Nitsavim-Rosh Hashana - Connecting to Spiritual Essence

You're listening to the weekly para podcast recorded with Hashem's never ending assistance in 5775 2015. This week's para is parasitim. The very beginning of the para the Torah tells us like this is chapter 29 verse9 you are standing today all of you in front of your God your heads your tribes your elders your officers call Israel all people of Israel I'd like to share with you two different midrashim both of which have a profound message and I think that if we look at them in tandem. If we can look at both of them together, there's a very deep thing that we can take with us and incorporate. The first measure says like this, you are standing today. What is the idea of? What does it mean today you are standing? What is the idea of today? The idea of today is that just like the day sometimes is dark, sometimes is light, sometimes is shining. you too. Even though sometimes it may be dark for you, Hashem in the future, God is going to give you a light which will last forever. We'll see soon what does it what is what exactly does the medish mean that even though it's dark for you in the future there will be light. What is this darkness that we we are experiencing that Hashem is going to light up? Let's see soon. How do we know that this is going to be going to be so? It's going to be true. The verse in Isaiah chapter 60 verse 19 says that God will be for you for a light forever. Amai now the med says something very interesting. When is it indeed that God will shine this light? When will the Jewish people experience this eternal light that that's promised in the verse? When all of you will be bound as one. Now what does it mean audas? So this line audas I think is very appropriate. We have it right now in this week's para and it's also right before rashash. Rashashana is going to be this Sunday night Monday and Tuesday. On rashash shana we speak about the fact that in the future time when Msiah comes when the Messiah comes the entire world will be bound together as one. And what are they bound for? They're bound to do the will of God with their full heart. Okay. So what the Medish is saying is that when all of us are bound as one, willing to do God's will, ready to do God's will, when we are all joined in that way, so that's when Hashem will shine this light, this eternal light upon the world. How do we know this? The message tells us you that hold on that attach themselves to Hashem your God you all are living today. Okay. So we find the message is telling us that we see from this verse that when we're all serving God we're all attached as one. We're all attached and attached to God. That's what the verse says. We're attached to God. So then God gives us us life today. Again he uses this word hayoim which represents the fact that just like the day sometimes starts off dark but ends off light. So too we live in in a certain darkness a spiritual darkness which hashem is going to light up. When is that going to happen? When we all join as one. It's very interesting the explanation. It says that it's going to be in the future when we all join as one. But the verse that it brings is you who attach yourselves to God. So then you're going to have life. So it's referring to this eternal light as life. But how do we see from this verse? It just says that if we attach ourselves to God that we'll have this life, this eternal life. But how do we see that when we all are joined as one? Where do we see that in this verse? It seems difficult to understand within the medish. So I was discussing this with my son and the idea that that we came out with is that you know you can have a group of people who are joined together but they're completely not joined together. When people are joined together, let's say you have the mafia. When the mafia, you know, you have a group of people who are crime incorporated, right? When they're joined together, they're not really joined together. They're not they're not an aguda. They're not a bundle. The word ag means a bundle. They're not really joined together because everyone is always secondguing. You know, if I'm going to if I'm going to do something wrong, so Vinnie might get me. And if Vinnie does something wrong, he's afraid I might get him. I might take him and throw him in the East River. You know, that's not an aguda. Yes, it's Crime Incorporated. Yes, it's a a corporation, but it's not an aguda because really everyone is separate. Everyone is focused on themselves, what I can get out of this situation. How can I make money perhaps or how can I how can I rip people off properly? And it it works better when I have other people doing it with me. That's not an ag. What is an aguda? It's an amazing thing because when it comes to a naga, when it comes to a real connection, a real joining, so I it's possible you could have two, let's say, two rabbis, two raon, two sphartic rabbi, chief rabbi, the sphartic chief rabbi, and the Ashkenazi chief rabbi. Perhaps they never even speak to each other. I'm sure they do, but imagine even if they didn't, they would still be considered on the same team. Why? When you hold on to Hashem, your God, when you're holding on, when you're attached to God, who is the ultimate source of all unity, of all light, if we're all in this boat together, then even though we might be on different sides of the boat, the fact that we're all on the boat heading in the same direction, we're all connected to Hashem who's a source of unity. So that means that we are in an ag that's the explanation of this medish and that's what it means also. That's what we say on Rashana. we speak as we as we mentioned we we talk about the fact that what's that binding that one unit that's made of is to serve Hashem with a a whole heart when that's the focus so then the meas tells us if we are focused that way if we are focused on serving God if we are joined together in that way then we receive this light this eternal light now the message continues and says The way of the world is if a person picks up a bunch