Preparing for Rosh Hashanah - Part 1 - Rabbi Reuven Lauffer

[Music] so we're in L now there are two different customs with regards to reciting S one of them is theadi custom which is that they begin from the beginning of Elo and uh they have very extensive which are recited and um they some people have the custom to recite them at 12:00 at night some people have the custom to get up early in the morning and to recite them before they uh before they pray shakar obviously it's a little bit difficult night neither neither of those times are particularly user friendly um and there's a lot to be said um the the which are recited by the are much longer than the which are recited both both day wise they're much longer and also what you're actually saying is much longer as well um the function of is what it's a very the truth is a very beautiful idea the function of is to get us ready for rashash right so the idea of moving into rashash everybody knows that rash is the beginning of the year we'll talk about it when we talk get to rashash itself we'll talk about what that means exactly the beginning of the year but it's the new year the new Jewish year is going to begin with rashash but there needs to be a little bit of preparation in order to get us ready to be able to get to where we want to get to with ins sight of rashash right rashash is not just a festival it's not just a time you know to have a have a good time and to enjoy ourselves it's also the yamad it's a day of judgment and it's a day that we have to take very seriously the same way that a person would not go into a serious court case without having prepared very carefully beforehand so too we're supposed to prepare ourselves when we go into Russia that's where the the origin of the that's where they come from now I don't know historically where when they began exactly right I would imagine that they must have begun a long time ago I would imagine that again we've got a custom which is probably the original custom of reciting s from the whole of el onwards um the ashkanazi custom is a lot simpler it's a a lot quicker um you need a minimum of four days worth of before rashash begins so not this year but in other years when when rashash begins on Thursday so you've got Sunday Monday Tuesday and Wednesday right that's enough time to be able to recite four days worth of when you've got a situation like this year where rash is going to begin before Thursday so the are brought back a week so there's an extra week's worth of that are recited We Begin reciting them on the m shabat not before but the one before that right so we'll end up yeah we'll end up not this coming week the one after we'll end up with a week and a few days worth of s the that are recited first of all the accepted custom amongs most ashkanazi communities is that the first night of s are recited on Saturday night after midnight and then the rest of the you can recite them either you can recite them after midnight each night or you can recite them early in the morning before shakar begins whatever you want yeah is there a din in this because some places start at 10:30 yeah so at 12:30 really need to be recited from Midnight onwards that's really the earliest time that you can recite them yeah so when you have these they're normally Musical that have Ain and have a a a choir and they're very they're very they're very they're very enjoyable if you if you're into that they're very enjoyable but they're being done a little bit too early um so you should really do your best toh to recite s from Midnight onwards the now again where where does this custom from the ashkenazim where does it come from to recite a minimum of four days so we spoke about it once I can't remember not very long ago actually uh that when the Coronas when the sacrifices were brought to the temple they were kept for four days before they were offered up and they were studied just to make sure that they had no blemishes yeah um just okay so you said that the the reason for sod is to prepare us for rashash but don't we say like in general with daving also like takes about 30 days like it would take a full month in order for someone to just be prepared for something like in terms of like when say because when when you're like saying for like the little thing in between there's like in between if you after 30 days and you consider it it become something which is yeah exactly interesting right I I don't I've I haven't seen I haven't seen a particular connection between the two but there is definitely a concept of 30 30 days means something is now fluent it's something that you're now familiar with it's something which is now part of you um it's an interesting idea yeah you're right when you when you make the change over between or which is going from the summer to the winter and the winter the summer um so after 30 days of reciting if you are unsure which one you said you can work on the premise that you must have said it the right way because it's 30 days it's now a part of your filler right if it's less than 30 days and you're unsure the assumption is that you didn't say the right thing and that might require depending on whether it's a winter or the summer it might require having to go back and recite the amidar again um over here I think over here I think the idea of reciting over the whole month of el is a lot less complicated I don't think you need to get involved in the concept of what's called aak it's really it's simply the idea that the month of el is a month which is dedicated to the essence