The World Is Upside Down | Rosh Hashanah Shows You What’s Real - Rabbi Hillel Eisenberg

Not long ago, I was in a beautiful part of northern Italy called Lake Garta. And being that I have three little kids who we just dragged through five different countries in Europe, we decided that maybe, just maybe, we would give them a little break from the sightseeing. So, for one day, we did what any responsible [music] Jewish parent would do after dragging three children across Europe. We took them to an amusement park. And we pulled up to Garderland, one of the largest and [music] most innovative amusement parks in all of Europe. And we're walking around and right in the middle of the park we see this massive fake somewhat mysterious looking tree and on the side of the tree was a door and there was a line of people waiting to go inside. [music] And the strange thing was you have absolutely no idea what was behind that door which of course is exactly why my son wanted to we have to go. We have to go. So I look at the people coming off the ride basically doing a quick medical assessment. Everyone still has all 10 fingers. all 10 [music] noses. Nobody's being carried out. Nobody's holding their eyeballs in their hand. Everyone looks surprisingly alive. And I thought, "Okay, you know what? This seems reasonably [music] safe." So, against every survival instinct I have, I agreed. And I got on the line with my son. [music] So, we get online and a few minutes later, the doors open and we walk inside and we're led into an elevator. And the elevator starts going down and down and down. And I'm thinking, "Okay, this is probably not the kitty ride I thought it was." The doors open and we walk into a dimly lit room with two rows of seats facing each other. And we sit down. I look around and everything seems completely normal. We're inside what appears to be [music] an ordinary house. There's a lamp. There are pictures on the wall. There's furniture. Everything looks perfectly normal. But [music] then all of a sudden the room starts to turn and then it starts to spin and suddenly the ceiling becomes the floor and the floor becomes the ceiling and all of a sudden I'm suspended in midair and then I'm flipped and then I'm moving and the walls are going one way and then they're going another way and I'm flying around in circles getting violently spun in every direction while desperately trying to convince my son that I'm having the time of my life. Meanwhile, internally, I'm thinking, "What absolute maniac invented [music] this headacheinducing, stomach churning, guaranteed vertigo machine? And why did I voluntarily get on it?" And I'm sitting there completely suspended in midair. And I'm thinking, I cannot believe I am five stories underground in Italy underneath a fake tree hanging upside down. Well, at least I thought I was upside down because eventually the ride came to an end and [music] the walls came back to normal and the ceiling is once again above my head and I get off the ride thinking, "What in the world just happened to me?" And then I [music] realized something. I never moved, not an inch. I had been sitting in the exact same seat the entire time, bolted to the floor. The room was just an illusion. The walls were actually giant moving plates [music] shifting together with the ceiling and the floor. They had created an optical illusion so convincing that I thought I was moving when in reality all that was moving was the house around me. They got me good. And I started thinking what a great mushel for Russashana. Because let's face it, we live in a [music] world that's a very convincing illusion. An illusion that's what up is down and what's down is up. an illusion that politics is everything and that money is the destination instead of just a means and that fame is important and that our status matters and that the Jewish people are this tiny little nation constantly fighting just to survive. And sometimes we feel like we're on that ride. We're getting thrown around. The media says one thing about us. People on college campuses say another thing. Someone on the subway looks at us funny. Politicians attack us. The world turns against us. People gather in the streets to protest us. And sometimes we think we're [music] spinning, we are being tossed around, we're losing control. And then each year comes rash and for a moment the [music] ride stops. We walk into shaw, we pause, we put everything else aside, and we say, [music] we stand there in sh with our heads held high and we belt out that we're your people and you are our king. We are your soldier and you're our commander. And for a moment, the illusion of the world starts to disappear. And for a moment, we remind ourselves that we've been looking at the world backwards where we think we're the small ones. We think we're the ones desperately trying to survive in a world that is much bigger and more powerful than us. But not today. No, today we remind ourselves that this entire world spins because of us. We remind ourselves that this entire planet breathes because of us. Today we remind ourselves that everything that happens in this world is because of us. Every tree, every ocean, every country, every galaxy, every [music] particle of existence, all of it is here because of us. And all of it would go right back to being if not for rash and are reaffirming our place in Hashem's malus. Rash we stand tall and we say, "Yeah, maybe the rest of the year we feel like we're being thrown around today." We remind ourselves that we're actually sitting in the same seat and yeah, maybe the world is moving around us. Yeah, maybe the headlines are moving and the politics are moving and the stock market's moving and public opinion is moving and countries are rising and falling and people love us and people hate us. One day we're heroes, the next day we're villains. The walls keep moving. Yeah, [music] but today we remember that our seat hasn't moved because our job hasn't changed. We have the same Tyra we always had. We have the same mitzvah we always have. We have we have shabas. We have a covenant with with Hashem that is the single most steady thing in the universe. [music] And when Rashashana comes around each year, we drill it into ourselves. Don't confuse the movement of the world with the movement of your mission. You may feel like you're spinning. You may feel like you're being thrown around. You may feel like everything is upside down. But look again, you're not moving at all. [music] The whole world is moving around you. That's what Rashashana does. It shuts off the ride. [music] It makes the noise stop and the wall stops spinning. And suddenly, for one moment, we can see reality. We're not passengers being dragged around by history. We're the people for whom history exists. We're not fighting to find our place in the world. [music] The world is being sustained so that we can fulfill our place in it. And once you realize that and internalize it and rush passes, you have no problem getting back on that ride. Let the world spin. Let the world turn upside down. Let the headlines scream. You don't care cuz you know something they don't know. You're sitting comfortably in your seat and the world is just endlessly spinning around you.