South Africa's Chief Rabbi in Conversation With Rabbi YY Jacobson

the yeshiva.net thank you so much everyone for for joining us um so wonderful and special to have you all and um it is really a special honor to to have rabbi jacobson with us rabbi jacobson is is known throughout the world as one of the most dynamic and profound jewish thinkers and speakers touching the lives of tens of thousands of people all around the world with his writings with his speeches with his uh words of torah in such a profound and soulful way with the tremendous spiritual intellectual depth and also i'm very grateful to to rabbi jacobson for for the time that he's spending with us as a community and with me personally because we we go back many years fact rabbi jacobson was uh in in our earliest sana in dhaba um first one and the first one i think the very first one that's right with rabbi lao that's right that's it right right at the beginning the very first one all of those years ago and if i recall there was the it was the time of the volcanic ash i think in in europe at the time and the flight from cape town was delayed so you got into johannesburg and then um the the words of inspiration and wisdom just pour out of pour out of you so it was it was so amazing and uh you've been such an im such a wonderful friend of the south african jewish community so i'm so grateful to you for your friendship to me personally but to our community as a whole and and for everything you're doing for the jewish people it's an absolute inspiration and thank you so much for for your time today so appreciate it thank you thank you chief rabbi and thank you for the privilege and the invitation and the honor to be with you and the entire amazing south african community which has turned out in recent years under your leadership to be the one of the most innovative communities throughout the year i always tell my new york friends imagine if the shabbos project would have come from a rabbi in new york couldn't even they couldn't even reach embryo state so that's that's why the the south african jewish community is the perfect place to give birth to new ideas because it's a wonderful jewish community with such beautiful jews who receive things with such enthusiasm so gets birthed here and then can can go out to the unity and the unity is the key yes i think unity is so important that that because sometimes people think unity is just a nice thing to have you know it's like a it's something which is which is good to have but uh but but i think it's it's much more profound than just something nice isn't it it's it's more profound than that it's it's i think one of the most essential ingredients of our survival and continuous vibrancy it's not a luxury for us it's a matter of life and death i think maybe that's let's let's start exploring that because you know today is really about a conversation so in the sense we were saying beforehand we're not preparing what we're going to say we're just going to see where the conversation takes us and i think unity is a good place to start that conversation and that discussion because it's really about understanding what that means and why why is it so important and i think part of it of course is the sense of mutual respect and dignity and that you know if we're relating to to god then then there's really the sense of well we all his children so if if we really respect him as a parent then we must respect our brothers and sisters and that is something which is uh you know which is so important but uh on on the other hand it is uh i think this there's something else because it's crucial for survival and and maybe like that that dimension of of why it's so crucial for survival is something which is which is so important because you can say well it's a nice moral value but why why is it crucial for for survival you know that that interested me in what in what you said well i think the facts always speak louder than anything else if you look through our jewish history almost every one of our greatest catastrophes was preceded by the disintegration of jewish cohesion and harmony and unity it goes back all the way to the beginning every one of our exiles the first exile of jacob to egypt happens because of the strife of the brothers the brothers can't get along that's the first exile and even that they threw joseph into the pit and rauven would have taken him out but he went and he focused on his own religious perfection fasting for his sins and therefore he wasn't there when they sold him in other words he let his brother languish in the pit as he was concerned with his own spiritual perfection which is an incredible teaching of our sages it means that sometimes the strife is not coming necessarily from brutish egocentric narcissistic people sometimes there are very deep religious and spiritual motivations if you look at the first commonwealth it was the splitting of the kingdom between rehab and yeruvam the northern kingdom and the israel and the southern kingdom that ultimately created this weakness in the cohesion of the jewish people it led to the exile of 10 tribes and their assimilation lost till this very day we don't know what happened to most of the jewish people unfortunately even though every two years we hear a theory about another tribe in africa that's probably one of the ten tribes or japan or afghanistan but they basically disappeared after a hundred years from the jewish seed and if you look at the second temple the talmud clearly says there were great jews but the hatred was so profound the famous commentary of the netsif on this and as a result the second temple was destroyed so if you look at and if you look throughout jewish history you will see that uh the the harm that we did to each other by the lack of trust sometimes is the worst because it feeds all anti-semites feed from that it's like they're parasites they feed off jews even today some of the worst anti-israel vet israel venom and sentiments are fed by jews take the socialist revolution the communists you had the many jews don't know this history the efsexia was the jewish section of the communist party under stalin it's hard to say that stalin was one of the worst people who ever lived but the way judaism was destroyed in the former soviet union over 10 years from 1919 to 1929 was not destroyed the previous 300 years in russia how through the jewish communists they have sexier ultimately stalin killed them all because they weren't loyal enough they were still the dirty jews who were you know nationalists and he couldn't trust them so they were all they gave their souls to russia to the communism and they were all killed for it but for those 10 years the ma the amount of destruction they did in terms of wiping out yiddish guide from russia