Is Your Relationship with Hashem Business or Personal? | Rosh Hashanah Message

a good head of rosh hashanah uh to all of you you see you're joining me in the new soul words studio hashem which uh in the coming videos shirim podcasts you're going to get more angles and more views of the setup over here and thank you to everyone who has been a supporter of soul words and making all of this possible i also want to just mention something about soul words i know a lot of you watch these classes on other platforms like youtube or on websites like tora anytime or some of you listen to them on podcast platforms like spotify these are all wonderful and however you enjoy your content that's how you should enjoy your content however is useful to you and convenient to you and works for your lifestyle i just want to make sure everyone knows that if you're looking for everything all of the soul words content all laid out in a really easy to navigate way it's all at our website soulwords.org in fact even if you put in soulwords.com i think it redirects to soulwords.org if you go to soulwords.org you'll see everything there you'll get you can you can easily navigate to the classes that are on parsha the classes on chara be talking in the classes i'm tanya whatever it may be classes and jumped if if you want to prepare for each jump throughout the tishrei season which is upon us um and and also it's very easy to search for topics you can look for for relationships you can look for parenting it's all very easy to find there at soulwords.org and if you want just the audio file every single video that's there there's a button underneath the video player where you can just download the mp3 to your device and you'll have it to go okay so we're heading into a new year tough shin pay base already can you believe it 57 82 one of the unique features of this coming year is that it is a shmita year so a lot of people know about shemitah as the agricultural sabbatical the uh the mitzvah that jewish farmers have in the land of israel to allow the land to lie fallow in the seventh year there is a concurrent mitzvah along with the agricultural shemitah there's something called shmita literally means the release of money shmita means release sofi means of money so what happens is every seventh year actually at the very end of the seventh year the last moment the very last moment of the seventh year there is a release of all debts that are owed from one private jewish individual to another private jewish individual all of those loans are dropped and i wanted to share with you a message based on a a letter from the lab about the spiritual significance of of the release of debts and how it applies to each and every one of us you know there was once a guy who's pacing around at night just pacing back and forth can't fall asleep finally his wife turns to him she says why are you pacing go to bed it's late he says i can't i can't i can't she says why not he says because i borrowed a thousand dollars from maishi and it's due tomorrow and i don't have it so i can't sleep she says you owe me she a thousand dollars it's due tomorrow and you don't have it you can't sleep she says yeah that's exactly what i said she says give me your phone she takes his phone finds moise's number she calls she waits hello may she yeah you know the thousand dollars my husband owes you tomorrow he doesn't have it she hangs up the phone she turns to her husband and says now my she can't sleep you go to bed when you are the creditor and someone owes you money obviously that is a uh it's a bit of a nerve-wracking thing and if you think that you're not going to get the money back it makes it hard to want to loan somebody even though it's a mitzvah it's a mitzvah to give a loan in fact it's the highest form of charity is not to give a gift but to give a loan and yet when you think you're going to lose it it's very hard to to want to give it historically this became a problem and the issue was recognized and rectified by hillel lozokin who ne who enacted something called the prusbo the prusbo is a legal mechanism whereby a creditor can protect his or her debts that are owed and be able to collect them after shemitah now you're going to ask how does that legal mechanism work it's actually rather simple remember earlier i said that the pros bowl rather that the shemitah releases all personal debts that's owed by one jewish individual to another so it's very simple the crucible works by having the private debt turned over to the besden to the rabbinical court and when the rabbinical court files the debt then it becomes sort of like a public record so to speak and then the that can be collected after after shmita so that's how the uh the cruz bowl came about and it was a good thing because if not for the crucible creditors would would stop giving credit as it drew closer to the to the shemitah year so how do we understand this in the spiritual realms everything that exists in halacha in the practical side of judaism has a parallel and in fact derives from a spiritual truth in the in the higher worlds so what is the spiritual counterpart to this concept of the seventh year release of debts and the provable mechanism which can protect those debts so the simple explanation is like this you want to talk about creditor and debtor in the archetypical form meaning who is the creditor par excellence who is the paradigm for creditors creditor with a capital c hashem himself he's the creditor and we of course are the debtors we are indebted to hashem and he gives us everything and not only does he give us everything but to ensure that it is not named for bread of shame he does it as alone he doesn't want it to be a uh a free gift which would cause us to lose self-respect he gives up he gives everything to us freely there's no credit check there's no uh oh you didn't pass the credit check oh i'm sorry we cannot extend you a line of credit you don't have to call uh what do you call the reconsideration line and you don't have to bargain with them and try to get them to to approve you for another credit