Pre Rosh Hashanah Seminar - (Rabbi Akiva Tatz - Rabbi Dovid Kaplan - Rabbi Yisrael Reisman)

[Music] welcome to this awesome program um on preparation for rosh hashanah [Music] last time we met a year ago two years ago when covered before covert struck we talk about we talked about the interesting question about why we don't do chiva repentance self-correction whichever word you'd like to use on rosh hashanah let's move now to the next step in that discussion which is the question of chiva itself after all we call it the 10 days of repentance 10 days of chiva serious you made sure yes it's interesting to note that on rosh hashanah itself we don't do trevor and if you refer back to our previous discussion you will see that in fact what we do on rosh hashanah is even better than chuva it's a more intense or more primary form of cho if you like that's going back to the root but let's devote this session to the midsole of chub itself yes remembering that we don't do it on rosh hashanah but it is the 10 days of repentance and of course we prepare for rosh hashanah with chuba and from rosh hashanah to yom kippur of course that's what we do so let's make a few remarks about the mitzvah of children what i'd like to do is share with you an overview of the concept and mitzvah of chiva let's take its components break it down into its parts and try to give a little bit of depth scratch beneath the surface if you like in each of the components children of course in the non-jewish world is translated as repentance but that of course is only one part of the mitzvah it is much broader than that the accurate translation of israeli a return same verbal root if you like as the word shabbat which is really going back to the point of origin and there's a lot in common between shabbos and chuba as the tanya points out and so the concept the real the real unifying concept i think is going back to the beginning in fact maharal points out very beautifully that chuva is based on the two-letter root shove which means to go back and he points out that shove is based on a shin and a bass second last letter of the alphabet and the second note of the alphabet and he asks the obvious question why is it not from the last to the first but only the second last to the second and he answers because if one has gone to the end so to speak entire self-destruction nothing left to reconstruct and of course if one is not left behind a small spark of inspiration a small spark of the original spirit nothing to go back to so provided one is not entirely destroyed oneself there's still somebody left to do this mitzvah then one can go from the end to the beginning so to speak and entirely reconstruct the good news i would say is that everything can be atoned for the bad news if you like is that it's hard work one has to be sincere one is to mean it let's lay out the components of the mitzvah and try to discuss each of them in as much detail as our time allows the mitzvah has three components sometimes five and two divisions let me mention them briefly and then we'll try to go through each of them in particular the three components of the mitzvah are vidui which is confession in fact the torah actually caused the submits for the mitzvah of confession second is expressing regret remorse and shame for the past and third is i will never do this again undertaking for the future you can't possibly forget this it is past present and future so once again there's the video the confession regret remorse and shame for the past undertaking for the future however these three components are relevant only when the sin is an individual sin if the sin is interpersonal that means someone else was a victim of the sin someone was hurt financially physically emotionally relationships damage etc these three are utterly useless unless two other steps have been done completing the five what are the two undo the damage one is to make up the damage pay for it reconstitute whatever was shattered and secondly one needs to under the emotional damage that means one needs to appease the person who was hurt one needs forgiveness the person needs to drop the emotional hurt the animus the personal baggage so to speak and of course a moment's thought will show you this is where things get difficult personal sins easy dealing with god easy dealing with um shall we say your wife's mother not always so easy i would suggest confining your sins to those between you and hashem for the foreseeable future because he's easy to deal with relative to human beings that of course can be exceptionally difficult not sure enough time to discuss those aspects of the mitzvah but of course they need to be done and of course the obvious problem is what if you can't make up the damage what if the person's not alive but if it was many people one man said to me ram i for 25 years i've been running a very successful business and i've been overcharging and under supplying for 25 years and now i'd like to make it up how will you begin to make it up how do you find the clients jews non-jews hundreds of customers i'm not even sure he's worth enough to make it up good news can be done bad news much more difficult and then of course you have to gain the forgiveness of the people what if they're not alive what if the person you've offended will not forgive you what if you're too ashamed to admit to them what you did these are all challenges but they can be solved so in summary three components when listen is private five components when other people were involved incidentally i think it's important to note that rambam maimonides in his delineation of this mitzvah and of course he's the classic locus for these laws he chooses very interestingly as an example of a private sin an intimate relationship forbidden relationship between two people he's there talking from the viewpoint of the man he talks about a man alone with a woman engaged in an innocent relationship and very interestingly that's his paradigmatic example of a private sin and this needs thought why would he describe a sin between two people as private and individual and the answer is because two people consenting to an illusive relationship that that sin does not constitute not made up by a perpetrator and a victim if you think about that for a moment it's two complicit individuals you didn't have a victim you had an accomplice and therefore of course that does not qualify there may be peripheral ancillary damage taking advantage misrepresentation hurt feelings of course but those are those are ancillary to the actual synod so if i mention this because in the so-called baltimore world where maybe many people have illicit relationships in the past from a world or a life before they became more religiously sensitive many think they need to go back and open those old relationships and try to forgive and gain forgiveness and that usually is a big mistake and that's why i mentioned this particular point but nevertheless that is the those are the five components and we'll take a look at them in more detail however that's only one division of chuva if you look in the rambam's ten ten chapters during which he in the course of which he goes through this mitzvah in detail in the first two or three chapters he goes through the laws of of chuva then he talks about free will and the problems of free will philosophical problems of free will and in the seventh chapter very surprisingly at first belongs he comes back to chivalr again if a person has done something wrong they need to correct it however if you look carefully there you'll notice there he adds three critical extra words there he says just before death in other words there's one type of trigger that needs to be done for what you have done but there's a different global type of chiva that needs to be done for what you have become or we might put this in more conventional terms chiva for actions and chiva formidas we dot qualities of character let's try to understand this a bit more clearly one type of chiva needs to be done for the things you've done wrong this action wrong that action this and that's and that needs to be corrected but then there's a global chiva as the mishnah as the mitchell teaches of course rambam doesn't say anything without a source the mission says a person needs to do trevor one day before death the students ask the rebbe well how do you know