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In this shiur, Rav Dov Ber Cohen dismantles the heaviness that so many of us carry into the season of teshuva. He challenges the common mistake of measuring the teshuva gap against a perfect tzaddik r
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.
ונמצא מכך שחושבים שעבודת התשובה היא להתאמץ להצליח להגיע לשלמות המעשים וההנהגה. So we started to talk about Teshuva because Elul, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur is a time of Teshuva. And we said people make a very big mistake. They make Teshuva very heavy and intense and because you think that what you're expected to be is perfect. That you're meant to be perfect. You're meant to never speak Lashon Hara, have no bad character traits, be a complete angelic Tzadik. And you think that's what Teshuva is, being upset about the gap between where you are and an angel. Now the truth is we do want you to work on slowly and consciously and healthily moving towards being as perfect as you can become by the time your soul leaves your body. That is actually something we believe that you should. However, I call it the Teshuva gap. There's a Teshuva gap. This is where you are and this is a Tzadik, this is a perfectly enlightened individual. And most people are doing Teshuva from between where they are and that and saying I'm not there yet, I'm not there yet. It's an incorrect Teshuva gap. Your real Teshuva gap is where you are and where you really could be if you tried a bit harder. So it's only that much. So you're making it very heavy and intense saying I'm not a Tzadik and the Vilna Gaon learned 29 hours a day and I'm not doing that and Rebbetzin Henny Machlis had 5,000 guests every Shabbat and I can't even have I just hear this all the time. It's like other people are doing it and Rav Noach Weinberg he's the Gadol Hador and he saved the whole world and I'm just struggling with my depression. Like, just chill out. This is where you are, this is where you could be, that's your Teshuva gap. Teshuva gap. Now, the purpose of the Teshuva is to fill the gap, is to uplift you to where you could be. That's what Teshuva is doing. So if your Teshuva is bringing you down and making you feel depressed and heavy about yourself, you're doing exactly the opposite of what Teshuva is meant to be. Teshuva is meant to be uplifting, uplifting. You're making it heavy and pulling you down. And the second major thing, and we started to speak about this yesterday, is that many people just are working on externals. I'm going to get up earlier, say more Tehillim, eat better, exercise more. And that's really important but that's not real Teshuva, that's just external actions. Because we said yesterday that why do you do the bad things you do? Because of a character defect. A character defect. So why do you speak Lashon Hara? Why do you put other people down? Because you have jealousy or you have low self-esteem so you feel the need to put other people down. So you could just try and work on stopping speaking Lashon Hara but it's very external, rather work on your self-worth because if you had self-worth then you wouldn't speak Lashon Hara in the first place. So you've got to start going deeper, going into the root of the thing rather than just picking off all the problems and putting out all the fires and what's that game where that thing pops up and you've got to smack its head? Whac-A-Mole. Thank you. You're playing Whac-A-Mole in your life and it's quite a fun game but it's not what you're meant to be doing with your life. But then we said why do you have bad character traits in the first place? Because you don't have Yira. If you had Yira, which means God-consciousness, wow there's a God, then you wouldn't even have bad character traits in the first place. And you don't have emunah because if you really had emunah and you knew everything's for the best then you wouldn't be whatever we just said. So what real Teshuva is let's go deeper, deeper, deeper, deeper, deeper into what's actually the source of everything. Yes? We're learning from Be-Yam Darkecha. It's a Sefer written by a student of Rav Moshe Wolfson who is a Kabbalist in Jerusalem, he's from London actually, and it's really talking about Darkei HaAvoda. What is the right way to do our spiritual journey? How we're on a spiritual journey. There's something called a Baal avodah. A Baal avodah and you want to be one of these. Baal avodah means someone who sees life as a journey and an opportunity and therefore wants to basically learn how to do the journey and take the journey. That's a Baal avodah. I'm very what's the avodah in this? What's the so if I'm struggling with something in my life, my first question to me is going to be well what's my avodah which means what's being asked of me? How can I use this to grow? A Baal avodah. So really without getting we've said this many many times, but all of your Avodat Hashem has to be done with self-compassion and. Chilling out a bit. Don't become a baal avodah, which means I'm going to make it all into, well, am I