Let's show G-d that at least we are trying | Torah class with Rabbi Chaim Mintz

everybody here we are a few days before Yom Kippur very holy day as everybody knows it's hardly a Jew that is not touched by Yom Kippur people even very far away from Judaism but them Kipper has some kind of magic kind of uh think about it that people want to relate to it and be part of it and uh different levels but almost every Jew gets a little shiver in the spine we think about him Kipper and I want to discuss some basic things about Yom Kippur and just want to start off to think I imagine most of us once in a while think to ourselves what does God think about me where am I in his eyes he likes me and by doing the good things of life and uh it's a great question we don't know the real answer to it but we have a pretty good well pretty good idea of what he thinks about us one of the things is that if we look back to last him Kipper to the Sim Kipper are we stagnating or are we growing and that's one of the ways to figure out how some God thinks about us people stagnating he's not too happy with him when this world to grow and to accomplish and in the area not financially that physically but spiritually we need the financially for the spiritual we need the physical for the spiritual but the main purpose of our life is to grow spiritually so if you look back and see what we were like a year ago Yom Kippur and we are this year can we say that we are a little bit further up to totem pole are we gaining or we're growing I mean going closer to Hashem and uh that's one measuring stick to find out because Hashem happy with us if we're growing he's happy with us if we're stagnating he's not happy with this and uh that is uh of course if you're going to the wrong direction for sure it's not that people says but this is something that every Jewish person has to realize think about and do something about we want to grow we want to get closer to Growing means closer to Hashem a spiritual life should be enriched something more than it was last year at this time and uh want to talk about one of the Mitzvahs in the Torah Bel taxes were not allowed to destroy something something that's useful we're not allowed the story it's called baltaskis you're not allowed the story I think that has a used them again that people can benefit from we're not allowed to destroy it even small things even a bunch of seeds that are not worth very much maybe worth a penny or more whatever something like that but destroyed for no reason we're not allowed to destroy it God created it it'll be sort of a uh a a a not a nice thing to do God's watching everything we're doing it takes something that he created and destroyed for no reason that we're not allowed to do so we take from here how about people who waste time destroy the time they don't use dependent beneficial way they wasted for nothing and don't grow they could do something useful something that would be uh looked upon as something nice either serving Hashem in a way helping other people I mean man and God made men and men some people that they have to express me to kill time because I got killed some time until time is very very very shameful thing for a person to do to kill time when this world not that long compared to Eternity and we should try to make something every minute for a Time useful and not to waste it as a historian if we can't destroy even simple things that are not worth much money time is such a valuable creation that God gave us the time for us to accomplish to do and to waste it would be a terrible available or destroy our mind we have a mind which to think and to come up with good things and understanding and and and trying to think of the right thing to do and and do good good thoughts in the world and they just wasted people have good minds and they don't put it to use they're just wasting it for nothing and that's what terrible thing for a person to to uh to waste and not to use and this is something if we're thinking about how God's looking at us well let's look at how we're acting what are we using our minds for what news are tied for if we're putting it to good use to get closer to him to do the loss of the Torah between man and God the man and man so we can rest assured that that God is looking fabulously at us because we're doing what we're supposed to be doing and not wasting the great gift that he gave us that we give the time to give the brain of knowledge of thinking of understanding and uh of course the time of Yom Kippur is a time when one must do tuba a whole year people some of us almost everybody does a sin once in a while we're not angels and people sin in different ways and not keeping the loss of the turret like Hashem wants us to keep which is great kindness he gave us a day in the year to do chuva from to forgive us for our sins and of course according to the proper way a person should not wait for him Kipper if he knows it did something wrong is the truth would repent right away and not wait for him to keep her is like the last day for this Misfit to be fulfilled like a person in the face of night is supposed to eat Mata and the first night of pesach well you can imagine until the morning but once it comes morning you can't eat afterwards you can't imagine the Mitzvahs the face of the night of pesos the time goes by you are the luck he said well it's a double knots are tomorrow no no once the time goes by you uh negated that meter you didn't didn't perform it