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The Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe Podcast Collection is the one-stop shop for the Torah inspiration shared by Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe in one simple feed. The Jewish Inspiration Podcast, Parsha Review Podcast, Thinking Talmudist Podcast, Living Jewishly Podcast and Unboxing Judaism Podcast all in one convenient place. Enjoy!
You're listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe, Director of TORCH, the Torah Outreach Resource Center of Houston. This is the Jewish Inspiration Podcast.
This week I want to continue where we left off last week in discussing our preparation for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and getting us into the frame of mind of preparing ourselves for these special days. So we mentioned last week the importance of understanding that the beginnings are critically important. I want to go into that a little bit more.
What are the beginnings and why is it so important that we start our year with a fresh and exciting and perfect start? So I want to begin by sharing a few ideas that we see that Adam and Eve, you know, they were the beginning of creation. They were the beginning, the first human beings alive on planet Earth. They were held accountable to a certain level. Cain and Abel were held accountable. Noah and his generation were also held accountable. But we see something special.
Did we talk about Abraham last week? Abraham was the first Hebrew. He was the first Hebrew. He was the one who was setting the stage for the Jewish people for forever. And he was held accountable for messing up on one little area in that he treated his guests with such dignity and with such respect and he took such good care of them. But he didn't serve them directly the water. Everything else he served them directly. He slaughtered the animals for them. He fed them.
He took care of every one of their needs except for drinking their water that they needed to drink from coming from the desert. That Abraham did not provide for them. He had a servant provide that for them. Our sages tell us that Abraham was accountable for that. Because when you are the beginning of a nation, every little thing has an impact. And therefore, the Jewish people, when they were in the desert, they didn't get water directly from Hashem. They had to get it from a rock.
Just like Abraham gave it through a messenger, God gave us the water through a messenger. We see with Noach. Noach got bitten. We know he got bitten in the ark. Everyone familiar with this? Right? He got bitten by the lion. Why? Because he was late in feeding the lion. Imagine for 120 days, nonstop, right? For actually for the 40 days and nights, but also till the water receded, I think it actually took 180 days, right?
More than a half a year, he's feeding these animals every morning, every afternoon, every evening he's feeding them everything they need. One time he was late to the lion and he gets bitten. What's the justification for that? Our sages tell us when this is the only lion around and I'm the beginning of the future of all the animals, of all of the lions that are going to come after me, you don't play games. It's the beginning. We see the same idea.
You know, it says that Rav Chia, Rav Chia, one of the great Tanaic sages, he said that had all the Jews been exterminated and he was the only one left, he would be able to restore Torah back to its original status. How? He says, well, I would plant flax and then from the flax that grows, I will make a net and with the net, I'll catch a deer and with the deer, I'll slaughter the deer and take
its hide and write a Torah scroll and then teach it to students. I'll teach each one a different book of the Torah and then they'll all teach each other. And it's like, one second, really plant flax? What's with planting flax? Just go to the sports academy or go to, you know, one of the sporting goods stores, right? And buy a net. Why does he need to plant the flax to make the net to then catch the deer? Seems a little bit off.
Our sages tell us, Rav Chia understood that if you are restarting from the beginning, everything needs to be pure. The entire process from the planting of the flax to make the net, every part of the process needs to be perfect because it's the beginning and beginnings need to be perfect. The beginnings, we need to try our very best to make it as close to perfection as possible. We see the same thing with the Hanukkah menorah, right? The miracle of Hanukkah. What was the miracle of Hanukkah?
The miracle of Hanukkah was that, you know, that one flask lasted for eight days. But we know, according to Halacha, the Torah teaches us that we don't need to have kosher, so to speak, oil for the menorah when there is no other. When there is no other oil, you can use non-kosher oil. So what's the big deal? When you're reestablishing the service of the temple, it needs to be perfect. It's true it's allowed to, but we want it to be pristine. We want it to be perfect.
We want it to be holy from the very beginning. It says that when we build the temple, God willing, speedily in our days, Amen, in Jerusalem, the third temple, everyone will be required to stop what they're doing, to go and help contribute work, toil, labor to build that third temple. Except for the young yeshiva students, the young children who are learning Torah. Why? Because they're establishing the roots for their future. They're establishing their, they're at the beginning of their lives. And therefore, they don't get interrupted.