was was incredible so this is not of course to uh god forbid blame all the anti-semitism on the jewish people that's ridiculous and i try not to be a self-hating jew but i think it does identify that for us unity is not a luxury it's really essential to our survival and it's hard it's not an easy thing and i'll be honest with you for religious jews it's sometimes even harder because they're very idealistic and if it's i want to serve god my way and i see you serving god a different way i stopped trusting you and as a result of that it becomes very very difficult and the key one of the key lessons of jewish history i think chief rabbi to say it very briefly is we don't have to agree with each other but we have to be here for each other we have to listen to each other we have to communicate to each other we have to trust each other and support each other through thick and thin even if we have arguments justified or unjustified yes i think it's so important because it's about the practicalities of holding a people together but it's also about the fact that the enterprise of um the jewish people is an enterprise which is a communal national one in other words when god speaks to us with his torah it doesn't only speak to us as individuals in our private capacity speaking to us as a nation as a people and that's why unity is so important it could also be another dimension to that and that is that through the unity we we are exposed to um to different perspectives and we can also look we learn from one another and learn learn from you know how that conversation what emerges from that conversation which becomes you know so so important i came across an interesting book recently called rebel ideas and it's um matthew's side and he he's really talking about this idea that that's in a team and you've got a team of people working on something you want to have different perspectives brought to bear on it and and that of course is the beauty of the of the gemara you know when learning talmud it's the back and forth they don't stop fighting they don't stop fighting they don't stop arguing i always i tell my students if you want to learn how to fight with your spouse or with your siblings learn gemara and you'll see how to do it they did not stop arguing but at the end of the argument they were in love just like before the argument you know there is an there is an extraordinary an extraordinary halacha very fascinating and i should say in the times of the enlightenment some people use this to mock the talmud and that is sanhedrin the entire sanhedrin the entire supreme court of the jewish people opened up with a guilty verdict on a defendant he was exonerated and this is one of the most strangest laws if 70 people voted guilty and one voted innocent he was not exonerated obviously he was tried according to the law and order according to the verdict if everybody said guilty they let him go it's it's it's one of those strangest laws so the medrashmuel in pirkei avas says an incredible answer incredible explanation he says the rambam phrases the gemara and says sanhedrin they opened up with a verdict of guilt which was absolutely unanimous you know what the problem was problem was there was no debate there was no second opinion he says you could never ever reach a verdict without hearing counter views perspectives and arguments amazing and i think of course there is a is a framework uh within which we operate you know we have the the rambam's uh principles of faith so there's a there's a framework with within with within which the debate takes place uh that that are kind of the the the it has to be there has to be axioms if not the debate it's like a husband and a wife you can have a lot of arguments but if there's no axiom of certain values you're committed to for example if the welfare of the children is not an axiomatic value then it you can survive debates can survive only if there's an underlying connection that will not be broken through the debate and i think that's on the intellectual side but on the side of love and care even if a person is outside accepting those axioms we love and care for every jew doesn't matter where they come from and what their background is and what they believe in there is that love and devotion we talking here about the intellectual debate about what what is what are the the broad pillars so this whole framing of what unity is that's why i'm pleased to have this opening discussion with you because you know exploring the idea of jewish unity is something which is which is so important yeah and i think also also from a very deep jewish perspective i mean imagine somebody comes over to me and says you know rabbi jacobson i love you i'm in love with you i'll do anything for you i i have so much affection towards you but your children i hate their guts i will not look their way i will never be there for them it's going to be very hard for me to maintain a relationship with them we come to shul or our homes and we scream out vahaftas love hashem with all your heart and then i meet a jew it's one of hashem's children and i say oh hashem you i love but this guy i'm not looking his way i can't get along with him it doesn't work that way if you really love me you love my children because you know how much i love my children so if you really love hashem the more jewish you are the more holy you are the more divine you are it immediately translates in love of every jew because every jew is hashem's singular child i think that's also it's a good segue into part of the discussion that i wanted to have with you today and that is in preparation for rosh hashanah and yom kippur because we we in elul rosh hashanah is less than two weeks away and this is the time to prepare and and i suppose a starting place has got to be to think about unity but you know i think it's an important thing to think about unity not as a noun but as a verb like what are we going to do about that how are we going to make that real and then that becomes part of our whole journey of being adam javero the sense of how do we treat one another because a crucial part uh you know um as our mitzvahs are you know divided into these two categories of our relationship with hashem and our relationship with uh with our fellow human being and our fellow jew and so we we need to find a way of working on both of those two relationships in preparation for rosh hashanah and not just exclusively on the one or the other in a certain sense you know there's a certain an interesting idea from a red in from the writings of uh yosef dav salavaichik where he he says that the according to the midrash that the ten commandments were all said in one breath so he says that the message behind that is the unity of it that the first half is about our relationship