wearing the right clothes and eating the right food and am I going to bed at the right time? Although that is actually what we're doing. We are saying what would be the optimum food and amount of food to eat, what would be the optimum amount of sleep to have and when should I go to sleep, what should I be wearing? That is actually kind of what we're doing, but you'll be very, very careful not to be doing it in a OCD neurotic weird way and just say no, I want to live the optimum life that I can live. So what do I need to do in order to live that optimum life? Firstly, in the external level, what do I eat, when do I eat, how much do I eat? Basically the Rambam diet. The Rambam diet is, and this is a crazy idea because there's so many diets out there, keto and whatever they are, Rambam diet is eat healthy food when you're hungry. Just a crazy idea. How about this, I'm going to add something else: eat the right amount of healthy food when you're hungry. That's it. So what's healthy? It depends on you. So everyone's like, no, this is the diet, I'm a fruitarian, I'm a this, it's like that's the diet for you, it might not be for me. There isn't one. Don't ever buy into the one diet for all. There just isn't. You have to know yourself, work it out, eat something and see how does it make you feel. If you eat something and you feel tired afterwards, it means you're not meant to have eaten that thing. It's just not good for you. So you just get to know your body, get to give your body what it needs, once again in a chilled out way. I know people are so healthy that they're unhealthy. They're so like uptight with the oh, it's like dude, I know you can't eat sugar but one day you had a bit, it's okay, chill out. Gotta do it chill. It's called orthorexia, by the way. Oh, really? There's a word for it, yeah. Wow. So obsessed with healthy food, it's called orthorexia. Orthorexia. Amazing, I'm going to look that up. I did a report on it. I'm into ortho, orthodox things, but anyway, what do you think about blood types doing a diet? What do I think about them? No, no, about a diet based on blood types. Yes, so I think you should know your blood type and what it needs. I think you need to have a blood test because if you don't have enough iron, then you're going to not have enough energy to be an emotionally healthy human being. And if you need to be taking vitamin B and you're not, that means you're not going to have what the resources you need to do life. No, but there's diets based on blood. Oh, I don't know enough, but it makes a bit of sense to me. But if you say there's a diet based on your blood and they say based on your blood this is your diet but you're feeling terrible on the diet, stop it. That's what I'm saying. You should know yourself. And also your body changes over time and what's good for you and what's not good for you. The truth is if I could, I'd just eat fruit. I really think fruit is the greatest thing. I'm blown away by fruit. How good fruit is and it's completely natural. I could just eat grapes and mangoes and lychees and peaches and how many different types of pears are there? Fruit is awesome. In fact, that's how God created the universe. The first thing God said is eat fruit. Just eat fruit, that's it. So I want to be a fruitarian although any sugar, even fructose, is just not good for me. If I ate fruit, you wouldn't see me for a long time. I wouldn't be able to put on my tefillin. Anyway, you get the idea. So you don't eat fruit? I, well, because I'm normal sometimes I do, because but I'd like to just eat fruit really ultimately. If I could choose to do that, I'd just eat fruit. Although God wants me to eat some grain, at least on Shabbat. That's why I eat sprouted spelt sourdough. And I actually eat sprouted spelt sourdough every morning not because I want to but I want to bench. I want to say Birkat Hamazon because it's a mitzvah from the Torah and it's a whole moment of just being able to speak to God. And I know some people are trying to get out of benching. I'm not going to have bread because I don't want to bench. That doesn't make sense to me because I want to have a relationship with God and therefore I put myself into benching. So I do that. And I think protein's very important. Whatever, I'm not giving a diet class now, but protein very important I think. I eat egg, I eat in the morning I have a high protein breakfast. I was a fruitarian for years and though in the beginning it was like fantastic because you get vitalized, eventually you get out of balance and everything in moderation is excellent. So I think there's a like go on a two-week fruit I used to do one week of only carrot juice after Tisha B'av. I do a Tisha B'av fast straight into only carrot juice and you get high, you get very, very high. Just carrot juice is very high frequency. Whatever. We could, maybe we'll do a whole class on it, but what we're saying is you want to be living an optimum life but without getting uptight about it. That's what you want to be doing. But remember these external things, so I'm now having my