They need to stay and learn Torah. Everyone else, the older adults, even the scholars, stop, close your books and go help build the temple. The children who are establishing the roots, they're at the beginning stages. They, you don't disturb. We see the same thing with the beginning of the shearing of the wool from the animal. You have to give it away. We see the beginning of the crops that you grow. You need to give it away. The beginning is the most important part of Judaism.
Always, we look at the beginning as being, we need to, right, so now we think of Rosh Hashanah as the beginning of our year. We need to do everything we can, prepare ourselves for Rosh Hashanah, to get ourselves to be at a perfect state of holiness for Rosh Hashanah. We want to be at a state where we are as close as possible to our perfect self. And it's interesting that our sages tell us that Rosh Hashanah is the beginning of the lunar calendar,
while Yom Kippur is the beginning of the solar calendar. And we connect those two, right? One is the beginning of, they're both beginnings. They're both beginnings. And it is critically important for us to realize that we have to start the year on the right foot. We mentioned last week about amnesty, right? We mentioned amnesty for sins. And God is, let's go, let's go, let's go. We have, of course, we have the ideals to take the proper time
to work through any mistakes we may have made in the previous year. That's fine. Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Elul, the month preceding, which today is the 10th of Elul, God says, let's go, let's go. We got to move it, we got to move it, let's go. It's the time of amnesty. It's also interesting that at the beginning of a marriage, there are different laws that apply to the first year of marriage, right? The Torah guides us this, our sages elaborate on this,
that the first year of marriage is different than the rest of the years of marriage. Why? Because you're laying the foundations for a life together. You're laying the foundations of this hopefully harmonious relationship. And that's why the first year of marriage, our sages frown upon a man leaving his wife even for one night for business. She needs to have that security. She needs to know that her husband is there for her, right? During the beginning, she may be concerned, she may be worried.
During the first year, they're supposed to not be away from each other. Even for one night. Now, that's beginnings. It's very interesting that our sages tell us that Rosh Hashanah is a, my grandfather would say this, Rosh Hashanah is a microcosm of the year to come. It's a microcosm. That means like this, that if a person has a happy, pleasant, exciting aura of connection on Rosh Hashanah, that same feeling, that same closeness, that same spiritual state will go along for the entire year.
However, if a person, my grandfather says this on himself, that one year he had a slight tinge of anger on Rosh Hashanah. He just got a little angry. He said that influenced him the entire year that anger stuck with him. So that's why, hold on a second. That's why our sages tell us an amazing thing. We have something called the simanim, the signs, the different things that we do, the good omens that we do, like dipping the apple in the honey, and we eat pomegranates,
and we say these special blessings with each one of them. Why dip the apple in the honey? So we should have a sweet new year. And why do we have pomegranates? Just like the pomegranate is filled with seeds, and according to many customs, if you count them, there'll be about 613 seeds. And just like there are 613 seeds in the pomegranate, there are 613 mitzvahs in the Torah that we want to be fulfilled. Just like the pomegranate is filled with these seeds,
we should be filled with the mitzvahs of the Torah. We have many other good signs and omens that we say and we recite, which should be with even different languages. Like in Yiddish, the word merin means to be fruitful and many, right? So we eat, and merin is carrots. So many people have carrots on Rosh Hashanah so that they should have many years of goodness. There are people who have special fish head, right? So that we should be...
that we should be fruitful and multiply like fish, right? And some say we eat the head, we eat some of the meat from the head of a sheep or a goat, right? Why? So we should be always at the head, not at the tail. We should always be leading, not following, as is the trait of Jews. To be leaders, that's our responsibility, is to be leaders for the nations of the world. So all of these signs, I mean, what's the idea behind these signs?
So on a regular Tuesday, I can make signs too. I can say, you know, our year should be perfect, just like a donut is round and it's, you know, come on, right? Well, you're making all these signs. Sages explain, you have to understand this. The signs are symbolic of a year to come. It's a microcosm of the year to come. And when you have the apple and the honey, ah, that sweetness should continue for the whole year. That fulfillment that we feel,
that joy that we feel from that pomegranate should give us an entire year filled with mitzvot. The idea is that these small little things that we do, in fact, there's a halacha that says that one should refrain from sleeping on Rosh Hashanah during the day. So they don't have a sleepy year. You understand? Not just being superstitious. It's really understanding that it's connecting. Rosh Hashanah is connecting us with the year to come, the year that follows after it.
