Rabbi Shmuel Reichman ASERES YIMEI TESHUVA- It's Never Too late

we all like rooting for the underdog we all like rooting for the person who looks like they're a goner it's too late there's no chance they can come back there's no chance they can win there's no chance they can change and yet they overcome all the odds that are against them they overcome everything challenges obstacles their life falling apart and they still somehow make it they still somehow succeed now that is the theme of series teshuva it's the idea that it is never too late i mean the rambam says explicitly he says in hell he says that you can always do teshuva it's never too late and he says that a series is a special time it's a special time of tifila and teshuva where in an instant you can change in an instant you can change who you are and you can become someone else and the question that i want to delve into today is what is what is the random talking about what is this idea of assassination what is unique about serious mature and to take it a step further what is what is this really about a lot of us tries to make shiva especially in kippur is about vidue now the rambam says that vidu is a mitzvah and it seems a little antithetical that teshuva which we're going to assume vedu is an aspect of true truth is an aspect of v there's a whole topic what is the mins of veda we're not going to get into that right now but it's fascinating it's a mitzvah a mitzvah is something akash bharara who literally is telling you i want you to do this so wait a second wants us to do a vero so that we do chufa how is vidue a mitzvah but without getting into the whole sugiya an essential aspect of this entire topic is that hakasbar was telling you that no matter what you do no matter how distant it appears that you are from hashem always wants you to come back it's hashem saying i am commanding you will the maharaja says mitzvah comes from the nation of south which means connection that no matter how many favors you do no matter what your life is like hashem saying connect come back it's never too late and the question once again is why why is it never too late if you unfortunately smoke your whole life you go to the doctor and they tell you it shouldn't be it should be it shouldn't be anyone but they'll say tell someone you have lung cancer and you say i'm sorry i didn't mean it i didn't know i i mean i maybe i did know but i regret it i want to be better the doctor is going to say that's great but there's nothing i can do we can try to treat it but you know apologizing regretting it's not going to help and that's something incredible truth is somehow you can say that despite all the damage you did despite all the decisions you've made despite all the things that you know you know went against the truth one against dorothean it's never too late a series made shiva is the special unique time where we have an even greater opportunity the question is what is going on here how can it be that you have the opportunity to somehow fix what went wrong now this is the whole topic and we're not going to give a full share we're not going to spend hours delving it's just we don't have the time to do that but i want to frame one of the most transformative principles that you can ever learn which is the concept of the self the concept of who we are many of us think that we are [Music] a body maybe we're an intellect maybe we have a soul but then many of the deeper bali they share one of the most fundamental principles that you can ever hear you don't have a neshama you are a neshama you're a self you're an inner higher consciousness a higher being when you say i not referring to your body referring to you you're referring to your core self now what is that self what is that nisham you're eloquent you're built with salamela kim and at root at your actual root you're perfect but we don't experience that we wake up in this world and we experience imperfection you know mitzvah safta listening to the rest of hashem is all about connecting back to who we really are connecting back to our true selves aviros literally literally means to block it's it's all about living within the illusion of someone that you're not disconnecting from who you truly are now where does this come from where where is the maharal where are they getting this from so there's a fascinating gemara the gemara says that and this is the gemara neither that's the gemma says that when we were in the womb we learned kolotorokula and right before we were born the milk hits us in the mouth and we forget it so if i'm gonna ask a classic question says what do you mean we've discussed this many times before why why is the mouth making you forget and why teach it to you in the first place so he says you're not just learning torah you're learning the deepest roots or you're learning the nature of reality you're seeing everything with crystal clear lens but you're also seeing who you are you're in touch with your perfect root self your angelic self this is before you come down into this world you're being shown everything you're supposed to accomplish but then you forget it because the goal is not to be perfect the goal is to become perfect to earn it to create your perfection so you come in this world with the illusion that you're just a human being an animal what's the difference in you and a monkey you're a little more intelligent and you go through an entire life's journey of becoming great becoming extraordinary becoming angelic using the physical