carrot juice and doing my stuff and my breath work. If you're not transforming internally as a human being, then it's nice, you're just playing whack-a-mole. Fine. Aval, be'emet. However, in truth, מהות התשובה היא לשוב אל השם. What is teshuva? Teshuva just means returning. As we said right at the beginning, it just means going home. And what does returning mean? In a very kind of hyper-spiritual way, it means just returning to a spiritually conscious reality. I feel literally like I am walking with Hashem in my life. I feel like I'm in the Garden of Eden before the eating of the עץ הדעת טוב ורע. That's it. I'm just living in God consciousness. That's what all it means to go home. דהיינו לשוב לחיות חי נשמה. To return to living a spiritually conscious life. And we've said many times that in Judaism, spirituality isn't like a hobby. It's not something I also do. You know, I've got my life, I've got my career, I've got my stuff I do, but I'm also spiritual and I do my yoga and spirituality is literally a whole different perspective on reality. I'm just looking at myself and the whole of the universe and all the challenges I face and everything in my life just through completely different eyes, completely different eyes. That's why we often say you don't have a soul, you are a soul. You want to be, it's like converting. Literally you convert, I'm a whole new person now. So we want to go back to living in that reality. Lehaamin bo yitbarach. To really believe in Hashem and we said yesterday there's a difference between believing and knowing and living with. You can believe in Hashem on an intellectual level. I know that there's a God and I know that God wants me to keep Shabbat and do that, but are you living with that reality? Is that a palpable reality for you? And we said a few examples yesterday, you can say I believe in Hashem, but then when people insult you, you get very upset. If you get upset when someone insults you, it means you don't believe in Hashem. Now that's not true, I made it a bit intense, but you get the idea. Because if you really believed in Hashem and you really believed you're a soul, and you really believed that this world is just a training ground for you to be able to, then why would you get upset if someone insults you? Really, it's just a crazy thing. Now, if someone insults you and there's some truth to what they said, you shouldn't get upset by that, you should say thank you. Thanks. Someone says, you know what, you're really unkind, you're an unkind person. You can stop for a second and say, well, is that true? And you say, you know what, I hear that. Now, they didn't have to say it in a not nice way. They've got to deal with that. But you don't have to take on their negativity, but you can use their words because we actually say on a higher level that everything you hear you needed to hear. So that person was sending a message from Hashem. Now, it might be that you're the kindest person in the world, so why did you need to hear someone say you're not kind? To build up a healthy sense of self and boundaries and say, no, that's just not true, I am kind. But I'm now looking at the world through my soul. And someone who's looking at the world through their soul can't get offended. You just can't offend them because what are you going to say? Anything they say is, okay, so I'll improve that, I'll work on that. So to say I believe in Hashem, but to live with the reality of Hashem is very, very different thing. So what is teshuva? Teshuva is really going to this quite high level of spiritual consciousness where you're walking with v'lichiut ito and to live and to have vitality. Are you living with vitality? By the way, if you really believed in Hashem and your soul, you'd be walking around with lots of vitality. You'd just be like bouncing around, singing and just loving people. You'd love people. You'd just want to hug everyone, just love everyone. Really, if you were living with Hashem and soul, you'd just love. If you're living with ego, you don't like people that much. You're judging them. They look like that, or they're annoying, or they're... because egos are threatened and challenged by other people. Neshamot aren't threatened and challenged by other people, neshamot just love people. So if you're uncomfortable around people or you're judging people or you're worried what other people think about you, it means you're just living in a world of ego and we said ego is a sense of self not based on soul. That's it. How do you define ego? Getting your sense of self based not on soul, and we said the three main things are what you look like, what you have, and what you do. Basically your body, your possessions, and your job. That's how most people get their sense of self. And your talents as well. Body, possessions, job. talents. So if you're getting your sense of self based on any of those things, that's called ego. And then you get caught up in jealousy and greed and hatred and low self-esteem because if but what's I'm not getting my sense of self based on that, and we said there are