And what we want on Rosh Hashanah is to be as perfect, as pristine, as holy, as beautiful as we possibly can for the year to come. That is an excellent question. And I'll explain like this. The question was, what do we do this year if Rosh Hashanah is such a meaningful time for our year to come? This year when we're experiencing COVID, when we're experiencing all of these challenges of, you know, where many, many synagogues, conservative and reform, are going online. They're doing Zoom services.
What are we going to do and how are we going to make it meaningful? I think it is the greatest gift that God gave us, actually. Because we always assume that Rosh Hashanah is about me going to synagogue and getting inspired. It's not. It's about getting inspired within. It's true we might be missing our services. We might be missing the chauffeur blowing in the synagogue. We might be missing a lot of components of what we are used to and what is normal for us.
But the truth is, that's not where we get our inspiration from. We need to get our inspiration internally. And one of the things that I feel are the greatest benefit from COVID-19, and I've discussed this with many people, where they felt that, you know, going to shul three times a day, sometimes prayer can become redundant. Prayer can become a chore, where this is just what I do every day. But that's not what prayer should be. Prayer should be something special,
a time that we talk to the Almighty Creator of heaven and earth. And sometimes we forget that. I talked to my rabbi in Jerusalem this week, and he said that the prayer of the Amidah in his synagogue, social distancing, they have a limited amount of people that can be in a room at a time per minion. He says it is between 15 and 20 minutes longer for people to finish their Amidah. He says people learned how to pray again. Now we are going to offer a torch.
We're going to offer a special pre-High Holidays series, like we did before Pesach. We did a pre-Seder, learning how to run a Seder, and all of the details. We went through the whole Haggadah. We're going to do the same thing for Rosh Hashanah. And you'll hear about it in the coming days or weeks. You'll hear about it. We're going to do a pre-Rosh Hashanah, how to maximize Rosh Hashanah in our homes, and how to get the most out of it.
And I strongly, strongly recommend those who will be home, those who feel that challenge of being locked in our home and not having a way to connect with the spirituality of the day, to join us in that program, because that will be very, very special and very important for us to learn and have the tools of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur in our hands. So the same idea, though, that we mentioned at the beginning, it's a great question, Roni. Thank you.
The same idea applies to endings as well. We need to have solid endings. And even though we aren't obligated to finish the job, we always say this in our class, you don't need to be perfect, right? The Mishnah tells us you don't need to attain perfection, but you need to never stop pursuing perfection. Pursue perfection, pursue perfection every day of your life. It doesn't mean that you have to arrive at perfection one day. You know, one of the interesting things that we do
is that bread that we eat between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, we ensure that it's special, holy bread that was made by a Jew. Not that bread that's made by a non-Jew is not kosher. That's not true as long as there's supervision and we know that what's put into the bread is, right? So you can find kosher bread in any of our local groceries. You can find kosher bread in all of them. And it's really amazing that we have today such a production,
mass production in these manufacturing plants that we can send the rabbi there and all of the bread that goes in. I was traveling with my son from New York to Texas. We drove together and literally in every single stop, wherever we were in Montgomery, Alabama, to someplace out in North Carolina, wherever we stopped along the way, there was kosher food. It really is remarkable. We have kosher food everywhere we go. We have kosher ice cream, we have kosher sodas, we have kosher, kosher,
you can find kosher bagels and kosher bread. You can, it's really amazing. But notwithstanding it being kosher, we try to have a higher standard between these days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. And the Halacha says that it is praiseworthy for a person to find bread that is made by a Jew specifically. Why? Because it's, we want to introduce our year on a higher standard. Even though it's permitted, we want to try to get it started on the highest level we possibly can.
That is our frame of mind of what we're trying to do is how can we make our days of the coming year be the ultimate person we want to be. That's what we want to attain. We want to become, how do I be the best possible person I can be? The ideal person. But it takes time to prepare for it. It takes time to get to know ourselves. It takes time to get to know what we're capable of
and to push ourselves a little bit to take a step or even just to want and desire to take that next level. So we talk about finishing the year properly. Now why do we call it the beginning? Because it also, we mentioned I believe last week that the world was created on the 25th of Elul. Now how long each day took is a whole different discussion whether each day was a million years or two million years or however long
because there was no 24-hour cycle yet of the sun and the moon. That's only on the fourth day. Till then we have days that have no time. Okay but that's not our issue. Consider it as if a human day of this world was the 25th of Elul, the 26th was the second day, the 27th and so on and so forth. The first day of the month of Tishrei is the sixth day of creation. What was created on that day? Adam and Eve.