with god the first five commandments the second is about our relationship with our fellow person and the fact that it was said in one breath by hashem says this you can't separate out the two some and you can see on both sides sometimes people say well okay well it's just good enough to be a good a nice person and then you have other people say well it's good enough just to be devout and religious so we need to find that integration of the two it's true there's a fascinating midrash that the reason the ten commandments were given on two tablets not on one it's not like god had a shortage of sapphire or granite in heaven but the reason is because he wanted us to read the ten commandments both vertically and horizontally so it's five and five so we can read the first five and the next five we can also read number one and then number six number two number seven number three number eight number four number nine number five and ten and it would be interesting why would that be so important but if the madrid points out because number one is anoki i am your god number six is thou shall not murder lo sirtzach and the two have to be read literally as one line because we see in jewish in history in human history there have been two major philosophies that attempted to divorce number one from number six one is the european enlightenment the european enlightenment basically argued in the 18th century 17th century 18th century you don't need i am the lord your god to protect people from thou shalt not murder if we would just allow the individual reason to prosper if we would allow science and natural human being to develop in full glory none of us will murder who wants the murder you got to be a meshugana to murder you got to be a primitive barbaric moronic idiot idiot to murder who wants to murder we all want a beautiful world get rid of god we don't need god god is dead we will behave in the most civil fashion that was one major philosophy that has captured the hearts of millions and millions of intelligent and sophisticated people including jews and yet from the very country with enlightenment sprung up and where this ethos was preached so powerfully came the worst worst crimes against humanity in the history in the history of humanity and then we have the opposite philosophy sadly it's been practiced by many religious people throughout the ages and today by the islamists and they say as long as you have i am the lord your god murder as much as you want if it's coming from allah or from the lord you're good to go and it's very powerful that the jewish ten commandments say the two go together if you get rid of god if you get rid of a basis of morality that's transcendent if you get rid of the idea of yirach fear of heaven the human mind could rationalize the worst of the worst of the worst and conversely there's no such a thing as divorcing i am your god from thou shalt not murder the first and most important thing god wants is that we treat each other with dignity and with respect yes and i think that there would be many examples of that there are different religions over the you know over the centuries that it's some form or another have have preached i'm the lord your god but not the other i mean it's not not limited obviously to they all find these kind of exceptions across history uh but that unity and the integration of the two this is critical it's critical i always i tell my students you know they sometimes look they read the hebrew bible and they say this all these death penalties i say listen we all know that there's no way of understanding the hebrew bible without tara shabalpa there's not a single verse that's not cryptic and we know the famous mission of the sanhedrin with some of the greatest talmudic sages who spoke a lot about the death penalty said you know if i would be in the sanhedrin yeah somebody would have been killed maybe once in seventy years or if shrimp began leo said nobody would ever get the death penalty in other words there was such a sensitivity sensitivity to life that penetrated the entire philosophy of judaism throughout and throughout because we all understood that the most essential message of judaism is that if god is real it means life is has absolute value a person's dignity is non-negotiable a jew and a non-jew every person carved in the image of god no matter your color race or ethnic group and and i think what's so important here is this concept of an integrated world view in other words without compartmentalizing and saying well there's a part which is religious there's a part which is ethical it is the integration of the two which is so important and that it goes to the heart of the concept of of integrity i mean i think the word integrity comes from things which are integrated and and which are whole and i think this is such an important part of our preparation for us it's not that as we prepare for these days well we've got to think about a relationship with god and then separately we must think about a relationship with the people around us they they they are integrated because there's the sense the uh you know as you were saying about the image of god in every person it's it's seeing that hashem's is present in human beings that god created us in his image and so therefore respect for one's fellow person is actually respect for hashem and and and the other way around so it's looking at you know it's like this broad vision of life that nothing is outside of our mission in this world it's uh couldn't be said better chief rabbi and i would just add and i think this also teaches us that there is something to learn from every person there is something within each and every human being that i meet that can inspire me because each and every person is a unique imprint of the divine in this world so if i find a person boring or irrelevant or there's nothing i can learn from you it's not about the other person it's means that i myself have lost touch with my inner divine core because if i would be in touch with my divine core i would find something unique and special literally in every person there is no life story of any human being who ever lived and whoever will live or who's living now that is not fascinating and in many ways revolutionary and can teach us each and every one of us a tremendous amount and add to the vocabulary of the human race and to the growth of the human race you know each and every one of us is literally an indispensable note in the cosmic divine symphony you know chief rabbi i read something the other day and it was very inspiring to me because nature doesn't lie you know from nature you learn about the world the pristine world the innocent world and you know people ask always it's it's an old question uh be even before mark twain the secret of jewish