Rabbi Aaron Dovid Poston: The Great Awakening (When no Shofar is Blown)

[Music] and how do i begin i'll tell you i thought of um peter what you said what helped me prepare the idea of preparing for you know preparing for rosh hashanah the high holidays through the blowing of the shofar so i called it the great awakening which when i called it that i had come across some very simple ideas that had to do with this awakening and then i did some more investigation and more preparation and i came across this wonderful maybe you heard of it i don't know if it's backwards or forward here is it forward or backwards anyway so this is called the olos of ryan who is the very same as the clay car and he gives an idea i was looking for a vort uh some something to say about a rosh hashanah where we don't blow the shofar that has something to do with awakening so i came across this really great idea and i see that i have thank you for giving me three extra minutes uh it's like a two-hour share that i'm going to try to just skim through in in 33 minutes a little less than half an hour perhaps um so i gave i uploaded some source sheets it's on the um what's it called the uh the the shareholders facebook page uh three hours ago i uploaded them rabbi would you like me to make you a co-host and then you can share that you can share you i don't know how to do it and uh i don't want to take the time now to do it whoever wants to i really beg you to um to look at them anyway to learn it whether it's because of the hebrew or because i'm going to skip through a lot i'm not going to read and translate i'm going to try to summarize a lot of these these ideas um but the main thing is that we're not blowing it doesn't happen every year right it's like when it does happen it might happen a few years in secession and then it doesn't happen for 10 years at a time so just to begin with there is this idea that if you don't blow the chauffeur meaning if you actually have one and you don't blow the chauffeur it could be uh it could be a very uh bad sign however shabbos is sweet and the shabbos concept actually sweetens the den so we really have nothing to worry about this is also uh i would call it within halacha right it's a zika untrue as as mentioned that there's a remembrance of the truest so it's not it's not necessary okay even though ghazal came and told us not to it was already in a smack that was already hinted at the rabbis never come and tell us something that they don't believe this is what hashem wants to in this mafta some kind of reliance on the text itself to uh to explain their gazeros so since we are going to not be blowing the shofar how are we awoke how do we become woke i like that word i i got addicted to it in the last few months uh we want to be woke we want to be awoken right in a more progressive way than uh whatever they say in the news that that's not uh real true being woken this uh but the shofar is the way to wake up so the first thing i want to bring down in it's if you if you're following the source sheets it's ratio zion in the olus ephraim and he begins by telling us that there are three types of punishments that you can fix you can attack through what through what we say through chuva prayer and siddhartha through truvat and and sadaka charity and we say this many times throughout in in vienna malcano and okay it means it will remove the evil decree those three things so these are going to be the topics for tonight for today that through truva through tofila and through tsudaka we can actually remove the evil decree and how does that fit in with the shofar that we are going to be i think for me it was very enlightening and very appropriate this year because we don't have the chauffeur so the first thing he mentions about when the three types of violations three types of punishments that we need to be that we need fixing for so one of them is called torah violations okay and the way the what usually happens is that we experience some kind of suffering but that suffering is in place of uh where hopefully uh will fix are that would be the punishment for the torah violation and he doesn't go into much detail but um he basically talks about the ro chaos the safer chaos and he explains it much more over there however the next idea is called a maracha the onsha of the moroccan means like nature things that are part of the system okay you don't have to be religious to suffer or to experience negative things as part of the system so the way to fix that is through prayer okay so number one things that have to do with the torah itself you can fix through sometimes through suffering the idea of the maharaja is through tophillah he's going to explain everything but the first thing he does explain is a verse in genesis that says like this that when yaakov drew near to his father isaac to get the bracha to get the to get the blessing and he says you know it sounds like the voice of yaakov but yet it's the hands of asaf so the drusher the rabbis explain that when there's a voice of yaakov that will push off the hands of yaakov from affecting you so prayer is a tikkun if god forbid the system the the order of things nature is disrupted and uh you're so you're experiencing let's say negativity in your life so he basically says bizmatchiakim at south say piccolo whenever yaakov that's right us whenever we're crying out with our voice so the hands of asav cannot affect him he also brings this idea of measure for