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In this shiur, Rav Dov Ber Cohen opens the month of Elul as a season of awakening rather than dread. Drawing on the teaching that the Shulchan Aruch is, at its heart, a book of reminders to breathe, h
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 cool. How many times did you say Modeh Ani yesterday? What? Once? Okay. Twice? Twice? I said it this morning with Kavana. That's good. But remember the real avodah, you want to be saying Modeh Ani many many times today. Well you don't. You don't want to have to, but you're going to have to because we said yesterday every time you forget about your soul and Hashem and that there's a real world, it means you fell asleep, you were in spiritual sleep, and then the moment you remember, then you woke up, so you need to say Modeh Ani. So every Mezuza you see is really there to remind you to breathe and remember. Remember. It's all about... you know Rosh Hashanah is called Yom HaZikaron. Did you know that? It's called Yom HaZikaron. Do you know why it's called Yom HaZikaron? Because you can be meant to remember. You're meant to remember you're a soul. That's what you're meant to do. So every Mezuza you see is just to remind you to breathe and every Bracha you make is to remind you to breathe and every time you put on your right shoe first is to remind you to breathe and every time you daven Shacharit Mincha Ma'ariv is to remind you to breathe and your Tzitzit are there to remind you to breathe and dressing tzanua is there to remind you to breathe. Everything. The whole of Judaism is just reminding you to breathe. The Shulchan Aruch is really called the reminding you to breathe book. Many many many many many many many many many many different ways to remind you to breathe book. That's what... that's my new name for the Shulchan Aruch. I'm going to adopt... that will be the subtitle. I just finished my Guide to being a healthy Ba'al Teshuva book. If anyone wants it, you can email me and I'll send you the PDF. Guide to being a healthy Ba'al Teshuva. And everyone needs it by the way, even you grew up wherever you grew up. Is it going to be in hard copy? In hard copy, they're being... ten copies are being printed today just so I can check them. Hopefully printed today. That's actually who just called me, the printer. So like next week or so? Hopefully he prints it in one day. But only have ten copies. Where are you going to make more of them? No, I will. I just want to check how many mistakes I made. Because I'm writing these books at like two o'clock in the morning. Two o'clock in the morning, one o'clock in the morning, twelve. Okay. That's what I'm doing all night. That's all... I'll be on Instagram sometime. Tomorrow, tomorrow, hopefully. Tomorrow, the day after, Guide to being a healthy Ba'al Teshuva. But I'm only writing booklets now. I don't write books anymore. Booklets. Like simple out there booklets. Booklets. And then after a while when I've got lots of booklets then you can buy the Likutey Radab. Rabbeinu Dov Ber. The... and you'll just have all my short... it will just be my essays and my booklets. The next one coming out is CGT parenting. Chesed Gevurah tiferet parenting. It's my parenting book but it's very short because there's good parenting books out there. I don't need to write a whole parenting book, I just gotta write my foundational what I think is important about parenting. And then I'll write a dating one and a marriage one and then I just can't stop writing at the moment. It's just an excuse to not learn Torah I guess. Did I say that? אנו נכנסים לימים נפלאים. We said this yesterday. We are entering into these awesome wonderful pele-dike days. It's like, whoa! Amazing, amazing days. ימי חודש אלול הקודש. These days of Elul, these holy holy days of Elul and I said yesterday my favorite acronym, my favorite expansion of Elul is not אני לדודי ודודי לי or איש לרעהו ומתנות לאביונים or all the famous ones. It's אפשר להתקיים ולעמוד לפניך. I can exist and stand in front of You, Hashem. Which is an amazing idea, because you could just imagine how could you possibly stand in front of Hashem without just frying up? But you can. And even deeper than that, in Asher Yatzar we say אי אפשר להתקיים ולעמוד לפניך. If anything... אם יפתח אחד מהם או יסתם אחד מהם, iy efshar. If anything's wrong or broken, I can't survive. But in Elul we're saying even though I'm broken and I'm wrong and I'm not perfect, I can stand in front of Hashem. Why? Because You want an authentic relationship with me, which means bringing all the different parts of me to the relationship. שם ימים מלאים אור וקרבת אלוהים, because they are days that are filled with light, which means spiritual vitality. Really Hashem's here... Hashem's everywhere all the time. Hashem is everywhere all the time, and yet we say that there are special connection points in time and place. So Hashem is equally in the bathroom as He is at the Kotel. He really is. But at the Kotel there's a stronger... it's just more revealed, it's more easily accessible. And Hashem is in every second of every day, but on Shabbat there's a greater revelation of that. So that's what kedusha is in a way, just there's a higher vibration, higher vibration. So when we say things, for example, in Elul, HaMelech Basadeh, the king is in the field, which means the king has come out of his palace and he's just come to talk to the regular commoners. What that means is Hashem's kind of making himself more available. You don't have to queue up, you don't have to line up