Elul: Fresh Start - Rabbi Yaniv Meirov

topic for today is starting fresh starting from the beginning starting new marital we know that the month we're in right now in the hebrew month is the month of av is aleph in bed get ready the month of elul is coming this past week the parasha we read was parashat means to see but it could also be the letters could and we all know elul is the month of anila that's what it stands for i'm from my beloved and my beloved is for me it's the month of juva it's the month when we start means task for forgiveness it's the 30 days before rosh hashanah judgment day and then ten days after that is yom kippurin as we all know there's a certain image that's a whole process wherever it will die it's an amazing unbelievable opportunity right now to start fresh perfect timing tomorrow night what's tomorrow night it's amazing unbelievable opportunity over here we know something interesting we're about to start sunday night sunday morning is asking for forgive forgiveness and in the sephardic circles i'm not sure how it is in ashkenazi circles but uh being the i'm safarti uh what do we do by we sing what does that mean we have sinned for you why are we singing such words what are we singing and we're singing and we're all happy and uh hashem it's like a whole tataram it's a whole event right it's called people loves because some people don't see them by the whole year when it comes they're there why they love the singing there's so much singing but does it make sense to sing that we sing that we did this does that make sense wherever we'll say what's the reason what's beside how do you explain the fact that we sing so the rabbis give an unbelievable explanation an amazing explanation listen to this very carefully is asking for forgiveness there's two types of forgiveness there's forgiveness because you're scared oh my god you know gehenna i'm going to get punished and there's another type of cuba of asking for forgiveness it's out of ahabad of love we know that the rabbis tell us when we do chuva when we ask for forgiveness out of love you know what happens to all your sins guys all your sins become it becomes a mitzvah that means every time you ever did anything wrong if you do chewbacca out of love that sin becomes a mitzvah it becomes a positive it becomes a good thing so let me ask you a question isn't it a great thing that we're thinking isn't it amazing is there because we want to do it out of love out of out of out of love rocket there's about who forgot almighty and we're going to share with you a few quick parables some inspiration that we could all take home is that hashem and start fresh start a new cycle from today whatever happened happened at your car the main thing is to start fresh to start new right now we tell ourselves that's true in essence the tower itself is whatever we did in the past please forgive me i won't do it again i'm going to try my best to never do it again and move forward so robert is a very very famous michelle very famous powerball i'd love to share with you there was a couple listen very carefully you could remember this and give it over it's pretty famous you might have heard it before but it's worth repeating there was a couple they didn't have children for many years and they were very concerned very worried they were adopting their praying and they're trying everything they can and lo and behold hashem thank god they finally had a baby girl now usually by the bukharin community what happens when it's a baby girl no one really knows the boy there's a big breed there's a big party right but uh over here being that they were waiting so many years for a child this baby girl the party was the party of town everybody came you had the whole everyone coming and partying and singing and dancing and eating and enjoying it was unbelievable the girl slowly but surely becomes one and a little bit older and they're realizing something's a little bit uh off you know they're trying to uh i'm sorry not one a few months and they're feeling some something's awful a little bit they're trying to do pikachu and the baby is not really cooperating they're realizing something's off they go to the pediatrician the pediatrician the doctor says that this is not my department something's up with the eyes if they go to our eye doctor they go to the eye doctor and they hear very very sad news and the sad news is unfortunately their daughter is we should never know blind and the parents are devastated they're sad they're broken they waited so long and they have a child that unfortunately can't see but they stay strong and they tell themselves that everything that hashem does is for the best we can take this challenge and we can move forward we're going to be trying to raise this child to become great and lo and behold they stay strong they have faith in god and their had a few other kids they were able to see and be normal in the whole nine yards this child grows up 16 17 18 years old and barack hashem it's time for what you know marriage right so now who how are they going to find a good guy to you know marry her and they're trying he goes out on one date and you know blind then no and another date and another person another guy and this guy and that guy no no no but the rabbit the community says listen i have my son he's a good guy learning the whole nine yards i'm interested in you know your door and they go out and lo and behold baruch hashem they decide to get married and the guy is born hashem you know regular guy and it was a big party very big party and