Parshat Ki Tavo: Sign of the Times - Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair

many years ago there was a man who had to travel many hundreds of miles on foot having never ventured so far from home he was concerned that he might straight from the trail become lost and fall prey to bandits or wild animals and so he sought the advice of an experienced traveler maybe he should take maps and a compass the traveler told him not to worry to get to his particular destination all he needed to do was to memorize the name of his destination and along the trail he would find signposts clearly indicating where he wanted to go to the traveler set out with confidence and sure enough before long he came to a fork in the road he looked up and saw his destination clearly indicated smiling to himself he took the road that was signposted and thus it continued day after day he'd been traveling for about a week when one day he came to a crossroads of five different trails and there was no signposts he was gripped with panic which way to go he planned his rations very carefully and he knew that he only had enough water to get him to his next destination he couldn't go back he started to panic but then he saw there was a signpost it was lying on the ground he rushed over to it and started to replace it in its hole and then he realized he'd no way of knowing which direction the signpost was supposed to point to he sank to the ground in tears of despondency and it struck him he jumped up took the signpost put it back into the hole and he pointed it to the place from which he'd just come now he knew exactly which road to take in today's world where nothing seems certain it's easy to become despondent where's God where sanity where are we going if you know where you've come from you know where you're going the Jewish people have been given the world's best travel guide it's called the Torah Gaudreau the tour in such a way that it contains all the instructions that we'll ever need to reach our ultimate destination the word Torah itself comes from the word hora which means instructions the Mitzvahed of the Torah are our signposts in a bewildering world if we come to life's crossroads and we pick our direction at random we've got little chance of success but if we orient ourselves on our past our future is assured if you know where you've come from you know where you're going [Music] [Applause]