Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: Hashem is Not Looking for Your Failures

my baby [Music] hi everybody thank you for coming and we have a lot of sponsors today first this year is being dedicated for a refuge Lima to baruchban Frida from Esther may they have a revolution Israel and for the alias nishama of mosheb and hayim David mosheb and avram Fishel Jonathan Israel Ben David Moshe shmuel benshepsil mayor Maria batrava gamliel benchlomo Moshe Ben hayam and in addition for Baruch men divinsky the brother of arik devinsky and his yard site is on LOL 24 coming up a special contribution was made by sippy Hill in honor of the Jews of cresto again I have to add a little bit of a personal note my father sir was from Fresno and sippy Hills from krusno and we kind of have she lives in Gibraltar actually but we have a bit of a correspondence she's kind of a amateur historian of Polish jewelry and she often sends photographs and documents and different types of stories so it's very special that she's doing it in honor of the Jews of krasna um again I want to add a few words about the Bonilla yamtov campaign Hashem they are close to completing its annual fundraising campaign for yomtif 100 of the funds go directly to the recipients they have reached over 70 percent of their goal please help them help us reach 100 in the next few days a link to the campaign can be found in the website and in the the description box below again as I've said many times already and it needs to always be remembered in this time of year in particular we have the famous statement that's in the tefila uchis the three things that are the greatest so to speak Avenues of protection for divine mercy are doing chuba tequila and giving stuck and Michele says charity saves from from Death so certainly at a time when all of us seek Divine and divine charity we elicit that response from Hashem by the charity and the ghasset that we ourselves do I know where Robbie Poston gives a share in Tommy Devore I also give another here in Tamil devorah that's kind of the book to read during the season and the whole thesis of tomritivora is essentially imitation meaning Hashem it's a double limitation really we emulate God and then God emulates Us in turn so it's kind of it works in both of those directions I propose the turmeric Glory though let me just point out that obviously we know that this moza Shabbos we're going to be starting the slickhouse prayers and the first salichos is typically around midnight optimally should be midnight every single day most people aren't able to handle that so we symbolically at least keep the first and the Cornerstone of the Sleek hot service which runs for the whole week this year and then of course during the 10 days of shuva between Russia sun and Yom Kippur the Cornerstone are the 13 attributes of Mercy we say them again and again and again they are the most important part of the Salinas the poems in between were written later their liturgical poems but essentially the Cornerstone of siligros are the Youth gimmel meetos of rakamim the 13 attributes of Mercy that God taught Moshe rabenu after the sin of the golden calf after the gemara describes Hashem sorry it's hard to understand this because it's very anthropomorphic description Hashem enveloping himself in the talus reciting to Moshe the 13 attributes of mercy and telling Moshe yasu when your children perform this arrangement I will be mocha I will forgive whatever sins they have so there's a beautiful beautiful thought of the al-shak was a contemporary of review safe Cairo and the irie in swat back in the old city of SWAT you still have the bait knesset that's called the base knesset of the auschik and the also who wrote great commentaries on Hamish and and and really all of tanak actually explains that you'll note the gamari does not say when your children recite the Meadows I will forgive them even though that's how it's normally translated but it says when they do this order so the al-shuk says what elitists divine mercy is not recitation what elicits divine mercy is behavior emulation so when we say that again and again and again and again and we will say them many many many times throughout Rosh Hashanah we don't say it that much other than when the Torah is taken out and this year when the first day of Shabbos we don't even say it then but uh and Yom Kippur during the ELA we say uh depending on your on your either seven times or 13 times there are different places where the other given meters can be inserted it's important not only to say the words and not only to understand the words but to ask ourselves on a personal level how do I emulate these Mythos how do I bring them into my own behavior and in that way as the torment divorce says we elicit the the Divine response again I don't want to get in terms of worry too much now but it's spicy to say though if you study Terminator you will see that the youth game will meet us he's working with are not the same as the Samosa they are based in the public of Mira and the prophets but nevertheless the makubalum say there is a correspondence between the original medus and the Torah and the urge and indeed the zower says that the urge will meet us in the prophet Mira are the root are the Heavenly