two levels, but we'll just say the main thing, there's only one thing, is how kind you are. It's the most important thing in the world, how kind you are. The thing that says most about you as a human being is how kind you are. We learn this from Judaism actually because Avraham, who was basically the he gave birth to Hashem in this world. That's based on Rashi, I didn't make that up, but Avraham brought Hashem into this world. In fact, there's a crazy Midrash that says Hashem calls us his mother, imi. Hashem says we are his mother and what, are you crazy? It says we're like his sister, his twin, his wife, because we bring God consciousness into the world. We birth Hashem into this world. So Avraham was Chesed. We know Chesed is the foundation of the the whole foundation of the creation of the universe. Olam Chesed Yibane: the universe was created as an act of giving, Chesed. So you should get your sense of self based on how kind you are. And that means how kind you are to yourself, by the way. Very, very, very careful. Some people are just being kind, but they're not being kind to themselves, that's not called being kind. Or some people are giving and giving and giving, that's not called kind because you're going to damage people. So part of being kind is also Gevurah which means I have my boundaries and I hold back and I have self-restraint. Yes. I exactly wanted to ask what is kindness because it has the same, when you are kind to the cruel you are... 100 percent. So kindness, for now we're saying kindness is unconditional loving giving. Unconditional loving giving. And too much is bad. Too much of everything is bad, including kindness. Too much unconditional loving giving to your children ruins your children. If you water a plant and you just keep giving it water and you don't stop watering, you'll drown it. So we say kindness is the essence and key of everything, but then you need the opposite balance which is Gevurah, knowing when to stop. The kindest thing you can do for some people is to stop giving to them. But that's not called kindness, it's still called Gevurah, it's called restraint. Restraint. But everything's coming back to kindness. The first beracha in Shemoneh Esrei we say אלהי אברהם אלהי יצחק אלהי יעקב, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So Abraham is Chesed, kindness; Isaac is Gevurah, which means restraint, boundaries; and Jacob is tiferet, which means balance, harmony. But the end of the beracha says ברוך אתה ה' מגן אברהם. We don't say מגן אברהם יצחק ויעקב, it just says Magen Avraham. Why? Because everything's Chesed. It's all Chesed. Even the Gevurah is all I want to give to you because I love you. I want to give to you, sometimes how do I do that? By not giving to you. You had a question? I did. I'm not sure if you answered it. But what I was going to say is that if we were all this happy, joyful souls bouncing around instead of all the other egotistical stuff, sludge that holds us down, the main very essence of our being would be kindness. Yes. Ahava v'simcha. Kindness and joy. Love and joy. Love and joy and those things together are kindness. Yeah. Which means being kind to yourself as well. That's where it starts from. Yeah. Yes. Just want to go back about three and a half minutes when you started discussing about egos and... It's what's my motivation in doing this? Is my motivation for the best? Is my motivation ultimately kind? I give this example often because it's a very on-point example and from my wife. She tells... my wife is my greatest teacher. But I love my students. I thank God I love my... Most people. So when I leave work, 5:30 I leave work, and my students come up to me and say Rebbi, you know, I've got a problem with my parents, Rebbi, and I stand and talk to them and I hug them and I support them and I want to be their father all the students that I have who have terrible abusive fathers, I want to be a father to them and I'm sitting with them and I'm supporting them. But it means I get home 45 minutes late. So my wife once said to me in a very beautiful way, she said, Dovber, I love the fact that you want to help the Jewish people and you want to be there for the Jewish people, I just want you to remember me and the kids we're also Jewish people. It was a beautiful lesson 'cause she said, you know, your kindness to your students is actually gevurah to us. Your chesed to them is gevurah to us. So now when I leave work at 5:30 and my students say Rebbi can I speak to you, the kind thing to them would be of course you can, but that's not being kind to my wife. And my wife is more important than my students, so I say to them, look, book a one-on-one time during between 9:30 and 5:30, or if you can say what you want to say in the one minute it takes to walk me to my bike, you can say that. You've got one minute. Let's walk together. They're like, my father, I'm like okay bye. I say you can leave me a WhatsApp voice message and I'll listen to it at 11:00 at night or whatever. But, so you're right, there's definitely practical considerations, but it's