they're married they have the chevrolet big big party big event and lo and behold a few weeks later into the marriage they're sitting in the living room the radio's on and on the radio they hear uh commercial and the commercial goes like this for the first time in america dr chang is coming to america he's a professional eye doctor those that are blind he's able to make them see and they're hearing this she's hearing this is jumping out of the couch or jumping what wow are you serious they quickly call the number 100 you can see call 1800 you can see they quickly dialed the number and the lines are busy so many people are calling so many different individuals interested in this potential this potential doctor right so what happens is that they're calling calling calling i have certain people i know that if they want something they don't stop calling and they're good at it it's it's it's it's it's a talent you know you have to have it and long story short they call call call nonstop nonstop and then god someone finally picks up they're like we apologize we knew our lines were busy we're getting non-stop phone calls whoa what are you interested oh my wife she's blind she wants to see okay you know you know we just put out the commercials we're getting hundreds of phone calls let's get back to you in a week we have to see what the story is and the one week for this lady that can't see feels like forever and long story short one week finally passes by they call again they call again again we're so sorry there's actually so many fungus that came in we have a 17-year wait what 17-year wait she starts crying and she lost hope and she's depressed and she lost and she she lost all motivation the husband would come home for work the house is upside down she will be in the corner crying and sobbing and being sad and he doesn't know what to do and he's like i don't understand why 17 year old and he calls again he's like i don't think why 17 year wait oh because we have a limited supply of eyes not so often you get eyes donated from different weird countries third-world places people passing away people giving it all wow my gosh and she said she's depressed she's upset and sad upset and depressed going on and on the husband's like i can't take this anymore what am i gonna do already this is not normal so what happens is a few days later he comes home he runs into the house he tells his wife draw that my wife i have great news for you you won't believe it they called me back they said you have an appointment next week what an appointment to see next week already yeah yeah next week really unbelievable how don't even ask questions i don't know who cares okay great and she is so excited and long story short they go to the appointment they do the surgery whatever needs to be done they put a bandage over here over the eyes they say wait another three days three days you can just imagine how long three days feels like you've never seen before you want to be able to see your husband you want to be able to see your parents you want to be able to see the world cars and trees and and people and and buildings and colors and animals and birds whatever it is and food everything so she's very excited but three days feels forever and lo and behold three days go by they're back at the surgery table at the doctor's office and they're about to take off the bandage and slowly but surely they're taking it off and she could see hashem thank god and she's like whoa with my husband whoa my god what's this what's that and she's learning the whole world from scratch and it's an amazing feeling and she's the happiest person in the life and he's like oh by the way i never told you this but i'm actually also blind what really so how do we get you as a surgery no don't ask it was very complicated it's fine don't worry about it you live life you enjoy and she's enjoying life she's going out at night going to friends and family and partying and you know as months go by she's like you know this is really annoying to have a husband that doesn't see i'm going to a party i have to take a blind man with me i want to be free it's annoying it slows me down a little bit i want to be young she's like what do i do he's such a good guy but still it's annoying it's annoying she says you know i can't tell him his face but i can't take it anymore enough is enough i'll call him up one day my dear husband i'm so sorry but you know what i don't know maybe we could get divorced and he's like what like why no don't listen i know how to explain to you you don't see so i can't explain to you but long story short i want to be a little bit more free i'm tied up a little bit with you as my husband you know i could see now i'm still young you know like i'm pretty sure i can find somebody else and just enjoy life and he's like shocked he's like what what's going on over here she wants a divorce unreal unreal he's like okay it is what it is i'll go i'll go give me a few some time i'll take all the stuff out of the house okay and he goes to the house he starts putting his stuff away and he puts everything away besides for one thing in an envelope when she comes home she sees the house is clean nice freedom i'm free thank god no old man what is it what's in the envelope you open that she sorry she opens the envelope and there's a note and the note goes as follows dear honey i like you very very much we had a great whatever amount of years together but i have one request for you i have one request please take very very very good care of your eyes that were once mine