Hoshana Raba and Simchas Torah

You're listening to the weekly partial podcast with Ari Goldwag recorded with Hashem's never ending assistance in bishel 5787 2026. This week we have the holiday of for those in Israel those are both on the same day which is shabas for those inits to Sunday. And I'd like to share with you a thought today which is the day that we are mak we go around with our love of him and let's ro him seven times and we also clap we take five branches of ours and we bang them on the floor and these are deep ideas instituted by our sages or according to some opinions in the gummora to dorisa comes from the Torah, this obligation. And I'd like to share with you a thought from Shashiva about that. And I'd like to connect it also to where we also go around the the uh the center the center of the of where we read the Torah. We go around the Beimma seven times as well, just like we do on Hosanama. And of course, it corresponds to the seven times that we went around when we were coming in to conquer the land of Israel 3,300 years ago. And all these things have to do with something special. The eighth aspect has to do with the uniqueness, the transcendental aspect, the uniqueness of Kalal Israel as the all-inclusive soul aspect of mankind. and also himself [snorts] God is his divine presence which is the transcendent aspect of reality. Okay. So that's a lot of words for introduction but I'd like to read to you from what says about he says like this it's a beautiful thing at the very end of the whole that we do in the the so at the very end we say there's a voice that's announcing it's announcing and it's saying the voice the announcement is of course it's maser the redemption And these days are very connected to redemption, right? The concept that that we as we'll see, you know, let me just read from instead of giving you previews says after the high holidays, after we sit in the divine presence and and what is that divine presence? It's the shade of the suka, right? The whole concept of the suka is the it provides shade says. So after we've spent seven days dwelling in the suka, here we get to the seventh day, we get to this day of and we take the right. What's unique about the rabies of the four species? We have the esro of course is perhaps the most famous. We have the Lulov, the the long fr, we have the willow branch and we have the the myrtle branch. Okay. So each of them has a different characteristic, a different aspect. The er has a smell and it has a taste. The lulv is uh remind me here it has no taste but it has smell or I don't remember has taste and no smell. The myrtle branches have smell and no taste. But the aras have have no smell and no taste. Okay? And we take aravas separately. Five branches of aravas. They have no taste and no smell. And those are the ones that are found in the center of what we are doing on right at the very end of the prayer. Right? the the when we get to the ultimate aspect of the prayer on which is the point right we have it's a time of din as we know it's times of judgment times when hashem is deciding how much rain we're going to have we're going to pray about rain tomorrow we're going to start saying right the rain is essential for the crops so how much sustenance we have but the the aravas the aravas are there in the center of it. Right in an arovous, he doesn't mention this, but arro need a lot of water. Otherwise, they dry out and die. You can see my arro from this morning. They've already uh they've already gotten pretty dry. If you can see that in the video, but um so that's the center of it. The aras are the center. So too in a corresponding way, right? The aras have no taste and no smell. So a Jubilee what if you have a person who's not learned he hasn't studied Torah he doesn't have too many mitzvah he hasn't fulfilled a lot of the commandments but still even that Jewish he also calls out to Hashem save me right we live in Israel we have people who are on different levels of [snorts] of connection to Hashem we could say but everyone everyone everyone has a right to call out and say save us when we're in a challenge like we say at the end of which we were saying during that what's the final what's the ultimate statement [snorts] our father our king be gracious with us and answer us right gracious means we don't deserve it we don't have any we don't have any actions we don't have anything to curry favor give us charity, do with us kindness, and save us. Okay, so you see that within the prayers there's an admission and a recognition that we're not we're not who we wish we could be. Our relationship with Hashem is not as the best that it can be. Sometimes we feel empty. Sometimes we feel disconnected. But still, we ask that you save us, Hashem. We do the same thing on. So we've been talking about we've been calling out Hashem save us, Hashem take care of us, Hashem forgive us, etc. throughout the whole first 10 days of start and then on through the holiday of what happens at the end of a when we're calling out and asking him for salvation the very end it says there's a voice