roots of the momentos of Moshe they actually represent a higher form of Divine Mercy out of which came okay so uh tonight we'll be talking both about Rosh Hashanah and about departure because we're still we still have a parasha and Berk Hashem of course the parish is very much connected to the themes of Rosh Hashanah and the new year uh it begins again this is uh towards the last day of motor Obama's life this may not be the momish the last day it's a double pressure the second Parsha is the last day of moshe's life this partial might be the day before that but Mercer Alabama was addressing the Jewish people and he says to them all of you are standing today in front of Hashem your God all of you are here and then he starts enumerating from the heads of the tribes man woman child everybody to assume the Covenant of God a New Covenant as you're entering Eric Israel this is interesting there was the Covenant at Sinai this is a new additional Covenant which creates communal responsibility this goes even beyond the Sinai covenants and Moshe rabeno even makes it explicit those of you who are here and those of you who are not yet here in other words this is a covenant of the nation it does not refer to the specific individuals who are standing here it includes all of us and then when he says everybody's here and it says from your wood cutters until the ones who your water drawers now first of all who are the woodcutters and who are the water drawers so khazal explained that this is a reference to the group of people who were known as the give onim and this is actually a give own is a village near yerushalayim and this is a story in the book of yahushua if you remember when the Jews entered Eric Israel they were commanded to eradicate the Seven Nations of Canaan and the people of given who were Canaanites were afraid that they would be eradicated so they disguised themselves as Travelers coming from a very far distance and no they said they weren't Canaanites and they wanted to make a peace treaty with the Jewish people Yeshua swore to them a covenant of peace and the like he then discovered that they actually were Canaanites and were high of Misa but he couldn't kill them because of the oath these are called to give on him so as a result they were put into kind of a state of servitude where they became the co the the servants to kohanim and levim in the temple duties or the mishkan duties and they became Cutters of wood and drawers of water I don't know if I want to spend too much time on the story of the givonim but the story of the givonium is very very very perplexing on a lot of levels the rambam rights that if a Canaanite wants to make peace with the Jewish people by accepting the seven mitzvahs and by accepting Jewish sovereignty and agreeing to be subordinate to the Jewish people we don't kill them we let them live in Heritage Israel even a Canaanite even an unmologic and this is a Mitzvah called kriya Shalom you have to offer them peace so according to the rambam the whole ruse of the givonim was totally unnecessary if they wanted to make peace and accept Jewish sovereignty and the Seven Commandments of Noah they could identify themselves directly hey we're Canaanites this is what we want to do so why did they have to engage in any type of disappear now Rashi does argue with the Rama according to Rashi once we give the Canaanites the right to leave if they want but once they decide they're not leaving we eradicate them so according to Karachi so according to Rashi we understand the need for a deception because otherwise they would be wiped out according to the rambam what was the need for the trick so that's question number one question number two is if indeed the givonim were high of Misa but we didn't kill them because we made an oath well the oath was made under false pretenses the oath was made under deception the oath was made under fraud under those circumstances is not a it's not a binding oath this is a case of mistaken identity uh and moreover it also becomes an oath in violation of the Torah the Torah command you will eradicate the nation if the Torah command you to eradicate the nation then the fact that you make an oath it's not going to work so I'm actually not going to answer like any of these questions right now when you learned the book of yahushua think about them and these are questions to be aware of the story of the givonim and they became the khochfeitsim and the show of imayan in fact it's very very interesting according to khazal in his anger massacred or ordered the massacre of nov the city of kohanim because they had given food and shelter to dub it when he was running away from shaol According to khazal the biggest aveira that was committed was not the murder of the kohanim but the fact that they give Onan were deprived of their source of parnasa it's so fascinating what we would think is a secondary aspect actually became the primary Ave but all of these questions that I'm raising the question becomes this is a post-motion event I mean the story of the volume is in the time of yahushua in the mid bar were there I mean there weren't givonim in the desert so because I'll say that Moshe is talking about him the servant class of the devonim there isn't such a servant class in existence