line no no anyone who wants credit that like it says in pirkei office and petty gimmel that the shopkeeper keeps the uh the book the book open there's a book that uh where he writes down how much you owe anyone who wants to take from the shop this is the marshall this is the the parable from from peregrimo pierce anyone who wants to come and borrow they can come borrow and the credit the the shopkeeper just writes down how much credit he extended to you and that's it and uh you're given everything that you want but you got to pay it back and why do you have to pay back not because the creditor in this case is uh is afraid he won't be able to do business not like the creditor here hashem it is scarce on inventory and he's afraid he's going to run out right like i can't order more inventory because the my uh my customers haven't paid me the the invoices no no it's again like we said in order to preserve our dignity that we should not receive bread of shame so the whole thing is set up for our benefit it's set up for our benefit we should be able to take what we need it's also set up for our benefit that we should be given the opportunity to pay it back okay now what does it mean to pay back how do you pay back hashem's loans so it's very simple it's very very simple paying back a loan to hashem means that whatever it is that you borrowed from him you just use it in a way that glorifies him and that furthers his agenda in this world so if he gives us children how do you pay back that loan you educate your children with a jewish education if he gives you health so then you spend your energy doing mitzvos if he gives you money so that i mean that's a simple one so you give to dhaka myself or more every loan that hashem gives is paid back simply by using that resource or that opportunity in a way that glorifies hashem and furthers his agenda in this world of making this world a dwelling place very simple now comes shmita and it's time to really take stock as a as a debtor you know if we lacked scruples if we lacked integrity we'd say oh goody gum drops the shemitah is coming and at the end of the year it doesn't matter how much i owe hashem the slate's going to get wiped clean but we have self-respect and we don't want to just rely on shmita to wipe the debts we want to do our best to pay back so the first lesson the first instruction here is that when a year like 5782 is upon us ashmita year we know we've got one year this is it at the end of shmitah the at the last moment of 57.82 the the the debts are going to be erased and we want to make sure that we've done everything in our power to use our gifts appropriately so we should take stock and we should be grateful we should say what opportunities has hashem given me what gifts has hashem given me what talents what skills what strengths what sometimes it's a networking opportunity where you know somebody or you know someone who knows somebody and you see a way of helping somebody or helping two people help each other there's all types of ways that hashem gives us opportunities whether it's materially you know to make some money or spiritually to be able to do a mitzvah whatever it is hashem gave us these opportunities and we have to take stock and say have we used them appropriately have we seized all of our our opportunities or are we just sort of sitting there uh passively as the recipient of these gifts and and not making use of them so that would be considered not paying back the loan so shmita is a time to think about what are the gifts that hashem has put in your life have you been using them have you been using these gifts in the way that hashem wants them to be used okay so we're all going to try our best to take stock and to live up to the repayment that's what we're all going to try to do at the same time we are very much aware of the fact that we are human beings we are imperfect and it is a very real possibility that even at the end of our year of trying to make use of all the gifts that hashem has given us we may not entirely wipe the debt clean we may be left with an outstanding balance on our heavenly credit card so to speak okay so if we've done if we've truly done everything we can then we can look ourselves in the mirror and with respect self-respect we can say you know what i'm not a deadbeat i tried my best and this is what's this is what's left over and hashem by his gracious loving kindness he's gonna forgive whatever it is that i came up short beautiful that's beautiful there's no shame in there okay problem you think prusable only exists on earth the prusable only exists on earth because it exists in heaven everything that's down here is a reflection of a spiritual reality so just like there's a crucible down here where a creditor can file his debt that you you you owe him he can take it and file it with the besden with the rabbinical court and still collect on it after shemitah so too can take the debts the benefit and file it with the bay's din shall milo with the heavenly angelic court and the debt will not be wiped the debt will remain and still can be exacted from us we do not want that we we tried to pay up we wanted to pay up we did our best to pay up and now there's still an outstanding balance we want that wiped but hashem can go and file that with the heavenly court we do not want that how do we prevent that so here's what i want to ask you and here's the real question that we should be thinking about heading into 5782 as a shmita year is your relationship with hashem business or personal is it business or personal very simple question what does it mean if a relationship is business or personal you know we all know how terrible it is to feel used it's an awful feeling to feel feel used right i thought you cared about me i thought you liked me no you were just using me it's a terrible feeling to be to feel used on the other hand it's a wonderful wonderful feeling perhaps the most wonderful feeling to feel useful what's a greater more exhilarating more uplifting state to be in than to have an opportunity to be a giver to make a contribution to