always driven by love. It's always driven by love. If someone else feels, if my student then leaves and says my Rabbi's not kind 'cause he didn't give me the time, I don't need to worry about that. It means he's oversensitive. I am kind 'cause my wife is more important than him. So in general in life, this is a whole separate lesson, we need to be very, very sensitive to other people and their needs, but you can't it's hard enough to deal with your own stuff. And you've got to deal with everyone's trauma and stuff and tiptoe around all the time, as long as you in your own mind are motivated by doing the right thing. I always say to myself, how am I with Hashem here? How am I with Hashem in doing this? So if someone else is then going to shout and get upset with me, that's not got anything to do with me as long as I feel I was living in line with with the truth, with what Hashem wants from me. And sometimes I do make a mistake and I apologize. And sometimes I do call my wife and say, look, this student does really need my help right now, so I am going to be at home a little bit late. And she says, okay, that's fine. And that's okay, so there are exceptions. But it's all about what's my underlying motivation behind everything I'm doing. And in general the ego is needy and taking for itself. Egos need. I need respect, I need honor, I need fame, I need people to like me. Egos get into relationships because I have my physical and emotional needs. I'm needy. Egos are needy, bodies as well. Bodies always need to be fed. And then after you feed them they feel good and then they feel empty again and you have to feed again, empty, feed. That's bodies and egos are insatiably hungry. Neshamas are exactly the opposite. Neshamas are so full of light, love, and joy. I just want to give, I just want to give, give, give. Once again, give to myself as well, don't run yourself down. So that's what we're trying to do, we're trying to return to a state of much, much healthier higher consciousness. That's what teshuva is. It's not beating yourself up. That's not what teshuva is. It's about returning. ואף שחלק מהתשובה בפועל הם חרטה על העבר וידוי קבלה על העתיד לקיים המעשים even though yes, there is part of teshuva which is regretting your mistakes. I'm going to talk about regret 'cause there's a very big difference between charatah which means remorse, and guilt, shame, beating yourself up. Guilt, shame and beating yourself up is not part of Judaism. Well it's become part of Judaism but it's not actually part of Judaism. We believe in remorse which is when I let myself down I don't feel great. The biggest punishment in Judaism is how you feel about yourself, and the biggest reward is how you feel about yourself. It's not that God is some man in the sky who's going to punish you or reward you. Reward and punishment is when I do the right thing, I feel good about myself, and when I feel good about myself, I feel happier and have better relationships. And when I do the wrong thing, I don't feel good about myself, and when I don't feel good about myself, I don't feel happy and I don't have good relationships. It's completely up to you, your whole life. When it says the book of life and death is open, you're going to be written in the book of life and death, who chooses who writes you in the book of life and death? We do. It's very clearly Parshat Nitzavim, we're coming up to it. I put before you life and death Uvacharta Bachayim, choose life. Hashem says you choose. It's not some guy in the sky looking at you and being like, oh, you know what, you spoke Lashon Hara last year and you didn't get up early and you missed Shacharis once, so therefore you you're going to die. And such a weird it's just weird. What it means is Hashem opens the book of life and death and gives you the pen and says \"Hey, which do you want? Do you want life or death?\" So then everyone looks at me and says \"You're crazy, who would ever choose death?\" And the answer is you all the time. Whenever you put yourself down, whenever you're jealous, greedy, angry, selfish, you're choosing death all the time because death means I'm just not spiritually connected anymore. So every moment is a you're choosing whether to write yourself in the book of life and death. You're going to start saying \"Why me? It's not fair. I hate myself.