and wait and book an appointment, Hashem's coming, becoming more available. Dirshu Hashem behimatzo, kera'uhu, kera'uhu karov, something like that. What is it? Bihyoso karov. Thanks. That's actually my pasuk I'm in at the end of Shmoneh Esreh because it's Dov. Shows you how I don't say that at all. So these are the days of closeness, the closeness to Hashem. שהם ימים מלאים אור וקרבת אלקים, they're full of light, which means spiritual vitality, there's more, there's more spirituality revealed in the world today. Did you know that? Amazing. Amazing, it's more available, it's more available. They used to say that it's like the Leipzig Fair. Elul is the Leipzig Fair. There was a big fair in Eastern Europe called the Leipzig Fair and everyone used to go to the fair and buy all their merchandise for the whole year and that was all the merchandise for the year and then they go back and sell it for the rest of the year. The Leipzig Fair, famous, they say Elul is the Leipzig Fair, Elul and Tishrei really, the Leipzig Fair of spirituality. This is your takeoff for your year. Now, by the way, if you've ever listened to any of my classes, that doesn't scare you. You're not like oh-oh, this is it, the beginning, everything's the beginning and the DNA of the year and I better get it right because if I don't get it right at the beginning, I'm going to mess up my whole year and everything's decided on Rosh Hashanah and if I don't have a good Rosh Hashanah, then I'm going to mess up my whole, just chill out. Stop being so weird and neurotic weird. You're okay, everything's okay. It's a very big opportunity to have a good start, a good momentum, but if you mess it up, it's cool because we got Sukkot and Cheshvan. Cheshvan's the highest month of the year because there's no external mitzvah and anything so it's amazing. And then if you mess that up, it's okay, we got Kislev and Chanukah and if you mess that up, it's fine because we got, just chill out. But it is a wonderful opportunity if you can take it. There's a, the plane is leaving, if you can jump on, if you can jump on, you want to jump on. If you miss it, don't worry, there's another one coming, you'll get the next one. It's fine. ובהם זוכין להתעוררות אש קודש פנימית, just, we very, very nearly missed our flight from LA to Arizona, me and my whole family. We got there, basically they put the flight an hour later and sent me a message, the flight's going an hour later, so I got there later, but basically they said no, you still have to arrive at the time of the original flight when it was leaving. That doesn't make sense. And they said you can't send your bags, you gotta run, it's in a different terminal and and they gave me a thing that I said it's okay if my bags arrive on a different flight for me, and I had to pay this and and we got and then the bus to the other terminal drove so slowly. It was amazing how slow and I'm just standing there, I was like this is amazing, how can no one could drive that slowly? I was like amazed, amazed. I was like this is funny. And so half of me was like, but then I was like I'm cool, emunah, it'll be fine. And we got there and the gate was closed. The gate was what? The gate was closed. Oh god. But it was still before the flight, so I said let me on the flight, I'm here with my wife, my children, just let me, I know the plane's still there and you're probably going to be sitting on the plane for the next 15-20 minutes still doing last checks and so they let us on the flight, it was cool. But why did I say that? Because if we missed that flight we'd have just got the next one. It would have been a bit annoying but we'd have got the next one. So you're cool, chill. Worst case scenario, you should when it comes to things you're worried about, play the worst case scenario game, but it's got to be an honest worst case scenario, can't be like I'm going to get kidnapped and my legs cut off. Just worst case scenario I miss my flight, nu, so I'll get the next one. Worst case scenario I mess up my speech and I get very embarrassed, nu, so I'll give a class about how to deal with being embarrassed. Whatever, you'll deal with it. Here we go. ובהם זוכין להתעוררות אש קודש פנימית, and on these days we are zoche, we merit to have an arousal, hisorerus. Hisorerus is an amazing word. It means an arousal, an awakening. We're waking up. As we said yesterday that the Rambam says that the whole point of the shofar is to wake you up. We said that really most people are asleep, most people are going through life not that consciously. And we said there are really Three states of consciousness, there's the sleeping dream state where there is an experience happening but it's completely passive. You're not actually controlling that experience, you don't have free will, it's just happening to you, but it is an experience, and then you wake up and you are now sitting in this room in what is called the waking dream state, which is more active because you are conscious and you can make choices. But there's a higher level of real consciousness called the awakened state, where you actually remember almost constantly that really you're a soul in this world and there is a God and the whole of this world is just a simulation. And it's a simulation that you're meant to bring spirituality into. And that's it. So the shofar is to wake you up, the mezuzah is to wake you up. Everything we do is wake us up, remember to breathe, connect in. And what's the purpose of this? לחזור אל השם יתברך באמת, to return to Hashem. And really, literally returning