The first day of mankind is the day of Rosh Hashanah where God celebrates the creation of humanity and all of humanity gets judged on that day and God says, we say in our praise, this is the day of the beginning of God's creation and that's what we try every year to get to a point of being, of declaring how important this time is. We celebrate endings because it results in a new beginning. You know that when we finish a Talmud,
when we conclude a book of Talmud, even when we conclude the reading of a book of the Torah, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, so we say, it's like a celebration that we're finished. You know, my children when they finish a parasha in school, they make a siyum, they make a party concluding that portion or that book. When we finish Talmud, the whole Talmud is an enormous celebration that's made. Why are we celebrating endings? Shouldn't we celebrate beginnings?
Well, we celebrate endings because it is the new beginning that starts. The ending means that there's a new beginning that follows and that's what we're celebrating. We're celebrating the end which means it's a new beginning but also at the end you can see a full picture. Till you don't finish something, you can't see a full picture, right? When you are reading a book, you were just talking, Marsha, you were talking about the book that you're reading, right?
But so imagine you stopped one chapter before the end. Can you summarize the book? No, because you're missing that last chapter. Now that you finished that last chapter, you can look back and see the entire book. Wow, this was perfect how everything fit in, right? And now with the last chapter, you have a summary of you can see a full picture but when you're missing that last chapter, you don't have the full picture yet, right? That's why we treasure endings
because that's a completion of an entire picture and that's what we're celebrating. You can determine your level from how you end, right? When we come into a Shabbos, according to many opinions, Shabbos is not the end of the week. Shabbos is actually the beginning of the next week. It's the beginning. We call it Saturday is like the end of the week and Sunday is the beginning of the week. No, no, no, no. In Jewish philosophy,
we say that Shabbos is the beginning of the next week and the way the Shabbos is, is the way the next week will be. Just like a Rosh Hashanah has an influence on the rest of the week, on the rest of the year, so to Shabbos is the beginning of the week which has an influence on the rest of the week. But so the way we end our week, that Friday, the last minutes before Shabbos, getting ready, being prepared, right?
Also is like the Elul is like the last month that we have in this year, in this calendar year to prepare ourselves for Rosh Hashanah. Elul is the preparation for Rosh Hashanah in as much as you have a solid ending, right? So as much as possible that we can have a solid ending to our year, it will declare that the entire year that passed was a special, holy, beautiful year. It's the turn of a new leaf. We start fresh.
Now I don't want to get yet into Teshuvah repentance and talk about the different levels of repentance but I think it's important for us to just understand this one concept of repentance and that is as follows. I say that God is a pencil and humanity is a pen. Remember those erasable pens? They never worked, right? You would write and you would try to erase with it and it would still leave a mark, right? It wouldn't erase everything.
So I say that that's the way we forgive. We forgive and the mark still stays. So imagine your friend does something that insults you, that hurts your feelings and they come back to you like a mensch and they ask for forgiveness. Do you forgive them? Yes, of course. We're kind-hearted people. We're forgiving people. They came and they apologized the right way and of course we will allow them to be forgiven. We'll forgive them. Okay, what happens next?
The next day they do the same exact thing. So now what's going to happen? You're like, one second, you're playing games with me? You did something bad to me, right? You ask for forgiveness and then you do the same thing again, right? So when they come to ask for forgiveness the second time what do we say? We say, are you kidding me? It's the second time you did this to me. You see, that's not true because when we forgive what should be
is a complete erasing of the previous activity. You see, when God forgives us it's erased like a pencil, right? It's erased, there's nothing left. There's no impression. There is nothing there. It's gone. And when you write again, it's a new sin. There's no impression left. It's a new sin. And we can ask for forgiveness again and it's a complete forgiveness again. There's no old file. Let me pull the old file. You see, you did this and got forgiven.