\" Yeah, that's true, that's called death, that's called spiritual death. And we know that the books of life and death are talking about spiritual life and death because the Gemara says that tzaddikim are immediately written in the book of life on Rosh Hashanah. But tzaddikim die during the year. And it says reshaim, evil people, are immediately written in the book of death. But bad people live. So it can't mean we also believe there is the physical life and death stuff in general, but it's spiritual. Are you spiritually alive? אתם הדבקים בה' אלקיכם חיים כולכם היום. Someone who has God consciousness is called alive. If you don't have God consciousness, you're not really alive. You're a lovely person and you're doing your you're fine, you're fine, but you're not alive full of vitality. You're being dragged down. God bless you, child. So charata, vidui, confessing, Kabbalah. We'll talk about this closer to the time, really closer to Yom Kippur because once again, other people will disagree with me and they're probably much wiser than me, but I just don't think Elul is the time for charata and vidui, for regretting the past. It's not Elul avodah. I this book says it there is some of that in Elul. For me, it's it's just too much. That is the avodah for after Rosh Hashanah. Aseret Yemei Teshuva, after Rosh Hashanah, and then it is the avodah for Yom Kippur is the vidui, charata, confession, that's the time for that. And it's a very good avodah. Elul is the opposite. Elul is let's just be new. Forget the past. I actually think Elul is exactly the opposite of regretting the past. Elul is forget the past. I'm not defined by the past, I'm defined from now. Who do I want to be now? So when people come up to me and say \"You know what, I'm really trying to work out who I am,\" I often say \"It doesn't really matter who you are, who do you want to be?\" That's what's important, not who you are. Who do you want to be? This is who I want to be. So let's start being it. No, but I can't do it. Who says? Your past is meaningless until after Rosh Hashanah, then you can go into your past, but what's the purpose of all your remorse and confession? So that you don't do it again. That's the purpose. It's not to bring you down, you're not meant to feel bad about yourself. On Yom Kippur are you meant to feel bad about yourself? Absolutely not. You're meant to feel bad about what you did, but not bad about yourself. And only someone who feels good about themselves can feel bad about what they did. So you should feel good about yourself that you feel bad about yourself letting yourself down and then you should feel good about that and don't do it again. And when you do it again, do teshuva again. Yeah. In spiritual terms, does that mean that it takes 30 days to figure out who you want to be and a week to go back? Oh, we we're meant to be doing teshuva every day and then every at the end of every day you're meant to do teshuva and and just before Shabbat, Friday is a big teshuva day and then Erev Rosh Chodesh you're meant to do teshuva. So teshuva is life, really. Your whole of life is you're doing teshuva all day every day. But we just say at the beginning of the year let's have a like meditation retreat. We're going to have this retreat, no phones retreat, no speaking, we're just going to get into this zone. But then you have to go and live in the world and then get back into the retreat. So Shabbat is a meditation retreat once a week, but then you need to bring the Shabbat consciousness into the world. So the beginning of the year is is like the boost. We're taking off. Give you the energy and then but throughout the year is basically literally the beginning of the year is the full trip and the rest of the year is microdosing that. Even in the beginning of the day you daven Shacharis and then you say brachos throughout the day. So we in Judaism we believe you have the retreat, the full experience, and then the whole rest of our avodah is tapping back in, tapping back in, tapping back in. So one could say that after you've reached that level or worked on yourself to figure out who you want to be, then you need to work towards and look back and it will take you shorter... much shorter... yeah. This is who I want to be and now you've got to work for it. There's always two parts of teshuva. The first part of teshuva is \"I want, I want it.\" The second part of the teshuva is the actual work of getting there. I think we used the example yesterday, day before, whenever we said, if a kid goes off the derech and he's living in Tel Aviv with non-Jewish girlfriend, smoking weed, all this stuff... The second he calls home and he's like \"Wait, I want to come home. I want to leave that life,\" he's done teshuva now. Now he's got to stop smoking weed and split up with the girlfriend and do all the stuff, so there is work to do, but the initial teshuva is just \"I want it, I want to come home.\" And that's so easy. We're going to... We're going to see, we're going to read it in a second. Get there. Mikol makom, כל אלו הם רק תנאים ומעשים לזכות בתשובה. All of the confession and the remorse and the saying more tehillim and getting up earlier, that's not what teshuva is, those are just conditions, those are means to an end. And in general in life people have completely confused the means and the end. Like food is a means to an end, food is there to make you strong and healthy. But people have literally, what people say, do you live to eat or eat to live? So I live to eat on Shabbat. I eat to live, I meant to say. I eat to live, why am I eating? Because I want to be strong and healthy and full of vitality. That's why I eat the right thing. But some people it's like the highlight of their life, they've become, I'm a foodie. I'm a foodie. Okay, I'm a neshamie. I'm a neshamie. I know