to Hashem on the most simple level is become aware of Hashem again. That's literally all it means. Every moment you're thinking about your job and your relationships and everything, every moment you're not thinking about Hashem, then you need to come back to thinking about Hashem. Really, Hashem should be your screensaver in your mind. You should get contact lenses with yud-hei on one and vav-hei on the other. You should have a if you're not using your mind for something useful that you need it for, then you should be thinking about Hashem. Thinking about Hashem all the just, I'm thinking about Hashem. When you walk to the makolet and it's a three-minute walk, you could be walking to the makolet thinking about Hashem. If you're walking to the makolet thinking about Hashem, then you're walking with Hashem to the makolet. And if you're not, then you're not. And that's okay, don't panic. No one can do that, very rare. We say שויתי השם לנגדי תמיד, שויתי השם לנגדי תמיד, I should be aware of Hashem's presence at all times. Now, it's very hard to do that. It's hard to be aware of Hashem's presence ever, really. But at least when we're making brachos and but Lachzor Biteshuva, to come home means I'm coming back to being aware of Hashem, which is Kirvas Elokim. What does Kirvas Elokim mean? On the most basic level it means I feel close to Hashem, I feel Hashem is close to me, I feel Hashem is a reality that's actually in my life. So every time I forget that, I come back and I say Modeh ani lefanecha. And that's why you say lefanecha by the way, because only once you're modeh ani, once you wake up and become aware of you just reach a higher conscious level, then you really are lefanecha, then you're actually in front of Hashem. שויתי השם לנגדי תמיד, lefanecha, lefanecha, lefanecha, lefanecha. ימי אלול הם הכנה לשנה חדשה. These days of Elul are preparation, preparation for Rosh Hashanah, for a new year, for a new beginning. And we know that the Chassidim say that the preparation is in a way more important than the mitzvah. Preparing your setting up your Chanukah candles is more important than actually lighting them. Few reasons: firstly, it takes longer usually, but it gives you more time to mechaven, to have your intentions and why am I doing this and get into a meditative space. The Gemara says that חסידים ראשונים היו שוהים שעה אחת ומתפללים. They'd sit for an hour before praying. They basically meditate for an hour before davening. So we should at least do that for thirty seconds. Before you start praying or before you make a bracha for five seconds. Five seconds before you make a bracha, stop, breathe through your nose. What am I about to say and who am I saying it to? I'm about to say, \"Blessed are You Lord our God King of the universe who created the fruit of the tree.\" By the way, they're guavas at the moment. I don't particularly like eating guavas but they smell amazing. And there is a bracha you can make on nice smelling fruit. ברוך אתה השם אלקינו מלך העולם הנותן ריח טוב בפירות or הנותן ריח טוב בפירות. Either works. So it's amazing because I live by the shuk and I rode past the shuk the other day and I just got this waft of guava and I stopped and I was like, I just benefited from Hashem's amazing world without saying a bracha and I rode back and I picked up a guava and I smell it, it's amazing. That's waking up. So hachana for the mitzvah in a way is more important for the mitzvah itself because it is creating the vessel to receive the light. The mitzvah is basically plugging in and bringing down the light, the preparation for the mitzvah is preparing the vessel to receive the light. And according to the vessel, that's how much light you're going to receive. So we said last year and the year before and the year before and the year before that the word for preparation is hachana. And hachana is the same numerical values as the word moach v'lev, head and heart. So how do you How do you really prepare in two ways? With your head and with your heart. How do you prepare with your head? By learning, by understanding what I'm about to do. Do you know why we blow the shofar? No, why do we blow the shofar? There are at least twelve reasons. I'll give a class later. In two weeks from now, I'll give you the \"Why We Blow the Shofar\" class. But the more you understand why we blow the shofar, the more you're going to get out of shofar blowing. It's very simple. The more you understand what you're meant to do, what the avodah is, what the opportunity is, what the light is, the more you understand, the more you're going to get out of it. So the first stage of hachana is the understanding. And the second part is the lev, which is the excitement. The excitement. I'm very, very, very excited. The more excited you are, the more you'll enjoy it when it arrives. Now, those obviously come hand in hand because the more you learn about it, the more excited it gets. The more you understand what's about to happen, the more exciting it's going to be. Rosh Hashanah is very, very, very exciting. And how, it's not, it's in like three weeks, no? Three weeks. Three weeks and two days. Maybe about twenty four days till Rosh Hashanah. I'm very, very excited. It's like imagine you had a ticket to the Ishay Ribo concert in twenty four days. You'd be freaking out. You'd be like, what? And you'd be listening to Ishay Ribo songs all the time and you'd be like, עילת העילות סיבת הסיבות ומעל כולם הוא בדד הוא ימלוך. And then you'd be getting excited and you go or the Zusha concert in Tel Aviv, even better. Woo! You're