when you're going to die and he said you do it every day this is not facetious or humorous this means that every day there needs to be a global correction for the personality let me give an extreme example which is probably completely unrealistic but at least to make the point imagine a person who's never done anything wrong never impeccable immaculate behavior however this person flames with jealousy although no one ever knows this person has terrible self-esteem and they hate themselves this person is hateful this person is um has tremendous anger issues although they absolutely controlled technically speaking this person had no actions to correct they never did anything wrong but they are a problematic individual this person when they die will have to live for an eternity with a very problematic personality and therefore what the rambam's saying here is from gateshead likes to put it chiva for actions and chivalr for meters and therefore it's very important to get clear these are the two divisions first division first few chapters in the rumba correcting actions and then a separate global chevron done in the same way technically speaking but they would say delving down more into aspects of character flaws of character that lead to those actions that in some ways can be more challenging but that's the real work of children of course rosh hashanah has a time for thinking about those things not so much the details keep us for going into the depth and the detail rosh hashanah is really more for delving into the depth the roots of character flaws that lead to the actions that are wrong so those are the two divisions of chua let's come back to the first division actions and let's talk about the actions and the details of the tumor so first of all there's the vidue itself which is the confession there's a sentence the rambam composed and in this sentence you'll find it in the very first chapter of the laws of chuva the rambam goes through a comprehensive expression of children one beautiful sentence one can write this up on you know one's one's mirror or whatever one sees in the morning or whenever some place you're gonna see it every day because this one sentence covers it all and here's what he says one says ana hashem that's an addressing addressing god means three degrees of intentionality i sin before you carelessly that's the first level of responsibility secondly deliberately this was not careless i knew it was wrong and thirdly i did it because it was wrong that's a rebellious element every sin usually has at least some of these three components someone admits one's intention right once once illicit and improper intention le phanecha in front of you not that i offended the social norms or you know the the the conventions of the age i went against the divine commandment against you that's the preamble to the mitzvah and then you say hare assisi i did xyz xyz you fill in on the dotted line your particular uh concerns your sin and then you say that's the video that constitutes the technical step of the confession then you say rei nikamti uboishimamasai i regret and i'm ashamed of what what i did we'll speak a little bit more about why the two components namely shame and regret that's with respect to the past and finally i'll never do this thing again one sentence gone clean as the driven snow so to speak and therefore this is a beautiful formulation of the mitzvah one says this at any time after one's done something wrong or perhaps the end of the ahmedabad during prayer during twilight that is the rambam's very concise formulation preamble and expression of the mitzvah let's go through these components try to understand them more specifically what about the video that's the verbal expression first question here is asked barav sodaka coin and his classic work takana sashavin he asked this question can you do chiva without video what about a person who realizes they're behaving wrongly and they wrench their train so to speak from a bad track onto a good one clean up their act so to speak revise who they are begin behaving perfectly they've done the mitzvah in other words they've they've reconstructed the personality they've moved away from the past and they're heading in a good direction but they never verbalized the chivalr they never verbalized the video the confession is that valid or not and he says this yes indeed and you don't need to be jewish for that anybody's behaving wrongly and corrects the behavior indeed that is an act of chiva however it has two serious deficiencies deficiency number one that is one has not done the mitzvah of video the taurus phrasing of the mitzvah is the confession so what it does to us sincerely without the vidui has indeed done shiva but not fulfilled the mitzvah uh this is very relevant by the way a person might be in hospital with the tube in their throat unable to speak very interested in doing super but unable to say the video or moments before death a person might like to atone right and express sincere to no time to do that so he says very clearly one doesn't need he gives examples from the gemoro at least one example of a non-jew doing this at least one example of a person just before death where there was no time to speak and one or two other proofs as well so the first efficiency of this type of chuva is mitsu not fulfilled but secondly and i think more interesting perhaps more relevant to many of us is the fact that if one does children without videoing one finds one's train on a new track so your train's going in a bad direction you've wrenched it off you put it on a new track but when you look back the baggage is still attached the baggage still attached the pastel has to be paid for if you work for my company and uh and you betray me okay and money finds its way in illicit fashion into your account and after years of doing that you atone and you uh you realize how wrong that is and you behave perfectly and you become our best employee still owe me the money there's a debt outstanding so one who does chivalry without video he still has to pay for the past you get all the spiritual accounting so to speak of being a new person but the past has to be accounted for it says sonic very very interestingly and critically that if one is chivalrous with vidoe not only is you train on a new track but when you look back the baggage is gone that's the miraculous effect of juventus and not only that if one does children me ava not just out of fear but out of love not only is the baggage gone it now redounds to your credit amazingly transcendentally the sins from the past now become merits and credits which of course needs explanation and we'll try to give an explanation there is a kabbalistic insight here for those who are interested the um again this is probably beyond our comprehension but nevertheless the german shabbos stuff they test there the community says quotes a verse from isaiah we say in fact we say this verse during the 10 days of repentance rosh hashanah if your sins are like scarlet thread kashala gilbinu they'll become white as snow there the gomorrah points out that the word shanim which is used to mean scarlet thread is somewhat inappropriate the word should be shani not shanim why does the navi isaiah yoshaya why does he choose a word that means yours as well as scarlet thread they will answer something very very perplexing says if you make your sins like these years of creation like these years of creation you make your sins like these years of creation that roll on from the six days of creation then you become right to snow that's all the gibran says what does it mean to make your sins like the years of creation in our deeper sources esoteric sources what's broadly is something along these lines again one needs to be very cautious with these ideas but something along these lines and that is before you were born your sins in some sense were inevitable in some sense they were inevitable after all hashem god knew about them if you knew about them in advance and here one is touching on the deepest of all mysteries namely yadi and bahira for knowledge and free will but in some way one sins need to be or were always going to be in some sense why is one responsible why are you responsible for doing them if they were needed if they were always going to be and the answer is because you did them you bought them you