everything my neshama wants and needs and I know where to get it. I know which restaurant and which wine to have with which dish, and like, that's really impressive. But food is a means to an end, money means to an end. Money, you should be very rich. Be'ezrat Hashem I give you a bracha you should be mamash rich. And don't forget me, give me ten percent. But don't be very rich if it's going to destroy your peace of mind and marriage. Money is a means to an end, and the end is I'm going to make the world a better place and look after my family and do all that stuff. That's the means. And then I'm going to help the world. But once you make money the goal, you've messed everything up. It's amazing, I say this very often to people: would you rather be rich or happy? Now, Judaism says you can be rich and happy. But being rich won't necessarily make you happy. The richest people in the world, not the happiest people in the world. So you can be both. Let's say you have a choice. You could either be rich or happy. So everyone obviously says, I'd rather be happy than rich. So I say, so why are you doing a job which is so stressful that it's making you such a stressed person that when you come home you shout at your wife and children? Your job is destroying your life. Your job itself is taking away from your happiness. So I know you say theoretically you'd rather be happy than rich, but you're not living that. You'd rather be rich than happy. Obviously if you need a job to pay the bills. I'm talking someone who's got some high-powered CEO, you don't need that much money. You just don't need that much money. Someone who needs to nobly work to provide for his family and that, I'm not talking about that case. I'm talking about people who need more and more and more and more and more. So you're choosing rich over happy. Your richness itself is taking away from your happiness. The money's taking away from your happiness. So in every area of life you've got to clarify the difference between the means and the end. And I think in general Western society has made the means the end. And it's destroyed the actual end, which is kindness and happiness. Chasing all of those things is destroying your kindness and happiness and marriages and everything. Destroying everything. So we've got to understand that all of the things, the charata, the viduy, the confession and the remorse and the changing your deeds, they're just means. אבל עצם המהות הפנימית של התשובה היא, the real essence of what teshuva is, לשוב לחיות עם השם, is to just go back and chill out with Hashem. You know, just chilling with Hashem. I'm just chilling. Me and Hashem, we're chilling. It's cool. I'm chilling with my soul. I'm chill. Teshuva is just chill out with Hashem. Love and joy, love and joy. Return to a state of love and joy. If you had no mind, then you would just be experiencing love and joy all the time. We see that with babies. They experience love and joy all the time. Just experience love and joy. So whenever you're not experiencing love and joy, it means you've moved away from your soul. Not a hundred percent, because when someone passes away, you're not meant to be experiencing joy at that moment. You're meant to be experiencing pain, love and pain. So pain's okay, but not too much, not too often. And the more focused you are on the essence of reality, the less things actually upset you. So you should be upset when someone you love passes away, you should be upset. We sit shiva, that's, it's healthy to be upset. If you're not upset when people are suffering, that means there's something wrong with you. But if you're upset because someone scratches your car, or there's no ketchup for your fries, or someone says something not nice, it's like, come on, like, really? What would you sell your happiness for? What would you sell your happiness for? So you're like, nothing. And like, yeah, why are you sold your happiness because that person had nicer shoes than you, you idiot. You're selling your happiness all the time. You'll sell, I'm just selling my happiness, my team lost. You're going to sell your happiness for your team to lose? You idiot. You've got to choose. My happiness is so important to me, I'm not going to sell it. Someone dies, I'm going to let it go for a little bit, but I'm going to come back to it. So you have to know what's the ikkar and what's the tafel. So all we're trying to do is לשוב לחיות עם השם יתברך מתוך הכרה במציאותו ומלכותו with hakara, very important word, hakara. means a recognition. I recognize. I'm aware. I'm aware. I'm aware. An aware, just a basic awareness. And really we said this was the first class we gave, I think this is the fourth one we gave, the teshuva is just coming back to awareness. Coming back to presence. Returning to presence and awareness. And God consciousness. Because we said most people have pizzur hanefesh, which means they're scattered, very scattered. Thinking about too many things, thinking about the future, the past, what people think about me, what I want, how to get it, you're very scattered. Teshuva is