like, I got a ticket to Zusha, woo! I love Zusha by the way. I love them. I think Zusha is Mashiach's musicians. I really do. I think Zusha are literally Mashiach's musicians. But you should be at least as excited for Rosh Hashanah as you are for the Zusha concert. Surely. You're like, yeah, it's okay, I'm sure apple and honey, it's okay, but Zusha, come on, come on Rabbi, be fair, Zusha. Rosh Hashanah's cool, but Zusha's cooler. Because nothing's cooler than Zusha. Zusha's the coolest. You can't get cooler than Zusha. You just can't. Apart from Hashem. Most people dread it, right? Pardon? Most people dread it. Dread Rosh Hashanah? Yeah, that's why we're in this class. I don't think people dread Rosh Hashanah anymore. I hope not. People dread Yom Kippur, which is ridiculous because it's the greatest day of the year. But maybe people do. Who here dreads Rosh Hashanah? Really? Heavy. Little heaviness, even more than Yom Kippur. Oh, really? Rosh Hashanah's scary? Not scary, just like a certain heaviness. Heaviness. Okay, I hear. That's fair. That's fair. It's called Yom Hadin. Not in the Torah by the way. The Yom Hadin's a very... we'll talk about it. We're actually going to talk about this. But if you understand what Rosh Hashanah is, it's not heavy. It's the opposite of heavy. Are you doing teshuva on Rosh Hashanah? No. Are you saying viduy on Rosh Hashanah? No. Are you saying Ashamnu Bagadnu? Even when we say viduy, we're like, Ashamnu. It's beautiful. Viduy's amazing itself. Viduy's the least heavy thing you can do. חטאנו לפניך רחם עלינו. What weird relationship is that? But isn't Elul like, it's a heavy time, I think. Elul seems heavy because... It does. This book actually says that some people, Elul seems heavy, but for me, it's very exciting. I'm very excited. I'm generally over-excited, I admit, but Elul's very exciting to me. It's very exciting. What an amazing... because I see, I always see growth as an opportunity anyway. Just that's my mindset on life. So even if there's whatever you're making is heavy for you, I like that. Like going to the gym, the weights are heavy, but I'm excited to lift heavy weights. I'm just in that mindset of it's an opportunity. Every challenge is an opportunity. And a separate thing, most people think it's quite heavy because it's Yom Hadin, Hashem's judging you. But Hashem's pretty cool. You're fine. What have you done wrong this year? You said some not nice things and you were a bit lazy. You're not, what have you done? If He judges you badly, then we got no chance. Really. Now, you got to take it seriously because Hashem does judge, and the day is judgment day and every thought you have and... but Hashem's not out to get you. That would just be weird, unless you got a strange concept of what Hashem is. Hashem's going to find my bad points and punish me? It's just... it's just a bit old-fashioned, I think. Now, then you got the other people who are completely \"Yeah, Hashem loves me and anything goes.\" That's also not healthy. There is a din here. So you got to get the balance. There is a balance. There is a tiferet going on here. I think in this generation, this generation has gone the opposite extreme. You got the Rabbeinu Yona Jews. I do not suggest anyone read... The gates of Teshuva by Rabbeinu Yona is very scary, very scary, very scary. I just don't think it's relevant at this stage. I think most people are so down on themselves anyway, it's just actually unhealthy. And it's really for Tzaddikim. For example, I think people get things very wrong. There's a people say things like this: Tzaddikim have their averos in front of them at all times. Way to help them grow. And I'm like, great, that's for Tzaddikim because they can handle that. If I walked around thinking about my averos all day, I'd get depressed. Not that I'm doing anything that bad, what am I doing so bad? You know what I'm doing quite bad but I stopped. I can't stop watching UFC. I just can't stop watching people punching each other and kicking each other. And social media knows that. It's like Mike Tyson's most devastating punch. It's very hard for me not to watch that. I'm like, I'm a spiritual teacher, why do I have to watch people punching each other? But I'm so animalistically drawn to that. If you're recognizing that in yourself, isn't the objective to try to make that better? If you recognize that this is that maybe I should, and I know it's hard, and maybe it's whatever, but isn't it? 100%. So then you've got the people who are light on themselves and say it's not so bad. So I'm not, I'm saying, firstly, I don't hate myself, I don't think I'm a bad person. And I'm not like, what's wrong with me, Hashem hates me. But I realize it's not the healthiest thing for me to do. I'm a cold turkey type as well. So I've just said I'm just not going to watch any at all now. I'm cutting it out completely. Done, not doing for this month. Remember, very very important, when you take on something, take on for a short amount. For this month, Elul. Although my Rebbi does say there should be one thing during Elul that you say I'm going to take on, this is it forever, but it's got to be the smallest possible thing, like ridiculously small. A completely ridiculously small thing that you could basically can't fail on. Just say, just one little shift. We'll talk about that a bit closer to the time. Yes? Can I backtrack one second? When you say God is infinite divine consciousness, what does that mean? It's meaningless. I'll tell you why it's meaningless because the purpose of life