what does that mean the guy was not blind the guy decided to give his wife an opportunity to see and she was deprived she said he's like i can't take this anymore and he says he says i'll give you the eyes but he didn't want to tell her you just wanted to give it to her right and what did she do at the end to him guys unbelievable crazy no not real so so so not right of her we all thinking right now it's not nice of her what she's doing but what if i tell you guys over here that every single day we do the same thing what do we mean i would never do such a thing such a smack in the face discussing hotspot right [Music] we know that our eyes our hands our feet our nose our ears everything we have belongs to who to hashem to god we know that when we were created we are a part of god god infusing us a breath of life but sometimes we forget and we think we do whatever we want but we have to remember at the end of the day it's not ours it doesn't belong to us somebody gave it to us and we have to one day return it and that's god almighty that's hashem and we have to remember every single moment every single day everywhere we go everything we do is because we have a reason we have a a responsibility to go and to you know serve god and to do what we're here in this world for and what are we at the end of the day why did god create this world let's jump to that for a moment why did hashem even need this world in the first place why are we here what's the reason the the rabbis tell us beautifully because god is a giver god loves to give what good is it that let's say you're a giver you like to give but you're stuck in a in a house you're all by yourself what good is it that you want to give you can't give to anybody so what did god do he created this world in order they to do give to give god to give us human beings life and to give us all the goodness that's there so the question is if that's the case why is there suffering why is there yet an evil inclination that wants us to do bad things why is this world not a rosy world a perfect world if god wants to give us because the rule of nature is and you guys could probably relate to this that when you get something without deserving it you don't appreciate it you that it's scientifically proven people that won the lottery if any of you won the lottery let me know please but if anybody ever won the lottery the statistics show that many times they lose all the money they made because they don't spend it wisely they don't appreciate the wealth they just came with them without earning it without working for it if they were selling hot dogs if they were a barber if they were whatever they were before the lottery they go back to that job that's just the way it is you don't appreciate it so what did god do he wanted us to appreciate life he wanted to enjoy when you when you when you earn something when you work for something you enjoy it much more it works with us all the time when we work hard for something and we make it we feel that feeling of wow and when you just get it it's not the same feeling so what did god do it created this world for us to work and to work on ourselves to become better people and then he created the next world that's where there's two worlds there's this world for us to work on ourselves and then there's the next world there's the next world for us to reap our benefits for the hard work that we go through and that's what we have against our ah that's why we have an inclination that's why it's hard for us it's a test we have to take this test and we have to pass it with flying colors and we're going to discuss yes it's hard yes it's difficult yes sometimes it's it's overwhelming what could we do to behave hashem overcome these tests what can we do to benefit them stay strong when it comes a difficult challenge in their lives okay so i have a personal opinion and i want to share with you my humble opinion and this works for me and works for many people that i know the secret to success is to keep busy and to be motivated so what does that mean what do i do busy you know god obligates man with a lot of meat's fault purposefully we have shahada we have in khan we have our written we have paranasana we have the torah and we have so many other things that we need to do the reason is because a guy needs to constantly be on the run on the move the rabbis tell us what is one sin because of a shipment because of boredom when a person is bored sin comes so we have to keep ourselves busy so i'm biased and i'm gonna hear why i'm biased in a moment i feel like every single one of you guys should become ambassadors every single one of you guys should become leaders in your own rights to make a revolution whoever started this challenge program i love it but to start other types of programs and we're going to discuss it for the second part of the of the sheer momentarily but let's discuss what should we do to keep busy so i'm going to share with you a very famous michelle that i tell it over many times since i heard it last year from a rabbi named rabbi zemir cohen i had the school to be his english translator last year he came from israel he would speak in hebrew i would translate into english and he said over a beautiful mashallah parable from rabbi israel solante a very very very very famous rabbi that started the muslim movement and he says over as follows how do we make this year this upcoming rosh hashanah which is a new year the best year ever but not only the best year ever better than any other year that we ever had how do we do that and he says