at that particular time unless he means he's including them in the statement of those who are here and those who are not here and the part of the not here's are the people who will become culture of Amine again may I hope you'll forgive me for throwing out more questions than answers but these are things to talk about talk about the Shoppers table uh look at the sukum yourselves and uh you know discuss uh how you would understand these These are simple shot questions these are not uh Advanced questions but these are perplexities in the text itself but what I want to focus on is I want to focus on a stylistic perplexity when you say both in Hebrew and English from here from this to this you are normally talking about extremes everything from a to z everything from Soup To Nuts right that's what odd means right from this odd here you're talking about two people or two groups that are in the same category everybody's here from the wood draw Cutters to the water drawers the wood cutters and the water drawers are the same group they're a servants group that are doing these menial tasks so it's like saying everybody's here from A to B that's not really a range right so how can the Torah describe it as if these are extremities when in fact these are people that are the same the same category so to get some insight into this stylistic issue of Coach Vietnam uh let me point out that according to many many mid-russians although attemnitzabim is a speech that Moshe rabeno is giving to the binay Israel right before his death there are many ramazim hints Illusions and attemnies of him to the Yom hadin of Rosh Hashanah to the day of judgment Rosh Hashanah hatem needs and again this is what we think about you are all standing remember when you're a litigant that's being judged you stand before the Beast extend all of you are stat all of us are standing on the great day of Rosh Hashanah every single person and we find in the Liturgy that Rosh Hashanah is called after every time we blow the chauffeur in Muslim so right after we blow the shofar we say hi Young harass Olam now let me digress for a moment to translate that sentence so every maxor translates this to mean this is the birth day of the world and therefore this is the day that God stands up for judgment call yet all of his creations and we could be judged like children of God or we could be judged as slaves of God if rosoka to be judged as children may Hashem have mercy on us right this is what we say and if we are about him May the master have mercy on us as well now the simple translation that you'll see in every moxor is that because Rosh Hashanah is the birthday of the world now in what way is the birthday of the world because it is the day that Adam harishon was created so it's actually the sixth day of creation but since the world was created for human beings to serve Hashem so the real creation of the world is Tish rate soam is this is the creation or the birth of the yeah the birth of the world now there is a big problem with this problem number one is hey Ryan normally does not mean birth it means pregnancy or conception so to translate this is the birthday of the world that would have said means this is the conception that's one problem that you're mistranslating harat a second problem is there's actually a machlocus in the gemara was the World created in tishre or was the World created in Nisan Revolution does say the world was created in tishray meaning other mauritians greater than this right which actually means the creation process started the 25th of ello says the world was created in Nissan meaning other mauritian was created in Nisan and Hashem began creating the world the 25th of others now rest assured that even Rabbi hoshua kept Rosh Hashanah and titrith in other words this does not change when you keep Rosh Hashanah this is just a historical Mark Logan now according to have Yeshua maharat Alum cannot mean this is the birthday of the world because the country of Yeshua it's not the it's the day of judgment to be sure but it's not the birthday of the world so you have two problems with hayam number one harat normally does not mean birth it means conception and number two the sentence is not correct according to rabi yahushua so some have suggested a very intriguing and intriguing re-translation because Alum itself is an ambiguous term I translated Alum as worlds but Olam in Tanakh normally does not mean world it normally means eternity I don't know them right a song I don't alum does adonola mean Master of the world or does it mean Eternal master you don't know for sure but but it's very very possible that adonola means the master of Eternity so if you understand that the word Olam does not always mean world it actually means eternity then listen to this translation Rosh Hashanah is the conception of our future eternity it's not past looking it's not saying this is the birthday of the world this is the conception of the new life that we are having and that works like Robbie Eliezer and that works like raviolah Arata right it's a beautiful translation and it fits grammatically very well but this is a digression I'm just bringing it in to show you that you see in the Liturgy that Rosh Hashanah is called hayom the day and after Muslim as well