acquired them you put your name on you wanted them what is truva i wish i'd never done those in other words you repudiate them you reject them you disown them you take your name off and therefore in some deep mystical way the damage of the sin rolls on but it's not yours anymore your name has been erased or taken off the sin very very amazing of course it's clear from this discussion that the damage of the sin is not necessarily erased from the world the damage of the sin rolls on but one is no longer accountable because it's not your sin right in other words one did some spiritual harm in the world perhaps somebody killed somebody else they don't come back to life when shiva is done adam and eve adam and cover never got back into the garden after they after their children and have erased death from the world so the act of chew is really not so much a changing of the facts of the past but it's taking your name of those facts anyway this is probably beyond human comprehension but something along those lines so the video itself achieves that let's stop for a moment and ask why is chuva dhanmi ava that means chuva out of love why does that achieve a level how does that achieve the conversion of the sins of the past into merits right very very amazing the one says this the answer is this chuvami ava changes a person deeply let me give you an analogy imagine a mother says to a child i'm going out don't touch the chocolate chip cookies mother goes out charlie the chocolate chocolate chip cookies mother comes back and mothers i'm sure jewish mothers these days are very brutal not sure what they use probably electric cattle prods or something equally brutal but anyway you get the idea the child suffers a an intense punishment next time the mother goes out child doesn't eat the cookies why not he's too afraid is he a different child well he has self-control yes that is better but it's not deeply different what's the proof he'd eat them if he could but imagine a child who will not eat the cookies not because if you see her punishment he really understands how he's offended his relationship with his mother their child wouldn't eat the cookies even if he could that's called shiver me about me ava changes your deepest level of desire not simply gives you a new level of self-control which is meritorious of course in itself but shivami ava changes your deepest level of desire changes who you really are so let's understand how that works how does chivami ava make you a better person than you were before how do the sins now become merits so to speak and the answer is graphic let me show you a graphic image imagine a person moving along in life at a certain superior level this person has never sinned superior but this person has a problem they have a hairline crack in their back axle meaning when they hit the curb it's going to break how do we know because when they encounter temptation they crashed what's the timeline person moving along in life at a superior spiritual level his temptation crashes now they're moving along at a lower spiritual level spiritually scarred spiritually damaged sometime later they do chiver what's the definition of chiva gets you back to you where you were before but watch what happens if a person does shiver me other they're moving along crash in sin later reconstruct they don't go back to where they were before they become better than they were before and here's the reason imagine this person moving along in life spiritually superior but they have a character flaw that will lead to sin when tested now they crash later they realize they're not the big deal they thought they were spiritually and how they reconstruct what's the rambam's definition of chuva if you'd be put back in the same situation that is very graphic about it the same temptation the same passion the same atmosphere the same youth the same physical energy very very clear about it if you'd be put back in the same situation this time you wouldn't do it again oh so this person has become a better person no longer has the flaw initially they were a person superior but with a flaw of character it would lead to sin weakness they've crashed but now they use the sin to reconstruct they've used the descent and the fall in a reconstruction that's left them superior put them back in the same situation this way this time they wouldn't crash and that's how the past is used as elements of reconstruction redone to your credit because the damage has now been used as an essential element of a reconstruction you know sometimes i look at a patient's x-ray and i say to them you broke your leg 10 years ago they say hey doc how do you know well the doctor knows because the bone always breaks at its weakest point but it never breaks there again when a bone heals it thickens around the fracture site that's called a callus and the bone will never break there again this is a person who's used the exposure of their weakness through sin to realize the weakness seal that gap right weld that fracture if you like and they will never sin in that way again and therefore that's the if you like the technical explanation the mechanistic explanation of how chuba down me are which by definition eliminates the motivation for the sin changes the character that in fact is why the past becomes now a credit perhaps from a slightly different angle i would put it like this you know the question really is how do a few words affect a a correction after all the deepest rule in the spiritual world is midi can i get a measure for measure measure for measure means you need to experience the pain you caused in the world no less will do so here we have an idea like this person has a flawed character that leads to a sin the sun causes spiritual damage the damage reverberates through the world and eventually will come back to harm them indeed this is called karma well be that as it may the point is that that's quite correct how much pain will you experience from a sin that you did as much as the sun caused and why that amount because that's exactly the amount that's needed to correct the flaw and character that led to that problem in the first place hashem has built the world in a self-correcting manner so the sequence is this flawed character leads to proportional sin the sin leads to proportional damage that's the amount of spiritual harm in the world that resonates and reverberates throughout the world and eventually will come back to hurt one how much will it hurt you as much pain as the damage caused and why that amount of pain that will affect the correction in their personality the concept is that the punishments so to speak the consequences of sin are not vindictive they're corrective now here comes the secret how do you escape the punishment by a few words of vidui hashem i did this i'm sorry about it i won't do it again why the answer is good news and bad news good news is it works bad news difficult news you have to mean it you have to mean it to the extent that the chiva moves you through the same distance that the punishment would have that's the concept in other words the punishment is corrective needs to shift you from the position of inadequacy spiritual deficiency to a situation of perfection if you've moved to that distance you don't need the punishment that's the concept the spiritual energy emotional psychic psychological energy motivational energy expanded in sugar needs to be as sincere as deep and as real as the pain of punishment would have caused and therefore of course one doesn't need the punishment if a parent's about to punish a child and the child managed successfully to convince the parent they would never do that thing again they have corrected themselves they don't need the punishment no normal parent would punish your child when the punishment no longer necessary that's the concept let's return briefly to why the rambam phrases both regret and shame and i think the answer is obvious now regret means i'm sorry i did it but for what reason could be fear of punishment shame however is intrinsic and deep and personal shame is always caused by incommensurate states what is not ashamed if you fail at something that you couldn't have succeeded you don't feel ashamed you simply feel like a failure but if you could have succeeded and didn't you let yourself down you offended your own level you fell beneath your own