measure that basically the way the maraca nature or this system works is that there's always this friction there's always this battle campaign against man and it's through some it's very strong it's stronger than us and therefore we need hashem uh we used to quiet quite with strength and only hashem can save us on such a uh from such a tr uh trial the other idea is from the onshi the onshin let me just admit whoever that is okay and that um the onshiim of allah the punishments that might come in the world to come so you can only be saved through sadaka it's a very interesting idea i'm going to bring down a gemara but basically the first thing i'll tell you is the verse the verse is in michele proverbs 10 verse 2. you may be familiar with it where do i have it and right that sadaka that's charity will save one from death so there's a goomer in baba batra 10 a and i'll just read it real quickly because of time basically rebbe mayer would say that an opponent an opponent may bring an argument against you and say to you if your god loves you so why does he um create poor people right if he loves poor people why doesn't he support them himself why does he have you going out and supporting the poor people so the answer is to save us from the judgment of gehenna in other words so for to be safe in the punishment of from gehenna from harsh judgment basically so we would be saved through our seductive and he ends up by telling us this is me to connect me to measure for measure which means there's an exact an exacting why does god i'll use the word punish i'll use i think the word sending us a message is better god sends us a message of what we're doing wrong through a measure in order that we should actually see and understand what we're doing wrong it's it's it's his kindness it's his love for us right we could take it the wrong way and think we're being punished but if it's measure for measure which we hope that it is so then it's acting as a way it's like a message it's a prophetic message that hopefully we if you're spiritually enlightened or you're thinking human being you'll be able to figure out what you're doing wrong in order to make that improvements to tweak to to fix your character so the idea is that in the meredith that you do with others in this world so then in the world to come you will get and this is in the verse psalms 18 26 this is just a proof text it says with a kind one you should show yourself kind with a sincere person you should show yourself sincere which means that hashem will show kindness to those people who are kind so this is the proof text that you will be treated the way you treat others so now why remember i said that we're not blowing the show from on on this this first day of rosh hashanah and so i mentioned the the idea of true of its field to duck is ma vireem means to remove but we all said we say in the um so the word kara kufresh iron is to tear up it's not just to remove but to totally tear up and so i'm going to just use the word the clear car because that's who it is right it's the olos ephraim he says that it's not for naught there's a reason that we're using the word kufri shine so i'm going to try to go through this very quick time wise so the kuff is the cliff is what's going to be used the coof is going to be used to tear up the uh sorry to um um it's hinting the coof hints to prayer why because we all know that a person is obligated to pray and to make a hundred breakfast a day so kuf is the gemachi of a hundred also the prayers are what [Music] are um the offerings in the temple and the temple stood a hundred almost okay 100 cubits and um and we all know that the prayers right there's a few different verses i think it's in hosea chapter 14 the verdict near the very end but also he brings down another verse in psalms 63 verse 6. do i have it here to bring i'm sure i do okay you can look it up basically it says about just as the level and the dashing which are two types of fats tasty satisfying my soul this is totally uh so basically my lips will sing with joy in the praise of hashem so basically rananus this idea of praising hashem is in place of the fats of the misbehave and that's why there is this fixing through the hundred brachos that's the kuff but the koof is also if it's spelled in its fullness kuf is is 186 which is the same gemachi as the word macomb so if you i'm sure you've all heard you heard this with this idea it's in the shogunaro that call hakoveya anybody who sets a place you should have a sad place for your darwining for your prayers so think about it you make them a te fila where's the mucking with the feeling we always think of it as you know that seat with my name on it or the one i paid for the one i sit in because i come to show early and i want to get there and when someone else gets there before me i'm not in the same place but on a very practical level having a set place for davening avoids distractions because when you're always in the same place you're not noticing new things which is very good when you're praying not to be involved in noticing too many um distractions and also you're building a spiritual macomb you build there's something you're connecting to on a spiritual level but what he's about to tell us is something else that what does it mean that you should have right cover a macomb it's the path the mouth the lathe the heart and the ozen that's the place of tephila the mouth speaks the heart the intent has the