of the month of el is dedicated to the concept of tver of of of returning back to God and the more the more we do with inside of Elo the greater is our chance of being able to reach that point and again if you read through what it is that you're saying and of course that's a radical idea I don't mean to scare anybody that they should understand the prayers and uh you know perhaps look through them in English first like really don't don't uh don't take this stuff seriously but uh uh if you if you do happen to do it you'll see that it's really revolving around the idea of of of trying to recognize that something has been done we've done things throughout the year that we shouldn't have done and now we're trying to rectify what it is that has been done in order to rebuild our relationship with God um elol interestingly enough I just a very very beautiful idea um in in the there's a question you know normally when somebody's a mourner so there's a custom that they lead the prayers during during the week um there's a question in the about whether a it's called an a whether a mourner is able to lead the prayers during the month of el because the month of el is considered to be like yeh hadin they're like days of judgment and if that's the case then it's like rashash and yip rashash yip and a m doesn't pray he doesn't lead the prayers now there's a very famous later Authority called the no Yehuda who says that he doesn't understand the question he says because is not they're called days of Ru is is is of of I I don't know how to say in englishing no wanting but it's more than wanting it's like like days days that are they're very auspicious days to join together with God right they've been put over there in order to allow us to build ourselves up and to get to where we need to get to the are there in order to teach us how to do that right so the more we're involved in reciting the more connected we're going to be with the concept of God and our actions having an impact on our relationship with God um that the maral the great maral from prag who lived about 400 years ago has the most astonishing idea he says that the the urat Elohim the the fear the or of God that AR a had was not fear it wasn't that he was scared that if he does something wrong he'll be punished that's a lower level ofat hasem but rather AR Ain was scared that he would do something which would which would which would have a negative effect on his relationship with God that's a very high level right this idea of I want I want to do what I'm supposed to do because if I don't then it will cause some kind of a separation between myself and God which is something that we don't we don't want to have happen El is all about rebuilding El is all about putting things back where they need to be it's interesting you know El is considered to be a noton for the there's the verse in shim which says I'm for my beloved and my beloved is for me it's clear from the verse right the first letter of each word over there spells out elol and it's clear from the verse that we're talking about love over here we're talking about something which is very very uh significant very beautiful a relationship that's supposed to exist between each Jew and God and between the Jewish people and God as well so it's an individual Dimension and it's a collective Dimension so are there in order to build up that relationship and that's why by theim the Min the custom is to begin from the beginning of el and to recite them every single day like I said the ashim the customers grown up to recite only 4 days the reason for that that's why I started explaining the reason for that is because when a when a coron when a sacrifice was brought to the temple it had to be kept for 4 days before it was offered up just to make sure that there was no blemish inside of it right it would be it would be uh examined by the kohanim and if it was found to be okay then it would be brought and it could be offered up so all the Coronas took four days before all all of the individual Coronas that were brought not the not the yeah yeah which means like this that the the uh the uh it's it's a very beautiful idea Russia sha we're standing in front of God and it's as if we are the Corban right we're here in order to give ourselves back to God right one of the concepts of rashash is the concept of Coronation what what is the idea of Coronation coronation is that there somebody who's greater than I am somebody who's more powerful than I am and I subjugate myself to that to that entity right real monarchy I'm not talking about titular monarchy which we have in many places today but real monarchy is something where a person gives up his entire freedom in order to have this person rule over him to yield yeah very much so um I once heard from somebody from South America who said that that you know democracy is a is a very we're all familiar with democracy um but you know one of the most democratic things that a senate can do is to vote themselves out of power and in South American democracies very often that that's what would happen the the person that you know the president would come and ask for more power and the Senate would vote him more power obviously at the expense of their own power right because you know there's a limited that there's a certain amount of power and if he's going to have more then I'm going to have less and at some point the ultimate it's kind of paradoxical but the ultimate symbol of democracy is that the Senate vote themselves out of power and the president becomes a