standard incommensurate states that is what makes you ashamed that's a deep and personal feeling that's why the rumba emphasizes that word more than once so regret simply expressing i'm i'm sorry for what i did i regret it i wish i'd never done it that is simply an expression of regret could well be an expression of chivameera but when you say i'm ashamed of what i did that means there's an intrinsic feeling nothing to do with punishment that of course is an expression of children ava and the rambam includes both of those words let's briefly wrap up with some of the basic laws of the vidui number one it must be verbalized not thought as i said two it needs to be a language you understand this is not some ritual needs to be meaningful uh three no one else should hear only you not like in other religions where they confess to a person we are forbidden to do that charity shiva says if you're really ashamed of what you did you wouldn't go around broadcasting at everyone else and furthermore says the rambam you need to speak as much as possible normally in jewish practice we like to speak short the words are more precious and meaningful when they are few and well chosen so why here is in a mitzvah to say more and there are a number of reasons for this first of all every sin has many components and one is working through all of them there's the act of the sin that needs to be atoned for the thoughts of the sin many of our sources point out that the thoughts of sin are punished worse than the action i'm talking about thoughts when you do the sin not thoughts that are used as a stimulus for self-control if a person does this sin there's the act and the thoughts the thoughts are worse because they soil something more holy than a body they act soils and sullies a body which is physical and relatively low but the thoughts of sin the fantasies the enjoyment the pleasure the thoughts those are soiling and sullying a mind and a spirit which is much higher then there's the time you wasted when you sinned if you work for my company and you spend a day betraying me working for the opposition i have two problems with you one is the treachery and two is the time i paid your salary for that day so when you spend half an hour sinning hashem has two problems with you one is the treachery and the second is the time you should have been doing this with then there's the fact that got depressed over the sin that's another problem after the sin then there's the fact that it became easier to sin again that's another problem you may have weakened others by your sin that's another problem by the time you finished you know there's a lot of damage in the world and therefore one is using the vidu to go through all of those components to eradicate all of them and of course most importantly perhaps the most most deep is one is delving into the aspect of character that led to the sin and that takes work anger for example very often anger is driven by pride you got angry because someone's stood on your toes my toes you know i am that's why you got angry but if you had no ego you're no one then of course hidden stand on anybody's toes so the video requires a working through and a delving in shall we say an entering of the seventh chapter of the rumba when he talks about the global tuva formatis and therefore one needs a lot of work to work through all the components chiva needs to be thorough into all the nooks and crannies of the personality finally one exception where one should not go into detail and that is you know yom kippur you're sitting there doing shiver might as well what else you got to do on that day so you do chew it and then you mentioned some sin that you committed during the year and before you know it you back at the scene of the crime enjoying the memory not good in such circumstances one should move rapidly on while there's still a motive of regret this has been a brief summary of some of the laws of the video of course there's much more to go into here mention briefly simply regret remorse and shame most of us have no problem saying that finally i'll never do this again let's mention that briefly and then we'll close how can you say you won't do it again you know you've said it before and done it again you know unfortunately most of us are locked in battle with our lower self in repeated patterns we have weaknesses and we do those again and again it's like married couples married couples usually argue about the same thing you know 35 years the same argument you think you know darling let's have a new argument tonight let's liven up this marriage you know let's fight about something novel no it's the same argument you know year after year the same words we are locked in battle with our lower self in that way how many times do you have to repeat the sin after saying you won't do it again before you lose confidence in your own sincerity and therefore it's very important to know the measure for this statement is if i would now be back in the place of the sin and through the spiritual work that i've done the emotional personal work i can confidently say i wouldn't do it again and says that i'm you put your money where your mouth is so to speak you don't go near that area you're skirted you stay far away put protective measures in place then you can say i've reached that level what happens a few months later you do it again you need an achiever if the chip is sincere that's all that's required what one may not do of course you say you won't do it again when you're planning the next time that's another sin so as long as one can honestly and sincerely say i've conquered the problem at this point clearly you would not do it again at this point and then of course you take steps in that direction that is the that is the mitzvah so in summary this has been a brief look at the three components basic components of the video the confession the regret remorse and shame for the past undertaking for the future that is what affects the chiva sometimes some suffering is needed sometime when sometimes one needs to live through yom kippur depending on the severity of the sin but shiva's always necessary and then of course there's the tube for the middles we mentioned that briefly and we've explained also in this short presentation some of the basic ideas and mechanisms underlying the children let's focus on this very clearly elul month leading up to rosh hashanah yom kippur time for rosh hashanah itself referred to our previous discussion we don't do the video in rosh hashanah and then we spend the next eight days between rosh hashanah kipper coming to a climax on yom kippur of revising our behavior completely and our hope of course and our prayer is that hashem will accept our chuva both on the level of what we've done and both on the level of what we've become i wish you accidentally and all the very best for a clean sin-free year [Music] why do people want to come to osama why should i be interested in my judaism inside every jew however far they become estranged from the beliefs the traditions the knowledge of our fathers and our forefathers there's that little pinto lid that goes on glowing and glowing and glowing it never goes out we want to introduce jews to something which is their birthright just as much as ours the objective of alternative is to give someone the fuel to carry them in a dynamic jewish life for the rest of their lives we live in a world which is full of uncertainty and insecurity aims to give as many people as we can reach out to the opportunity to find something to hold on to finally there were other people who i could talk to and ask the questions that i had been facing for years i could have rebam at my fingertips who not only could help me literally with what i needed to know but also could show me what it was like to lead a from life to have a kosher home any question can be asked the most foundational questions are encouraged and discussed i don't really have a jewish background and by don't really i mean don't have a jewish background so i was nervous about getting to a yeshiva and opening up a page of gemara in hebrew a language i didn't know and i'm actually figuring out that even without a background you can open it up and in time it works from complete complete beginner novice all the way through to the most religious black cat wearing like any youtuber you'd find and