survival you know another rosh hashanah five seven eighty one it's been a lot of rosh hashanahs it's it's it's a unique record and in jewish history we can go back to every single person back to adam you know we have the chronology of generations literally generation to generation back to abraham all the way back to adam so that's incredible and people always ask what's the secret so sometimes you have to look at nature look at the oldest trees that are alive and you can go to california and you'll find there are trees that are close to four thousand years there's trees they call them the shellac trees because like mr shellach they just live and live but even longer than mr shellach but it's interesting they have a name for one of the trees mr shellach but you have their trees that are three thousand years old four thousand years old five thousand years old which means they were around before abraham they were around at noak's times incredible and one of these known category groups of trees are known as the sequoia trees sequoia they're redwoods so i was reading about the scientists the botanists searching how they survive for 3000 years how do trees survive this way with tsunamis with thunderstorms with all types of disruptions in nature how did they weather all these storms so the botanists thought that the roots must be perhaps hundreds of feet deep in the ground and therefore nothing can destroy the tree they were astounded to discover that many of these sequoia trees the depth was maybe five feet which is minimal and they couldn't understand what's the secret and then they realized the depth of the roots may be only five feet but the width of the roots some of these trees the roots expanded in width a hundred feet or more but here is the secret and i found this incredibly inspiring you know what as they spread out they interlock with roots of other sequoia trees so you can have dozens or hundreds of sequoia trees that in the depth of the roots the roots become intertwined interconnected integrated and interlocked with each other and then no storm in the world can destroy them if you want to understand the secret of human sequoia trees which are the jewish people the nation of eternity this is it that's why i say it's essential to survival some of us are deeper some of us are more shallow that's fine but our roots must meet and interlock with each other not lose our personalities every tree has its unique personality but in our root level we have to be so interlocked and then no storm in the world can obliterate us yeah that's such a beautiful idea and such a beautiful analogy for what we're talking about yeah and it's it's really about this integration because the integration leads to to support and then maybe there's there's one other dimension here i mean it's it's clearly the support for one another is so important i mean we we are social beings so we we we influence one another and i think if we if we um think about that analogy of the roots that you're talking about and we think you know what we've been through over these months where there's really been the sense of um you know there's really been the sense that for a long time our minion didn't function and we lost that sense of community we try to replace it with the with zoom and with all these kinds of interactions and and there's and that has been also a way of connecting but it's not the same and you know thank god i mean just started again in scottish illumina you know closed for it for a long time in order to to save lives but that the sense of human connection and the sense that on the one hand governing and prayer is a very personal interaction with hashem like like reflected in the halacha that we whisper to god because there's nothing more intimate than a whisper that shows the intimacy and the close connection but on the other hand prayer is very communal so we we are drawing from each other it's not this solitary selfish isolated experience it is an experience which is communal which is sharing which is broadening and and it's you know in a certain sense darkening in a minion and being connected to a community is like those big trees that you were talking about and the interconnected roots and and i think that's also probably a very important dimension of preparation for rosh hashanah the the idea of of community that when we appear before hashem in judgment we don't want to go there alone and say to hashem yeah we are on our own we want to we want to we want to we want to go as as part of a community and and rely on the merit of the community both who we are as as well as the generations that that have come before us absolutely and i think perhaps you know all these months and the continuous uncertainty with the coronavirus maybe challenges us also to look at the state of our community in our own homes and what i mean is our marriages the unity of the jewish people begins with strong marriages because let's face it husbands and wives are not always the same if ever we are very different we have different personalities often different tastes different idiosyncrasies and our generation is a generation that has seen many a marriage struggling and i think this opportunity when many of us are home you know i know myself i've been now home for six months i haven't left for a single shabbos and i never for good or for bad i did not have that for many years i think it's really an invitation by the creator of the world for each of us to try to smooth out differences and deal with the contention conscious and subconscious between us and our spouses our immediate family of course our children ourselves so community begins you know right here in a very domestic place like take the time each of us spend with your spouse talk about stuff that you maybe did not have time to talk about take walks deal with the issues that have come up over the years you know the lack of trust the disappointment the alienation sometimes you may need help from another person get that help but it's it's such a special opportunity now to consolidate the fabric of the family in terms of marriages in terms of our own children in terms of our immediate family because that's really what allows for healthy communities and for healthy humanity is a healthy family the family is the core where all good things happen i think that is so important because that's part of what i wanted to to discuss with you today rabbi jacobson is like looking back at all of these months you know the kinds of things we need to take with us because look there's still a lot of uncertainty in the world and there's no vaccine and you know there's different places have second waves and you know so it's nobody knows what next month and the month after is going to bring and that itself is part of a