dictator which is very normal by in in South America that's the way they do things um but it's in a certain way and I do apologize for using the for using the imagery but in a certain way that's exactly what rashash is all about as well what are we doing when we come to rashash we are we're advocating our freedom we're giving it we're giving it up and we're giving it to God and we're saying here you you you you are our you are our King you tell us what we need to do in order to get to that kind of a point on rashash we need an ell that's what the month of is all about and that's what the concept of is all about as well um like I said so for the ashim it's it's only a few days for theim it's a lot of days and uh what we'll find is like this huh does always have to pself at midnight or can it be said at later time you can say it from Midnight onwards which means that you can say them from Midnight that's the first time that you can start saying s hot for that day from midnight but if you want you could tell them you could tell them you know you could say them at 3:00 in the morning you say them at 5:00 in the morning you can say them at 6:30 in the morning supposed to say once a day for for this once a day yeah I'm not sure that they're going to be in here well normally the thing is like this because because are recited every single day day and they're slightly different every single day so they're normally booklets that come out with the SP inside of them over here I'm sure in the Yesa they'll they they'll hand them out at some point huh for the for theim you say the same thing every day right for the ashkanazi we have S we the the general the general framework of The Remains the Same every day right which means there's a lot of there's a lot of uh there's a lot of uh you know you begin with and then you then you then you have the but inside the ashkanazi um text every day there are three paragraphs that are recited which every day different right and uh again the framework Remains the Same though which means that they're pretty much the same length every single day uh the only thing is that on a on a rash the are very very long for the for the ashkenazim so theim always make a joke that they're very long because they got to make up for all the you know they spent they spent the most of Al not bothering saying any and now they got to make up there's a whole bunch that have to be said in order to be able to catch up um how long is on R how long are on rash so there are depends on how you do them if you recite every single one of the ones that are in there you know 45 minutes is probably being pretty generous I would say that they're probably you know an hour maybe maybe even longer than that perhaps hour and a half uh many many communities have the C to not say them all right so somebody will shout out the numbers of the ones that are being recited and then you you know you'll say some of them because it said does say the says that it's better to recite less with more intent with more concentration than to recite more with less right so so you'll find that in most places that's what they do but they're they're pretty lengthy okay just something to look forward to on a rashash other things customs of el right so one of the customs of el interestingly enough is to get get this may not be applicable to most of you because you see here in in the yesh in the dorm but to get we'll get to that as well but to to to get your M checked at home right um there is a custom it says like this you should have your M checked once every three and a half years twice twice in seven years that's it the language that's used in the uh in the sh is to check you twice it really says it says but the that can't be doesn't mean twice a week but rather twice in seven years that's once every three and a half years however there is a custom which is found inside of the it's just a uses um it's it's not it's it's it's not it's not the only time that it uses a language like that but the the uh the there there is however inside it does say that it it's it's a you know it's commendable to get your M checked in El right so again what do you have to do if you're going to take him as a is lo down and get them checked so the best thing to do is to write a little note you can write in pencil on the back of the muuza if you want or to put a little sticky note on it just saying where each muuza came from so that the same muuza will go back into the same place when you put it back again the cyer The Scribe that you take it to who's going to check them for you because it's ell he knows he'll normally get it done in the same day as you put it in in the morning you can pick it up in the afternoon and put them back up again uh it's a question whether you need to make another brocker or not according to most opinions if you're putting them back up in exactly the same place that you took them down and it wasn't it wasn't gone overnight then you don't have to make another Brer when you put your M back up if they were gone for more than one night and or if you aren't sure anymore which one goes where so then you should ask your Co what is a CO something something absolutely you're competent Orthodox Rabbi just to find out what you're supposed to do what's the concept of checking the M what what is the concept of checking the M the thing is like this that your muat are written the ink written on parchment and even though they're not touched right when you when you kiss them you're kissing the outside you're kissing the bi it you're