we all co-exist under one roof under the commonality that we're all jewish you want to learn this is the place you want to grow this is the place [Music] there are a number of additions we have to our siddhar special for the amin narayan and most of them are easily understood i'd like to talk today about one addition to the shmoney esray that's aided for the urayum that's it if the ceresime chuva which needs an explanation and that is that in the bracha melech which ends but we changed that to hamel hamishbat now that change team seems to be insignificant and really difficult to explain as connected to the um refers to a king who has a love for justice and melancholy means a king of justice and the change seems to be rather minor in fact the rama makes this point and his opinion is that if a person makes a mistake and neglects to make that change he does not have to repeat shimano esri the base yes if on the other hand holds that the change is so significant that if someone misses it he does have to repeat you on ashrae and that needs explanation it's quite difficult to understand the significance and the change to explain it i'd like to share with you a usaid a rule that says in the joshua saran regarding nach the kings of claude israel in the times of the navy had we been zaika and god willing we will be zeifer to have malthus-based david return iran's explains the system of justice that would exist in the land of israel and he says there's really a dual system of justice a dual system of deciding matters of halacha where arbesdan is needed one is what he calls the mishpath sanhedrin mishpeda sanhedrin rules by the book we have a we have a s there are rules there are lochs if you steal you have to pay back under certain circumstances you have to pay back kfl or double it's a buy the book type of judicial system now we all understand that you might have a woman who stole bread to feed her children and on the other hand you may have a man who's wealthy and stole just to spite his friend the level of sin is not equal in both cases but it doesn't matter in the sanhedrin the system is by the book you stall pay back under specific circumstances of your stall you pay back double finished it doesn't matter if it's a mother stealing to feed our children or a man stealing out of spite a second system of justice and that is the mishpath melech and that is that we find in nach that there were cases involving disputes between two sides that were brought not to the basdin but to the king we find that in a number of places specifically of shaolin who spoke out against the way david hamelech dealt with this type of justice it's very clear that there was the justice of the mishpat sanhedrin and justice what's different about mishpa hamela the king takes circumstances into consideration sometimes it's a reason to be more strict and sometimes a reason to be more lenient we find for example one case in small bays where there were two neighbors one was a wealthy man who had many many sheep and the other was a poor man who owned one lamb he didn't even have a barn for the lamb the lamb lived in his home with him and one day the wealthy man had guests he wanted to serve them lamb shots and instead of taking one of his own sheep of which he had thousands he went to his neighbor's house stole his lamb and slaughtered it to serve his guests and this case was brought to david and he said ben mother isha that man is kind of misa he should be put to death for what he did despite the fact that a thief is never high of misa according to the letter of the law by the book but that's the way the mishbar hamelech works the mishbara melak takes circumstances into consideration in this case to be more strict there's another case where he's more lenient there's a case in navi of a widow who had two sons one son killed the other and by letter of the law the murderer would be put to death which would be a tragedy of course for the mother and david melech ruled that the son should be allowed to live the point here is that that is the dual system of justice there's a mishpath sanhedrin which is totally by the book and a mishparramela a melech can take other things into consideration this is the way it worked when claude israel had david hamelech as king when we had our own judicial system in this land that's the way it worked reba isaac's share makes the following point he says that when it comes to the justice of the yaman narayan the day of judgment we prefer not to have a mishpath sanhedrin we prefer not to have a by the book justice but it's a day of judgment our goal is to have mishpath is to have the judgment of the king why is that better let me tell you an incident that took place with me i once got a ticket for driving the wrong way down a one-way street now not the type of person that usually drives the wrong way down a one-way street but it was in williamsburg in a place that had been looted there was not a single one-way sign i showed the police officer there's not a single sign that it's a one-way street he sell tell it to the judge at some point i mentioned this in shul i got a call and someone i know called me and he said what's your court date i said why do you want to know just tell me what's your court date so i told him i don't remember december 10th he said i'll call you right back he calls me back he says december 10th no good ask for a postponement i said why what's wrong with december 10th take it for me december 10th is no good fine i asked her a postponement calls me back a month later he says what's the new date i told him march 5th i'll call you right back calls me back he says march 5th perfect i said what are you an astrologist he said take it for me march 5th is perfect comes the day i go in the way the courts work the traffic courts work in manhattan is you walk in and they have a sign a number of courtrooms and you look for your name and which courtroom you're in and justice is dispensed chick chock one after the other so i walked in a few people ahead of me as soon as i walk into the room i look at the judge and i recognize him he attends one of my children naturally i didn't greet him warmly i walked in there were people ahead of me the fellow ahead of me apparently did not attend this year because he was found guilty when i came up and presented my explanation what do you know i was found innocent now my innocence was true anyway still you get nervous to walk into court when you walk in you look at the judge and you know him it's much easier we look for melech but we want to have the king's justice we say we know you we know the king we're the children of avraham yes and we're looking not for by the book justice but a justice by imella who takes everything into consideration now if you don't understand this you won't understand the davening we say numerous things in our dhawaning especially kippur which seem to make no sense we say to god imanu here we are in the ila after 10 days of preparing for judgment and the judgment is about to be done we say you know what let's change our mind what do you mean not today this is the day of justice the day of judgment we say hass kategar v makaimai silence the accusing angel let the defending angel take his place what kind of thing is that to say to a judge we say zachary brisavro what are you talking about there are scales your mittens go on one side you're go on the other side and you know you hope you hope that it tilts the right way what has that got to do with brisavram and ikeda the answer is that the avodah the work of yamim naram is to get a mishpath get a king's justice. we don't want to buy the book justice we want a justice of somebody we know of a judge to whom we can refer and say on vacation that is the point of the avoid of a serious secret of isaac's share the month of el is i am to my beloved my beloved is to me what's that had to do with judgment that should be the month of uh purim i am to my beloved justice what does that have to do with that neil and deity no the avoider is to become close to the revenue shallow to become close to god and be able to be zaika god willing to have a justice from a king that we know the justice from a king will take into account the other is well taken into account this long godless a king with whom we have a relationship when you have a relationship with the king it's something