process of uh humility and trust in in hashem but it's also part of let's say learning from what we've been through so that this experience is not something that just you know comes and goes but that we learn something from it and but at the same time never saying and i think this is such an important point for for all of us to think about we never say this is why hashem brought it you know we we don't know how hashem works and what what he does but now that we're in the situation we have to ask ourselves well what what can we learn from it and you know before going down that track maybe we can just explore a little bit more about family because i want to come back to some of the other sense of the lessons of what we've been through uh kind of lessons from lockdown what you know what we've been through but i think in in context of family you know to to think of you know in practical terms because this is also an important part of rosh hashanah sometimes people think i'm preparing for for day of judgment i have to you know think about repentance well let me let me look through my list of mitzvahs that i have done or haven't done let me but but actually who we are at home as a spouse as a parent as a child as a sibling that that is an important defining identity of who we are so i think what what's important you know is is to explore practically what that means how how we can do that better and i was just thinking you know maybe one idea to kick start our discussion on this is the shabbos candles because we know that shabbos candles uh were instituted by our sages as for to bring shalom bayes to bring peace and and and the reason they're given is you know that if you if their homes shrouded in darkness and people will be stumbling over things that will lead to fights but i was thinking that that maybe there's a deeper dimension of what of what that what our sages are teaching and that is that in order for there to be peace at home we need to see one another and seeing one another is not just about the physical it's about it's about knowing where that person is coming from and seeing and empathizing it's empathy you know empathy is is so important because it's it's the beginning and the start of any relationship i have to see your struggles where you're coming from and only if i have real empathy with you as my spouse or my children or my parent then you know can the relationship start to develop right 100 yeah beautiful beautifully said chief rabbi and i would just add if i may there's a fascinating halacha fascinating law in tractate shabbos page 23 in iran in the olden days sometimes you had jews who were very poor and they could only afford one candle so the talmud asks this fascinating question it's hanukkah and it's friday and i only have money to buy one candle do i use that candle to give to my wife to light shabbat candles or do i use that candle to light my chanukah menorah it's the first night of chanukah any night of chanukah so what would we naturally think we would think you know shabbos candles is every week but chanukah candles is so special but the jewish lawyers know that shabbos candles trumps chanukah candles and that candle i use for shabbat and the talmud says and the rambam says because shalom bias peace in the home transcends all else and the fascinating thing is that chanukah really represents the national victory of the jewish people the victory of the maccabees over the syrian greeks remember if chanukah miracle would have not happened there would be no judaism any longer the shabbos candle just represents you know having a nice meal a nice atmosphere in the house good ambiance some good gefilte fish some delicious chicken soup i mean come on it's just having a nice romantic festive shabbat dinner with with you know abyssal the challenge well friday night is not shown but my house they each on friday night like that can't defeat hanukkah but in the jewish imagination even the greatest most powerful wars on the front lines protecting our land and protecting our people ultimately comes second to the powerful inner harmony in the home because when marriages are healthy stable positive loving moral and inspirational and meaningful then a nation has an inner core the children grow up in a healthy atmosphere with good values and our continuity is assured so as you say the shabbos candles represent something very very powerful in jewish history yeah and and it touches some you know it's it's it's part of what you're saying is that that if we now to stop and think about community that the starting point of any discussion around community is is is family and and turning that into actuality and and really living that because i think that goes back to this issue of integrity that we've been talking about who is the person outside and who are they inside their own home and to be the same person there needs to be that sense of of continuity as the talmud says you know we can only make kiddish on shabbos in the place where we eat the meal so for example if you make kiddush in shul and you have a little schnapps or a little wine and you say alakayim and then you go home to wash you have to do kiddush again because kiddush has to be in the place of the meal unless we start the meal where we made the kiddush so there's a beautiful i guess spiritual interpretation and that is some people think that there's two worlds does the world of kiddush kiddish means of course sanctification and then there's the world of the meal the world of feasting and parting in judaism ain't kedus alabama the only kedusa the only sanctity that we really cherish is the kedusa the kiddush that permeates our feasting and our eating and our family life and our home and our business people who are in shul close their eyes and scream nakadisha or kadesh and they're very holy but in the office i become like a shark or i come home and i insult my wife or my children and i lose it and my temper goes crazy even though i'm true i am mr holy hero judaism doesn't believe in that kiddush is one that permeates the home it permeates the meal it permeates your body as you say integration holistic yes and i think actually you know where this is expressed so powerfully is if we think of the book of of uh beratious genesis which is the foundations of the jewish people and the foundations of the history of all of humanity and actually what is the story in in the in the book of genesis it's the story of families you know you're thinking we're going to read this you know this chronicle of the history of humanity and how the world was changed and what is it you know avraham and sarah they got married and they couldn't have a child and then they were able to have a child and this one fought and then you know yitzhak and rifka and how they met and