kavanah has the intent and you need to listen right we all know us crazy jews we move our lips when we pray right because we have to hear ourselves so he breaks down the word basically p payud is 90. lev heart is 32 and the word ozin is 64 which is the same to matria as macomb 186. then he breaks it down even further the race so we already did the koof the reish is right from the kufrei cheyenne of of tearing up the evil decree hints to chuva which is i spoke about this the other day but basically it came before the world god created seven things before he created the universe as we know it and chuva was one of them and there's a passage that is used that's in psalms chapter 90 verse two and three where it says the term harim yuladu before the mountains were created or born and at the very end it says basically it's the command to that man should repent so basically in that same verse before the mountains were formed repentance already existed so that's why race is like roche races symbolic of that and now he mentions in our in our to feel itself which i could not find and if anybody can help me find it that would be great but what i mean i couldn't find it i did find it in a uh on hebrew books.com so it's a page i think it's not from our new sock but anyway he did 400 years ago in europe prague and he claims this was the new sock but it is a new sock of somebody because i found it on hebrew books where it says kiala teshuva may so if you know where it is everywhere i looked it all claimed that it was in the nila of yom kippur uh it sounded like it was somewhere in the roshana davening and i couldn't find it i couldn't even find it in my own safer or different than um different moxorium that i had referring to yom kip uh to and russian says he says the iron refers to siddhartha so if kuch kufreish i enough to tear up the evil decree as it says in michele 22 9 it says tov [Music] a generous i will be blessed for it gives from its bread to the poor okay so basically we're just trying to concretize this idea we're not blowing the shofar and yet we're asking that our evil decree should be you know not just removed but torn up now he claims the next paragraph in the alphabet which i checked it out it's true it's not that hard to figure out but he says that the word kufrei shine the letters the role what we call otioche the second letter following each one of those letters is actually the word shofar so you have here for example the kuf is followed by followed by the the the reish followed by the shin and the ion is followed by the pay so the truth is the word tropher has above but in the torah itself it doesn't have the valve so it matches up great so he says this is another hint that the chauffeur itself now again we're not blowing the chauffeur so we have to understand i hope okay we've got some time we'll get to i'll tell you what we're going to get to on uh on yom kippur the torah is the end of chapter 57 but most of 58 of isaiah and that is where we're going to really dissect in 15 minutes right we're going to use hopefully 15 minutes to dissect this i'm going to have to skip a lot of this to get there because that's really the good stuff but anyway so he says over here like this that the chauffeur itself is going to uproot or negate the evil decrees and that you cut that comes because of we said earlier about these different types of punishments and so the shofar is going to cause and i think i would like to translate that word as woke it really means to tremble to like seize the moment but if you take those two together i like the word woke to be awoken because of these three types of punishments so we said the punishment of violating the torah so that happens to be as was already mentioned the chauffeur itself was blown in modern torah right we heard the the show for ramadan torah so that's why the torah should wake us up the the chauffeur should wake us up to seize the moment for the punishments of the torah that we for transgressing the torah the punishments for the nations you know this is not just about the jewish people rosh hashanah is the whole world is being judged every creature okay and they they you know it's because of our sins that the corbin took place that we don't have bait to make dash but nevertheless they were the one that caught they they were involved in destruction and he mentions earlier that actually i didn't read it but there are 10 reasons why according to sachigon that we blow the shofar and one of them i think is number five on the list it reminds us of the war cries of our enemies as they broke into the temple in jerusalem and destroyed it and it's a great list and the clear cut actually in this uh melissa fraim in the i think it's uh the chapter right before 217 discusses those 10 ideas that rasadigo brings down okay so it reminds us of that and the um the onsha ulama god forbid any punishment that we might experience in in the world to come this would help us and also the chauffeur is going to be blown that also is one of the things on this list that and it was mentioned also that it reminds us of the revival of the dead the resurrection of the dead that the great shofar is going to be blown then as well okay i want to skip i really want to skip so much in order to get to um so we'll have to go now all the way to chapter 58. if we're going to read this on yom kippur morning as a half torah so i thought this would like this fits in so great because it's it's