else we want the king's justice that's why the avoid of these days is to connect to god to take on hinder mitzvah it doesn't say to be careful in what you're required to do of course you have to be careful but to take on hidurim paspalter other hiduram that's how you develop a relationship and that's the goal of these days to have a relationship with the urban initial island to have a connection with god suddenly the change from melanchol is enormous it's gigantic is a god who loves the court system that jews have justice but is the judgment of the king something totally different we look for hamel hamish but to connect with rabbi and that's the goal of these days i'm standing here today in yeshiva it's my tremendous plus to come here every year right before comes i got to go to work i head back to the states but to be inspired going into it going into hell in yamana rama i'm hearing osamaya i mean extraordinary people wonderful people people who give up a lot to come here i met a wrong from peru a mayor from mexico and y'all from norway and shmuley from good old flatbush and zalman from chicago you know something they picked themselves up came here they have a relationship with her by initial love it's something to be here to observe them to get to meet them and see them ah a connection to the rabbi initial islam and so if yeshiva sarsamaya is presenting thoughts ideas motivation for yom and iran that's it connect to the rabbi nishal islam connect have a relationship with the melaka it will be a wonderful year tough shin pay gimmel going forward for you for me for all of khloe israel [Music] in one word revolution wherever we travel in america in south africa and england will bump into a few people that learned here they changed their life they got married they have beautiful families and their sherman toro mitsus also markle started in the 60s with uh 10 guys in an apartment and look what's happening today the center program i teach is full i just came out of a meeting this morning where we were talking about having to rent apartments in the neighborhood because we don't have enough beds for people people are coming we don't have any seats in the basement the place is bursting and even though there's many more seats than there used to be i didn't see any empty seats just last week we had close to 80 new students that are coming to study this year and also people are very interested today and we are growing in leaps and bounds [Music] as we approach the yamaha the days of the wah it's very normal we have many thoughts go through our mind what these days are about there's the idea of doing chuva repentance there's the thought of the judgment that a person is judged on this day and what's going to be in the coming year and everybody wishes for a good year there's the idea of acknowledging hashem as the king we say in the davening over and over hashem allah and there's a theme of rosh hashanah being the day of the inauguration not only that people sometimes ask me how could you go to rosh hashanah meal how can you have a rush on a meal and enjoy a russian shot of meal you've been in shul you've been dabbing intensely you come home and now it's again that feast that we have unlike your kipper when we're fasting all day and i tell people you know what if you were invited to the inaugural ball of the president of the united states you'd feel very honored there'd be great food yet the behavior would be a certain caliber certain level of behavior so if we see rosh hashanah as the day of the inauguration of the king hashem and we go to the meal so our attitude at the meal it's not like a shabbos meal where we kind of kick back and relax and we're it's more of a we're here we are dignitaries at a dignified meal and the behavior on the one hand is a day of joy and it's a day of celebration and we enjoy the feast on the other hand there's a certain coved rosh a certain seriousness that we go into the day with so there are many many ideas that are flittering through our mind as we go through the abhi mirai now one of them is a uh there's a jewish businessman and this jewish businessman had a non-jewish business partner this jewish businessman was from morocco and he had a non-jewish business partner in france and he went to france to conduct business with his non-jewish business partner and the partner invited him for dinner at his home and he said to him you know uh andre i you know that i'm not allowed to uh eat non-kosher food he said no no i have specially kosher food that i've already ordered for you but it is in your best interest to come tonight to my home for this meal because the king of morocco is going to be a guest these are very high high-powered businessmen so the jewish man obviously the king of rock was going to be there you know you never know what opportunities you're going to get so he goes to the band's house and that night they're sitting there at the meal and the his friend andre sits in seats him next right next to the king of morocco the king morocco they start schwoozing and he says that i heard you're an orthodox jew i've always wondered you know orthodox jews have a celebration they call it bar mitzvah i've always wondered what a bar mitzvah is so this jewish man says that you know bar mitzvahs when a jewish boy becomes enters manhood and he has his various obligations as a matter of fact my own son had a bar mitzvah two weeks ago and we had that celebration the king of america says wow really i'd like to give him a gift he goes no no excellency it's not necessary says no no i insist he pulls out a checkbook he writes out a check and he slides it across the table the man picks up the check and he takes a look at it 40 000 euros he says uh sir thank you very much but this is really excessive i why so much so the king of morocco gives this kind of confident cocky laugh he goes i'm the king less than that i don't give and there are two very important lessons to be taken from the story lesson number one is that if your son becomes bar mitzvah make sure to keep put the king of morocco on your invitation was number one and number two that if the king of morocco could give forty thousand pounds forty thousand euros then hashem who is the mela is the king of kings he could give much more so when we go into rosh hashanah we want to be mammalic we want to coordinate hashem to acknowledge the fact that he's our king and then we come and we can make all the requests that we make bane which is children family life there isn't a person who doesn't have some need in one of or more of these three areas of life family life parnassa health life itself so if the king of morocco can be so generous imagine what a kurdish worker could do for us so to the degree that we actually acknowledge that hashem is the king is on the degree that we and we ourselves feel it and we have to know there was a there's a man a uh visiting thailand from switzerland and uh he went to a bar in thailand apparently got drunk and they threw him out of the bar and he was not happy about it so he took a can of spray paint and he defaced a picture on the street there was a picture of the king of thailand and he defaced this picture with this jar of spray paint and he got arrested and went on trial and the punishment in thailand see in thailand they take the king seriously and the punishment for defacing a picture an image of the king of thailand somewhere between anywhere between 10 and 75 years in prison and so they sentenced this man to 10 years in prison and then the king of thailand pardoned him he was apparently a good chap and he pardoned him this guy got back on his plane he flew off to switzerland and he took thailand off his two must visit list sometimes the person has to ask themselves if that's the king of flesh and blood and for disrespecting the king of the flesh about prosecuting tenants they're 75 years in prison so we have to ask ourselves do we acknowledge hashem as the king or perhaps we come up short in our dedication and in our genuine sense that hashem is really the king and he's running the show so how do we show how do we demonstrate let's say i want to okay i've now want to demonstrate hashem is the king the answer is we demonstrate a king because the king gives orders the ki give makes the bands and when the kid gives a command there's no option we have to do it sometimes