Ari Goldwag - Rosh Hashana - Moshiach and Teshuva

you're listening to the weekly para podcast with Ari goldwag recorded with hashem's never ending assistance in 5778 2018 this week's paraa is the last para 5778 and it's parim and there are two concepts that are placed next to each other in the paraa which I'd like to speak about I'd like to try to understand and those two are as follows first in Chapter 30 verse one we spoke last week about the blessings and the curses all of these blessings and curses will come that I've placed before you and you'll notice it and you'll pay attention to it wherever you are wherever the in whatever landsem has sent you to verse two you will return to your God and you will hear his voice all I'm commanding you today you and your sons and with with all of your heart and with all of your soul verse three so the P here and it's amazing because we need to understand as we as we start to read these these verses this is these are theim this is the par that we read every year when we get to rashash and right before rash and the verse tells us that Hashem is going to return all of those all the Jewish people that have been spread out throughout the lands throughout the countries of the world hasm is going to return all of them God is going to have compassion and God is going to gather them back together into the land of Israel from all the places that they were spread out if those who are spread out will be at the edges of of the heavens from there Hashem will gather you in so hasem is going to bring us back to the land of Israel from the farthest reaches of the earth will bring you back to the land that your parents inherited the land of Israel you will inherit it again and God will do good for you and he will do and he will make you even more more numerous than your forefathers now here's a p which I want to focus in on the verse tells us that hem is going to remove the the um that which is covering our hearts the foreskin on our hearts and and and the hearts of our children so that we will love God with all your heart with all your soul in order to live and and then the verse gives us another promise all of the curses that come upon the Jewish people when we don't fulfill the Torah those curses will go on the enemies of the Jewish people God makes us a promise you shall return you will hear the voice of and he will do all of his Commandments that I'm commanding you today and the verse goes on you're going to do chuva we're going to repent talks about a PR he makes a promis it's it's an amazing thing God promises us that when the Messiah arrives this is talking about the the Messianic times when Messiah arrives the Jewish people return to the land of Israel as part of the Messianic process the Jewish people return and do chuva we repent and we are forgiven by God and we come back to God and we come back into a relationship with God it's a promise God promises us it's going to happen in the end amazing thing okay so it's interesting that we're reading about this before rash makes a lot of sense because Rashana and yum Kipper have everything to do with a return to God making God our King interestingly on and yum Kipper we speak consistently is filled with references to the Future time when the Jewish people the the whole entire world is going to join as one to serve God amazing promises we read about that Kipper and we read about it in the par immediately before sh and specifically it's not just about all the Jews coming back to Israel but rather it's about the Jewish people repenting coming back to the Torah coming back to our relationship with God it's very interesting now the thing that strikes me as the most interesting is that the Torah is giving us a a prophecy really about the future a promise about the future and yet we read it before aash and we're supposed to take it to heart as something that we can accomplish right now and I want to read to you in Raman beautiful ramban speaking about the future time this promise hasm is going to remove the fores skin of our heart that which stops US prevents us from being able to serve God properly to connect to God properly that's something that hem is going to remove i' like to read to you the ran firstan tells us that this is something which anybody can access someone who comes to purify themselves God helps them God is promising us that we will return we will do cha we will repent and he will help us and we see from these verses an amazing thing that from the time of creation person has permission they can do whatever they want they can be righteous or they can be they can be uh evil man and as long as the Torah exists as long as we're in the regular times which are now the the times where we we have not yet reached the Messianic age so that's how it is a person has a choice so that we have a merit if we choose to do good and we have a punishment if we choose to do evil God placed us here on this Earth the entire purpose is for us to choose to do good an amazing thing when the Messiah arrives the nature of the human being will be to choose good no more will people choose evil the heart will not desire that which is inappropriate person will not desire that at all this is the idea of the circumcision that the verse is referring to here says God is going to circumcise our hearts this that today there's a desire to do something that's wrong we don't per se follow the our our deeper heart our deeper Des desire to do what's right so that is just the state for now but when the Messiah arrives that won't be the case anymore God will remove the desire for evil God will circumcise our hearts we will have a desire our nature will be to do good we'll live in in line with that which is our deeper nature because desire that's something which is considered a a foreskin on the heart the removal of that foreskin the removal of the circumcision that's spoken of here is where that t that desire is taken away we will return to the way that the first man was before he sinned the nature was of a person at the time when God originally created him and and her was to do good it wasn't like today where we have two different desires we have a desire inside of us to do good and we have a counterforce inside of us to do evil it wasn't like that originally I'm sorry something the ran explained there's going to be a new covenant with the with the Jewish people what is the New Covenant like the Covenant which was made with Abraham the the New Covenant that's being referred to in the verses in Jeremiah is that the Jewish people and we could say the entire world the human being will no longer be someone who's faced with this internal struggle between good and evil but rather the nature of man the true deps the spiritual nature of man will come out and so so the the Torah will be written upon his heart and this is what happens when when the the evil inclination is taken away from us and we do that which is appropriate it