world uplifting and connecting to but at root you're perfect that root you're an angel you're a male you're in a shama so all aviras are just creating this illusion of disconnect between you and your your higher self you and hashem you think that i'm not connected to hashem you think i'm not extraordinary i'm not great i'm not a angelic being teshufa is returning to what so the morale says returning to you to turn into your true self to who you truly are that's not just a rosh hashanah eloyum kipper idea it's a life idea we are on this journey to our true selves and what's curious so the balance of talk about christ is the illusion of being cut off from who you truly are it's the experience of being cut off from hashem now if you would actually cease to exist that's not a big punishment you don't experience that but it's the experience of living within that illusion of not existing the illusion of not being connected now all of life is about building higher levels of awareness connecting to our true selves becoming more in touch with who we are learning torah is opening up our mind opening up our inner self what hashem wants to the hashem is working and wanting to live a life of truth a life of and mitzvos are living that life and what happens when we go off the wrong path we're not affecting who we truly are at root we're affecting you know there's a whole whole topic in terms of its impact on the spiritual world we're not going to get into that right now but in terms of you yourself naf shaktim says explicitly no ivira can touch your actual nashoma what it does is it creates this blockage on the surface level and teshuva is wiping that off and going back to your truth that's why the gemara rash hashanah says there's different forms of chuva there's sadaka maison according to one opinion so what are all these ideas so to duck we've talked about in the past it's about expanding your sense of self becoming part of something bigger than yourself going to your root self what's the whole topic if that's what goes into we're not going to go into right now but crying out yearning to go back to your true self she knew his shame is changing your name showing that who i am now in terms of the vera aspect of me that's not my true self it's going back to a root stage of self shinoy maisa it's you know changing how i express myself in the world by showing that what i did is not my true self yeah i might have sinned i might have divorced but that's not who i really am malcolm according to one opinion is also this idea of uprooting yourself and saying the the person why i'm here we are definitely involved especially you know a lot of who we are is based on how we identify ourselves a lot of how we identify ourselves is based on our social identity so when you uproot yourself you move somewhere else you're able to say the person that was there who was not living up to his potential not living up to her potential that's not me i'm going to go back to my root self uproot my current self going to a different malcolm so i can tap into my true self these are all aspects and ideas of returning to our true selves but what's the problem the problem is when we come to identify ourselves by our sins when we get so locked up into a false identity that we look in the mirror and we say i am i am a mistake i am a a i i am a russia i am a loser there is no chance for me i cannot succeed i can't grow i can't become i can't evolve i can't change i can't i can't become my true self because that's impossible this is my true self this is who i've always been this is who i'll always be and the questions like this is that true well how do we overcome that so i want to share two cases two famous cases in gemara which i'm sure you've heard many times before but i want to approach in a little bit of a deeper way and the first is the famous gemara and of the desire that if you he wasn't a rabbit his whole life actually he was he was an avarian he was a russia and the gemara talks about how this was a man who had relations with every woman he could never he could ever find every woman in the world who was a zone harlot he would go and have a relationship he he heard there was this one that he hadn't had relations with and there was this one and he he went and while in the act of having attachments with this woman he let out some gas and if you're a kid you smile you laugh huh he loves some guests we're dealing with toy topics we're dealing with depth you can approach any topic laughter uh you know gas excrement bulb or every aspect of life has tremendous depth so when you're dealing within a real of era of torah thoughts you can say what is it you know you don't have to laugh you can say what's the depth of this why isn't there telling me this so she let he let some gas in the zone and said what the zona said something unbelievable this is a zone and she's giving him a sir she said just like the gas left you left your body and it's not coming back you left you're in a vagina you're a russia and you will never be accepted to do to shuffle you will never be able to go back and that shook him that woke him up so what happened she made him realize that he threw away his life sometimes we need someone outside of ourselves to give us that to give us a rebuke to show you know kind of give us that mirror image help us see who we are sometimes we're so far away from who we should be that we just will never be willing to be self-aware to acknowledge who we have become and we need that wake-up call