let's become present again. Just present. I'm here. I'm just very present. I'm not in the future. Most people are living most of their life in the future. Thinking about the future. That doesn't bring peace of mind and presence and vitality to life. Lashuv, let's just come back to hakara bimtsiuto with a... and the future and in the past too. And the past. Yeah, some people are their whole life like \"this happened to me\" and my regrets, in general most people are stuck more in the future than the past. Well, I guess how it depends how old you are. As you get older, I'd like to do a chart where like 25 year olds 90% of their thinking is the future and 10% the past and as you get older it goes. When you're 95, there's not so much future to think about I guess. There's more past to think about. Baruch Hashem. By the way, a 95 year old who's who's looking towards the future, that's actually good. At that point, his life is like \"I've still got a chance\". My grandfather put on tefillin for the first time when he was a hundred. Really? Yeah. I put... Grandpa, you're a hundred now, it's time. So he did it. Amazing thing. And maybe his whole life was just to put on that tefillin once. Who knows? They say a Jewish man who never put on tefillin, just putting on tefillin opens up your spiritual thing. That's why Chabad, some people say \"Oh Chabad just putting tefillin on everyone and they're not really conscious of it\", but there is a spiritual thing that says it turns on a switch. Jewish man never put tefillin on his head, he hasn't had his switch turned on. First time I put on tefillin at 29 years old. Switch turned on. First time I put on tefillin I just grow a beard. It's amazing. Yeah. Spiritual beard. U'kmo shekatuv as it says in Devarim, we're going to read this soon, ושבת עד ה' אלהיך and you should do teshuva, but where are you going back to? Hashem. You're going back to Hashem. That's what teshuva is. So some people do such good intense teshuva in Elul but they didn't come closer to Hashem. They just improved their lifestyle a bit, but this isn't New Year's resolutions. Rosh Hashanah isn't now my New Year's resolution \"I'm going to stop smoking\". Let's say in Elul you say \"Right, I'm going to stop smoking\", so you stop smoking. Are you closer to Hashem now? Not necessarily. You can even say more Tehillim and not be closer to Hashem. You can do everything. You could do teshuva for these 51 days really and not come closer to Hashem, because you just changed your external lifestyles, which is a lovely thing, but an atheist needs to do that as well. And an atheist also needs to work on their character traits. So even if you do deeper teshuva which is my character traits, you're just as still an atheist. Because real teshuva is spiritual consciousness. So if you're noticing that I'm doing all these external things, even fixing my character traits but there's no God consciousness in it, that's not called teshuva because it says ושבת עד ה' אלהיך. Where are you returning to? God. Get back to God. כי כשהאדם חוטא הוא מתרחק מהשם יתברך because when you do things that aren't good for you, you distance yourself from Hashem, obviously you don't, because you can't be far from Hashem, Hashem's everywhere, but in emotional intimacy. The emotional intimacy and presence. v'achshav v'shav alav, but when you do teshuva then you return to Hashem, you're coming closer. וממילא לעשות תשובה זה כל כך פשוט. I'm going to read this line again and then I will translate it. וממילא לעשות תשובה זה כל כך פשוט. And this means that doing teshuva is absolutely simple. Kol kach pashut. It's so simple. It's just saying \"Dad, I want to come home\". That's not hard. פשוט לבוא אל השם יתברך it's simple to come to Hashem ולאמר לו אבי שבשמים טעיתי. \"Dad, I messed up\". והלכתי אחרי היצר הרע and I went after my yetzer hara and all the havalim, all the shtuyot, ועכשיו אני מתחרט מאד ומצטער. And now I regret, I just want to come home. That's it. And then do you think Hashem is like \"No\"? Your son, he left home, he ran away, he's now living in Tel Aviv with his non-Jewish girlfriend, smoking weed and whatever, and he phones up and says, \"Dad,\" he's like crying, \"Dad, can I, I just wanna come home.\" Do you think I'll be like, \"No, son\"? I'll be like, \"Great! I've been waiting by the phone for you to call!\" Second my son says, \"Dad, I want to come home,\" I'm like, \"Brilliant, come home.\" So Hashem's not making it hard. You think Hashem's playing hard to get? \"No, you don't deserve it, you're not good enough, you're not saying enough Tehillim, you're not doing it, you're not...\" Hashem's your loving father. Hashem's like, \"Brilliant, come.\" But then he has to stop smoking weed and stop doing that and stop doing that. Fine, that's an external thing, but actual teshuva is pashut me'od. Do you want to come close to Hashem and live a life of love and joy and consciousness? Yes. So if Hashem is your loving father and you know he wants you to come home and he does this whole thing, why is it that every time you sin you see that there is a...