is to have a relationship with God and you can't have a relationship with infinite consciousness. So yes, God's essence, let's say, is infinite, it's just awareness. And out of that 5,787 years ago or 13.8 billion years ago came finite consciousness, but it's irrelevant because Hashem says you can't relate to that because you're human so I want you to relate to me as Avinu Malkeinu instead. But don't think I really am a father and a king, I'm an infinite consciousness, but seeing as your mind can't grasp infinite consciousness and you shouldn't even try to grasp infinite consciousness because you're finite, so I want you to relate to me as father and king and I want you to relate to me as taking you out of Egypt with a strong right hand. But don't think I have a strong right hand. And the Torah says that I get angry, Charah Af Hashem. Don't think I actually get angry, anger is a very bad character trait. It's a metaphor because as the Gemara says and Rashi often brings that the Torah speaks in Lashon Bnei Adam. דברה תורה בלשון בני אדם. It speaks in our language, why? Because that's how you can have relationship with Hashem. So you don't need to try and work out what that means. But metaphysically it means that that consciousness gave birth to matter. Matter, like this, did we do the whole think of a man in your head thing yesterday? No. No. No. Should we do it now? But I do it every class. That's fine, I do the same thing every class. Everyone think of a person in your head. Not a real person, don't think of like Trump or whatever. Make up a person in your head. Could be a cartoon character in your head. Big head, small head, two legs, five legs, whatever. You have a person in your head? You're imagining a person in your head. Man, woman, doesn't matter. It's got chicken legs, giraffe head, whatever it is. Yes? And it's wearing a hat. You got a hat? Everyone's got a hat on the head. Okay now make that person jump up and down. Jumping up and down in your head? And give it a scene, is it inside or outside? Okay, everyone you got that? Okay. Question, does that person exist? Fat or thin? So you can describe this person. So does this person exist? Yeah. Yeah. Of course he does. You can't just describe something that doesn't exist. You can see it. It exists, but it just exists in your head. When you heard the word exist, you immediately thought, said in physical form in the external world because you think existence means physically in the external world, although thoughts exist. Do thoughts exist? Yes. But not in physical form in the external world. So there's something called existence that isn't physically in the external world. So this person does exist. Where does this person exist? In your mind. This person exists in your mind. That's it. Now, does that person in your mind, what's that person in your mind made of? This shtender is made of wood and wood is made of atoms and atoms are made of electrons, neutrons, protons. Actually the truth is everything's made of consciousness but forget about that. We'll just say quarks, energy for now. What's the person in your mind made of? Thoughts. Your, your imagination, your consciousness. You created that person in your mind through your consciousness and every second that you're thinking about that person, that person still exists. If you stop thinking about that person, then that person stops existing. Good. We're cool? We say that Hashem didn't change. When, when Hashem created the universe, אני השם לא שניתי. I didn't, Hashem doesn't change. Hashem's unified. Can there be parts of Hashem? No parts of Hashem. Hashem's one. And this is really the whole sod hatzimtzum. This is the whole of Kabbalah. Kabbalah is trying to come to explain how there can be a finite reality in the face of infinite consciousness. How can that even possibly work? So this is how they explain it. Just like you imagined that person in your head into existence, Hashem imagined the whole universe into existence. That's what happened on the 25th of Elul 5,787 years ago. Hashem's imagining, that's why it says that Hashem is recreating the world at every second. Just like you're recreating that person in your head at every second because you're thinking about it. You stop thinking, it stops existing. So Hashem, we are just Hashem's imagination. The whole universe and all of us are just Hashem's imagination. We just, and just like the person in your head is made up of consciousness, everything in this universe is just made up of consciousness as we say every morning, Kulam bechochmah asita. You made everything with chochmah. That doesn't mean with intelligence. You made it in a very clever way. It does as well, but it means it's literally made with chochmah. It's made with intelligence. It's made with thought. Everything's just made up of thought. So now what's the fundamental difference between the person in your head and us in Hashem's head? Not that Hashem has a head, but I have to use that terminology. What's the difference between the person in your mind and you in Hashem's mind? Free will. Free will but what's the, what's the source of free will? Soul. What is a soul? Consciousness. Consciousness. The person in your head doesn't have its own consciousness. It's made up of your consciousness. It doesn't have its own consciousness. The person in your head can't think. The person in your head can't breathe deeply through its nose unless you make it breathe deeply through its nose. It can't make decisions. It doesn't have free will. It can't realize 'oh my goodness, I'm