How to Access God | The King in the Field - Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein

How do I access God? God Almighty, the omnipotent, the omnipresent, the creator of all, the one who was, is, and will be. How can I get access to God? How do I get his attention? How do I get to connect with God so God would listen to me and God would be able to answer my prayers, my needs, my wishes, my wants? How do we access God? When you and I were created, God said, "The world can no longer exist without you." Which means that you are a very important part of the whole world, of the whole creation. That you are so unique, you are so special that no one like you ever existed before. No one like you will ever exist again. Just think about your fingerprints. Your fingerprints never existed before and never will exist after. It's unique to you because you were created in God's image and you have a special mission in this world to be God's ambassador to make this world a better place. So how do we connect to God? How do we get access? How do we open up a portal to God, to heaven, so that we can begin a relationship? So that we can truly get to know each other. Some of us, if you have grown up in a home where God was present, was presented to you as a child and you learned about God, you developed a relationship with God. But what about if you grew up in a home where God was not introduced and you were not aware of God in heaven until later in life? So God in heaven is part in you. You and I when we were born a soul was blown into our nostrils and that is what keeps us alive. That soul is a part of God. So each one of us has a part in go of God in us. So not only were we created in God's image, but we actually embody, we actually are a vessel that's carrying a soul, a godly soul, literally a godly soul. And as long as the godly soul is within our body, we remain alive. We die when that soul leaves us. So our connection to God has already been established at birth. However, as we go through our journey in life, we may not be aware of God's presence in us. Without connecting with our soul, without connecting with our spiritual dimension, we may have forgotten and not realize that God lies within each one of us. And we get to connect to God. The way we connect to God is through prayer. Connecting to God means talking to God. The word prayer doesn't mean to pray for something, to ask for something, but it rather means to make a connection, to connect to God, for you to be aware, to be cognizant that there is a God in heaven. There is the omnipotent, the omnipresent, and that you can connect with him. Now, to do that, you need to be able to begin recognizing that you're not just a physical human being, but there's a spiritual dimension to you as well. You are spiritual innate. Your your soul is a spiritual being, and that is part of you. And you need to get in touch with your spirit. And that begins from the very minute we wake up in the morning. When we wake up in the morning in the Jewish prayer book, there are 12 words that we say as soon as we open our eyes. And those words are, "Thank you, God, for restoring my soul, for giving me an opportunity, but having faith in me to give me another day on this world." When you recognize and you realize what kind of gift it is, not taking it for granted from that moment in the morning saying, "Thank you, God." That is beginning a connection to God. Now, all year round, God is in his throne in heaven. And we need to be able to work hard to connect with our spiritual dimension and to be able to reach out to God and to have the right concentration to have the right thoughts and the right presence of mind to be able to connect to God. King David wrote that anyone who calls out to God in truth God will listen to them. But to reach that level, it it requires requires practice and requires concentration, appreciation, and being in the right frame of mind, the right space to be able to make that special connection to God. That is all year round. But there is one exception and that is the last month of the year of the Hebrew year which is about now around September the end of August and September which is the Hebrew 12th month. This month has a very unique quality. King Solomon, the wisest man of all, wrote in the book Songs of Songs, I am to my beloved, my beloved is to me as I am roaming around the roses. That's a quote, a verse from King Solomon. what he's referring to. And this is a very endearing verse. Actually, grooms and brides likes to exchange this same expression. Some even have it engraved on the rings after the wedding ceremony. I am to my beloved, my beloved. Is to me such an enduring, beautiful expression. But what King Solomon is teaching us something very timeless. You see the last month in the Hebrew calendar is called lul e l u l in Hebrew it's alf lammed vav lamemed. Those are the Hebrew letters which is an acronym of these words I am to my beloved and my beloved is to me. In this last month something special happens to the world. The king of heaven comes down to the world. It's as if the king is in the field just like when we relate to a king who spends his whole year in the palace in in the throne sitting on his throne. But once a year he comes out in the fields to meet anybody who wants to approach the king. He makes himself available to anybody and anybody can approach him and he will greet everyone graciously with a big smile and listen to you and answer your needs. This is something which in mysticism in the cabala is illustrated is the specialty of this month the 12th month of the year. It's the year that we get to meet the king one-on-one without any preconditions, without any appointments. You just go out and you can meet the king and the king is going to meet you and will be excited to see you. He will greet you. He will embrace you and he will answer what you are asking for. These are the 30 days of the month of El. It began today. Today is the beginning of the new moon, the beginning of the new month of this month. And this is when the king is in the field. These are 30 days before the beginning of the Jewish new years. So the last month of the year is referred to as a month of mercy. Just like King Solomon wrote about the king who is roaming in the fields of roses, a rose has 13 petals. 13 are the numbers of attributes of mercy that during this month God exhibits 13 attributes of mercy to us. It is also common during this last month when we recognize how valuable every single day is that we actually take out the ram's horn and we blow from it every single weekday, Sunday through Friday during this month. Every single day in synagogue, we take out the ram's horn and we blow from it the sounds similar to what we will sound on the Jewish New Year's. And the reason is to awaken us, to awaken our souls, to let us realize and recognize that the year is coming to an end. That we need to take an accounting of what our past year was like and begin planning for the next year. See, the Jewish New Year is a little different because the way it's celebrated, it's celebrated as a day of introspection. It's not a day of drinking and celebration, but it's rather a day celebrated with introspection, with recognizing and realizing that this is the head of the year. Not just the beginning of the year, but it's the head of the year. Which means that whatever happens during these 48 hours on Jewish New Year's, God is going to inscribe what the rest of the year is going to be like. So, we have an opportunity to appeal to God to help us in this coming year, what this coming year should be like. We actually have the opportunity to be inscribed in the book of life for this coming year. And each one of us has our own personal needs, our own personal wants. And not just personally, for our own family, for our community, for the world, for Israel. Well, this is the month that we begin the process of taking into account and and looking back on the past year and and similarly as before the end of that accounting year, we look at our pluses, our minuses. We see where we gained, where we lost and we look back in the year and we say to ourselves, okay, where do I need to grow? Where do I need to make improvement? And then you make resolve and resolution how to make this year a better year. And to this we look to God during this month. We have direct access. And that is the answer to the original question. How do we get access to God? It is during this month, the 12th Hebrew month, that you can have direct access to God because the king is in the field and you can reach out to him. Even though if you haven't spoken to God before, even though you haven't had a relationship that you knew of, I'm telling you now that you have a part of God in you and you can reveal that this month and you can connect to God and God is just waiting for you to reach out to him. Just talk to him. you you don't need a prayer book to do that. You could just use your regular vernacular words and have a frank conversation with God and talk to God because God is ready to listen to you. So when we value this last month of the Hebrew year and it gets us into the mode into the spirit of realizing that a new year is about to come that Roshashana, the head of the new year is about to come upon us. We are 30 days before. It's time to get ready. It's time to prepare and to be able to look forward to such a better year. Last year was a very tough year for many of us individually and uh and for our communities, for the world, for Israel. It's been a rather precarious year. We have an opportunity to change that and to change that for the better. So, let us get into the spirit of El. Let's get into the spirit of the last month of the Hebrew year. Let's go out to the field, meet the king, talk to the king, embrace the king, and the king will embrace you and will certainly greet you graciously and answer all that you need in an abundant measure. And that will get us ready for rashashana. So, make sure to find a synagogue near you that you can attend to listen to the prayers and to be part of the collective prayers that we should all be inscribed and sealed for a happy and a healthy sweet new year. God bless you. God loves you.