No, no, no, it's over. Once it's forgiven, it's forgotten. It's over. And when we are forgiving people we need to do the same thing is that we need to really remove it from the recesses of our memory. We need to completely erase it from its existence. It does not exist anymore. Not it exists if you don't do it again, right? It doesn't exist if you don't do it again. It means if you don't do it again
then I'll make it as if it never happened or I'll hold it against you when I'm in the mood. Oh, you remember that time, right? One second, if you forgave, it's over. You shouldn't bring it up again. So that's just something to think of when we talk about forgiveness from Hashem and we seek that forgiveness it is a complete and total forgiveness. Hashem says it's gone, it's erased which is why Yom Kippur is such a special happy day because Yom Kippur it says that
if we come to seek forgiveness forgiveness will be granted and that's what we're looking for. We're looking for forgiveness. How do we get it? We start our year properly and we say Hashem, I'm starting a new year but look at how I ended last year. I changed the way I changed the way I was acting. I changed my habits. I changed my friends. I did things to improve and become better and to show you that I'm a different person.
I started this year on fire. I started this year with all of the proper ways that I want to be and I'm showing you by example how good I am and then we go into Yom Kippur and we seek that forgiveness. God says, wow, this is a totally different person, right? This is not the same Ronnie that may have done something last year. This is a totally new Ronnie. I don't even recognize. This is new. Oh wow, a new person's here.
Let's grant them a great new year, right? It really is a very powerful idea. Our sages tell us we need to internalize how powerful this gift of forgiveness is from the Almighty. It is so incredible. We need to harness it. We need to take it all in and utilize it because God wants our closeness. He wants that relationship and all we have to do is ask for it. That's it. It's within the ability of your mouth, your words and your heart,
your feeling to have that closeness. Okay, so I don't know if I told you the story of the diamonds. It's a very, very powerful story and I think it really tells us the importance of utilizing Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. So there was a man, it's a parable obviously, but there was a man who was very, very poor and he tells his wife, you know, I heard that there is this island that is filled with diamonds
but the problem is that it takes three years to get there. Did I say this story last week? Okay, great. So it takes three years to get there, three years to get back and there's a ride every three years. She says, listen, I have the little children, we're so poor, you know, go. It's nine years that I'm not going to see you but at least when you come back, we won't have to worry about a thing again.
We won't have to worry about any financial, you know, challenges. We'll be so wealthy. It's worth it. I'm ready to give up nine years of you seeing the children, you seeing me just so that we can have success and right now the poverty that we're experiencing, it can't get worse. So just go and, you know, I'll be looking forward to seeing you. So he buys the ticket and he gets on this boat and the whole three years, everyone is so excited,
they're all giddy and they're, you know, they're just like, wow, it's going to be amazing when we get back to our families with all these diamonds and it's like, it's just going to be great. Finally, they get to this island and indeed, instead of having sand on the beach, they have diamonds and everywhere is diamonds. Wherever you go, everything is diamonds. So this guy packs his suitcases, he packs his duffel bags, fills them up with diamonds
and now he's just waiting to go back. So he sees a hotel, you know, and he says, I'm just going to book a room at the hotel for the next three years. So he goes to the hotel front desk and he says, can I get a room? They said, sure. For how long? For three years. Three years. Oh, wow. How are you going to pay for that? Diamonds. They said, no, no, no, no.
Diamonds isn't worth anything here on this island. Everybody's got diamonds. So what's your currency here? He says, our currency is coconuts. Coconuts. Coconuts are rare. And you go down the block, you get a bank account with coconuts, a coconut account and you pay with coconuts. But you look like an honest guy. You can go up to your room, open up your account and let us know. We'll do a direct draw from your account. And so he does.
The first day he goes, he becomes a bagger at the local supermarket and they pay him in coconuts and he does very well. And quickly, within 30 days, he becomes a cashier and then he becomes a manager within no time and he's doing very, very well. He's really very, very successful and he's making so much coconut money, right? He's really doing very, very well. And he's really excited and eventually he was able to leave that job and open up his own business.
And he's really doing very, very well. And he's so excited that he's really successful now. He has a solid business and he's making a lot of coconut money and it's really special. Finally, he's finished his first year on the island and he's really raking it in. He's really making a fortune of money. And it's a long time already that he's been on the island. It's 12 months and then it becomes 13, 14, 16 months. Eventually, it's two years
and he's already thinking about how he's going to sell his business and what he's going to do. Finally, he's finishing his third year. He gets his ticket to get on that boat to go back to see his family and he packs his bags and he sells off whatever he can and he gets back on that boat. Now, it's a three-year journey back and he's so excited. He's going to see his family. He's going to see his children. He hasn't seen them.