so she gave him that wake-up call and she basically said you're a goner there's no chance for you and what did he do he woke up and he sat the gemara says that he sat between two mountains two hills and and he he started figuring out how am i going to chuff i know why between two mountains and two hills so there's different aspects but one is that he was trying to create an atmosphere of era of awe so that he can get into the proper mindset to actually perform truth and part of it was negating his ego he lived his entire life doing one thing which is fulfilling his desires and he's saying how can i how can i stop living this type of life and that's the first thing we want to do if you want to change something you've been doing for years and years you have to figure out how to change the environment that you're in for example i tell people all the time they come over to me and say i have trouble eating junk food all day i said you have junk food lying around your house if the answer is yes you're not going to change because at midnight when you get hungry you're going to go and eat it people want to learn more they want to learn more wasting their time they want to learn more if you have sparring lying around or do you have other things lying around the house if you surround yourself with books and farm and people good people you'll engage in a lot more productive and and helpful activities so he created an environment of iraq a environment of awe-inspiring awe-inspiring circumstances so that he'd be able to really tap in so what'd he do so the first this is the famous famous kamari he calls that to the mountains he calls out the shemaine vargas he calls out to the sun the moon calls out to the stars the masalas and he asks all them to ask you know to help him to juva to to basically serve as intermediaries between him and hashem why because he's scared how am i going to talk to his child if my entire life not talking dash i'm doing the inexplicable uh betraying hakash baku betraying my true self and and now i'm gonna go ask him to to have me back so what did they say everyone knows what they say they said no they said we will not and we cannot go for you we have other things to take care of we have to take care of ourselves we have our own responsibilities we can't do it for you what was his realization one of the most famous slides and shouts the only one who can do this is me why tsushuf is not practical it's not something that gets done it's something that you do it's something you become it's something you accomplish it's something you by definition engage in and what'd he do he said so the mark says something very fast it says that he sat with his head between his legs between his legs and knees and he cried until his new shaman left and then a basketball came out and said that elizabeth udaya this this this avarion remember a lesser bender died in one second rep yet he's a rabbi rabbi and he just went straight to olamba and the famous ending to the story is rabbi rebbe was crying when you heard this heard the boss call and he said some are in the rolling hab in a lifetime some in a single moment this is what we have to pull this part what's going on here so first of all why'd he bend down and put his legs between his knees so there's a couple approaches one you can say it was uh it was busha it was shame he was embarrassed about all the things that he did he came face to face with his you know his past mistakes and he regretted them but he had to first be in a genuinely be embarrassed and regret what he did and part of that also is negating your ego he spent his whole life living according to his own ratso loving according to what he wanted and he had to negate that sense of self so he'd be able to say i want to connect to a higher self to my true self into the ultimate self the ultimate in shamash but there's something even deeper and the maharal says it says something unbelievable what's that position heads between your knees it's a fetal position why was he going in the fetal position because the maharaja says he was returning to his field state he was going back to his field state going back to his field perfection his connection to his true self he's going back to who he truly was and that that's what our life's mission is and and that's what rebbe was saying rebbe was saying that some people spend their entire life doing that and some people apparently can do that in a single moment and that fetal state of perfection when you're in the womb it's actually part of the reason why we go to a mikvah is to go back to when you're feeling state you're surrounded by the amniotic fluid and may shafir so you blow chauffeur to go back to our root may shafir chauffeur we go back to our root self beyond space and time and that cosmic root dimension of reality where we are perfect we're tapping into that root self and vlasive and dornaya was tapping into that's why i mean as part of why we go to a bigfoot before shannon before him kipper it's it's to enter into that back to that feel state to get back into our true perfect self we'll come back into this world inspired when we come out of the makifa but going inside mix is that formless state we've talked about the power of mikvah we're not going to go into right now but those of you who remember you know mikveh is a very deep topic it's when you go into the waters mayam is formless you go into the waters you go into this formless root state and you come back out you regain a form but you know taking