i'm asked in a not a very very commonly there are ladies who often feel that rosh hashanah this have been asked this question almost every year especially younger ladies who have families with little children and they feel well our husbands who go to shul and they dive and they hear chauffeur and they they're very very intense and very focused and i'm basically doing the same thing i'm just staying home with children changing diapers feeding them breaking up fights that sort of thing so it's not a different day for me so there are two approaches approach number one is obviously a sensitive husband should certainly try to make a provision for his wife to be able to get out of the house at least go to one dobbing or perhaps to hear the show for whatever it is but more importantly because this carries over to men too imagine a man who's all geared up he's been saying slikhos started at the beginning of ello he's ready to go to show and the money he hits the door rushes on the morning his wife wakes up with a fever and she says i'm sorry hershel i need you to stay home and take care of the kids can you imagine how we would feel can you imagine that husband he'd be the crushing disappointment and the truth is he's missing the point because rosh hashanah is the day we acknowledge a king when a king gives a command we don't say that okay well i prefer to do something else it's not like teenagers in the house when he asked him to mow the lawn he said well could i wash the car instead that's not how we relate that cortisol we relate that cortisol he does what he wants us to do that's what we have to do if a woman is at home with her children and that's the way she's serving a courageous workout she's doing hesa 24 hours a day taking care of her children you want to go to show to feel your own fulfillment perhaps that i understand but in the bigger picture what does the king want from you the king wants you to do what he wants you to do the biggest mitzvah that you can do is stay home and take care of your children i have no problem obviously a woman a husband again sensitive husband should allow his wife to get that that fulfillment take care of the kids so she could dive and even at home but in the bigger picture what does hashem want what does the ribonus what does the king want that's what a person has to ask themselves and the same thing goes for that husband who wants to go to david but why do you want to go to david do you want the devin to serve the king or you want to daven because you feel the certain high from the daviding but what does the king want you to do with a wife who's got a burning fever you have a bunch of little children in the home there it's the no brainer she why the king wants you to stay home and that's the way we acknowledge that hashem is the king in the day-to-day living of a jew the day the life of a jew there's also the issue of the halaq demands that hashem makes on us everybody knows that in judaism there's no bill of rights there's a bill of obligations american law begins with a bill of rights torah law begins with a bill of obligations there are 613 of them with many sub-categories so if a person knows you know there's a man got on a bus he wanted to get us on a bus in benay brock and he had a suitcase they asked the bus driver to open up the baggage compartment and when he got to the bed to put a suitcase in and the baggage compartment as they opened it up the baggage part was pretty stuffed with suitcases already so this man tried pushing the suitcases but he couldn't get enough leverage so he climbed into the baggage compartment to move the the other suitcases around and anybody who's been in israel knows that it's completely predictable what's going to happen next the bus drivers do was blocked and he pushed the button locked the man in the butt in the in the baggage compartment and then he drove the bus from bidet brock to shoreline this guy was stuck in the baggage compartment he's banging on the bottom of the bus apparently he didn't have us to be pre-cell phone they didn't have time to have a chance to to to uh uh to call anybody and when he got to your shelian he was okay maybe a little bruised up but he was okay and when he got out of the bus he made a phone call who did he call he called his rove why he wanted to know if he's obligated to pay for the ride because maybe the king wants me to pay for the ride that means hashem is the king he's given us you have to pay for what any services that you get you're not allowed to steal is this in that category or it's not and a jew who is devoted to the king understands well i got to find out what my obligation is i say call the posik parenthetically i'll tell you what the post like said he obviously did not have to pay for the ride and the logic was that had you been given the option just about anybody over the age of 19 if given the option to ride for free in a baggage compartment would decline it anybody up to the age of 19 would probably pay for the ride in the baggage compartment they would be very excited to do it notwithstanding the dedication of the jew that shows that the jew genuinely acknowledges hashem as the king the um in the in the famous battle of yaakov avino when he fights with asav the the the the arch angel of asov the torah describes it as yaakov avinu he sees a man and the man starts up with him and they have a wrestling match that extends through the night this man is trying to throw yakov down and yaakov stays up and the gemara describes it's the posix says a man wrestled with him at allah till the crack of dawn the word of ake the root of the word of israel the hebrew word which is dust and the gomorrah says that when they were wrestling they kicked up dust where did the dust go high height two people are wrestling around they're jacking for position they kick up dust how high did the dust go up says the gemara the dust went you know you stop and think two guys are really you know a real good wrestling match going through the night okay how how could the dust go already six feet 10 feet twelve feet fifteen feet says the gemara the dust went all the way up to the kisako to god's throne can you imagine all the way up to the keysight that's pretty high there's some wrestling match what is the gemara trying to communicate obviously at a literal level could be it happened could be it didn't but there's certainly a message that gazelle the sages are trying to communicate to us and one of the explanations is that in our day-to-day life we have a struggle and the struggle is with the what we call the yetzer harad the evil inclination man's inappropriate urges and we struggle with it on a day-to-day basis yaakov avinu is wrestling with the evil inclination who is the ministering angel of asap and as they wrestle the dust goes all the way up to the kisa cove of the god's throne notice please the gemara does not say yaakov's victory rose to the kiseakov it says that yaakov's struggle the dust of the struggle went up to the kiseiakov to god's throne the king is on the throne and the dust what reached the king's throne that means dedication to the king how do we demonstrate dedication and reach the throne to demonstrate the dedication is demonstrated by our willingness to take on the struggle will we emerge victorious every time unlikely our job and what rises all the way to the kisio covered is the willingness and the effort invested in the struggle against sorrow shall ace of the ministering angel of asaph remarkably remarkably the gomorrah says gudola chuva chuva is magnificent repentance reaches god's throne isn't that remarkable the same struggle reaches the struggle reaches the throne and the effort invested in repentance in chuva and what we think of is chuva the idea of repenting and clapping on our ch on our heart a little bit in our terms chuva means a new commitment committing ourselves more than we have that's truva if there's an area that i could strengthen myself in my devotion perhaps my dominant could be a little bit more maybe i get to shul on time maybe i'll stop talking and davine perhaps to control my mouth and not speak lotion horror perhaps to be better to my spouse my children my in-laws the people around me my friends perhaps to work on my ego my jealousy my physical drives whatever area that a person makes a step we take a step that's chuva