over at mashallah powerball that is really amazing and it really really felt like wow powerful so listen very carefully there was an individual he was working 24 7 9 to 5 5 9 365 whenever he had a chance he was a workaholic how do you say work in russian who knows a robot he was just like a robot he would wake up in the morning he would go to work he would go to sleep he will wake up in the morning he'll go to work he'll go to sleep robot robot rob that's what it is but he was not only a workaholic he was very concerned he was very cheap what does that mean he would never ever make we would never go out of the house to buy food or ready-made food or for example coffee he would tell himself coffee what does it cost pennies it's mostly water you have some milk and you have some sugar some coffee that'd say why do i need to go to the store and spend a few dollars doesn't make sense he would never do that very cheap so long story short one day he was exhausted from work he's like you know what enough is enough i'm gonna go spoil myself for one time i'm gonna go to the coffee shop and we get the best coffee that's out there so what happens is he goes out of the house and he can't find a coffee shop he sees every other type of a store and he's like i need a coffee bar i need to drink this coffee i need energy i'm exhausted and he finally decides he sees a huge massive hotel beautiful hotel he's like i'm pretty sure if i go inside the hotel they have some sort of a coffee bar let me go in let me ask somebody find out so he goes inside the hotel and he sees a coffee bar and he says thank god hashem i'm going to get an amazing coffee right now and he goes to the coffee bar and he says can't believe that with coffee they're like sure of course and they're like it's gonna cost you fifty dollars he's like what fifty dollars for for call i didn't ask for any alcoholic beverages i asked for i didn't ask for a bottle i asked for a cup one coffee that's it they're like fifty dollars yes sir you heard right now whoa okay put that to the side how about a danish i want to danish the danish is actually 75 what are you guys serious this is nuts yeah you have to understand this is a high-end hotel this is a five-star class the top-of-the-line hotel you're not just paying for the coffee or for the danish you're paying for the chandeliers and for the carpet and for the couches and for the service he's like okay i'll take it to go just give me a better deal they're like no no no going to go this is the price khabib my friend he's like no way i'm spending my hard-earned money on this coffee he's about to leave the hotel and when he's about to leave he sees on the side of the hotel trays of coffee and trays of danishes and a bunch of employees and workers and waiters drinking freely and eating danishes he's shocked he's like what a waiter is able to afford such expensive coffee doesn't make sense and if they're so wealthy that they can afford it what are they a waiter for that doesn't make sense he goes over to one of the people he's like excuse me sir how in the world are you able to afford this coffee how does this make sense and he starts laughing at him he's like my my friend sir we we work for the boss and when we work for the boss we get everything on the house we could eat as much as we want we could drink as much as we want whenever we want why because we take care of his guests we take care of his people and when you take care of the boss's people he in essence will take care of you as well and guys welcome guys i want to tell you the same thing when we work for the boss when we work for us and we work for god almighty what's going to happen whatever you want what do you want what do you need take it take extra take more why not you're working for the boss you're taking care of his people that's what i want to implore on every single one of you guys sitting over here you have potential i see the potential in you you guys have a lot of potential you guys have the ability to become great you have to use it you have to be able to go out and say this year this month this week whatever it is from now on i'm going to become great i'm going to change the world to make the world a better place i'm going to do something about it and i already know what all of you guys not some not all of you guys some of you guys are already thinking what is he talking about he's crazy i myself have so much to work on i have so much to do i'm not perfect how am i plus i'm not a rabbi i'm not a speaker i can go up there and inspire people first of all today nowadays of age to inspire people is so simple it's the click of a button you forward an inspiring video you send a nice article you go and put out some cds you put out some newsletters it is so easy to inspire people nowadays wow back in the day they weren't able to do that on on the phone and all these social media options it's crazy it's not normal the amount of inspiration people could give but unfortunately what do i see people doing instead of inspiring other people what do they do they love sending out those jokes it's funny this is that why don't you send out inspiration to make people change your lives but let's discuss for a moment what discussed before i'm not perfect how am i going to help other people become better if i'm not good myself it's a very good question in the time addresses it was a powerful mashallah another mashable i love michelle another parable the parable goes like this that there was a king and the king one day decides to go visit a city and the city said