that root perfection that you were tapping into all in the mikvah and bring them back into this world that's why all creations in the history of the world was something of form coming out of the formless something of form coming out of the water so why when akash baja created the world the dry land came out of the water kajaba recreated the world of the marble he recovered the world with water then the dry line once again emerged from the water when the crash was created clients for all the nation we went into the yamsev that's the morale says we went to the amsaf once again emerged in water and came out you know we went in as individuals came out as a nation it was the birth of clay israel and that was the idea that's the idea of the gemara needed the flaming bay is that when we're in the womb we're in that you know so to speak our own personal makeful come out into this world we regain form it's a beautiful beautiful idea it's also the idea of 40. it's always 40 saw in the mikvah 40 is always the number of form so there's 40 son in mikvah kajaba after 40 days of the mobile dry land emerged clydesdale had to spend 40 years in the midbar to gain form to become who they truly are and the gemara says that until 40 days the the fetus is maya bahama mishnava says that 40 years as the age of being an age of of wisdom very very deep topic we're not going to delve deeper into it but what's the idea here when it comes to rebbe's statement rebbe was crying why was he crying rebbe was crying he said this russia this russia spent his entire life wasting away his potential in a single second change his entire life became a a rebbe and it hasn't went to olimbo what's going on so let's think about the zona the zona said that you can't perform chuva there's no hope for you but what was he saying he's saying you can't perform teshuva this this you know this is this this russia sorry this russia came from truth because that's not who you really are who are you go find out and that's what rebbe was crying about right he wasn't crying because he was you know i guess you know one way of thinking about it is that he was depressed he spent his whole life earning his own haba and this guy does it in one second that's that's a complete misread of what's happening here what's for every really saying crying always represents a breakdown in a clear path so you cry when you hear really bad news let's say someone thinks they're going to live for 40 years and they find out they have a couple days left to live their whole world got shattered they cry or they think they're gonna die unfortunately a couple days and the doctor says good news you're cured they cry tears of joy because they thought they're gonna live a couple days shattered you're gonna live 40 years we cry when our path in front of us breaks down that's why clay stroll cried tears of khinum when the mirabellum came back and the college broker said those aren't real tears your path is right ahead and you're thinking inside that your path is shattered so now i'm going to give you a real day of tears and it's going to be tish above where you really will have a shattering of the path where everything will break down so what happened here rebbe is crying why because this revelation actually taught him something that you can reconnect your true self so you can perform true teshuva to get in an instant and that's why rabbi calls him what he calls him a rabbi blessed ayah why because this person brought an idea to the world he taught us the power of teshuva that he is never too late and that's an amazing amazing idea another powerful example of this we'll just share one more example is incredible we're not going to go i mean we can spend literally hours talking about him fasting he was a door tremendous and he's one of the most peculiar enigmatic figures in all shots he goes off he does who knows what and he's one of the four who went into the parties that's the source of his opi courses and who he was why he was as a whole topic but for this very very simply without getting all to getting into all the details he became a russia went off the dara gave up threw everything away and just said i uh you know there's no room for me in this world i reject it all now with his philosophy was why he did it that's a whole topic we're not going to go into right now it's a fascinating topic but the question is this the question is what happened to him because he the governor says that what happened is that he became this this person called her who literally means like other someone outside and the basketball said that everyone can do teshuva everyone can do teshuva except for her so what happens so we seven says there's no hope for me right the basket [Music] so once again what's what's going on here the idea is that your root self is perfect and as we go through life we make mistakes but those mistakes are not us they're not our true selves they're who we have attached ourselves to who we think we've become and teshuva is regretting the mistakes and trying to tap back into who we really are the big mistake that we make at that point that we could make at that point is when we think we are the mistake when we attach ourselves to this new identity and we refuse to let go and that's what happened because the basketball said what the basketball doesn't say elisha but can't come back he said achara can't come back now is not here has come to identify himself as but that's not who he is and hashem is literally talking to him and saying that