remember the khasen at the very end of hazarus there's an alphabetical acrostic we only say some of it but it's supposed to go from Olive to tough since that's usually sun today give us strength you see what's going on here each verb has has another Outlet of the alibase bass TIG godlin it was gimmel latova now if you look at a master you'll see we only do like five letters or whatever it is but that's because many many pyutam and the maksar have been shortened in the course of time and in the original versions this would have gone through all the 22 letters of the olive face and once again it's called hayom and I would suggest that the liturgical reference to Rosh Hashanah as hayam is based on the mid-russium that say when Moshe says you're standing before God and being judged now based on that therefore any interpretation we give to the word is going to be connected to Rosh Hashanah as well and Rashi comments why does Moshe rabeno use the word needs of him standing well what did we have in last week's Parsha we had a very very awful gave them 98 curses 98 curses that will befall the Jewish people if they depart from the Torah disease death Galas Corbin famine in fact if you go through the Holocaust you you can see the tragedies of the Holocaust in the words of the Torah as you can imagine the Jewish people are now terrified and they say how can we possibly survive this God is giving us God is setting us up for failure so Moshe rabena wants to reassure them in spite of the fact that you've done so many a various You're Still Standing Tall before God Tim Needs of him so instead of scaring them he's now telling them the other way around look you're still standing you're still here you had a lot of rough patches with Hashem but the Covenant is not going to be aggregated so the attempts of him are words of reassurance words of comfort words of strength we talked about this last week as well Hashem is not looking for your failures Hashem is rooting for you Hashem is looking for your successes our successes yeah we got to be committed we got to work we got to be willing but this is not a situation where God is simply looking to trip us up in a gotcha moment and that's the item needs of him Moshe the great leader is going to be leaving the Jewish people in a very very short time his last messages are messages of Hope now we then come to the wood cutter and the water drawer and the question that I raised that these are not extremities why are they written as extremities well the answer might be that in some ways they are extremities because symbolically and metaphorically these can represent different modalities of introspection and shuva let's first take the wood cutter we know from two weeks ago in the Torah that man is compared to a tree this is the famous person now let me point out as an aside that the perfect is actually saying man it's not a tree and let me remind you of the context the context says when you are besieging a city and you have an enemy Thou shalt not destroy the fruit trees you have to let the fruit trees remain and this is the source of the prohibition against destruction why Adam is a tree a man that you should have enmity against the tree so actually the possible is making the opposite point that a tree is not man right that's the pressure but the drash of is a very well known to Russia that a human being is compared to a tree in what way are we compared to a tree why are we compared to a tree so there are different understandings of it one is that a tree starts off as a tiny little seed but in that seed is tamun concealed in that seed tremendous potential for growth so too a human being may start off in significance as an infant they're helpless even as a young adult you know but within every human being there is so much potential that can come out that not only will he grow into a big tree but it will produce fruit you know children and further generations and the like so we are trees another way we're trees say is we are upside down trees an Earthly tree has its roots in the grounds and its branches go up to heaven the trunk and the branches go up to heaven we're the other way around we are rooted in shamayam our nishamas come from God we're going into the Earth right we're an upside down tree maybe that's why we're we're so confused upside down you can get a vertigo and everything else but we are a tree that's rooted in Chennai but be it as it may it's a well-known idea even though it's not the simple meaning of the pasig that's important to know the simple meaning that was exactly saying man is not a treat we're actually kind of tree is not man but the Russia is instead of it being a question is man A Tree saying man is a tree that man is compared to a tree so it turns out when we talk about cutting wood chopping wood we're talking about chopping us and one form of chuva is to intensively look at yourself from all angles look at your sins look at your Sirens chop yourself up cut away discard all the stuff that's moldy or wormy or whatever it is it's a chuva that is intensively focusing in a microscopic way on every flaw every blemish it's a tuber that's predicated on identifying your evil and burning it away surgically that is one type of chuva and that is the chuva of The Woodcutter