not kissing the muzar itself but nevertheless you know because it's rolled up you want to make sure that none of the none of the letters are cracked if a Letter's got a crack going through it and the muzar is no longer kosher right now to fix muuz if it's just a problem of a cracked letter it's really no big deal you know the the the sofa somebody knows what he's doing will fix it he'll he'll reight either if he needs to he'll scrape off that letter and reite it in you know completely or he'll uh he'll just fill in the crack right um if you've got M sometimes mot get written with mistakes they've missed out a letter or they've added in a letter that's a lot more complicated ated and that's things which need to be checked what will normally happen is if you've got muat and you're getting them checked nothing they won't find anything wrong with them right um the idea of getting them checked in the L the same way you're supposed to be checking yourself right so it's just like a symbolic thing you're going to check the muot which are the guards around your home to remind you who you are and by doing that hopefully it's going to remind you to check yourself as well fill in there's also accustomed to have Fillin checked on uh on uh for for Whatchamacallit on L as well again you know do you have to you don't have to do it Fillin are interesting things Fillin are if you wear your Fillin every day then they're considered to be kosher if you don't wear your Fillin every day so for example everybody who wears that Fillin every day right that was that came out wrong absolutely I did not mean to suggest that anybody here is not putting on that filling right that's understood yeah but some people may have a spare pair of filling the pair they don't put on right it's a spare it's a spare pair of filling and uh and if that's the case then they you should you should get your Spar fill in checked you know it's a good idea to get in checked once every three and a half years as well uh if you want to get them checked in L that's also good um there are all kinds of in thing about toilin I I I you know I I read the most incredible story I also thought you know for many years walked around with this idea that Fillin is like you know what what on Earth is going to happen to to fill in for goodness sakes right you know you put them on you take them off you put them on you take them off you're not you're not touching the parchments you're know they're all locked away inside of the filling themselves like what could happen uh but I read a story most beautiful story many years ago about you know what happens is around this time of the year you may find in the in shs all over the world is that they come in and somebody will come in and do a Fillin checking like you know again after ding Le you filling with the person and he stays in the sh and he checks all the filling puts them all back together again and in the next morning you can put you know get your Fillin back and put them back on and they tell over the story about aish a guy who had Fillin that he was very very proud of and um they've been written apparently you know they were very special filling and uh he never had them checked and uh he left them on the table after daving and went out to do something and got distracted but he left them on the table where everyone that was supposed to be leaving their filling left their filling to be checked and his filling got checked and they found that the Fillin had were missing a letter in one of the parchments there was a letter that was missing from theill which means that all those years this guy was in his 80s already all those years that he'd been wearing his filling he hadn't been fulfilling the Mitzvah properly because the letter was missing and when they came he said that if he puts it on he's huh he just said that if he puts it on it's oh but the problem over here is that if from the very beginning they weren't kosher that's a problem right it's true there's a concept called there there's a concept called which is if I put them into thein and they were kosher when they went into thein then I can I can work on the premise at the kosher yeah but you just said they make mistakes as well oh so here under normal circumstances when you when you buy filling when you buy filling the the uh what when you if you're buying them from a reputable place right first of all the person who's selling you the fill will give you a photocopy of the parot of the parchments right and he'll give you also some kind of a authorization that somebody went through it before it was put in the filling it's pretty important to do these things it really is because you know mistakes can happen I thought that was instruction man what if uh I wait a minute I want to tell the end of the story one minute so this fellow comes back right now everybody is scared sff they don't how are they going to tell him this right you know he's been putting on his feeling he's been boasting about his feeling he's been putting on for the last you know 60 whatever 67 years or something and how on Earth was anyone going to tell him so in the end the rabbi of the community took him to one side and he very gently broke the news to him and this fellow contrary to everybody's expectations this fellow started to dance around the room and he said look at me he say I'm 80 years old he says I don't know how much longer I have left to live he said but can you imagine if this would never have happened I would have got upstairs at the age of whenever it was and a