except when it comes to chuva for any sin that they might have done in the past yeah that's gonna have some for forgiveness of course it's different than matter because matzah once you Mr the Mitzvah it's you can't do it till next year juva even though a person was uh violated the mitzvah's chuva but still Captain Kipper if he didn't do trivia afterwards right away he can't wait till Nexium Clipper because the Miss retriever is ongoing a whole year so he violated the Mitzvah by not doing it Yom Kippur but still the obligation to do chuva is still on the person has to do it so our great dismay and sadness the many people do not keep the lawsuit each other to a great dismay and sadness there's a lot of intermarriage going on the simulation going on and uh I know I'm sure most of you have come up against upwards the problem certainly as a rabbi certainly uncomfortable problem the people coming to me saying Rabbi what should I do my daughter is going with her guy my son's going with this what should I do so I had to stop them they don't want to stop it's the nicest girl the nicest boy they talk to their children what do the children say to the mom and pop I don't understand you all of a sudden you might be to marry Jewish what did you do to be Jewish did you keep Shabbos you have a good Shabbos did kosher never keep kosher you never kept the laws of the Torah so now I'm not giving this love what are you so upset about you never kept the laws of the tiger very little and and so you did those uh things that you're not supposed to go according to the time you say I'm doing this I'm wearing out of the other religion so what what do your parents to be able to to answer them there's no answer for it but uh this is something that we have to think to ourselves we have to contemplate think we'll choose one session once for us what do I want our children to see in us to be Jewish they should be able to come and say what do you want from me you never kept anything why should I keep like to eat and enjoy eating uh shrimp so yeah shrimp I've enjoyed marrying out of the religion religion what's the difference how do we answer that and this is the time for those people who are I keep not keeping a lot of laws of the toilet but all the people keep loss of the tour mainly but we're not perfect so Yom Kippur is for everybody anybody who ever did a sin during the year I'm clippery what we pray we fast the fasting manually is together to think to wake us up to realize that it's not easy to fast why am I fasting because I want to wake myself up to think I want to get rid of all my sins because they're weighing heavily sin weighs heavily on the shama on a soul that I have soul is is is is is full of light and full of Holiness and Purity everything we do diminishes that holding the subway the shama we want to make it clean and holy again like it was when we were born so we have a chance after him we repent so her soul becomes light again beautiful again and it's uh close to Hashem it keeps us connected with our body held together conception if we have our Decemberists clean so I wanted to go through some of the things that I think most of us have to think about on the upkeeper and different levels a different extent how much we have to do tumor for but I want to mention some of them in case somebody gets a feeling while we're going over this we had it before a little bit before tonight to think about Yom Kippur if you'd like to mention it later on is uh taking the question somebody might say well I decided I'm going to do this in the honor of Yom Kippur at least for a day for a year for months for a week for a certain amount of time if somebody takes upon himself to do something more than before it wants to grow wants to be more than it was before that's we started off with that's why Hashem looks looks towards us don't stagnate go forward become greater the closer to Hashem if anybody has that feeling I'd like to share with us it will give us an inspiration if you're inspired and give others inspiration if you took upon something that you want to do from now on let us know and we'll uh be inspired by it and maybe we'll also try to do something more but the first thing about talking about which we're talking about very often is the holy day of Shabbos Shabbat the holy say if they're more holy then you'll keep her imagine that it's about this people I said before they relate to Yom Kippur even the person furthest away from Judaism but really if they relate to Yom Kipping they said let's relate to Shabbos Shabbat is even more Holy Name Kippur it comes once a week that's why maybe people don't take it so seriously because once you're thinking it comes over and over again we lose our uh sensitivity to it but let's think about how Jews related to Shabbos in the generations before us here in America I'm sure a lot of you have read the stories of those Jews came to America a hundred years ago 70 years ago 60 years ago and they came religious Jews they came their mother to keep Shabbos but they had to make a living they would go to factories where they were hiring people all types of factories all over the place mainly Manhattan those factors were in those times and they wanted to get the job and the boss would say okay but I see a Jewish if you have to come every day including Shabbos if you don't come Shabbos don't come during the week I'm not hiring you unless you got my Shabbos got to choose acquiesce to the pressure but latitudes didn't