the shidduch and was she the right and was she kind and then they had twins and the twins were fighting so the whole it's a story of of families and and really exactly and one more point if you read the book of genesis yeah and if you read the book of genesis there's a progression and it's not a simple one of how siblings treat each other in the first portion there's homicide you know k in murders abel the next portion right one of the boys one of the brothers is cursed and then as you go on ishmael is expelled from the home and then yaakov yaakov has to run away because asap wants to kill him and then joseph is sold by his brothers into slavery so first it starts with murder then it goes to a curse then it goes to expulsion then it goes to running away and then at the end they reconcile but they part ways and then joseph almost gets killed by his brothers but at the end of genesis the brothers come back together their brothers come back together so from the beginning of genesis to the end of genesis you have really the the promise that humans we can be better we don't have to kill each other expel each other curse each other hate each other we have to be able to forgive each other and then when you come to exodus you have moses and aaron moshe and aaron working together as a team without jealousy joseph and his brothers made up but he was the prime minister and they were in the kylo you know learning engaging learning gemara and keeping up the jewish tradition of learning in the next portion you have moshe and aaron who really really come together and are working together as god's representatives to emancipate their people and only then can the torah be given we cannot receive the torah as long as we really do not learn how to forgive how to love how to be able to really be here for each other despite our egos despite our insecurities despite our traumas and despite our toxic thoughts that you know like to rip us apart i think what's what's coming through so clearly in this conversation is that as we preparing for rosh hashanah it's about working on unity which is on a national communal level it's about working at unity at a at a family level all of that requires us to overcome our own narrowness and limitations realizing there's an integrated approach and connection connection to hashem but as we as we approach rosh hashanah i think maybe um you know what else can we learn from what we've been through now in a certain sense the world has been tilted off its axis it's been we've been through unprecedented times everyone knows how traumatic that has been and yet there have been a lot of insights and wisdom and and i kind of think that rosh hashanah has a feeling like the timing feels right i mean it's a funny thing to say because of course the timing's always right but it feels you know in in the sense we've been through all of this and now rosh hashanah yom kippur is a time of introspection so how do we improve and and you were saying one area is like family you know what what rabbi jacobson has has come across to you as a sense of something that we can learn from these traumatic experiences that we've been through and uplifting and take it with us so we can use it to prepare for rosh hashanah and yom kippur as we head towards the new year yeah i think really you know we call rosh hashanah the time of the time of elol in rosh hashanah the time when we what we call reckoning of the soul this is the beautiful expression in judaism once a year you got to do a reckoning of the soul but really what happened you know since march february march since after purim was really the whole world began a reckoning of the soul with movie theaters closed sports stadiums closed malls bars restaurants schools all types of religious institutions people were challenged and compelled to do a reckoning of the soul both individually each one of us individually and collectively collectively as nations as groups but also as part of human civilization you know i don't know when was the last time that 7.7 billion people sitting down to eat dinner are talking about the same things literally the concerns of people in baghdad and tehran in kabul was similar to the concern of people in sydney and jerusalem and tel aviv and johannesburg in new york and los angeles that's unprecedented that a little tiny coronavirus the size of 125 nanometers you can take a hundred million uh viral particles of coronavirus and fit it on a pinhead and one of those changed the whole world so it really as you said it humbles us all it made us all very vulnerable and i think one of perhaps the greatest opportunities here of this crisis because every crisis must become a catalyst for opportunity if not we waste a very precious potential in life and that is really to explore life i would say beyond the masks we're all wearing masks that's how we go out those of us who go out you got to go out with a mask but what about life beyond the masks you know before the coronavirus we weren't wearing masks but were we not wearing masks many of us were wearing masks because it's much easier to wear masks in life it clips my vulnerability eclipse my weaknesses show a macho front where everything is wonderful and perfect and i think with putting on the masks maybe history is telling us identify your masks and can you go beneath the mask and that's what i have been tried i i tried to do this in my life and i would encourage my friends and my brothers and sisters to do this identify those parts in your life that were the most scary the most vulnerable the most difficult those inner inner forces maybe subconsciously where i got the most love or where i didn't get the love that i needed and how many responses in my life are coming from that place explore it and have the courage to realize that now we were given an opportunity to extricate the toxicity the demons the skeletons the pettiness the traumas the insecurities and the deep fears that we may experience in a very deep fashion and usually when the world is running in its normal fashion we're stressed out we're overwhelmed we're flying here we're coming in mcgate mckemp everybody is busy but now when god says spend time with yourself spend time with your loved ones i think it's a real opportunity for rebirth for transformation not just for growth in one way or another which is all excellent but really the reckoning of my entire trajectory of my destiny seeing who i am as a person asking questions that i maybe was uncomfortable asking who am i as a father what is my relationship with my children what is their relationship with me what is my spouse's relationship with me what is my own intimate relationship with god what are my deepest fears what do i run away from most what are my deepest dreams and desires what are things that