would have said to me how come you never put your filling on I'll say you kidding I wore them every day and K B say but you you were missing a you're missing a letter and they were never kosher right so he says now it's been fixed you know this is fantastic I'm going to be able to wear my filling properly and for however much longer I'm alive I'm going to be able to fulfill the mitah properly which is again it's a very beautiful idea you know we need to make sure that what we're doing we're doing it properly we need to make sure that our fill in a koser we need to make sure that I'm koser right um yeah sorry so you wanted to say something no I was saying I had a rabbi who uh bought me to um and he purchased it through a store you don't think I need to get attracted for want to a specific place I I would imagine you have to check what's wrong you send off five Kos cornflakes package tops and you get a free pair ofil what could be wrong with her for good sakes believe me I was eating cornflakes nonstop I'm telling you just just for you um the uh no I would say like this I would imagine I would imagine that the rabbi the rabbi is only buying from a place where he knows that he can trust the people he's buying from he's not just going off any old wear yeah and uh and you can you can you can imagine that the filling that you've got on uh as kosher as could be cuz I didn't get what you said like the the paper the document and who who actually filled it I don't know that you all the all the filling that I've ever had any dealings with um have always have always come with you know they've always come with a little authorization from somebody saying that they went through the pares and that they're okay and that there's nothing to you know there's nothing to be concerned about uh when when a person goes through it again they read the whole yeah there's not there's not there's not it's not as it's not very much right it's four different paragraphs that appear inside of the inside of the including the shma right but it's four different paragraphs that appear in the Torah um and uh yeah person's got to go through them you know you got to be careful got to make sure that all the letters are there part of the problem is like this when you're when you're used to doing this right so you know you you can you I'm sure you can read English with words dropped out of many many many uh you know many words with letters dropped out right and you'll just read you'll read it fluently because you know what you know what it's saying yeah but I'm thinking on the premise of if you're looking at it all day every day yeah kind of blurred together yeah so you've got you do have to be very careful you really do right and uh that's why you'll see that most people that are checking these things they they they take breaks you know you've got to you've got to you've got to keep your eye on the details it's very important you know it's not this is not this is not like handing in you know an essay in school so you're missing an A or an o or something it's not the end of the world right um because if if a Letter's missing or there's another letter in that shouldn't be there or it's written the wrong way then that means that whoever's putting on these fill in after you've checked them is uh is is you know it's now your responsibility that he's putting on film that aren't that they're not proper um in all events of course I've lost my train of thought but that's until okay right well we we got here from m is being checked uh you know T every seven okay thank you I appreciate it who told you to listen on the ball well he's new he doesn't realize you're not supposed to listen over here he he'll work it out it's going to be okay I'm tell so yeah so many people have the custom to have their M checked on LOL and to have their filling checked on L um like I said again if you if you're uh you know if you're taking M off then uh you should try to try to be careful about where you're uh you know which ones they came from are they're going to come back the same day most people do same day checking in El it's a special like a special service that's being done because lots of people are having these things checked um how long can you have a m let's see the S says I got to go through he's going to delay it yeah I think you have so normally normally what will happen like this again if you're dealing with a Soper who is if you're dealing with a scribe who is good and knows what he's doing and and if he needs to hold on to your muat because either he's got a lot of work or because there's complications uh very often he will give you spare misas to put up in the meantime okay so now like myself living in Phoenix we don't have a sulur so we have to send it to LA or oh good right what do I do what do you do so first of all if you if you've got no other alternative so you send it off and then you have to manage without for you know for however long it's going to take until they come back what you'll find though interestingly enough in many communities they have what's called a muza Gak which means somebody's got spare muzas and they're happy to lend them to you until the muzas come back to ask around a little bit um you know where I where I live in in harof there are a few of these things um this is Israel yeah okay but you know when you've got Orthodox communities are like you know everybody everybody's running into the same problem it's not you know right it's not it's not just your problem being in Phoenix and not having a sofa there on