the one who cuts up the wood chops up the wood to expose every shortcoming and every type of sugar requires a very very strong personality and really a righteous person because a righteous person is willing to stare their flaws in the face whatever flaws they have you know a righteous person will not have many but there'll be some and they notice them and they focus on them and they're willing to attack them and they're willing to work on them but for many people the chuva that is focused on a very intense scrutiny of Marcus ronos may be setting myself up setting me up for failure because number one again we talked about this in other contexts number one I get depressed I get defeated I think it's hopeless I think I'm too far gone and number two it may result in just shutting down meaning I don't want to have those in other words I don't want to feel that way so I stop thinking about it so there's another modality of chuva that is not described as the chopper of the Woods but the drawing up of the water now what is that in the Great Book of Proverbs Mitchell Proverbs right the lessons for life has a beautiful phrase poetic phrase that says is wise counsel understanding of things the understanding in the heart of a man is like water that is very very very deep hard to get to the water is deep in the ground s but a man of understanding yidlena will be able to draw up that water is teaching us that within our own Souls through our great reservoirs of wisdom of goodness of knowledge of understanding but it's very very deep it's sometimes a little inaccessible because we get distracted by the events of the day we get distracted by our own agendas our own personal Yates or harvest our own resentments so as a result it's hard for us to access what's really there but with understanding you can access the goodness and wisdom that exists within you an amazing thing it doesn't say Maya mambukem are in the rabbi or in the static it says everybody every person has what is called believish you know there's a very cute story it's a very um many of you might know know of or know personally rabbits V hirschweinrib who was the executive director of the OU and now he's executive director Emeritus and he does a lot of translations of things speaks a lot he moves a lot of the in Jerusalem so he used to be a rabbi in Baltimore so you know from those days and before that he was a psychologist in private practice he's a Dr Weiner was a clinical psychologist so he tells the story It's a Wonderful story that when he was a clinical psychologist and he was debating should he leave the field of psychology to become a rabbi he didn't really know about his career choices so although he was not a he thought he would call the Robert Jeremy and get some advice he'll do so he called 77 the office and the rebbe secretary then was a very hush of a person Robert an old uh had been a member of the Latvian Parliament before World War II and whatever but then he became the reddiest kind of right-hand man and Robbie weiner said you know I'm a psychologist in in Baltimore and I'm thinking of changing I wanted to ask the rebby what he thought the best thing was so meantime as often happens the reply walks through the office and if there ever heard something that sounds interesting he asks uh you know what are you talking about I mean tell me what it is maybe I can answer right now said there's a psychologist in Baltimore who you know wants their shoe to become a rabbi so the barbecue Rabbi said oh he should talk to weiner I've been both Wine River is a good psychologist he can give him some good advice uh tell them to talk to weiner in Baltimore if we didn't know the name of the color says the Revy says you should talk to Dr Weinberg in Baltimore so Dr Weiner says I have Dr Weiner that's me I'm calling so Robert says to the rabbi he says that Rabbi weiner visits is on the phone so the rep he says so tell him to talk to himself Sometimes the best advice you can get is to have a conversation with yourself says you have answers you have answers you need to think it out now you may need a facilitator that's true but ultimately the answers come from within and I'll tell you I myself have such an experience I mean more than once but one particular notable experience and I've mentioned this before forgive me for repeating that when I was in there Israel and I was I was debating to go to law school or whatever so my my Russia shiver revertraman requested or demanded of me that I have a meeting with his cousin of yaakov kamonesky who was known as the great counselor in the Torah world so you know I was really in awe of meeting with Rebecca coming that's again meeting was set up and uh I thought he would give me like you know five minutes which you typically get with regard over you know five minutes or whatever it would be I come to his house he gave me three hours of his time he was sitting in church leaves it was like he was in his 80s already he offered to make me lunch he offered to make a bed for me I was I wanted to rest from the trip uh from both just most amazing thing as if he had all the time in the world such midos were just unbelie unbelievable sweetness and you know and people kept on coming in and out just to say hello to him or share a story