He missed their bar mitzvahs and their bat mitzvahs. Well, the kids are almost soon going to get ready to get married. They're older. Is he going to recognize them? And it's finally almost they're seeing the beach. They're seeing the port and they're getting closer and closer and closer. And finally, he sees his wife and he sees the kids and he's getting his bags and he's so excited. He's going to finally see his family and finally, they dock the boat.
He gets off the boat with his bags and he says he's so excited to see his wife and his kids. Gives them all a hug and a kiss and they get home and they say, Nuu, let's see what you got. And he opens up the bags and coconuts start falling out of everywhere all over the floor. Coconuts and coconuts. And the wife is like, what happened here? He says, what are you talking about? Coconuts. That's the real money.
And he got so lost in where he was, totally forgot to bring back those diamonds. Our sages tell us that we come to this world. You know why a baby cries when it comes to this world? Because a baby doesn't want to be here in its original state. In the real world, it was involved in a world of closeness and connection with God, spirituality, holiness. It comes into this world and it's locked. This soul, this elevated holy soul
is locked up in prison in a physical body. And it feels limited. Get me out of here. It doesn't want to be here. The baby cries. So what do we do? We give it a pacifier. We give it toys. We get balloons, mazel tov. And we make a whole big party. We buy the baby girl a doll and we buy the baby boy a car, right? Then we buy whatever. And we keep on pacifying the child.
No, no, it's okay. It's okay. It's okay. And eventually the child starts, oh, I got to get a career. He's no longer a child. He's going to high school soon. He's going to college. And we're convincing the child that everything is about the dollar. Meanwhile, it really came to this world to get diamonds, which are mitzvahs, which are the real prize. And we convince ourselves that it's all about the dollars. And we come back to the world to come
and we say, what did you do? Oh, all this money. Look at all this money that I got. I'm like, one second. That's not what you went there for. You went there for the real diamonds. And we convince ourselves throughout our lifetime that these coconuts is what it's really about. And we feel, we can feel devastated. What do you mean? And our ancestors greet us when we come to the world to come at the end of this life, right?
Our ancestors greet us like, oh, did you bring the diamonds? Like, I brought a lot of money. I brought all these green dollars. Like, no, no. That's not why you went. You went for the real diamonds. Rosh Hashanah is a time for us to evaluate. Are we investing our time in the right thing? Maybe it's not the coconuts. Maybe it's the diamonds we should be investing in. But we get carried away. And it's a world that is very, very,
it's very, it's a glamorous world. And we can drive nice cars and nice houses. And even if you can't afford it, who cares? You can buy it on credit, right? There are people today who can buy cars that are well beyond their budget. But it's okay. I'll pay it. I'll pay it over time. Not to worry about, right? Just so that they can live a certain way. And we get carried away by it. And our sages warn us,
remember why you are here in this world. We're here for pleasure. Real pleasure, not counterfeit pleasure. Counterfeit pleasure are fleeting. They disappear in a moment. They're here now and they're gone in a second. Real pleasure is eternal. Real pleasure doesn't disappear in minutes. We need to be so careful that we invest in what is real. And everyone needs to ask themselves that question, who am I? What am I here for? What are the talents?
What are the skills? What are the abilities? What are the traits that God gave me? And how can I utilize them to fulfill my purpose? That is the goal. That is what we need. You know, they say that repentance is a very unique mitzvah. Because usually you have to finish the job in order to get the reward. But with teshuvah, even partial, even a partial job or a partial mitzvah is extremely valuable. We don't see this
by almost any other mitzvah. You can't say, well, I have three strings on my tzitzit, it's enough. The majority. No, but with teshuvah, with repentance, we have to do the best we can and just try. Even if it's not a perfect repentance, we don't feel complete and total remorse, but it's the best we can do at the moment is what we're counted at. It's a very interesting thing that we learn from Yishmael. Yishmael was Abraham's son
through his concubine, Hagar. And when Sarah kicked them out of the house, it was very interesting that Yishmael was about to die. He got very, very sick in the desert. He was thirsty. He didn't have water. And the angels came to God and said, that's it. There's a great opportunity. Let's get rid of Yishmael, the guy who's going to terrorize the Jewish people, the guy who's going to do these terrorist attacks, the guy who's going to
do these hijackings of the Jewish people, your children, in later years, in future generations. Let's get rid of him now. He's already sick. Just end this problem of Yishmael. And God says, how is he right now? Ba'asher hu sham. At that moment, was he righteous? And our sages say that the angels came and they saw that Yishmael at that moment was praying. He was praying for Hashem to heal him. God says,
if at this moment he is righteous, I don't care what the future presents. I'm going to grant him life. Our sages tell us that even if God knows that in the future, we may not do good things in the coming year, but at that moment of judgment on Rosh Hashanah, we show perfection. We show that we're good. We show that we're at a holy state. Hashem grants us the life. Hashem grants us a year ahead.