you know on location it's everybody's problem over there and I would be very surprised to hear that uh you know within within one of the Orthodox communities in Phoenix I'd be very surprised to hear that they don't have you know somebody who's lending out muas in order to put them up whilst your muas are not around um I just tell over a story because it like just just to underline the the absurdity of all of this you know the important part of the muuza is the bit inside right the parchment not not the not the ornate box that it goes into that gets screwed up onto the wall but rather the parchment inside I have a friend who told me that he was once in in uh Rio de Janeiro is in Mexico Brazil Brazil I'm sorry he was he was in Brazil and uh he said that a friend of his father's in-law was building him himself some incredibly in some incredible mansion and uh he asked him whether he knew any so for him he was going to need muas so he says to him sure he says how many muas do you need so the guy says he needs 36 which is I guess that's you know sounds like a lot of doors to me so he says you know what he says I'll phone up my friend in yam I got a friend who's a Sofer he's a scribe and I'll ask him how much how much would he take so he said his his friend who's a scribe is very very uh you know very she's a very good writer and he writes beautifully and very exactly and he told him like this he says normally I I don't remember the figures but normally I take you know $75 from muuza but for that kind of an order for 36 I'll take $50 so he went back to the fellow and he tells him it'll be $50 per muu he's giving you a special deal instead of 75 and he's able to do 36 he'd be able to get them ready within a certain amount of time do you want me to order them and this fellow who's building this incredible Mansion right he says uh $50 he says $50 from a he says no he says I don't want to spend that this guy's FR right say I don't want to spend that that's too much he's building a mansion he's building a mansion right who knows how many how many uh hundreds and hundreds of thousands are going into it but he doesn't want to spend $50 per mza so my friend looks at him like that's ridiculous and he said all of a sudden he had like this moment of of like you know this this you know this he says to him tell me he says how much are you paying for each door handle so this fellow all of a sudden he said his eyes lit up and he says what are you kidding he says we're bringing you in the door handles from Italy they're $250 a pair they are beautiful absolutely beautiful so he says he looks at this fellow and he says I don't understand he says you're prepared to pay $250 for a pair of handles to go on the door but you're not prepared to pay $50 from mza he says isn't something wrong here a fellow of course you know just brushed him away and went and found cheaper mza somewhere else but uh it it's true you know people people will spend sometimes they'll spend a lot of money on the buy it they'll buy a beautiful silver you like a beautiful silver case right and it'll cost it could cost you know $150 $500 and they'll spend you know whatever $15 to put a Muer inside of it it it's wrong we're doing it the wrong way around right you should invest invest the money that you've got invested into the parchment and if and then afterwards spend you know just spend 10 shekels on a plastic cover that's that's a you know that's it's it's better to spend money on the insides and not on the outside what what's apart from the inside being accurate what else is to happen writing writing style you know what what what makes a muuza more expensive than another muuza is it's it's a I mean materal material up to a certain point so there are different there are different qualities of parchment um there are different qualities of pens they use quills that are used um and then you start moving into the murky Realms of reputation right so person's got you know you if you the best way if you want to if you want to make a good investment right is you find yourself a Sofer who's got beautiful handwriting who's at the beginning of his career right it's a little bit like art you know you can uh whatever I mean I don't if you have to do that exactly but if you want you want have beautiful muas in your own home right so you find somebody who's at the beginning of his career writes beautifully and get him done and you you'll get him you know maybe maybe he'll charge you $35 from muza right $30 from muza um and later on five years down the line he's going to be charging $80 from muza $100 from Aza um it's it's not it's really really no different from designer wear right which means that what what makes why is one pair you know why is one pair of jeans going to cost you $250 and another pair of jeans is going to cost you $25 got a logo on it one of them's got a logo on it right better quality too whatever yeah that's a terrible huh that's a terrible explanation well yes or no it's it's it's I'm just trying I'm trying to I'm trying to show you here you know what's go forget about jeans let's go let's go doctor right what what what possesses somebody to go to a surgeon who's got a you know who's got a sterling reputation and he's four times more expensive than the other surgeon you know in the office next door to him I mean aside from there they want to brag to their friends and they went to this fellow over here but but uh it's to it's to do with experience it's to do with you know work it's to do with everything everything really everything