with him and he was like everybody's grandfather everybody's loving grandfather tremendous tremendous so the one thing I most remember about my conversation we talked for three hours and should I go to law school should I stay in Yeshiva you know different these were difficult questions in some way um he never answered the question he kept on just bringing up well did you think of this angle did you think of this what about this what about this what was he trying to do he wanted me and I was not I was not old I was under 21 I don't remember exactly but around that that range he wanted me to figure it out but he just wanted to make sure I had all the data he wanted to make sure I took into account all the considerations he was not going to tell me to do it or not to do it he just wanted me to make a decision based on fully understanding the repercussions of each alternative and I've always thought that that is an ideal definition of a teacher and an ideal definition of appearance you're not there to make decisions for people you want them to it should come from their wisdom but they need they need you know input they need they need understanding of the consequences and you know the different data points that they would otherwise not not know so at the end his final words to me were says I'm not telling you what to do but whatever you do you have to find a way to serve Hashem with what you do so if you go to law school you figure out how to use that in a vote that's Hashem if you don't go to law school then you figure out what you're doing I deserve again he says there are many ways to surface him and each person has their own path but you have to find a way to use it in a good way amazing now I have to say my teachers in their Israel did not believe me when I said that's what he said no they said that's impossible because they went they they were so sure he would say don't go to law school or whatever it is they were so sure and he didn't he he surprised you in that way he often you often couldn't predict where he would go he did not give standard which you might call Standard responses now maybe I'm thinking maybe I misunderstood he was talking initis was not uh 100 so maybe I understood who enough but I don't think so I think I think I did get it I think I did I did get it and uh this is the point I walked away I mean I hope I hope my whole life is not constructed on an edifice of a mistaken impression but but this is this is what I think and I and I I I seriously think that that's what traviaco would instruct and knowing about dravyakov's history his relation with the altar of slovakka who was very much the same way this is exactly the slovakka approach of every person as an individual and you don't have a one-size-fit-all model So based on this notion when we're getting water from within that's different than cutting up wood cutting up wood is a chuba that focuses on my flaws and my inadequacies and my failures drying up water means I focus on the goodness that's within me and how I can use it in good and constructive ways and that is a Cuba that's very liberating that's very empowering and indeed it then gives you the strength to look at your flaws because once you've identified your goodness you can then say okay in order for this to be maximized I need to cut down on this and that and that and that but your focus is on your good on your water or sometimes the metaphors use light right the best way to get rid of Darkness is not by taking a baseball bat and hitting the darkness but by turning on the lights a little bit of light right so we don't spend time we shouldn't spend so much time spend time on ore and when you're more busy or the kosher kind of takes care of itself rev cook of course was such a tremendous Optimist when she saw everything in such a beautiful positive light there's a beautiful quote I don't have it in front of me I wish I had it in front of me but to quote in English I mean he said it in Hebrew it says it is the way of the wise to generate light and not criticize the darkness it is the way of the wise to seek Shalom and not to create my Clovis and he goes to all of the different things that when you focus on negatives you become negative you become that which you criticize you become that which you're always talking about you're always focusing on flaws of other people or even flaws of yourself you you you're kind of keeping yourself in the mud says you need to remove yourself from that mud remove yourself from the darkness connect yourself to the light indeed maybe that's why it's not an accident that the psalm that we say the 26 Psalm that we started saying not everybody says it they've only gone didn't say it but the widespread custom the David Hashem God is my lights the ishi and my salvation so there's a mattress that says God is my lights on Rosh Hashanah and he is my salvation on Yom Kippur and then later it says a few verses later he conceals me in his sukkah that's a reminiscent that is exactly why that became the psalm for this time of year but the fact that Rosh Hashanah is connected to the notion of light indicates that we focus more on the light than the than the darkness and that allows us on Yom Kippur to focus on the flaws because we've accessed the inner light