be useful so what's the difference between feeling used which is an awful feeling and feeling useful which is a wonderful feeling you know the difference the difference is if i couldn't do for you what i did for you would you still care about me if you're only interested in me because what i can do for you that's called being used and it's an awful feeling but if we have a relationship a real relationship that's not based on conditions it's not based on tit-for-tat quid pro quo you scratch my back i'll scratch yours and then on top of that i can volunteer to do something for you oh that's the most wonderful feeling to be useful for you well i got to tell you something the same thing is true in our relationship with hashem we want to make hashem feel used or useful when hashem gives us brachus should he feel like all we were really interested in was to get the brachas from him and then to run away or maybe it's not the brachas in this life maybe it's maybe we want to get the gun aiden and that's all we really cared about we wanted the taina lumhaba that's called being a user and that's called a business relationship or is it personal personal means i care about you and because i care about you i'm gonna find out what you care about and i'll care about the things that you care about so i want you hashem and since i want you hashem i'll find out what's important to you oh you like tayag mitzvahs you like the 613 commandments then that's what i'll give you you know there's a a martial in the madrid about rosh hashanah which explains the whole idea of kabbalah when we coronate hashem it says that there was a king who came to the countryside and he saw his subjects and the subjects all asked this king he was a new king they were accepting his his authority over their realm they said tell us your laws and the king said no no accept me then accept my laws accept me then accept my laws don't ask me my laws yet ask me if you want me to be king then i'll be king then i'll tell you my laws it's very deep are we accepting hashem because we find the terms of the agreement acceptable okay i guess i can deal with a hashem like that yeah that sounds like a good bargain good deal let's do it let's sign up or are we saying i want hashem i want hashem and whatever it is that he deems important that'll be important to me that's what i'll do for him and if i can't understand why it's important because it's too beyond it's too infinite for my mortal brain to grasp then at least with kabbalah i could accept that it's important i may not know always why it's important but i could accept that it's important i can give it to hashem and that's called making it personal it's about the relationship in other words a business approach to avedas hashem means it's transactional it's about a transaction it's barter you give me this i'll give you that a personal relationship with hashem is that it's relational it's about the relationship it's about the two parties caring for each other hashem wants to take care of us we want to take care of him so why is this so important to consider sometimes we think about this as you know like this this level of altruism where you say you know i don't even care about the scar right it's so lofty oh who can be at such a level first of all i want to tell you it's advanced says don't be like the slaves who serve their master in order to deceive to receive reward be like the slaves will serve their master and not in order to re receive a reward in other words just do it because this is pleasing to the master so that's it's a mishna there's a story about the altareb he was in a state of vegas he was entranced he was deeply connected in a moment of of prayer and he and he could be heard speaking to hashem and yiddish i don't want your paradise i don't want your world to come i just want you i just want you and you could say oh that's the helica balatanya that's his successor seven generations later told that story and the famous mimer from the rebecca's birthday of nissan beyonce is the opening words and the rabbit told that story and said really that is the cry of every single nashamah like the medusa says on the passage my soul says hashem is my portion not because it's a transactional business decision what can i get out of hashem oh he's got some ghanaian oh he's got some islam let's let's make a trade no but because this is my helix this is my portion my lot i am destined to be one with hashem i am destined to seek intimacy with the holy one that's it that's it after we've established hashem is mine and i'm hashems then we'll get into the details what is it exactly that we're asking from hashem what is it exactly hashem's asking from us that's secondary in the negotiation but the first and foremost thing is do you want me do you want me do you want me you want me it's a story about a good yid back in the al-tahim he uh he says to his michotis he says uh how many people visited me uh tishrei so the michaelis said uh i don't know i have to think uh you know could be a hundred so this gute said uh no i don't think so he says i remember one so the the machadis the attendant's trying to figure out what he's talking about there were a lot of people it came tishday so it's good to yid says i said how many people came to see me you're talking about this guy he came for abraha for paranosa so i'm with that guy okay so he came for abraham with uh for to succeed in learning torah and this guy had this request and this guy had that request i said how many people came to see me so that's what it means business or personal why are we talking about this going into 5782 it's very simple hashem will give you the type of relationship with him that you request balls in your court the balsam said hashem which we normally translate hashem is your shadow protective shade that's the the latin apostle from tilam from david malach but the balsam have touched it like this hashem hashem is your shadow like a shadow if you move this way the shadow moves that way you move that way the shadow moves that way the shadow mimics your movements right hashem