wow the king is coming to us let's make a huge massive party red carpet like the rabbi said djs and noise and right the king is coming let's make a big event and what happens is that they make a huge huge event and thousands of people in the city are coming and they're all excited to see the king and the king comes and give him a huge daze a massive meal a lot of food and the king tells the mayor can you do me a favor he asked these people to give me a cup of tea how do you say tea choi right chai okay i'm learning slowly chai so they give them they give him a cup of tea and the king takes the tea and he drinks some tea and while he's drinking the tea he spits it out and everyone's watching on the big screen they're like what just happened and they see again the king takes the tea he drinks a little bit of tea and what does he do he spits out the tea again and everyone's like oh my gosh what's wrong this is so not normal for a king to do this is so weird and the king asked for the mayor to come to him excuse me mr mayor what in the world is wrong with your water your tea over here he's like what do you mean everything's fine i taste it i also had a cup it's great no it's not and when i was drinking the tea i felt like there was some pebbles some rocks some sand in the tea if it tasted a little bit off something's messed up the mayor's like yeah that's normal what do you mean when we get the water out of the well right out of the bay air out of the well you know the wells of the stones the pebbles the rocks the sand it comes with the water what do you want us to do it's normal and the king's like you you guys are so not normal what are you talking about it's normal you take a cloth right and you put the water and the water is going to come out a filter system and the sand the rocks the pebbles are going to stay on top it's going to come down right and they're like wow we have such an amazing kink what a smart king this guy is great what a great idea and they never thought of it and they're all like wow we have the best king the king is the best the king is the best and the king says farewell guys nice meeting you all he goes back to his king kingdom and what happens is one month later the king gets a call you won't believe it you remember that city you went to visit yeah i remember beautiful people nice but the the water was messed up but okay whatever the good people yeah yeah but bad news what happened the whole city got burned down the whole city got burnt down how what happened uh we did all the details he's like okay let's go let's see what happened you know like whenever something happens in any uh city or state you know the the mayor and the governor they all come see what happened what's going on and they make a whole thing out of it so he goes the king goes up there and uh he walks into the city and people are started screaming at him it's all your fault it's all your fault it's always because of you he's like me what did i do it's all your fault he's like what did i do what do you mean it's all my fault i was in my i didn't i wasn't here you have to understand the fire was only one house and we started getting water but by the time we filtered the water it took too long it took very long and by the time we started putting the water in one house it went to the next end of the whole city government it's your fault you gave this idea they're like you crazy people what do you mean you used filtered water for a fire filter water is for drinking when everything is fine you have time you're chilling everything is good but when there's a fire you use any water you use whatever you want whatever you need just use it put out the fire and i tell you guys the same thing guys we're living in a world but specifically over here in queens guys in a community where there's a fire there's a fire going on every single day and you guys i'm pretty sure know about it the amount of assimilation in intermarriage it's scary what's going on and when it comes to fires we don't use perfect water we don't use filtered water people that are perfect no one's perfect but people that are close to perfect we use everyone and anyone we got and that means every single one of us needs to start being in the army of hashem we need to be part of organizations of communities that make a difference that change the world they make the world a better place they want to bring the giulia we so much needed we so much wanted i wanted to mention the beginning of this year i forgot to mention it all those that have passed away because of cover 19 so many people that we know my rabbis and so many other rabbis and mordechai and robbie bloom and over mitsurabi and so many many rabbaneem community leaders punitia activists it's scary but we have to be at hashem that the position they should be immediately osha for us and i see it that there are brilliant omni for us to be to be successful but we have to push ourselves to do more we have to tell ourselves that we're going to be missed we're going to help the public to become i think david mentioned in the beginning that in order for us to visit hashem have our sins forgiven what do we do a good thing to do is be this help others to go out and to inspire people to bring them to shireen their shiree movie every day every night bring people more people there should be other communities other places other ideas forward links uh his torah shir torah websites whatever it may be let's inspire more people and hashem once we do that we're going to see the complete redemption spilling our days amen