actually pumping up the light bulb. It shines- shining a little bit brighter. Why don't we often feel our neshamas shining brighter? Because we have such a covering over of our spirituality because of our physical cravings and our problems and our issues and our low self-esteem and our character traits and so we often just don't get to tap into our spiritual essence. So that's part of what teshuva is. Part of teshuva is wading through all of those things that are real in this world, that we do, issues are real, I'm not saying your issues aren't real, they're real, but to understand that there's a higher, deeper reality that we can be tapping into. וכל פעם שהוא מקבל גוון נוסף and you receive an extra perspective, ועומק אחר בקנייני אמונה והשגת אלוקות and you get a little bit deeper in your grasp of spirituality, ובקשר עם השם יתברך. One would hope, and many people feel bad about themselves and feel that they're never enough, but let's say you've been doing mitzvot, you've been keeping Shabbat for a year, the spiritual truth is you are more spiritually connected than you were before. Every time you keep Shabbat even if you didn't want to or you didn't feel it, you've actually invested in your spiritual reality. And once you invest in that a little bit more, hopefully your thoughts should be a little bit kinder, because we say all your positive thoughts come from your neshama and your negative thoughts come from your yetzer hara and your ego and your body. So the more you do things to invest in your neshama, the more calm, kind and positive your mind should start becoming. So anyone who is actually trying to invest in spirituality, and I think most of you are, I think we're not perfect and we got issues, but most of you are, you should notice over a little bit of time that you are a little bit more kind, a little bit more present, a little bit more positive, a little bit... What about the concept that the bigger the tzaddik the greater the yetzer hara? We say the bigger the tzaddik the more subtle the yetzer hara. Subtle. It's not the bigger the yetzer hara. The Rosh Yeshiva isn't struggling not to watch stuff on the internet. It's more subtle. It's not like he's got a bigger yetzer hara to go on TikTok and in that. It's more subtle. Maybe when he walks in a room and everyone stands up, so he might feel a little bit of ga'avah. So his yetzer hara would be like my yetzer tov. What he's struggling with, it would be amazing if I was on that level to be struggling with that. But we never compare, it doesn't make any difference, it's not relevant, because everyone's got their own yetzer hara. But then why do they say the bigger the yetzer hara? It means the more subtle. The stronger, the more subtle. But very, one major part that we always speak about in our avodas Hashem is you never ever compare yourself to anyone else anyway. It's just meaningless because we each have our own yetzer hara. So someone said to me the other day, I think my challenge is greater than other people's challenges because of whatever, his childhood. I said, maybe, maybe not, but it doesn't matter. Your challenge is your challenge. So comparing yourself to other people's challenge is always... you should never compare yourself to other people, but if you're going to, you should compare yourself to other people who are worse off than you. Yes. So something that's comparable is like they say in America like, oh you should be... because you can never walk in someone's shoes. Right, that we all have our own path, our own... so even if I put on your shoes, I'm still walking in my shoes in your shoes. You can't know anyone's yetzer hara, anyone's issues, anyone's problems, how they feel in the moment even. In the moment I just don't feel that great, it's impossible to tell. ועל ידי ריבוי המצוות ועסק בקנייני אמונה so by repeating things and doing things over and over again, but with the kavana, with the intention of building yourself. If you're just doing mitzvot because you want to tick some box or you're worried you'll get punished if you don't, then it doesn't really work. But if you're honestly trying to show up as best as you can, so the more you do it, the more you are refining yourself. Even the fact that you're doing what you know is right, that shows that you're a mature person. You're not just saying I'll do whatever I like whenever I like and I'll only do it if it works for me and I won't do it if it doesn't. The fact that you're still showing up and doing it is refining you as a human being. So that's why we're going over and over and over the same thing again and again, and this goes with every area of life. When you play tennis, you practice the same backhand over and over and over and over again. You just practice the same... and no one ever says oh didn't I practice... I'm just thinking better now. I'm