At this moment you are righteous, I give you a righteous decree for the year to come. There's still a lot more to talk about. You know, we add a prayer in our daily services every morning and evening. We add a certain psalm from King David. L'David Hashem Ori. To David Hashem my light. V'Yish'i and my savior. Our sages tell us, you know what Ori means? Ori means my light. That refers to Rosh Hashanah.
You know what Yish'i my savior means? That means Yom Kippur. And when we say this prayer every single day throughout the days that lead up to the high holidays, through the high holidays, all the way connecting it to Sukkot, the idea here is that what we're trying to do is bring that godliness, bring that holiness into our day-to-day life. All right? We blow the shofar to awaken us. To awaken us. Right? It's an amazing thing.
Our sages tell us that the shofar, the shofar confuses the ministering angels. They get confused and they get all worried. Why? Because they say, uh-oh, the Jewish people are going to repent. The Jewish people are going to repent and he gets all nervous from the shofar. Imagine if the ministering angels understand the power that the Jewish people are able to repent certainly we should know that we have the power to repent. That we should realize
that we have the ability to change our ways. That we have the ability to change who we are. The angels understand it. They see what we're capable of. They're terrified of our change and we have to really utilize and maximize the opportunities that are brought to us throughout these days preceding Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur to change the way we interact with people. To be kinder. To be the perfect and ideal self that we know we're capable of.
You know the words of Elul are Aleth, Lamed, Vav, Lamed. And there are many different acronyms that come from the word Elul. But one of the very famous ones is Ani L'dodi V'dodi Li. I am for my beloved and my beloved is for me. Who's my beloved? We're talking about the Almighty God, Creator of heaven and earth. The only one Hashem. Ani L'dodi, when we get close to Hashem through tshuva, Hashem gets close to us.
We have to take that first step. Right? Hashem will separate the Yetz Hara from those who repent. Right? It's a very beautiful thing. You know we mentioned previously about the number 40. The 40 is the power of change. You remember that from last week? Right? We mentioned the number 40. You want to see something really amazing? If you take those words, Ani L'dodi V'dodi Li. I am for my beloved and my beloved is for me.
The last letter of each of those words, Ani, where the last letter is Yud. L'dodi, the last letter is Yud. V'dodi, last letter is Yud. Li, the last letter is Yud again. What's the numerical value of the number Yud? 10. 10 times 4 is 40. It's those same 40 days that we're talking about that can transform who we are. When we utilize these days to become closer to Hashem, right? That is, you know, it's an amazing thing.
In the yeshiva of Ponavitch, which was once the largest yeshiva in Israel, the Chazen, the Shabbos before Elul, he declared, you know, we declare every Shabbos before Rosh Chodesh, we declare what month is going to begin in the coming week. And when it got to the month of Elul and they were doing the Birkat HaChodesh, they were giving the blessing for the month ahead and they got to the month, he got to the words Elul, he fainted.
He fainted, that fear, that trepidation of like, wow, these awesome days of opportunity are here. Now, I want to reassure you, we're talking about repentance, we're talking about atonement, we're talking about change. Our sages tell us it's not a time to be afraid. It's a time to be excited and energized. It's a time to feel opportunity, not to be worried. Hashem wants our closeness. Hashem wants that relationship. He desires it. Hashem is hoping we come close to Him
and we utilize this opportunity. He says, now I'm not going to look at the details. Just come, just come, all right? And we also call these days Yimei Ratzon, we mentioned. What's Yimei Ratzon? The days of will, of desire. God desires that closeness. He wants it. What does a child want more than their, than what does a parent want more than their child to be close to them? Whatever it takes, I just want my child to be close to me.
Even if it's not exactly the way I want it, it's not exactly, I don't exactly behave perfectly, but I want that closeness. I want that relationship. And that's the opportunity we have in these days of Rosh Hashanah Yom Kippur and the days preceding them Elul to prepare ourselves to become that perfect me that we can become. So my dear friends, if there are any questions, I'll happily take any questions now. For those of you listening to this podcast, we thank you very much for joining us.
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