and alike so whether you call it light or whether you call it water so again in the Parsha we're using that inner wisdom as water in the tehilum it's called light but it refers to the same idea of accessing the good that is within you I once um it's read in a book is this was a book about special education special needs children again unfortunately I don't remember the the quotes verbatim many many years since I saw this but this was a a teacher and a psychologist a very very long experience decades and Decades of experience working with all types of children that in her experience she said sometimes you're with a kid who seems not to be able to understand anything and all of a sudden there's like a pipeline that opens up and you actually see an inner beauty of the soul in which all sorts of things are understood all sorts of things are comprehending and you see what the person really is but then it gets closed up and you've kind of lost it but you know it's there you know it's there because you saw that it was there but it gets you know and really that's kind of all of us all of us are in that situation we try to access it so when you try to create your life now you try to make a life the the ultimate goal would be to make a life that maximizes the possibilities of that goodness coming up now that's a very very general statement I fully understand that that doesn't give you any answer as to how what where yaakov says every person has their own path but that's kind of the ultimate goal not to be someone whose innermost self remains concealed not only from others but even from them that's the greatest colors no there is Godless for marriage Israel Etc but then there's colors from myself there's Godless where I'm not even connected to who I am that is the greatest fragmentation the greatest of US dollars that exists now I wanted to share another thought about 10 minutes of him that's also very very relevant so nitsubim connotes standing so I mentioned Rashi Standing Tall before God but it also connotes standing still that there's something about the juva process that requires standing still now this is a very deep idea because normally we associate chuva with movement I'm here I want to do more I want to be more I want to grow more I don't want to be complacent I want to move forward right the chuva is about moving in life and yet there's another aspect that it's about standing still you know there's a famous everyone has heard this moment the rambam brings it demaco Chevrolet the place where the balchuva stands even the perfectly righteous you're not able to stand simple meaning which I know that you've heard and I've talked about other people talk about I'm sure you've read as well is that the balchuva the one who sins and then sincerely repents is on a spiritually higher level than even the one who never sinned the balchuba is in a higher madrega now that doesn't mean right a person might take the attitude as Jacob Frankie Maximo the follower of shop site TV said hey if being about troop is greater than being a soda let's all engage in as many sins as possible so then we can do chuva and be righteous the problem with Jacob Frank is he never got to the tuba stage they've just sin since then and this by the way was a common idea in Russia generally Rasputin on the Christian site has actually the same perverted philosophy sin as a way of getting divine grace and Redemption of course we don't mean that but if a person did Sin and sincerely does truva the closeness and love that God has for them is even greater than the one who didn't sin that's the simple meaning of that statement and that's how the rambam understands it but you're ready who doesn't argue with this understanding I mean he has taught the importance of Bali chuba his whole life but he offered a strikingly different interpretation of this the emphasis is not saying the ball truth is greater than the Sonic what it's saying is the balchuva has to stand still look at the words the place where the balchuva stands that said they cannot stand and he pointed out eight sadik one who has already perfected himself has to keep going going going going going that's the static's life that sadik's life is Perpetual Aliyah has to understand that sometimes frenetic movements is not the best way to go right a person wants to YouTube I want to do more and more and more and more and more and what's going to happen anxiety tension nervousness breakdowns and it may be you try to grab onto too much crash and you wind up being worse than you were before you even started on the process part of the process of chuva is not so much to take on more things quality quantitatively but to integrate and internalize that's what you have you know it's interesting that I remember when I was a rough in Silver Spring so in the 1990s it was a very difficult time in Arizona there was a lot of terrorist activities buses were bombed very very often we just get very very scary difficult difficult time and shows in America were thinking about different things they could do uh for Yeshua and many people said well let's say extra to heal them after diving every day so I was thinking to myself again in a cynical way which you know not necessarily it's not necessarily the best way of thinking