um and that's you know I had had a friend who told me that he was living in Toronto and he was working for o in Toronto and he said that they used to do they used to you know a lot of very wealthy people that live in the in the Thornhill area of Toronto and uh he said that they they used to do evenings in people's homes and uh he said there was one fellow over there who had millions of dollars worth of Contemporary Art up on his walls and he had like a gallery and he said one of one of the paintings was something that was done by one of his grandchildren he said didn't look didn't look an awful lot different from all the other stuff that was up there you know grandchild have done it in maybe maybe like you know 45 minutes or something and uh and it it had maybe cost you know maybe it cost probably cost like a a $100 to get the thing framed which was the most expensive part of it all and it he said it Blended in pretty well with all these millions of dollars worth of of art what what makes something worth something more than something else I mean it's supply and demand right it's it's it's just as true again what what is a supply and demand inside of MOT and fill in so the reputation that the Scribe has whether he is you know whether he's righteous whether he's Pious how beautiful his writing is um all these things are going to make M and Flyin cost more just go back to the concept of vanville yeah the same concept very much so right which means like this that when you uh when buy your muza so you should put it into a nice bu it you really should you should try to don't so don't don't buy a $100 muza and put it in a plastic case right buy a $100 MAA and put it into something which is going to you know beautify the miracle but the more you spend on the muuza the right the the parchment itself the greater is your beautifying of the mitzah so again it's got to go according to what you can do right so for some for one person spending you know instead of spending $15 he'll spend $30 and that's he's beautifying the mits of his way for another person it's a difference between spending $50 or $100 right each one according to what that person is capable of doing I once heard something I was it was very sad I was once up in there in one of the shops that sell all these kinds of things and an American completely not from American couple came into the uh came into the uh the shop and they they they'd seen in the in the window they'd seen a a case a muza case they wanted to buy it for their friend who was moving into a new house and um so they asked how much it was I don't remember what whatever it was I don't I don't know you know whatever $20 let's say and uh and then when they when they said okay we'll take it so then the person they selling said would you like the muza as well would you would you like to present your friend with a complete gift of a piece of parchment with the case and they had no idea what he was talking about so he said to what do you mean so he got out he had like a a tray of MOT that were open so you could see the differences and see right so he says here this this is what goes inside the case and the people had they really they had no idea and uh of course the first question was well how much is it and the fellows said you know it starts at $15 so that you see them thinking and thinking and finally they said you know what now forget it we we'll just take the case and I thought at the time I thought to myself that was it was terribly sad it really was you know that they're going to give this case over that the person they're giving it over probably is as ignorant as they are and they'll put up this case imagining they' put up the muuza without knowing there's nothing inside of it however there is a there is a glimmer of light in all of this which is what that atast these people they were they were jewishly aware enough right they were they were proud enough of their Jewish identity to want to buy a muuza for their friend and hopefully he put it up so even if there's no muza inside which means that the mits is not being fulfilled but the concept of joining being a part of the Jewish Nation so they they're you know they've got their membership card up over there it's good right it's good it's always always find something good right somewhere we can find something good hopefully even about this class I hope whatever anyway um so the concept of of el we're back to El right the concept of el is the concept of doing Chua the concept of drawing back towards a I think I mentioned this the other day but it's something which I it's certainly well worth repeating such a beautiful idea the word to comes from the word means to return right right the same words the same letters are inside of it and that's what we're doing we're returning back to God there's a very fascinating concept from one of the great rebes called theat who says that the word Shabbat comes from the same roote as well Shu Shabbat what are we do on Shabbat we're returning back to God we give up on the physicality of the world we give up on and we concentrate on on the World to come right and the whole the whole essence of Shabbat is this ability that we've got to tap back into the spiritual dimensions of who we are get to get to reintroduce ourselves to the the spiritual Dimension inside of us which hopefully will you know have an influence on the week that comes afterwards which means Shabbat move to return to God that's a whole idea of what's going on and El is the month that's been dedicated to help us do