really going to talk about how and when when rosh hashanah falls on shabbos and we don't blow the chauffeur it's exactly what we're talking about and it's since we're blowing the show for the whole month of ello and we're trying to prepare for this great and awesome day this this idea of this tohaka i should call toku because that's what that's what's happening here and i don't know if i can do this in ten minutes but you know what i'll try just to read the verses and explain them so in chapter 58 verse one it says cry out now i don't know in the in the um in the english this word but in hebrew it's kara bigaron in other words call out from your throat like very strongly khashoggi ready raise your voice okay now what he's going to explain is specifically this is happening on shabbos because there is no chauffeur on shabbos so raise your voice instead now he begins by telling us if you look through the verses there's going to be an idea of rebuke against those people who fast and don't really understand why they're fasting if you can read through the verses i think it starts uh started like in verse three right verse three is talking about fasting and they're not even sincere but it's more like and then at the very end and verses 13 onward so the verses are talking about shabbos right if you refrain your foot because of the sabbath she's good muted refrain from accomplishing your own needs on my on my holy day if you proclaim the sabbath of the light it goes on and on it's almost the shabbos so maybe i will just interject again with some of his words he's explaining in this isaiah 58 that we're talking about crying out like a shofar you're speaking from your throat it's not the show for itself and you're if you read on uh from verse two it's really verse one sorry so cry out like this do not restrain yourself raise your voice like a shofar proclaim to my people their willful sins to the house of jacob their transgressions that it seems like it's incumbent upon the rabbis the leaders perhaps everybody i don't know but that you need since the chauffeur is what is usually there to wake you up as i just skipped a lot of it but basically since the chauffeur is not being blown it seems like it's the rabbi's job or the leader's job to wake people up by pointing out their sins which nobody really likes right so i don't think it's a good idea to do it all on rosh hashanah this is the time during ello right leading up to it this is the time to give moosa and encouragement to live a better lifestyle there's no doubt about it that this is what it's talking about especially we know in advance that the chauffeur is not going to be blown on this roshana meaning the first day okay but he does ask what you know you have if you're saying in verse 1 that you're going to tell the jewish people all about their sins how come it is that there's only two sins that are really discussed here the insincere fasting and the um the idea of not keeping shabbos properly so to sum it up again we have time that the insincere fasting he's referring to well let's just go back that the first verse is talking about rosh hashanah for sure because it's talking about a shofar the insincere fasting is not talking about yom kippur it's talking about the 10 days of chuva that people go through the motions they're just going through the motions and then and the last point of shabbos he mentions because yom kippur is a shabbos and so therefore it's really including these called two major days both rosh hashanah and yom kippur i'm skipping a lot so he proves there's no question that this is talking about these three days there's a very important thing i want to bring up and that is where it says uh oti yom yom yi and so that would be i think it's verse two right they they pretend they pretend to seek me every day this is going according to the way he reads it it's it's um because if you didn't work put the word pretend it means this is a good thing they they seek me every day right they're doing all these things sincerely the the clear car says look the prophet's coming to rebuke that these people are ilu as if they're doing all the the right things that we just mentioned how to make the tikkun and he's basically giving uh rebuke uh isaiah that the people have to get real you have to get woke you have to make sure your prayers are real right that you're giving to dhaka that you're really doing truva and that is really the what the key of 58 isaiah 58 is all about i'd love you to read it on your own but there is this idea and i want to bring it down because i think it's very important so he brings down how isaiah is talking about the lack of all three so the first thing he brings down is people are really not doing true properly because we all they're really not doing truth because of the lack of torah learning they're doing beetle torah beethoven's they're negating the the truth the learning the learning of it because and if by lacking learning torah you don't even know what you sinned in so there's a famous gamora that says in number in broncos page 5a where it says that if if you know things come to you not good things you should examine yourself to find out what it is you're doing wrong so uh posh pesh you examine yourself although matzah you don't find anything get the beetle torah you should chalk it up to not learning enough tara now if i ask you i think everyone would say okay so it means that the the pains came to you because you