just thinking better. I'm just thinking in a kinder way, I'm thinking in a more positive way. אדם זוכה להכרה וקשר עם השם יתברך נכנסים יותר ויותר לחייו. So then your consciousness changes and your relationship to spirituality just enters more and more in, it just becomes more naturally part of you. I'm a naturally more spiritually conscious person. So if you wake up in the morning and you stretch a little bit and you do a three-minute guided meditation and then you do some affirmations. Literally take 25 minutes in the morning, stretch a bit, listen to a guided meditation, say some positive affirmations, then you'll just have a better day. You'll just have a better day. And that's really what Shacharis is meant to be. Shacharis is meant to be a whole going through the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual parts of you. Morning brachos is physical, Pesukei D'Zimra is emotional, Shema is mental, the Amidah is spiritual. So really the Siddur is trying to take you up and up into a high world of consciousness. And sometimes you're too tired, but that's okay. The fact that you're showing up and you're trying and you have the right motivation means that you are doing some spiritual refining even if you don't immediately feel it. I don't feel that I'm different after that, but what this book is saying is there is something, something is happening, and one day when you manage to clear away a little bit of your doubt and your issues and your stuff, you'll you'll realize, hold on, I'm actually a fundamentally different person than I was two years ago. I might be struggling with the same issues. I say every year that on Yom Kippur I write a list of things that I need to do teshuva for. And last year I found my list in my machzor and I was like it's just the same list. I don't need to write a new list each year. It's been the same list for 10 years. And I think I'll probably have the same list for my life, you know? Because these are the issues that I'm dealing with, but I feel I'm getting a little bit better each year. A little bit better. So people get very upset when they realize I'm working on the same thing that I was working on for the last five years, but I think that is just our spiritual work. We have things that we need to work on for our whole lives. So don't get down when you notice that. ועל ידי ריבוי המצוות שעושה בקנייני אמונה אדם זוכה להכרה וקשר עם השם יתברך ונכנסים יותר ויותר עד שהוא זוכה להרגיש שכל החיות שלו הוא רק מהקשר שלו עם השם יתברך. Until you get to the point in your life where yes, you're going to work and you're and you're having your relationships and you're in this world, but you've just, you're just living in a different reality now. You just realize that this world is a training ground, is a prozdor, it's a, it's a place to bring spirituality into. So you're just engaging in your issues and your problems and your relationships just from a higher place. You're less defined by them and less caught up in them and less overthinking them because you now just see that they're all part of the path. They're all part of your purpose. I've actually got a goal that I'm working towards. So that rather than things getting in the way of your spirituality, you just see them as part of the things that are on your path. Nothing's, there's a concept that you should, you've heard, I'm sure, this concept of taking on something for Elul. Do I like that idea? What, like a New Year's resolution? Mashehu kaze, yeah. I'd be very careful. Because if you say, right, it's Elul now, so I'm going to say more Tehillim. It's just like, why? Do you want to? Well, because I feel I need to do more. But to to take on to to do what you're already doing more consciously is healthier, I think. So I'm I'm saying brachos anyway, so rather than to take on to do more, is I'm going to take on to do what I'm doing and not every all the time, but two brachos a day a little bit more consciously. I think that's healthier. Or how about this? I'm going to take on to be nicer to myself. That'd be a big one, no? You know what? I'm just going to be nicer to myself. And you know what? Not even for the rest of my life, just for one month. For Elul, I'm going to be nicer to myself. Dare you to do that. Now how do the, now how do you do that is the negative critical voice in your mind, the negative critical voice in your mind, don't take it so seriously. Just say, hey, I hear you, but you know what? I'm doing okay. I'm also looking around the room at you. I don't know any of you too well, but I think you're in the top one or two percent of. No, being serious. You spoke a bit of Lashon Hara which is bad. You have some bad character traits which is bad. You've let yourself down a bit which is bad. You get up late sometimes which is bad. You've done bad things but not terrible. You're not horrible people. You're alright. Especially if you're really trying to keep Torah and mitzvot and you're davening three times a day. Like who else has Hashem got? If Hashem doesn't pick me, who's he got? Not in an arrogant way, but the people who are showing up and really trying and are actually thinking Avodas Hashem and they're coming to classes in Yeshiva and they're dressing a certain way and we're surely in Hashem's top pick, no? The top pick. Now don't get arrogant about that and look down on other people because as soon as you do, Hashem's like \"Hold on, I don't want you in the team. I don't want arrogant people in the team.