a person in Dovber's head'. It has no actual sense of self. It has no consciousness. What Hashem did, which is an amazing, amazing thing and happened on Rosh Hashanah, by the way. This is what happened on Rosh Hashanah. He gave you a piece of himself, which means he gave you consciousness. So Hashem's the infinite mind and he created finite minds. That's what you are. A finite mind within the infinite mind. So what you can actually do is wake up and realize, 'oh wow, I'm a consciousness within infinite consciousness'. And what's even better, אפשר להתקיים ולעמוד לפניך. I can actually have a relationship with you that I choose, which means I can choose to go against the relationship, which is what the Garden of Eden was. That was 'I told you not to eat from the fruit' on this day as well, by the way, on Rosh Hashanah. Rosh Hashanah was when Hashem gave consciousness to humankind. And then humankind used it to go against Hashem. It's like the person in your head doing something against you. Can the person in your head do something that you don't want it to do? No. Can you do something, pardon? Like people have thoughts that they don't necessarily want, intrusive thoughts. I don't know, what is that? Oh that happens all the time. That's the snake in the garden of Eden that got into your own psyche. But some people can't stop that. Everyone can. You need to read my book simple. Or take medication if you need medication, I'm not joking either. I think people over-medicate too quickly, but some people need medication so, but no one's a complete victim like ADHD and OCD and this and that, I think people start identifying as those things. I'm ADHD. No you're not ADHD, you're a perfect pure shining radiant being of divine light who can't control your thoughts at all. But in this generation I think everyone's basically ADD ADHD. Really? People come up to me and say they're like Rabbi, I just can't control my thoughts, there's something wrong with me. I'm like no one can. It's the disease of our generation, of probably every generation. It's a complete disease. Very few people have any control over what's going on in their mind. As we just spoke about today and yesterday and the day before, you don't even have control of your own breath. You're not aware of your own breath coming in and out. And how are your breath and your thoughts deeply deeply intimately connected? Because unlike everything internal which is not in your control at all, thank God, your digestive system and your heart beating, or your external world which is completely in your control, hopefully, your thoughts and your breath can either be completely unconscious or you can make them conscious. You can't really make your heart beat conscious. There is this guy in India who slowed down his heartbeat to one beat, so you can, but there's no reason to. So you can make your breath and your thoughts conscious, but if you don't they'll be going unconsciously all the time. Thank God, by the way. Thank God you don't have to think about your breath all day, otherwise it would be very annoying. And your breath carries on going whilst you're asleep. But you can start taking conscious control of your breath. And through taking conscious control of your breath, you can start taking conscious control of your thoughts. And once you're taking conscious control of your thoughts then you can start thinking higher thoughts and living a more connected life. That's kind of what infinite consciousness might be. Yes? If our brains and our imagination is able to imagine a reality, what gets in the way of it being executed in physical reality? Because you can't create external physical reality with your mind. No, I'm not saying with all of imagining that stick figure right here in front of me, but things like thought, speech and action. So just so just a separate thing, everything you see in the world, this phone, book, everything, actually did start as a thought in someone's mind. Right. That always freaks me out a bit. I'm like that's cool, everything you ever see started someone thought about that and then designed it and then brought it into reality. That's very cool. And it makes you actually be a very aware of Hashem. If everything we see in this world is an expression of someone's ratzon, then the whole of creation and everything in it is an expression of Hashem's ratzon. Women being the highest expression of Hashem's ratzon, that's why you say a bracha every morning she'asani kirtzono. You made me according to your ratzon, exactly how I was meant to be. Anyway, carry on. So what does it, like say you daven for specific things and I'm trying I guess I'm trying to ask is like where do we kind of like delegate to Hashem for something that we want versus where do we... it's very interesting. It's actually a question about manifestation because I believe that you can manifest things that Hashem doesn't want you to because you can just tap into the matrix. That's why manifestation's very dangerous. You can manifest stuff through The Secret and reading all those books and stuff, you can do that but Jewish manifestation is really tefillah. And we're saying look this is what I want to manifest in my life but in partnership with you Hashem and I accept it if you don't want me to have it. But I wouldn't try to control the external world too much, just try and control the internal world. It's much more important. What are we talking about? This is nice, I don't know what it is but I'm enjoying it. Hachana, hachana, we're getting prepared for this