we can hear now we've gone through this whole process we've established a relationship with we admitted that we need to change we need to be better. Hashm help us. Save us despite our lacks. And then we hear the sounds of gul. We hear the sounds of redemption. Says, "Where does that sound come from? Who's making that sound?" He says a beautiful thing. The voice, that sound is our sound, our voice. The very fact that we're still here, we're still around. and we're still alive. The very fact that I'm here to speak to you and that you're listening to this, that says we can hope for we can hope for redemption. We're still, it's the sound of our request, Hashem, we're still asking you to save us, redeem us, take care of us. That is the sound. That is where it's coming from. It's coming from inside of us. which is quite beautiful. I I remember having an interaction with one of the Rabbi Pere where I asked him a question had to do with focusing more on music, focusing more on Torah and and he was talking to me for a while. And after about 25 minutes, he said, "Usually after about 15 minutes, I can I can hear that the person has the answer themselves, but I've been talking to you for 25 and I don't hear that you have clarity on your question." That's what he said to me. But I want to bring out from that story that he wanted to get out of me. He wanted me to find answer within myself. He didn't want to just give me advice or give me direction. He wanted me to find the answer here inside of myself. And he's saying that's the shot over here as well. Where is that sound coming from of gula? Where does it come from? It comes from us. It's that sound of us asking Hashem, we don't deserve it, but save us anyway. We read that when we're saying this. So, we pick up the we pick up these five. I go find a few that are not as not as dry here. We'll pick them up. Pick up these aras. And you have these five in your hand. And as you're holding these, you're saying these represent the fact that I'm notic I'm not I'm not a perfect person. I'm far from that. But still, Hashem, I'm calling out. I'm here. I'm still alive. And I know that there is a chance that this could be the year that this could be the moment of we we take this old this ancient ritual this ancient we take it in our hand and we go around to be which in in representative terms terms it represents the misb the altar where we would bring the carbonus the center of the bas mikdash the place where we would offer our offerings to hashem so the beimma is that place of course we place the Torah there we read from the Torah there because it's our relationship with hashem it's defined by the so now we go around that spot it represents the we had 200 years ago. You haven't forgotten what was 2,000 years ago. There was a temple. There was a bas on the Harab on the temple mount in Jerusalem. And and we hear as we do this, as we remind ourselves, as we return in our minds to the Bish, to the temple, we hear the voice which is announcing we, it's our voice inside of ourselves. We are still alive. We have the the tradition. We have the that which has been handed to us. We still have it in our hands. We haven't forgotten it. We continue we continue continue that that amazing important tradition which according to the Gmorra is it is it is it is it something that the sages saw from the because it says ar is two there's two one is for the lul one is for the misb one is for the miktosh but we have this ancient ancient tradition either it's from the times of the prophets or it's from the times of Moshenu this very fact that we're holding it in our hands we're going around we're we're back in the mdash we feel like we're back in the temple this sound is what says we have we have been victorious and it doesn't have to do with a battle between Israel and Iran it doesn't have to do with with a battle between Israel and anybody. It has to do only with the the Jewish people's struggle for survival throughout the years. We are still here. We're still keeping the Tyra. We're still fulfilling these customs, these ancient traditions from thousands and thousands of years ago. We have been victorious. We're still here. The strength of your salvation has come. This is what it takes to cross the finish line. Then what do we do? I'm going to show you. We take the and then we bang bang bang. We bang them five times. Right? One of my kids did it so well that some of these uh leaves are gone. Right? We take the aravas and we bang them on the floor. What does this represent? represents we are the Arabus. We are we have we might have no taste and we might have no smell. We don't have the connection we want. We're not as spiritual as we'd like to be. We've made mistakes. We are making mistakes. We're going to we're human. We're going to continue to make mistakes. But even if they try to knock us down, even if they try to bang us on the floor, and even if some of the leaves are falling off, we will not die because the the secret of eternity is inside of us. He says, "I once heard a good explanation, interesting thing. When the Jewish