of reads, a bunch of sticks, the way is if you have a bunch of sticks that are together, it's very difficult to break them. But if he takes the sticks, the twigs one at a time, even a child can easily break them. Break them one at a time. When we're joined together, the message is saying, when we're in aas, we're in one bundle together to serve God, nothing can break us. And therefore, we get this light. We get this this eternal light, this eternal life. Similarly, we find that the Jewish people do not get redeemed. We don't experience redemption until we indeed are one unit. And we find this in the verse. It says in Jeremiah in those times it's talking about the future before the Messiah and in that time God says the children of Israel the children of Judah will come together the times of the Bikdash the times of the temple times of King David King Solomon. So the Jewish people, the entire the entire Jewish people was split to two different parts. The ben Israel and Ben Yehuda, the the kingdom of Judah and the kingdom of of Israel. And as a result of that, there was a great split. 10 other tribes, the people of Israel were exiled. But the the verse tells Jeremiah tells us that in the future, these people, the these two despair kingdoms of the Jewish people will come back together. They will return the verse says, Israel. So the people of Judah, people of Israel will come together. They will come together from the northern land. And as a result of that, the says because they will be combined because they will be bundled together. They'll be able to receive the face of the face of the divine presence. And perhaps the idea is perhaps the depth of what the magic is saying is we know that on Mount Si the Jewish people experienced a revelation. They were they stood there as one person with one heart. They were able to receive the this incredible vision this incredible spiritual experience at Mount Si of God. Why? Because they had this unity. Meaning when Jewish people when the Jewish people come together when mankind comes together to serve God. So they have the ability to withstand that spiritual experience. The the midash tell us our sages tell us that the Jewish people they heard from God directly the first two of the ten commandments. They weren't able to withstand it was too much for them. They died twice. They god brought them back to life. But the idea is the metric is teaching us is that such a spiritual experience is so intense. It's something that can only be faced with unity. It can only be faced when the Jewish people are coming together. They're giving up the the all the differences between them. They give up all the ideas of of this one. You should be like me. I should be like you, etc. All that kind of stuff is given up. When we do that, when we when we're willing to have as the verse says all of you in front of God, how do we stand up? So the mages is telling us the way that we stand up is through unity is through Jewish unity. I think it's very interesting because at the beginning of the mages it spoke about the fact that we start off in a state of darkness. Just like a day it starts off dark and it becomes light. So too the reality of the Jewish people is like the day. You stand today like the day which means that we start off in a state of darkness. We enter into a state of light. And if we continue along the lines of what we've been speaking about, what it really means is we start off in a state of separateness. The Jewish people don't see how we can relate to each other. We don't see we all we see as though that person is different from me. He has a longer beard than me or he has no beard or he doesn't wear a yamaku or he wears a different type of yamaku than me. You know, that's how we see each other. And that's the darkness that we face. And the challenge is and the guarantee is that if we are able to join together as one, if we're able to let go of all the differences between us, then we will indeed experience the divine presence. The Messiah will arrive. The redemption will occur. How does it happen? The measure tells us the secret of it. The way in is through attachment to God, through service of God. Every single person has something special that they do in service of God in in their avoid Hashem. And so when everyone finds their place within the Jewish people, their place within the service of Hashem. So then it doesn't matter that you're the way that you serve God is by focusing on the mitzvah of Yeshiva Israel living in Israel. Doesn't matter if your focus is on studying Tal on learning Gumarra or your focus is on learning midash or your focus is on earning money so that you can support those who are involved in good deeds your focus is on doing kindness being careful about whatever the focus is there's so many different options availability and service of God if that's the focus of every individual is how can I serve Hashem what does Hashem expect from me so then instead of being focused on our differences it's possible to focus on what combines us, what joins us, which is the service of Hashem. And when we do that, when that's our focus, we can merit to have this this joining together. That's what we get on Rashashana. That's what we get on Yum Kipper. There's something special that happens on Yumiper and Rashashana. We specifically say on the night of Yumiper, we talk about the fact that we are including within our midst those who have sinned. Each and every one of us has done sins. We've done things against God. We've we have violated the spiritual principles, the integrity that we wish to have throughout the year. We have that within us and there are people among us who have done that more, people among us who have done it less. And we include everybody on rash. And the idea is because we're coming together to make Hashem our king. We're coming together today to make God our king to recognize that this future time, this ag this joining together to serve God is something that we all yearn for. And when we yearn for that, so all of the differences and