that based on the fact that you said and El we check them to to connect us to check ourselves how do we check ourselves I mean one of the basic methods of checking ourselves is by is by a little bit of introspection right what what's called in Hebrew means sitting down and working out who am I what what have what have I done over here what have I achieved in this year that has just gone past so I did I did mention a few weeks ago that El the idea of el is El is a month which which has been dedicated to looking back and taking stock you know when you've got a business right so normally towards the end of the calendar year so around whenever it is at the end of December sum beginning of January so very often businesses are closed for a day or for two days and they take an inventory of their stock right they've got to make sure that everything adds up LOL is our stock taking month you're supposed to look back see where was I this time last year where am I now what have I done what have I achieved together with all of that of course is a concept of what did I do wrong who have I hurt right how can I Rectify What I've Done um mam will talk about it at greater length at some point but you know that yon kipur is a day which is set aside for atonement but it's atonement between ourselves and God it's not atonement between yourselves and your fellow man that requires going to the person and saying I'm sorry that I did whatever I did it's not enough to stand in you know in synagogue on Y kipur and to fast and to afflict yourself and to pray even heart felt prayers if you haven't actually gone to the person himself and said listen I'm sorry but you know this is I I did I'm sorry I did what I did I'm sorry that I hurt you right so if if I hurt somebody it's not enough for me to you know remotely to make some kind of remote you know plea for forgiveness it doesn't doesn't work got to go to the person I've got to ask the person you should know that in for example there's all kinds of alas what do you do if you got somebody you can't go to that person ruen hurt shim he did something he did something to hurt him right and shim in the meantime has passed away what do you do now how do you ask him for forgiveness he's not alive anymore so the Ala says that you should take 10 people to to the cemetery and over there you should ask for forgiveness over there and if that's not possible to send yeah you know you let's say you've got somebody who lives far away and you can't you're not in contact with them you don't know how to be in contact with them so send somebody to him to ask him for forgiveness it's not enough just to you know if if I would have seen him I would have asked him to forgive me it's not enough that's you can't do that it needs more than that it needs an active Dimension yeah do we have the idea that if you've hurt somebody but your concerned is set by trying to ask for their forgiveness you're going to reopen that wound and it's going to hurt them more yeah that that is a w that that is such a complicated question it really is RAB salant says like this RAB salant was the the founder of the Muslim movement um you know the movement that's supposed to turn us into better people right maybe not so successfully but supposed to and uh he says like this if if by asking forgiveness it's going to cause a person the most incredible anguish for one of two reasons either because he never knew right so somebody did something to somebody else they never knew about it but now he feels really bad about it and he wants to go and ask for forgiveness and the person he never knew about it and if he finds out he's going to get really upset or it's opening up a wound you know barem the person's finally got over it right he's finally worked on himself and he's really struggled through whatever it was that happened and then Along Comes the person and says listen you know you've got to forgive me and it's going to open everything up again says salant that even though it's leaving the person with an incomplete cha you shouldn't do it which means that the feeling ings of the person the other person are more important than your than your ability to reach where you need to reach to now RAB doesn't say this but li My and my instinct is telling me that if a person truly wants to ask forgiveness from somebody else but he can't because if he does it's going to upset him then I think that a b is going to look at that if it's really heartfelt he's going to look at that as if he's actually done it right which means I this it's not it's not it's not an escape hatch it's not like you know what I would really ask him for forgiveness but you know what I don't want to upset him again because you don't really want to ask him forgiveness at all right you're too you're too embarrassed or you whatever it is you still you also Harbor a little bit of ill feeling after everything that's happened yeah that that's not it's not going to work like that it's not going to work but if it's truly a feeling of if I could I would I would do whatever I can in order to ask forgiveness but I can't because if I do it's going to upset this fellow terribly then at that point I think I think that is going to say you know what you did you did you did what you needed to do we're going to stop over here apparently apparently we have done what needed to be done we got to keep them in suspense for tomorrow you can see look at them they're uh hanging hanging on to every single word over here okay we're so we're going to stop over [Music] here [Music]