latitude said no I'm gonna I'm not going to come with Shabbos will anybody to come few days before and that shot but we're fired right away the boss said I told you income Shoppers don't come they will go every week to a different Factory to get a job and be fired every week until finally found something it wasn't easy they had families food was scarce the rent was not paid and they really suffered but they would not desecrate the holy Shabbos imagine how Hashem loved them such people giving their everything keep Shabbos the holiest day of the year old days of the year and today it's so easy to keep Shabbos it's not even a problem hardly the law is against it I can't tell you the people who can't go against religion that make a person force them to work on Shabbos but it said most jobs are for five day weeks it's not not seven days or six days like do seven those times businesses and factories and all places of clothes and shop is we don't have to work on shoppers to keep Shabbos so uh it's a it's a very uh not nice of us to think about our ancestors the great Jews who ultimate Generations the cup Chavez where the price wasn't easy I just get one example of in this country well even today they're people who have a hard time some of them but not nearly as hard as it was for them think about Shabbos certificate but if not a whole day but part of Shabbos at least Friday night they have a nice shopping stable my kiddos contains filter fish get some nice delicious tasty dishes to put the table of the honor of Shabbos the woman that have selected candles makes a nice feeling on the Shabbos candles lit and how about keeping Shabbos a little bit maybe don't put on the lights you know if I don't want to put on the light before Shabbos keep it on down to the the washing Choppers don't go driving Friday night at least part of the shop is to do something things don't keep her I want to tell Sam I'm about to grow I want to be different I don't want to be the same person I was the whole year I don't want to stagnate let's do something a little more than we did before and so easy today to keep it it's not like it used to be it used to be even to keep Shabbos there I used to have not electricity the candles and stuff went out it was dark but they will have to shop to Tesco chapters to make a fire today we don't have such problems it's so easy some of the automatic technology makes things so easy for someone Chavez some people don't even keep culture like they should the people came to this country are coming back in this country that is Castle is a very big problem the mafia was very involved in the conscious because they saw money in it and they caused all kinds of problems that they caused butchers butcher shops to take 12 million and you had to be really careful where you bought your meat because it would allow the meat that said kosher on it and once my uncle was a rabbi in New York and he used to he was in the midst of this whole thing of the problems of Shabbos they used to say you have stores that say on the bus to kosher it says on the coast on a psychosa right on the window closer she said you could eat every bit of that glass 100 kosher but not to meet inside that was a different story it's covers you on the glass not the window but there is no culture on the meat inside was not sincerely kosher and people had a big problem with coaching those times with all the factories and all the different ways of preparing food who could know what's behind it what they're putting into it today it's like so easy to keep kosher you take a look at the rapper or the Box oh you okay cough K all the different culture signs and all the stores that have a proper rabbis who were watching and making sure that things are Kosher and the store it is so easy to keep coaching no problem whatsoever because a little bit more money that's true but a Jewish person to keep closer you have to think about some camper it's coming up to take into our house not kosher food some people think well they're taking the Kosher meat you know to take a fixed meeting to the outside here don't think the Shell Food doesn't mean that the Kosher meat was made kosher as we slaughtered in a certain way even though it's a cow and a goat and there are different types of animals chickens are culture animals but they have to be prepared in the right way they have prepared the right the slaughter me the right way and take the blood out not like the blood and there's certain parts of the body inside there's not allowed to be eaten a piece of meat that's from fabric kosher animal it has to be discussion Mid Coast in the right way to prepare in the right way otherwise it's totally not kosher and we have to think about all different problems because milk and meat and we have to look at the labels of the food that we're buying and think about maybe this year I'll be more careful only buy food that has a coach who signed on it I only put them prepared in a way that you're allowed to eat it then the of course the other things we have to think about learning Torah Maybe we're not doing that let's feel like we should some people have termites some people live in Torah but maybe we can do a lot better maybe a little bit more imagine a few more minutes every day every week every day depending how much we're doing till now we want to grow not to stagnate we want to do something more show Hashem that we're trying we're doing at least we're trying to do we can we can jump into it