people would go out to battle, when they would go out to war, so they would bring with them, they would bring with them the Arin Habris, the golden ark with the cherubim on the top, the angels on top. And inside of that ark, it was a small box. It wasn't a big box, but inside of that box was the original broken tablets that Mosher Rabenu brought down when he came down from Mount Si alongside the second set of tablets that he brought down well 80 days later altogether 120 days from when he went up until he came down finally. So the question is why did they bring that box of all things? Why did they bring that box along with them when they went out to war? This was in order to say to our enemies to give them to give them pause. We have something to show you, so to speak. We are not afraid of you. We're not afraid of you. You cannot break us. are new. We've already been broken. We've already been broken. The the claw was 40 days since they received the Tyra. They heard the ten commandments. They heard the voice of Hashem speaking to Misha to them. 40 days later, they already had made mistakes. They they broke down. They they made the golden calf. And what was the result? comes down that day with the tablets which are supposed to be the the wedding ring so to speak the covenant and he sees them doing this terrible sin and he breaks the lis we've already been broken when he broke those was broken so we come out to battle and we say here ye oh enemies you can't break us we're already broken you can't break us were already broken. Okay, this is a very nice idea. It's very appropriate for for my Shiva to say he was a tall man grew up in South Ozen Park with a lot of tough guys around him, non-Jewish, used to try to beat him up. You stand up against them. But here it is, we've we've made mistakes, but we're still here. says the work of today leading into the work of a is it expresses something even more than that not just that we've we've already been broken but it expresses [sighs and gasps] before anything we say that we are here we are expecting redemption because we are here we are still here despite everything we are still here. And I think you know we we walk into simplistra and it's a especially over the last few years it's a mixed bag. The day of October 7th was on simplistra and we come in and we and we we want to be joy. Remember the first year after October 7th was very difficult but there's still talk about it. Some people refer to the war as the not as the October 7th war but as the simplister war. So we come in and and uh we have mixed feelings. On one hand, we want to be joyous. We want to dance with the tire. On the other hand, we we don't forget what happened so recently and the difficulties that has gone through. Hey, me and my family, we've been to we've been to our sealed rooms many times. Armans, we've heard the sirens. We've we've been scared. And but what do we see over and over again? We're still here. We are still here. They can try to down an Israeli airplane, but there's a an incredible help from heaven that it should not be allowed to happen. We are still here. We are broken. We've been broken, but we're still here. And as we come into and we are going around, we're going to dance with the Tyra. We're dancing around the with the Tyra. And that's it. That's the is that which we hold on to. It's the it's the tree of life. It's that which we hold on to and we recognize and we remember and we remind ourselves that what is it that we run that we go around with. What is it that that's supposed to not just be in the synagogue but it's supposed to go around with us in our lives connected to our hearts held on to tightly all the time. It's the Tyra on the shabba. It's the the lul of against thea but it's the tyra the tyra expresses and and manifests our relationship with hashem and so as we are dancing or as we are experiencing that day where there's a this joy in the connection to in in the relationship with hashem which is expressed in the on that day we remind ourselves that this is what keeps us alive this is what shows and proves that Hey, I'm not a perfect person. I'm not I'm far from but I'm still trying. I'm still seeking. I'm still running after, dancing with the Tyra. The Tyra is the center of my life. This is what I go around with. So, I want to bless you. This is a bit of a short one today, but that's what we have time for today. I want to bless you and I ask you to bless me. Scripture tell us that we should be able indeed to continue on to reme to remember and to remind ourselves that wherever we are we are still holding on. We're still we are still here. That voice is inside of us and it's calling out that call is is coming out. It's announcing the gula is close. The redemption is near. Our personal and our national salvation is coming soon. Thank you so much for listening. a wonderful Shamas, our wonderful Yantiff. This podcast was made possible through the gracious donations of listeners [music] like you. For more podcasts like this, please visit www.rigoldwag.com or [music] search on iTunes Arig Goldwag.