you know i can't come back because that's not you like you ditch this identity and come back to your true self he's literally giving him a message but what did i what did alicia hear elisha heard elisha can't come back and the gemara actually says that that's literally that in the battle the basketball says elisha literally hears there's no room for me i can't do shiva it is too late for me and the inspiring message of it's not too late you can come back he hears the exact opposite because he identifies with the facade he identifies with the problem he identifies with the mistake and i would say the most fundamental problem we have is we refuse to tap into a higher identity we refuse to accept the possibility that we're destined for more we're capable of more that we are capable of the extraordinary once we realize this once we realize that you literally you literally are capable of the infinite you are a transcendent angelic being in this world on the on a mission to achieve the extraordinary once you realize that it's not for too late you have that potential then you can always tap into it the problem is when we think we are the mistake uh on yom kippur we read read yonah but the midrash says that the king of ninja was para why are we reading that paro para literally you know is a russia hardens in his own heart becomes you know the source of of the birth of clinicial he is the ultimate nemesis the ultimate russia and even he does chuva the idea there is that it's never too late and that's the power of the youth given mediocre whole topic we can spend hours talking about it but very very simply are the root that the highest root of akash bar whose will talk about how it's rooted in kasir which is the highest root of akash baruch's will in this world and it transcends din so kashbacho created the rules of den which is meander negative media you're doing avira you have kapara you do mitzvah you get it's very much formulaic it's systematic it's logical it's mathematical it's within the realm of din of strict judgment but there is a realm that transcends that and when we recognize that despite the fact that we're in this world we are rooted our ultimate route is connected to akash baraku and transcends then we're able to transcend then that's the whole idea of of yom kippur of tapping into kaper why because yum kipper is what yum kipper is where we tap into our angelic selves we don't eat we don't drink we don't ask for samita we don't engage in the physical world because we're tapping into our our angelic selves we are malach we say out loud only malachim can say that the queen godzilla goes into the koshakudoshim no man is allowed to go in there but anyone kept his amala he represents both kleistrol going in there we are transcending our root we're in this world as well that's the paradox of life we say what's the pillow when you go to the bathroom it's that your neshama is able to be connected to your body when you go to the bathroom and you release waste what's the release in the waste do you eat to connect to yourself with your body if you don't eat yourself will leave your body when we release the waste we're basically saying thank you for keeping our selves connected to our bodies the powerful idea view of the mediocre is that we're able to realize that kashmir who created it he created logic he created cause and effect and he's not bound by it and says that that's the whole idea of chauffeur when we blow chauffeur we're connecting back to the ultimate route we're giving a whole share on trophy you can listen to that but we're going back to the ultimate route which transcends din and is able to tap into that ultimate chaser it's a beautiful beautiful idea and our friend freelander actually said that the idea of chauffeur is tapping into the yugi mummy it's the same idea why because we're saying again again i know that there are veras i know that we messed up but at root we are perfect at root you transcendent at root help us connect to our ultimate route help us connect to you help us transcend din and when we recognize how conscious progesterone sending then media can again we're able to transcend and that's how it's beautiful it says in there hashem that when we blow shuffle when we tap into they do that is the ultimate route that he created the world he created the the rules of them we recognize hashem's root meaning we get to transcend the rules the rules of din as well and this is our journey to him kippur this is our journey uh serious mutual is that journey and on yom kippur the ram khal brings down there's actually it's in the gemara it's rosh hashanah and the martin tinus there a couple other events happened in yum kippur one is moshe brought down the second set of luchos and the other is avraham performed bruce mila so what's the connection between those two and why are we heading towards as our ultimate destination why is that yom kippur so there's a beautiful idea two ideas number one is we're tapping into the ultimate route gosh gave us a torah and freshman talk about how mantor was an experience of omaha hearing hearing sound that's process you know it's you hear one sign after another seeing everything is static hearing represents this world the process and seeing represents how about where everything is static you experience who you are but mantora we saw sounds the whole process of life was basically we tapped into a transcendental realm of static reality we were experiencing a gosh broke himself uh the the madrid from