i'm always avoiding what are those thoughts that don't stop eating up on my happiness and my inner serenity each of them can be seen as a chauffeur as a spiritual alarm clock to wake us up to a new heartbeat and a new beginning i think that um it's so it's so beautiful what you what what you're sharing um it's it's this idea of making peace with with vulnerability because you know at the heart and in this soul and the essence of what it means to be human is um is to be truly vulnerable and and and it's hard we we we're all the time looking to find ways to protect ourselves against vulnerability i mean it's the natural natural human thing because say say um so for example you know a human being is is is vulnerable because we don't have shelter you know animals have got naturally they've got shelter but we have to then go build a house so if there's vulnerability to the elements we build a house if there's vulnerability to hunger we find food and and we constantly on a search for life to to end our vulnerability and and have the sense well maybe it's within our grasp to do that and then comes along a crisis like this and we realize that with all the technological might of 21st century civilization we we are still vulnerable and and really and how and how and how and how and then and then we realize we're in god's hands and then it's really the journey of well can we live with that vulnerability but i think what you're saying is it's not just the philosophical vulnerability of of the fact that we're in hashem's hands and trusting that hashem is looking after us because i think there's that element vulnerability and trust are two sides of the same coin but it's also a personal thing of of where where are the weaknesses where are the things that we can work on so there's like this very deep concept of the vulnerability which i think is what you talking about this idea of how we can face our deepest fears and i think that that's part of the issue of trust which in a certain sense is the paradox of rosh hashanah because rosh hashanah on the one hand is the time that we confront our vulnerability who's going to live and who will die you know i mean who doesn't tremble when when the ark is open at that at that moment and and yet it's a yontif and yet it's a day of celebration it's a day where where we because we we are saying we in hashem's hands and and in a way we saying we trust that hashem is going to look after us that doesn't mean that things are going to turn out the way that we want but we know that he loves us and at the same time we confront our own personal lack and vulnerability to become better people so it's like a day of the kingship of god and yet the day of our own repentance so we're dealing with our weaknesses but we also are saying ultimately we're in hashem's hands so there's this it's like the paradox of the human being something we're always looking for simple answers aren't we as human beings but but somehow it's this thing of the human power that god has given us and human vulnerability at the same time it's it's such a paradox to live with it a paradox indeed but i think a paradox that ultimately empowers us because when we run away from our vulnerability we're running away from our truest selves your ultimate messiah your your ultimate light your deepest light always lay in the spots that are most vulnerable and it's not easy to find that we always think my great light will be found elsewhere no no my greatest light will be found over there or as the madrid says matasi david avdi god says i found i discovered my david my my my anointed king we're in saddam in saddam yes because light's daughter fathered the nation of moab which was ultimately the nation from where ruth came she was the great grandmother of king david and the great grandmother therefore of of meshiach and the message of course is that sometimes you find your most revolutionary power your power to change the world to bring redemption to the world in saddam in those places that seem the most dangerous and toxic and i put a crust over it i don't want to go back there don't don't take me back there but it's over there that you will find your your true vocation your calling your your deepest potential because it's in the deepest darkness where ultimately the deepest light lay we only have to transform it we have to redirect it harness it now this is not easy it's it's it's nice talk but psychologically this is very deep work can i really go to my deepest place of darkness but if i can with courage and with faith not with the spear i will find over there my most powerful treasures my deepest power any one of you knows that anyone who has achieved real greatness in life and an impact that really touches people it's only usually i should say when they had the courage to touch that part in them that is very easy to ignore because it's painful i would also add one thing you know you spoke about hashem judging us on rosh hashanah how can that be a yamtif you know who's going to live who's going to die and i think this is also very important to understanding rosh hashanah the way i see it and that is you know today we don't like the word judging stop judging me don't judge don't judge don't judge there were jews who told me rosh hashanah is called a day of judgment and it drives them crazy living in a therapy age and an age of hyper individuality don't judge me i judge myself maybe i'll allow my therapist to judge me and even then i'm paying him money so he'll judge me the way i want him to judge me so how do we understand this day of judgment but i would venture to say that the truth is we want to be judged every one of us wants to be judged but i want to be judged by somebody who loves me infinitely and who knows me infinitely i don't want somebody who just watched a video of me to judge me because they don't know anything about me i want somebody who knows everything about me and someone who loves me and cares for me in the deepest way when such a person judges you we love to be judged who doesn't want to who doesn't want to be analyzed and their story brought to the fore so that they could really look at the future trajectory of their life it's one of the most healthy vibrant life affirming things to be judged when the judgment is done from a place of deep caring empathy and love and somebody who knows me the judgment on rosh hashanah is not done by some person who couldn't care less about me german version is done by the one who birthed me who conceived me in infinite love who wants my deepest happiness and success and prospering in this world in the next world someone who loves me as the balshamptev said hashem loves every jew more than parents love an only child who was born at a time when the situation seemed hopeless even