is your shadow however you choose to move that's how hashem is going to reciprocate the holy magid said right from pirkei orvis know what is above you but he read it he parsed the sentence a little bit differently he said da you should know. what is what is above what is in the heavens it comes from you that which is happening in heaven and coming down here it's from you you established it you chose it so we're the ones who choose the nature of the relationship with hashem if we want a business relationship hashem will honor that it'll be a business relationship and you know what will happen at the end of shemitah he'll say oh um plainly been plainy has a little bit of a a balance left in his account he didn't pay me in full okay business relationship what do you do with this debt you hand it over to the besden to the besden shalmyla to the heavenly court and you let those angels deal with it i'm telling you cover you do not want your heavenly spiritual debts in the hands of the angelic courts i mean they're the worst collections agency they will not there's no rahmanis they don't have any compassion they will call you any time day or night okay they have no sympathy because to them it's just a it's just a job and a malek is very rigid you know the malach is more rigid than someone at the dmv no flexibility at all at all you know how amalek works that's it i know one thing i'm supposed to collect this debt i'm sorry sir it says here in this paper that you owe such and such and such and such that's it you're not going to get any flexibility you're not going to get any reason this is like good luck you have better chances walking through tsa checkpoint with a with a water bottle okay they're not going to be flexible with you amalek is made very rigid he's not going to reason with you he's not going to be flexible he's not going to entertain any logic he's just going to say i'm sorry this is what you owe and that's what we're getting that's it that's what we're going to take from you so you do not want your debts your spiritual debts in the hands of the best in shomila okay so how do we prevent that very simple very simple how to prevent that if we establish that our relationship with hashem is a personal relationship then hashem will honor that and it will be a personal relationship and he'll keep the debt personal he won't hand it over to best and he won't make a principal he'll keep the debt personal and any debt that is personal gets dropped the end of shmita personal debts are dropped okay so this is important how do we establish that our relationship is personal we need to know this information it's very simple you establish that the relationship is personal by going above and beyond if it's business so you punch the clock right clock in you clock out please do not text me in the evenings do not text me on the weekends i'm no i'm not available this is just a job please don't flatter yourself to think that i share in the company's vision and passion or whatever i'm doing this for a salary okay those are the boundaries so if you do mitzvahs like that you say hashem look it says this is how you're supposed to do it i did it please enough okay i did the mitzvah i was yata i was exempt i did it the way you you're technically supposed to do it i'm good okay fine you are you are you're right you are good you are good you're 100 technically to the letter you're good but you've established the relationship as business and now you got to pay up everything completely you have to go through and look at all the opportunities hashem gave you and make sure you've used every one of them to its fullest to glorify hashem and to further his agenda in this world who needs that pressure and if not it goes to this angelic court collections agency and they're going to come hound you god forbid instead we need to set it up like this we need to show hashem that it's personal by showing him that i'm not doing this because it's it's it's my profession i'm not doing this because i'm getting paid i know i'm getting paid of course we're getting even the mission that says don't serve the master like the slaves who who who want to receive a reward it doesn't say there is no reward i mean in fact that's the error that that uh certain talmida made from that mishna the the the sadducem come from that error that god forbid they thought it meant there is no reward it's much more nuanced than that there is a reward but you're not supposed to be fixated on it there is a reward but that's not the motivation so the personal approach is to say hashem i'm going to serve you not as if i'm getting paid for this but as if this was my idea as if i decided this was a nice way to spend my free time as if this were as interesting to me as i know it is to you that's a deep concept that hashem had a tither a desire a craving for dire batacte a dwelling place in the lower realms so you could look at it like okay so this rich guy wanted to build a palace and he hired me as a contractor fine or you could look at it like this my husband right anila deity of the daily lead that's hashim that's marriage that's king solomon's love poem my husband said to me his beloved wife let's make a home together and move in so what am i going to say no that's your idea that's not my idea that's you that's all you just feel lucky that i'm going along with your plan no this is our shared vision this is our shared dream we both want this we both want this it's personal it's deeply personal the most personal it's an intimate relationship it's a marriage if you treat it like that then hashem will mirror that in kind and hashem will keep the relationship personal so i want to wish all of us in 5782 the right perspective in our relationship with hashem we should keep it personal deeply personal intimately personal and we should experience true pleasure and and fulfillment in our relationship with hashem not fulfillment because hashem is faithful to pay us a reward that i know about that that that's that that's not the point but pleasure in the intrinsic joy and delight of bonding itself your