amazing amazing day. Rosh Hashanah's such an amazing day, we just said, it's the whole birth of consciousness. It's the birth of finite consciousness. It's the birthday of finite consciousness which by the way means it's the birth of relationship between God and human. And it was the first wedding, that's quite cool, and the first mistake. And the birth of free will. It's an amazing day. It's amazing. Which means it's a day where you can reset. It's basically let's reset, let's go back to how it was back. It's an amazing day of reset. And there's going to be a m'lucha hachadasha, a new king. This is a new kingship. Hashem's becoming the king again. What does it mean that Hashem is the king? Avinu Malkeinu, Hashem you are the king. What does that mean? It's very difficult for English people because English kings they say off with your head, kill people. Probably not King Charles, he's probably quite nice, King Charles. King Charles Spaniels, they're fine. What does it mean that Hashem is the king? Hashem can do everything. He's approachable, that's a very novel concept but I agree with that because it's Avinu Malkeinu who is your father the king. Usually the king isn't that approachable although we say he is now because hamelach basadeh. He's come out and he says I want you to approach me. Yes. How do I get from Hashem is my father to Hashem is my king? Get away from that? No, they're both. Don't go, they're both. Your father is the king. It's cool. It's cool. Basically, father and king means ahava v'yira. That's it. I want you to relate to me through these two main powers called ahava v'yira. Ahava means a deep sense of closeness and yira means awe which is actually distance. There's a bit of distance there. I look up to you. It means reverence, respect and awe. Wow. Doesn't mean fear. It's not the word pachad. It means wow. Excited wonder. Excited wonder. Wow. Wow. Wow. But then Avinu is complete relax, safety, security, warmth and closeness. And it's both. You have to have both. Because they say what's the judgment day? Judgment day is you have to go to court. Oh, I heard a nice mashal. Someone he couldn't find his father and he was looking for his father and he couldn't just couldn't find his father for many many years and one day they were in traffic he pulled up and then he saw his father in the car in front of him he got very excited and the lights changed and he went and anyway he drove and he and he crashed his car and the father drove away. So now he's in big trouble. He's in big trouble because he crashed the car and he damaged people. So he has to go to court. So he goes to court and he's standing in court and then the judge walks in. And he sees the judge and he has a yira, he has awe, he has respect, reverence. But then he sees that it's his father that he's been looking for for his whole life and he sees the father and the father sees him but he's still in court and he's still the judge. So there's got to be respect. I respect my father and I love my father there's two. My children they have to respect me. My children to listen to what I say and there are consequences if they don't listen to what I say there are consequences. The biggest consequence by the way is that it's not good for our relationship. So if we have the ahava they don't want to lose the feeling of ahava so that creates yira. So ahava v'yira really work together. The biggest fear that they have is that they feel distant in their relationship. Do I ever stop loving them? Of course I don't. But they feel when they let themselves down and let me down they... why do children cry when they do something wrong? I read in a book it's actually because they feel that they've lost the attachment to their parent. What a kid wants most is attachment. So when they do something wrong and upset their parent they're really crying not because they're in trouble it's because they feel oh no I've lost the love. That's why whenever my kids are in trouble I'd say to them I don't not love you. I just have to beat you. But it's not because I don't love you it's because I love you. It's because I love you I'm beating you. I never beat my children. I kick them. I never hit a child. It's fine. So my children listen to what I tell them to do because they love and respect me. Not because they're afraid of me. Imagine my children did what I told them to do because they were scared of me. What would that say about the relationship? That's a horrible... that's not even called a relationship. That's called I'm just getting away from punishment. That's not called a relationship. My kids respect me and they want to do what I want them to do. They really do it's great thank God. I trained them quite well at the beginning. It's part of my parenting book. Ahava v'yira. The whole parenting book is ahava it's got to be based on ahava but then there's got to be yira. You've got to know what's right and what's wrong. This is right and this is wrong. There are consequences to doing the wrong thing. So there's a new kingship. So what does it mean Hashem's king? So the first idea that Hashem is king is... Respect, awe, and the more practical idea is that I'm choosing to מקבל עול מלכות שמים. What does that mean? I'm choosing to let God be the king over me because something's going to be. Either my ego will rule over me, and my physical desires and that even and my society and my phone, something is going to rule over me. So I'm choosing for my higher self and my godliness and my soul to rule over me. I want you to be my king. I'm going to be