all of the averas, all of the negative within us, all of the negative that we see on the outside disappears. Now, I'd like to share with you a second maj which I think is also extremely important and and brings home this idea. This medish is both these midr I found them in. And this one is actually part of it says like this. Those who keep the Torah lived and are going to live again. And how do we know that this is true? The verse says remember your congregation that you acquired in days of old. What is this referring to? What does it mean in days of old? What is means before? It's referring to the fact that the concept of the Jewish people or even the spiritual essence of the Jewish people existed before the world was created. of now the message says the the Jewish people the essence of our Jew of the Jewish people of our souls was created before the world. It also exists in the present as a verse says you are standing up today. So we have the Jewish people existing in the past and in the present today those who hold on to God who hold on to their spiritual essence exist today. And it's going to be that the Jewish people and all those who attach themselves to God will exist again in the future. As the verses, God says that there will be a day that I will do an amazing special idea compassion upon them. as a person has compassion on his son who serves him. So the magish is saying something extremely powerful. The magistr is saying that the idea of spiritual connection to God of the people of Israel who represent the spiritual connection to God existed before the creation of the world exists currently presently exists today. You stand here today. You are attached to God today. And those who indeed are connected in this way from the past and in the present will indeed again be connected in the future. And the death of this maj is that we have a connection to Hashem which defies time which is beyond time which is beyond space. And that's the the message or the depth of what the is saying. You are standing here today. The today is the the everpresent now. There's it's always now. It's always now. Even even yesterday, it was now. Yesterday, right? So that means that we exist in a certain sense. It's possible to to relate to the fact that our spiritual essence, our consciousness exists beyond time. Now this the merit for being able to enter into a relationship with Hashem is something which is beyond time and beyond space and at the depth of it it means that it is our spiritual heritage. It's our it's like like the says the Torah is something which was commanded to us by Moses. It's an inheritance for the for the kahal for the congregation of Jacob. That means that every Jew has a spiritual inheritance. The essence of the Jew is that our root is, our root was, our root is, and our root will be. As long as we attach ourselves to that root, we continue to exist. And I believe that these two midrashim, if we can look at them at the depth of them, they're saying something in tandem. They're saying something which is the same. The the measures before talked about the fact that there are times, there are days we start off in a state of darkness. It seems to us that we don't have that connection. It seems that we don't have the connection to others around us and to God. But the depth of what we're saying is that that connection, that spiritual connection is something that existed before time. It's something that we can access today. And if we indeed do access it today, if we do connect ourselves to who we really are, to that spiritual essence of who we really are, then we will be able to indeed access that in the future. And it's the it's the ticket into redemption. The ticket in is connecting to that spiritual essence, connecting to Hashem. And amazingly, it's it's unbelievable. But by connecting to Hashem, to the spiritual essence of who we are, at the same time we connect to every other Jew, to every other human being who is striving spiritually to connect to God. And when we connect in that way to Hashem, to God, there's no all the barriers fall, all the differences fall. All we are is we're where here we are in front of God. It's like that that picture which kazal paint for us. Our sages talk about that that circle dance that all of us are equidistant from God. God is in the center. We're all circling around God pointing. This is our God that we we desired. We we waited for and he saved us. Because when we're pointing to God in the center, when we're all equidistant, we recognize that all of us have a special role in our service to God. And that's the essence of who we are. And that is something ingrained in us from before time. So then we merit to enter into that space into that gula into that redemption which is beyond time and that's what we speak about in rashana which is the day the day the day when the world was created it's the day that we we connect to that transcendent space that transcendent time and indeed we connect to each other we're able to connect to each other by connecting to our spirituality to our spiritual essence. I want to bless you and please bless me back. Hashem should help us that we should be able to understand the power of a of unity which is possible to access through connecting to our spiritual essence. Hashem should help us to do that and to be able to connect to the past to to where we were before time where we are today standing right now in front of God in front of the high holidays should help us to be able to connect to the present as well. And in so doing, Hashem should be able to give us the merit to be able to access and to walk into that future time to that to that redemption when Hashem will reveal his oneness to the entire world and all of us will indeed be part of that to serve Hashem with a full heart. Thank you so much for listening. Have a wonderful Shabas. This podcast was made possible through the gracious donations of listeners like you. For more podcasts like this, please visit www.argoldwag.com or search on iTunes Ari Goldwag. [Music]