becomes our nature not even second nature but our nature that's why the verse says furthermore I will be for them a God and they will be for me a nation right today so there are people who teach others how to serve God there are people who are more spiritual and people who are less spiritual but when messia comes when the Messiah arrives that will be our our our nature our nature will be to do good it won't be necessary for one person to encourage anybody else to do good we will all naturally want to do good we know today that the way it is is that the the in of a person the heart of a person is inclined to do bad from a young age it's necessary to teach people to to act differently when the Messiah arrives so that evil inclination will completely disappear it will no longer be a struggle to do good says furthermore in given to you a new spirit it's a new heart Etc and I will make it that you will go naturally in the path of God this new heart that we're speaking of will it's a it's a hint says the r it indicates the fact that it will be the nature of the person the spirit that's spoken about here is speaking about the desire of a person that which she will want naturally verse in Ecclesiastes 12 Co 12 vers1 speaks about the days that will come when there is no desire what is the days that will come when there's no desire it's a time when there's no more desire to do evil this is a reference to the times of the Messiah there's no merit and there's no negative thing will naturally do that which is appropriate and therefore there's no positive or negative think everything depends on the desire so when Mia comes we're not going to have we're not going to have that kind of difference that that kind of two different thoughts two different possibilities now what's interesting and the question that I have here as we read this is what what why why are we reading this before we're talking about M we're talking about a time that's in the future something that's going to happen and and today we don't have that we don't have that we haven't removed the for skin of our hearts from doing so and and what's also interesting is that the next PUK the next verse so what happens is in the next verse is that in the next section of the Torah it speaks about this it's amazing thing this is this is really the question this is the Crux and this is what it comes down to and this is what we need to understand that this does apply to us and this is speaking to us even though I'm speaking of a future time because the verse says like this this Commandment that I'm giving you today it's not too far away from you it's not distant it's not in the heavens that one would say who would go up to the heavens and get it for us teach it to us so that we should do it it's not on the other side of the river or the the the ocean such that some someone would say that we should do it it's very close to you it's inside of your mouth and inside of your heart and R understands that what is this Mitzvah which Mitzvah we referring to are we referring to the entire Torah no the ran understands I believe it's the ran that that this is talking about the midst of Chua we just spoke about chuva we spoke about returning to God and this is something which is very close and and accessible to us and the question is that's very interesting but the mitah chu that was just spoken about was something that's going to happen in the future so what is the what is the understanding here is talking to me now or it's talking to to me about what's going to happen in the future the way it's going to be it's going to be our second nature in the future so I think there's a very great depth here that it's telling us what is the idea of chuva the idea of chuva chuva is it means the word chuva which means we translates repentance it means to return it means to return to God but it also means you know when we speak about the future time of mhia of the Messiah we're speaking about as we said a return to the way it was before Adam sinned so it's a return to Paradise it's returned to the way that we're supposed to be it's a returned to the true nature of man it's a return to what's deep in the depths of our heart so the PK is really telling us an amazing thing that it's possible to access the times of mhia it's possible to get to the times of the Messiah right now it's possible to access that place where the for skin of our heart is removed and it becomes our nature to do good and that's something that we experience through rashash and through yum through the times when we speak about the future time we speak about it not because it's some dream that we want to have that we we wish for yes that's also true but it's also something that we're saying I can access it now I can have it right now and in fact many of the things that we do on Yumi specifically are reminiscent of the future time it says that in the future time in so we won't need to eat we won't need to drink we're going to be completely spiritual we still have our physical bodies but we we won't need to eat and drink so the the fact that we don't eat and drink on Y is not like when we're doing it because of morning is because we're recognizing the fact that even today we can live in a place which is reminiscent of the way it originally was and we can return to that today through trua by being M making Hashem our King making Hashem Our God and that I believe is the message here it's speaking about a future time and it's not a coincidence it's speaking about a future time to teach us that we can access that future time even now we can access that future time because it's really the time that we originally had it's that which was in our heart in the depths of what we can do it's an adep of who we are so I want to bless you and ask you to bless me hasm should help us that we should be safe we should Merit to be able to recognize that it's not too far away it's not in the heavens it's not on the other side of the sea it's something the the midst of chuva the the returning to the place where we were returning to that place and going to that place which is in the future time it's inside of us yes it's covered by an or it's covered by a forkin of the heart but we can actually remove it in the future time hasem will remove it but it's possible to do it even now it's possible to access it even now and how is that done it's through the Mitzvah through this Mitzvah repentant and it's through the entire Torah when we keep the Torah when we try our best to make Hashem Our God to make him our King and we consistently each and every day are involved in the Mitzvah of the Torah that is how we access that mitzah that's how we we access that place the future the Messianic era is now we can enter into that that space right now we can get there right now so I bless you that we should be able to do that should help us to have a beautiful rash a beautiful Chavis thank you so much for listening have a great year