maybe oh fully but we certainly can do us a little bit more than we did from before whether it's going to show or Shabbos not to drive go to a real kosher show that's talking about can hear the sermons from a rabbi pray together with other Jewish people and of course we don't want to drive to show the Shabbos because we're not allowed to drive on Shabbos and they want to go to kosher school not to I'm sure it's watered down with English how about in our house do we have a sitter we have a prayer book in our house that's Hashem listens to prayers in the house so wherever we are we could learn we have a senate for us to pick up to praise Hashem once in a while this is something that we should think about we want to grow how about this everybody about culture Bruce Miller all the men do they have a breast to their circumcision this is like so important one of the most important mysteries in the terror to be circumcised today um for adults to be circumcised the men they have ways that are almost painless that we have certain experts and who know how to circumcise adults they make almost painless for them to go through that operation if it's something that should be done when a baby's 18 days old but if the person should make sure that he himself and all the males and his family are circumcised so this is some of the things everybody has their own thing that they feel that thing grow in who started off this have a SIM looking at us he's looking at us to see if we're growing people trying to to do more than before not to stagnate to say we're Jewish people we want to get closer to Hashem every mystery that we do we can go get closer to Hashem He Loves Us for it more and more every mission that we do for ourselves let our children not come to us someday and say Mom and Pop why can't a man non-jewish you've never done anything in the house didn't keep things like they should you said you did what you felt like well I feel like going and marrying a chick so what do you want for me so let's not put ourselves in such a situation that children will come to us and won't have what to answer them they should see us that we aren't worried about keeping to this like it should we want to keep our children marrying the right people they should marry not other than other religion and this we have to think about the upkeeper Trevor repentance what is repentance the three main steps of repentance remorse a person thinks about do they act correctly the gift shop is a little bit something to keep coaching that keep the the laws of the of the Torah I feel bad I didn't do what I could have done I could have done more and I didn't how could I not listen to Hashem my Creator he created me it makes my heart beat every second it gives me power to see and to hear the talk he gives me like knock us it gives me happiness how can I not listen to his Torah I have to do something more I feel bad to feel well I didn't tell that that's the number one step remorse to feel bad for the wish we did not do we were not supposed to do it we didn't do what we were supposed to do the second step is Kabbalah to take upon themselves to stop the wrong thing and do the right thing stop eating that kosher eat kosher food keeps our Shabbos at least to a certain extent words that should not be spoken I'll take upon myself not to go with the gossiping people all the time I'll keep them careful with the way I talk about people all different Mitzvahs I'm sure everybody is familiar with some business of the Torah not to stagnate attempt to look at us who tried to go to get close to him and of course we have the video with a VC that we that we uh we say I I admit that with Sinta Hashem we thank our heart that causes to do the wrong thing in the patch in our heart that we said I can't I send Hashem I'm sorry for what I did I want to become a better person it'd be such a good feeling after him kept with the field that we have and the shama became much purer than it was before except took away all that that that that smutz that that mud of sins that the pile upon the shamana soul during the year that we don't keep determined that the way we should some games such a great gift of him Kippur first to use it the right way for us to use it to thank Hashem for what he gave us excuse ourselves I I realized that I said that that's what I should have been doing I feel bad about it and what I want to become better I want to grow I want to become a better person so we have to naturally one of the main ways is to study the Torah to know how to how to become a better person I just mentioned a few of the Mitzvah said that people come with a safe are faced with every day almost and I hope that everybody listening and will take it seriously such an important day once a year comes up Kipper to naturally we want to go to show not to drive naturally and to have a heart the heart to talk hearts are talk to Hashem that's him I know you created me I know you gave me the story to make thank you for making me part of the Jewish Nation but we have to reciprocate and you made him probably part of a Jewish nation that meter gave us the Torah we want to keep the Torah the best we can so these are some important thoughts I want to give over to you and I hope that they went into everybody's heart and mind to make the simple something very special and come out next year we'll say well we should have done the same as last year we grow and do the right thing and be closer to Hashem do it should be