about it that is okay we dive in three times a day to Hashem without caverna so now we'll we'll say more things to Hashem without cavana you know are you really gaining something by just doing more davening maybe our voter should be instead of doing more davening let's take what we say and mean it so a person might say instead of saying you know I'm going to say more a person might say when I say Shao Paul or I say I'll show you outside the blessing on the breath I'll think about what I'm saying in others I'm going to stand still and try to internalize that integrate my Yiddish kite to have joy in the way I keep Shabbos not necessarily by doing more but by internalizing what I'm doing exactly you know the famous and your footner made it a famous joke Theo is about davening foreign now that simply means better to say a little with kavana than to say a lot without we're putting your change a little bit refutner said better to say a little without Cabana than a lot without kavana I mean if it's going to be without gabana keep it little that's kind of a little bit of a paraphrase of the of the mimer of the mime so you see what the rebbe is saying look at the it's a Unique Piece has to be omaid I just stand still don't rush you know we see this you know I work in our smack as you know we see this you know it's a math like all the time uh guys come in uh one day they're wearing a tank top and shorts and uh ponytail and the next day they want to wear a straw mall and they'll get Buzz Cuts and knee socks and when that happens then a week from then two weeks from then they would have left the Yeshiva and they've decided they can't keep Shabbos anymore I mean I'm generalizing maybe I'm being a little unfair yeah yeah I mean that maybe not astronomer but but you know along that you try to change yourself too quickly setting yourself up for failure gotta go slow consistent consistence for ghost love internalize think about what you're doing make it meaningful don't just be a superficial change but Malcolm this is what the rebbe is saying but Mark time the balchuva has to learn stand still and standing still can be a form of movement now again this is not the same as complacency please be sure that you see the difference this is not saying be complacent but this is understanding that change can take different forms change is not necessarily quantitative change can be internal and emotional who is an Aficionado of baseball he grew up in Brooklyn when the Dodgers were there in the 1950s and a lot of his stories that he connects to Judaism often have a baseball background so I have to admit I don't always get the Illusions but whatever it would be so he tells some story about a game where there was a I I don't even know if it happened it doesn't it doesn't make sense as a true story so it's just maybe it's a parable about a a um a player that was on base and he just started running to the next base he thought he can get away with it uh what do they call it was stealing a bag stealing a base uh but he was a slow Runner and he got tagged out and uh his coach said to him you know you're very slow and every time you try to steal a base they always get you why didn't you just stay where you were so he said I had to do something I had to do something I can't just stay still I had to do something the answer is well you don't do something if standing still will get you more benefit then moving is good when it gets you to a good place movement movement is not so good and we get you to the wrong place right that's kind of the muscle and so in fact even there was a story where a guy was running in the opposite direction he was running in the wrong direction he was running from first to third or whatever it is instead of the second that's even worse frenetic movement is great but not when you're going in the wrong way okay what do they tell the story they tell the story about um there was a a warning on the radio that there's a car that's going in the in the opposite go in the direction of traffic and it's very dangerous and all drivers you know to be very very careful because if I was moving the afterway of traffic so a wife calls up her husband on a cell phone and says you know honey it's very very dangerous there's a car that's going in the wrong direction so the guy said you don't understand it's not just one car they're all going in the wrong direction you know so so the thing is but the movement the movement is actually destructive so this is the Robbie's Insight the market has to know to stand to stand so anyway in wish you well a wonderful Shabbos it is the last Shabbos of the year so let me just mention an old teaching from this that the last week of the year every single day can be my talking whatever was done wrong on that day so the last Shabbos of the year can Rectify all of the shabboses and then uh the last course this is an interesting case where the days of the week are after Sabbath uh the last Sunday uh Chavez is the first the last Sunday can Rectify all of the Sundays Etc so this last week of the year Shabbos plus the week coming after Shabbos is very very important because it's our chance to be metaken everything and so we enter Rosh Hashanah with uh in a state of rectification and a state of tickets okay [Music]