\" So being a little bit kinder to yourself. We often speak about there are some people who are hard on themselves and keep putting themselves down and say \"I'll never be good enough.\" And there are some people who are soft on themselves and just let them get away with it all the time and \"you know Hashem understands, Hashem loves me anyway.\" They're both unhealthy. They both mean you're not growing. So we are people who are committed to grow. I want to grow. And I have self-compassion because it's not easy to grow. So we've got to ומדרגת השגת הכרה שלו במציאות השם יתברך יגדל ויעלה במדרגה יותר מוחשי. So then you start actually becoming and I actually, it just came to me now but it's true, the more calm you are, the more spiritually connected you'll be. Now that doesn't mean you shouldn't have a burning desire to grow and serve Hashem. But in a kind of calm way. Once you start getting uptight and intense, you're actually disconnecting because your soul is actually pretty calm. And we've got this balance. It's on fire. Your soul's on fire. But it's just kind of just feels in control. I just feel okay. Just calm, not intense and uptight. Intense and uptight are the enemies of true spirituality. But once again, just not pushing yourself at all is also an enemy of true spirituality because you're never going to go anywhere. So I'm burning but I'm a fiery burning baal teshuva but I'm kind of chilled about it. That's the healthy balance. וכמה קשרו עם השם יתברך נעשה יותר ויותר עם חשק ותענוג. And therefore firstly you have much more yearning, Hashem. Firstly you have a cheshek. I'm just yearning. I just want this. People say to me, \"You know what Rav Dov, I listen to some of your classes and I'm just like I just want that. It sounds really nice. I really want that.\" So that's worth really wanting. But there's also with that taanug which means I just enjoy life. Do you enjoy life? This is a very important question by the way. Do you enjoy life? Not even talking about spirituality here. I just enjoy life. Now some people are like \"Yeah, bungee jumping!\" No. I mean do you like, it's not like do you hate your life but then go on rollercoasters and enjoy rollercoasters. Do you just enjoy, I just like life's good. I just quite enjoy life. What if you do sometimes but not always? No, correct, but there are people who enjoy life and then sometimes sad things happen and they're not enjoying that, but they are still people who enjoy life and they overcome that. And people who enjoy life feel down less often and when they feel down they deal with it much healthier. And what about the other people you were talking about? Feeling down and then moving on to something bigger? I'm also very into being okay with feeling down. So what? I felt down today. This morning I was like I'm feeling pretty depressed. But in a funny way. I was like I think my depression is other people's like joy. But I was like I just don't feel that great today. Maybe I'm a bit jet lagged and my kids are and I just wasn't feeling good today. And I was like that's okay though. So what? I just didn't make it be a big thing. I was like okay, I don't feel great today. So do I have to feel great all the time? I don't have to feel great all the time. And I'm okay with not feeling great all the time. So that's taking away the intensity that \"I need to feel great and connected all the time.\" I don't need to feel great and connected all the time. I appreciate when I do. But when I don't I'm like okay, so what? I don't need to. I'm alright not feeling great. כי אין קץ למדרגות. ואצל יהודי כזה לעולם עיניו עוד יוושע. And for a Yehudi kaze, for a Jew who wants to grow. I want to grow, but not from this intense weird neurotic I have to grow otherwise I will be. place. But for a person I just want to grow, I just want to have a better relationship with Hashem and myself, then things don't get dry even if I do them over and over and again, I try to find something new, I try to see how it's good for me. אלא היא כמו לחם הפנים. It's like the Lechem HaPanim that was warm the whole week. Stayed warm, we never go stale. We never get stale. I'm never stale. No, I'm not stale because there's always something to do, there's always