that means that we are returning we're coming back we're coming back to the king and therefore the same way that the dust reaches god's throne chuva reaches their throne because that's the demonstration that we are acknowledging of course morgan is king and if the king of morocco could give a 40 000 euro bar mitsubishi who has so much more he give us whatever we need whatever we request in the areas of banika and zone but to go and request from a king who don't genuinely don't treat as a king there's an inherent contradiction the story is told of a prince and a princess that we're living together a wonderful marriage there was only one problem the princess was an incorrigible slob and the prince was getting frustrated so one day he said to the princess listen the hou the palace is a is is is a a mess and i need you to start cleaning it up why they didn't have servants is a good question but it's only a story so the princess of the princess i want you to start cleaning up and if you don't start cleaning up i'm going to evict you from the palace she's lying on the couch reading a magazine he says they're gonna start cleaning up nope flips a page says they give you 10 minutes or you start cleaning up nope not interested flips another page finally the king walks into her the prince walks into the room with a big chocolate chip cookie and he says here listen i'm gonna eat this cookie if by the time i finish this cookie completely you haven't started cleaning up i'm gonna evict you from the palace and sure enough takes a bite she doesn't pay attention takes another bite finishes the cookie are you gonna clean up nope guards evictor they very unceremoniously deposit her outside the palace and then the next day he has regret he loves his princess there's only one problem there's a law in the land that once you evict your princess you can't take her back he doesn't know what to do he's got a dilemma he calls him the first wise man he says listen i got a dilemma i love her but i evicted her what should i do first wise man says i don't know can't tell you i can't help you says calls in the second wise man don't know what to tell you he calls in the jewish wise man says help me out jewish right says okay let me ask you a question was the cookie a soft cookie or a hard cookie so it looks like what do you ask me i what does that really matter he says yes please answer my question it says okay it was a hard cookie he said good if it was a hard cookie there were crumbs if there were crumbs and your conditioner was when i finished the cookie completely that means you never finish your condition that means you can take her back two very important lessons again lesson number one ladies when you bake at home make sure they're hard cookies not soft cookies number one and number two the same way those crumbs are lying around there are crumbs of mitzvos crumbs of dedication so many areas that a person could choose to focus on for improvement that a person could choose to take a few steps forward and in that way demonstrate that hashem is the king there is one final point and this is something that comes up each year and something that perhaps i've mentioned in the past but it's i think very much worth repeating many people ask look we devote ourselves we dedicate ourselves we get focused and we get more intense there's rosh hashanah then there's the ten days of repentance and then comes yom kippur the pinnacle of which is yom kippur we promise god the moon and by the next day or two things kind of calm down what's the point what are we trying to accomplish so i'll answer by way of an analogy imagine two men are attending the olympic high jump event and the announcer the pa announcer says ladies and gentlemen i just want you to know that for the high jump event the reigning world champion the reigning record holder mr bill murphy who set the record 20 years ago he's in the audience today and bill murphy turns to his friend he says me i set the record for the high jump i mean look at me i can't even jump at the bed nowadays thread says and bill 20 years ago you were focused you had a goal you were training you were dieting properly under ideal circumstances ideal conditions you were able to set the bar at eight feet and clear the bar at eight feet now you're out of shape you're out of practice you have no focus you have no gold so you obviously can't get much higher than the edge of your bed in the course of the year we the nature of yiddish kite of judaism is we take three steps forward two steps back three steps forward two steps back we have better days days that we're connecting stronger we have weaker days we have days that we are overcome the various temptations we have days that we succumb each person it is level comes elo and we get real focused also we have a goal and we're on our best behavior and we're making an effort and we certainly move into high gear and then rosh hashanah and then comes ten days of repentance and then yom kippur so we've done essentially is we've pushed the bar of our own personal abilities higher in the course of the year three steps forward two steps back three steps forward two steps actually and then we're going to come to the next l lower than we are at yom kippur at the ila of this yellow but it's going to be higher than the previous and then again we're going to go through this process of intensity and focus which will again culminate in the yum kipper and we're going to push the bar even higher and then we're going to have three steps forward two steps back three steps worth and so on and so forth until amazingly it will get to a point whether it's five years 10 years 20 years or 50 years down the line where our lowest low in the course of a year will be higher than our highest yum kipper at this stage in our life why because the nature of yiddish kite is three steps forward and two steps back it's a process of growth and therefore we come to this rosh hashanah and we ask a court of article please with all the suffering and all the difficulties challenges that clay israel faces that the jewish people face on a national level on a communal level on a personal level we ask we will do our part to demonstrate that you are the mela you are the king of kings and we ask in return that you should bless us individually and of kaiser with all of the best in bonnet and that we should all have a happy a sweet a healthy year and we should have all of the yeshua's in the hammers [Music] the guys come to here and they say one word wow and that's exactly what we wanted and when you come into the hallway you see this unbelievable beautiful building and regime the beauty of the building i must say it took my breath away i sat there for the first half an hour and i was having difficulty concentrating everything here is unique and a piece of art the architecture is brilliant the breadth of it the airiness that it exalts you brings you up it gives you a feeling of modern of space but yet it retains a certain traditional feel to it it's modern without being modernistic a space where you just want to learn i can't wait to get back into the base mattress our student body generally is coming from secular homes upper middle class to upper class homes i think that where they come to learn should be at least as beautiful as where they came from to walk into a building which is the equal or more than any equivalent building anywhere in the world gives the tell me them a feeling of the importance of what they're doing in there outside the noise is allowed the lights are bright we need to build an atmosphere which allows a person to feel comfortable despite what they might be used to the new building has done that and so much more look the guys in osamaya a lot of them have made really challenging life decisions to find their way here these guys are heroes and if anyone really deserves a nice pristine comfortable spacious building it's these guys there's a tremendous dynamic in the yeshiva a tremendous feeling of history of newness of expansion of possibility we hope that the zlatan this will continue to be a place to connect and we'll have thousands of thousands of students and will continue to do the goal of life it's a privilege to be here you know to see how these guys are growing how they transform it's the most exciting place i wouldn't want to be anywhere else [Music] you