takahara neshamas were just like basically leaped out of our bodies and connected to because we were basically transcending the physical world it was an experience of haba we were connecting back to the ultimate it's why a blue chauffeur a mantar it was a experience of transcending this world and connecting to kashmir in the ultimate way and on a more profound level bruce meal is where we in the physical world transcend the ultimate we take the most physical animalistic organ at least that which can be used in the most physical animalistic way and we uplift it morale says that we're basically connecting this physical to the spiritual emotions anyway that's what brisk meal is that's what avraham's media was connecting the physical to the spiritual and both ma'am torah and brasmila occur on the 8th right morale says the whole physical world is built off of sevens seven days in the week seven lights in the spectrum of light seven sounds uh seven uh notes of the musical scale which i've missed something about hawaii because seven is the number of natural we live in the three-dimensional world right left forward backward up and down the seventh is that which connects it together the eighth is the malamante that which transcends so the basically you have six sides of a cube they don't have to be together they can be on the floor the seventh is that which makes them connected the eighth is the spiritual transcendent infinite aspect that emanates from the pieces so when you have a radio for example the pieces of the radio come together that's great if they come in together in the right way you have a radio wave the body's functioning right away you having the shimmer residing within it matantora was building seven weeks of seven and the first of the eighth week was matantora is on the eighth day the eighth is always la malama teva now what's the the power of this idea the power of this idea is that yom kippur as well as the eighth keeper as well as the eighth it's the day of ma'am torah right it's the eighth day after rosh hashanah think about that's unbelievable unbelievable but ryan kipper is actually something different yum kippur is the second mantora what's going on what's the idea so the second idea is in addition to prismila and the re-giving of mount torah and your paper about transcending and connecting to ultima root it's the idea of reconstructing broken pieces because the second man torah remember first montora moshe broke the luchos the second mentor was rebuilding what was broken it was getting kaphara the you know the the freshman talks about how akash who was on yom kippur that's when moshe brought down the second set of luchos it's and obviously seconds have lucos is the second set of luchos is much more human that basically he talks about how it's on a lower level and moshe was so to speak built them as opposed to akash baruch building the second one a whole different topic that we're not going to really go into right now in terms of the difference between those levels of torah but the second torah is like the idea of you learn cultural cool in the womb and you forget it you come into this world to build it we lost the first torah we got the second luchos the second man torah now we're basically in the process of building of constructing it bruce meal is the same way if you look at the gemara and sanhedrin says that originally adam harishan didn't have an erla he didn't mean to burst mila only after the do we now have an erla and on our physical bodies that are no longer perfect we have to perfect it and then obviously terms rufus says what do you mean how can it be that a college broker creates something imperfect and you're more perfect not ashamed you're able to create something perfect so i'll be kevin said no that is our top kid here our job in this world is not to be perfect we're never going to be perfect our job is to become perfect we lost the first luchos we're no longer as perfect as other marvel we're not in the womb in our perfect state we're in this world but our job is to build our perfection to become perfect to become extreme to learn every single day a little more to become a little more and that is the power of vassars made shiva it's the idea that it's never too late and once the young young pepper we taste a little bit of our perfection we become we tap into our root selves but the goal is not to be perfect and to transcend this world and to be an angel another has to bring a karma katas because the goal is not to be transcendent and avoid this world the goal is to become perfect to engage in this world it's after to use this physical world all the mitzvos almost all of the mitsubishi are physical mentals you shake matzah you wear scissors you put on filming the goal is to use the physical to connect to the transcendent to create oneness to create harmony to think about who you are what your people becoming to use all of the potential you have in this world to become the ultimate version of yourself and that's the message of a serious mitchell it's never too late no matter how old you are and how young you are you can't say i'm too young you can't say i'm too old you can become extraordinary so think about what we're going to become this year stay in the room and say what talents what what skills do i want to build what do i want to work on what goals i want to create think big dream big think about the ultimate year you can create and start heading on that journey and remember for the serious mate it is never too late