avodah to do. Once again, sometimes the avodah might be feeling down. That's the avodah. I'm okay feeling down, that is my avodah. וכל פעם באים מזה, everything we do, every time we do it again, we're going to... I'm going to do it again. I've got another opportunity. So when I daven a bad mincha, when I daven mincha and I don't think I concentrated at all, I don't get upset about that, I say, 'Okay, at least A: I showed up and I davened mincha.' Not many people in the world are davening mincha, so that's a good thing. And B: I'll daven ma'ariv and shacharit and mincha tomorrow. I've got every mincha is another chance. I've got another chance. I say it like this, I call it the Sim Shalom Jew. Imagine you're davening shacharit and you realize that you didn't have any kavana in your whole shacharit. You don't even remember if you said the words. Have you ever... you say Baruch Atah Hashem and you start your shacharit and then you're on to... you're at Refaeinu Hashem and then suddenly in the middle of Refaeinu you think to yourself: 'Did I even say אתה חונן לאדם דעת?' And you're... now you're thinking to yourself: 'Did I say אתה חונן לאדם דעת?' And if I didn't, does that mean I have to go back? But if I go back and I did say it, is that a beracha levatala? And whilst you're thinking that, you've now gone three berachot forward anyway. Over the three berachot. And now you're suddenly like VeLiYerushalayim Ircha and you're like, 'Oh no, did I say the berachot between Refaeinu and VeLiYerushalayim? Because I was thinking about if I'd said אתה חונן לאדם דעת.' And now you're thinking, 'Oh no, now what do I do?' And now suddenly you're bowing down and you're like, 'Whoops, I'm in Modim.' So then you've got Sim Shalom. How do you say Sim Shalom? Are you like, 'Well, I messed it up anyway.' Or do you say, 'I've got Sim Shalom. I'm going to have the best Sim Shalom of my life. I'm going to chap this Sim Shalom.' Or you're like, 'No, I messed up now. Sim Shalom. I don't want to say this.' Or do you... you've got to be a Sim Shalomdike Yid. Sim Shalom... which is really what Elul is. Be an Eluldike Yid. It's the last month of the year. So you messed up. You learned all the amazing Torah for Hanukkah and all the amazing yichudim and you didn't do it very well because you're in a bad mood. And then you learn all the Purim Torah, but then you felt sick on Purim so you messed up Purim. And then Pesach, oh my goodness, the high day of the year, but then you just fell asleep at the table and... don't worry, you've got Elul. And by the way, you know what? If you mess up Elul, don't worry, you've got Rosh Hashanah. Really, chill out. Just chill out. Do your best, but chill out. Because we... that's the beauty of having it again and again and again and again. We just got another chance. So people get upset, you know, we got to do the same thing all the time. I'm like, no, this is great. I got another chance to do it well. Another chance, another... B'ezrat Hashem, you've got to be a Sim Shalomdike Yid. Alright, so we're going to be learning. We're going on a journey towards... You know what? This happens every year, and it mamash happened this year again and I always laugh. I like to do things properly. I want to be a lechatchila Yid. A lechatchila Yid. I want to do it how it's meant to be done. Not bedieved. I don't want to do things bedieved. I want to do it how it's meant to be done. I'm very... I very want to do things exactly how they're meant to be done, not from a neurotic way, just because if I'm going to do something I want to do it the best. This happens every single year. It's... I've been consciously and joyously observing for 18 years. But from Rosh Chodesh Elul until basically Simchat Torah, you add LeDavid. You add LeDavid after davening, a psalm, tehillim, at shacharit and mincha, or shacharit and ma'ariv. Every single year I forget to say it on Rosh Chodesh. Every year. Every year. And I'm like, 'Gosh!' But then I'm like, amazing, because this is the lesson that you can start again. I can just start again. But every year... every... and it happened this year again. I davened, it was awesome, I davened Rosh Chodesh, first day Rosh Chodesh on the plane, on the Emirates plane from New York to Dubai. It happened to be my chavruta and best friend Rav Moshe Chaim Eed was on that flight as well, and it was awesome, we were doing singing Hallel on this flight from Emirates to Dubai. It was amazing. But I just didn't say LeDavid. And you can't make it up. I can't... I missed the two, actually I did it both two days. So I missed LeDavid, and there's no... I can't go back. It's not like I can say it twice today and that will make... So I can't even make it up. But, yeah, I'm okay with that. I'm not a bad person. I don't hate myself. I'm not going to get funny. Just start again, start again.