were not learning enough tara no it's amazing he says it can't be since shalom the reason you didn't find what you were doing was you weren't learning enough torah if you would have been learning enough torah you would have known what you did wrong that's what it means you have to keep looking and you have to keep looking you have to learn torah kill your devil yeah because you didn't learn enough torah you didn't find what sin you did so you don't even know if you're walking in the dark or in the light without explaining it like this this wouldn't really make a lot of sense how is that anybody able ever to say matzah yet if you don't find it then chalk it up to bitter term because once you've chalked up the bitter torah it means you found it it can't be so basically the the novi is telling people you're not learning enough torah that's what he's telling you zeshakaran they're saying in that verse they pretend to seek me every day and we there's another gemara just you should know there is such a concept that learning one day of torah is like learning the whole year there is such a thing and that was a story in the gemara let me see if i can find it real quick it's in i think ha giga oh it's a 5b very interesting thing basically a certain rabbi i want to look for right now he took him three months to get to the bait midrash i don't know where he lived i don't know where the baby josh was but maybe he didn't have a cow a cow or a camel or a donkey maybe he was a nurse in shroud he wanted to go to babylon i have no idea where it takes three months to get to these days but it took him three months to get there he stayed there one day and he returned and it took him three months to get back can you imagine but for a guy like that that's fine his one day was like learning the whole year but for all of us we joke around we're not serious and that's a problem and so the clear card basically says this is really all about this um but there's also some very nice promises at the end so i you know i don't want to end on a bad note i went i got four minutes so i want to make sure that we get to the the nice stuff okay so basically i'm going to fold this i just lose my tasers no here it is oh here it is so the word oz appears three times and i'll just tell you the verses so you know what they are um in isaiah 58 verse 8 and then the next one is verse 9 and the last time oz is used is in verse 14. so these if you can do it and get get your act together with giving sadaka properly doing truva properly and praying properly right so then these odds turn into brachas um what do you call uh blessings so how does he explain it i think i lost my page okay so parallel to the ideas that we mentioned earlier which okay so basically in verse eight then you shall your light burst forth like the dawn as you right and that is as a result of giving to dhaka um the whole verse says and your healing spring up quickly you're vindicated what's your vindicator the the the fact that you were righteous you you you did the right thing you gave sadaka so that it's going to cause your life to burst forth also what about prayer in verse 9 he says then when you call the lord will answer us so that will help you get on the ball with doing prayer properly you really get into it so you know hashem will answer you and the last thing because we talked about chalice a little bit but it says then you will seek the favor of the lord in verse 14. hashem so we all know shabbas is related to onig right there's a certain aspect over there then you will seek the favor of the lord so that is related to that so i just i think this is the summing the summit of a summary chuva is parallel to the affliction of the body uh so true is afflict is is related to own egg because when we did chew we said in the beginning it's kind of like so ville um you're carrying some pains and that is the way to fix the uh the trouba for violating the torah well guess what you do it right you'll have pleasure prayer we said that was parallel to verse nine when you call and we all know calling out is through prayer and the charity is your light will burst through like the dawn and he quotes these verses from psalms let me just explain what he says he's in the merit you will enlighten the eyes of the poor right as the verse says your light burst forth like the dawn your vindicator shall march before you so in psalms 112 verses three three through five it explains wealth and riches are in are in his house and his beneficence lasts forever a light shines for the upright in the darkness his gracious cat compassionate and benef beneficient all goes well with the man who lends generously and conducts his affairs with equity so bizrat hashem well i got one minute i don't know now it's over i don't have a minute uh i don't know how i it's like four pages i'm telling it's a two-hour thing and i skip so much so i just encourage you to read it on your own if you can that's it um there's there's light at the end of the tunnel there's no chauffeur but the rabbis must encourage the people god forbid you know ravenof weinberg told us that roof hutner told him when you could become a big rabbi one day don't talk about gahannam nobody's gonna listen to you people gonna run away but to give people encouragement so we skipped a lot of the you know but we hope we all wake up right we wake up even without the chauffeur being blown to shem thank you for the opportunity to share [Music] me [Music]