a slave to something. You're a slave to something. You're either going to be a slave to Hashem or a slave to your phone. You got to choose which one you're going to be. So on on Rosh Hashanah I'm saying I'm choosing to be a slave to you Hashem. And you want to be a slave to Hashem because the slave of the king is in the king's palace. But don't forget that you're also the kid. It's cool. Maybe slave's not a good word. You want to serve Hashem. Why? Why do you want to serve Hashem? Two reasons. There's the there's the good and fair reason, but much lower, and then the highest reason. The first more honest reason is because it's good for you. You want to serve Hashem because it's good for you, because everything Hashem ever tells you to do is for you, it's not even for Hashem. So you want to follow what Hashem wants you to do. If Hashem says keep Shabbat, it's because it's good for you to keep Shabbat. If Hashem says don't watch that type of movie, then it's good for you not to watch that type of movie, it's not good for you to watch that movie. The whole of the Torah is saying this is what's good for you and this is what's not good for you. So of course you want to serve, do that. You want go that that makes sense. So that's a good reason. When my martial arts masters told me to do stuff, who was the master and who was the slave? I was a slave. They used to beat me. It was great. Do push-ups on your knuckles, bleeding knuckles. Why were they but it wasn't for them, it was for me. They already had their black belts, but for me to get a black belt, I had to kind of become a servant to them and I and I did what they told me to do. Why? Because it's good for me. It didn't help them that I was becoming a black belt. So that's the normal and a very fair motivation. The highest motivation is called lishma. I'm actually not even doing it for me, I'm doing it because it makes Hashem happy. You know why I'm serving you Hashem? I'm not even doing it for me, I'm doing it for you because when I put on my tefillin, it makes you happy. I want to that's called a real relationship. Some people say you can't do anything for Hashem. Hashem's perfect. He doesn't need your tefillin. Truth is he doesn't need your tefillin, but he wants your tefillin. I I don't need my kids to do well in school, but I want them to. So my kids want to do well in school because it's good for them, but my kids because they hopefully love me, they want to do well in school because they know it makes me happy when they they do well in school. But not that I'm going to stop loving them if they don't do well in school. But that's called a real relationship. Relationship is Hashem says I want you to do it for you, and you say I hear that, but I'm really I'm doing it for you. And Hashem says no you, and you say no you Hashem. No you. No you put the you put you put it down. No you Hashem. No you put the phone down. You. That's cute. So the more you enjoy your avodas Hashem, the more you're giving to Hashem. So it's not like I'm only doing lishma means I'm only doing it for Hashem so I'm not going to enjoy it, because if I enjoy it, that's not called lishma. I'm getting something out of it. Wrong, because the more you enjoy it, the more nachas you're giving to Hashem. If I buy something for my kids and they say, well I'm going to use your toy but I'm not going to enjoy using it because I'm doing it just for you. No. The more you enjoy using the toy, the more you enjoy the ice cream that I bought you, the more nachas I get from it. So you have to it's a balance. So there's a new king. You excited? New king. You know what you're being judged on on Rosh Hashanah? How much you want Hashem to be the king. That's it. Yom Kippur there's the past and viduy. Rosh Hashanah is just are you showing up besimcha mamash? You're the king. ה' מלך ה' מלך ה' ימלוך לעולם ועד ay li li ay li li. You come to shul on Rosh Hashanah, no one's no one's heavy. Rosh Hashanah's not a heavy day in shul. Maybe there is this idea unissaneh tokef, we have a we have a five minute okay hold on this is serious. You always got the got to get the balance, but the rest we're freaking out. It's amazing. I love Rosh Hashanah davening is so geshmak. It's so good. That's what I look forward to most in Rosh Hashanah is the davening. Very good. And I come to the yeshiva for the first day, so to daven with my students and with my... Awesome out of this world minyan second day. Secret minyan. Secret minyan. I think we start at 6:30 in the morning. It's called V'ani tefillah. A place in Rechavia. So, starts at 6:30 in the morning. I think we finish most of it at 3:30, 4:00. But it doesn't feel like some it just doesn't feel like that. It's just like phew. Although this year first day Rosh Hashanah is Shabbat, which means no shofar, which is always a bit of a challenge for me. But not really because it means the second day the shofar's even better, you know? When you've only got one day and you were yearning for it the first day, obviously. Why don't you need to blow the shofar on Shabbat? Shabbat is great. Because the shofar is to say wake up to the spiritual reality and Shabbat you're in it. You don't need to wake up to it, you're in the spirit. So you don't need the shofar on Shabbat. Shofar. Rosh Hashanah. Rosh Hashanah. Okay, what's the time? 11:53. Okay, we managed to read another eight words in today's class. Well done. Thank you for coming on this journey to me with me. We're going to be able to finish almost this whole page before Rosh Hashanah. Thank you. Thank you.