that love doesn't come close to the love of hashem to every jew the zohar says in shemos yehudah says rabbi hood one of the greatest sages if we would if a person would know how much hashem loves them you would run after hashem faster than a lioness runs after her prey when you realize that it's hashem judging you with the deepest love and tenderness knowing everything about me my struggles my demons my challenges my trauma my childhood my difficulties psychologically emotionally socially mentally spiritually he knows everything he's not looking at it superficially oh you came to show you didn't come to show you the this mitzvah that's mitzvah you're gonna burn in purgatory you're going to go to paradise here's a cotton candy here's a punishment somebody who knows me in a way that i will never even know myself and he says i'm judging you and i'm going to give you a year that is best for your soul to be able to achieve your ultimate purpose yes it's very awesome it's very intense but there's also an inner serenity there i think that it's so beautiful because in a certain way it brings together everything we're discussing and i think it's a it's it's a good moment to to to wrap up our conversation which i've so enjoyed because i think what comes out of what you're sharing now is is this real sense of courage that is required and um you know as as as we head towards rosh hashanah you know part of our conversation today has been the importance of jewish unity the importance of family uh but now also the importance of honesty and and accepting a vulnerability and going into rosh hashanah and saying let's honestly look at ourselves and we have nothing to be afraid of because we are in the loving embrace of hashem and he loves us and he has faith in us so sometimes we talk about having faith in hashem but but he has faith in us and we also have to believe in ourselves so that courage comes from self-belief that courage comes from knowing that hashem loves us and that gives us the courage to to face our vulnerabilities to face our shortcomings and and and to learn from them and to really go into this with looking forward you know that that rosh hashanah is a gift like you are saying isn't it wonderful to be to be judged it's a catalyst because look you know what i found so interesting rabbi jacobs and you're saying the whole world has been through this this accounting of the soul the spiritual accounting to understand but actually we have that gift every year with rosh hashanah like hashem doesn't allow one year to run into the next to the next in a certain sense the last few months have been the ideal preparation for rosh hashanah young people but if we were to think about roshani on keeper in this way then every year we have this catalyzing opportunity which is this combination of honesty and love vulnerability and trust this uh this this real engagement and and a true embrace of others and an embrace of ourselves and it all comes together in such a beautiful way so i think in a certain sense as you've been talking now thinking that it it brings together everything we've been discussing and and sort of you know sets the stage as we enter into the last less than two weeks to rosh hashanah yeah there was a uh there was a very famous master he's known as ribarak of kosov he wrote a famous book called yasodha voda and he says something magnificent the prophet says uremia says god said during the time of the destruction i see azavu vs so the talmud says halawa hashem says i wish jews would have abandoned me and kept my torah so everybody asked what does that mean hashem says i wish you would have just forgotten me but just kept my torah so he says a beautiful interpretation he says one of the most difficult aspects in philosophy and jewish philosophy is how do you reconcile god's future knowledge and free choice if hashem knows what i'm going to do tomorrow then do i have free choice because if i really have free choice then it means he doesn't know what i'm going to do tomorrow and if he does know what i'm going to do tomorrow then i'm forced to do it this is one of the big quandaries of ancient philosophy the rambam devotes a section and he'll has trueva to it and many many other commentators and philosophers throughout the ages and he says you know it's really a very difficult paradox if god knows the future can we really have autonomy and he says some people simply their mathematical minds if they're not used to quantum mechanics can't contain paradox so they have to make a choice do i believe that god knows everything or do i believe that humans have choices and responsibilities he says that's what god is saying if you have to make a choice between believing in me or me believing in you i want you to choose the latter god says i'll be all right don't worry so you're not sure how i know what i know do i know but never ever stop thinking that i stopped believing in you in your ability to confront everything you have to confront and turn it into a springboard for extraordinary rebirth and renewal rabbi jackson thank you so much for your time it's such a beautiful note to to end our discussion thank you thank you chief rabbi and thank you to all of you thank you for this great opportunity and i want to bless you the chief rabbi and your whole community the whole south african jewish community with hashanatovami all of you have the most awesome and healthy and beautiful and amazing year in happiness and prosperity and nachas among all of our brothers and sisters and among the whole world the shanatova and the and go forward we can all go forward with with this knowledge is that we have it within us whatever we need whatever the year ahead lies what lies ahead in the year we don't know hashem knows but one thing is as we go ahead towards that new year we must believe in ourselves as we've just been talking now because hashem believes in us and we have everything in us to go forward into the new year to grow and to make such a difference if you'll allow me i'll conclude with an anecdote do we have time for an anecdote yeah of course somebody sent it to me talking for hours rabbi jacobson i'm so loving our discussion every time we threaten to end we we continue which is also good it's quite a jewish thing to do as long as we don't do it at sermons in synagogue it's fine as long as it's zoom it's voluntary if somebody is bored of the rabbi sermons you could just leave but i know that you're going to stay for the anecdote so they say that there was a great opera singer who did a unbelievable rendition of psalm 23. miss murala david hashem rohi lo xer the lord is my shepherd i shall not want it was just magnificent the tune and the lyrics and when he concluded he got a standing ovation of a few minutes people were just flabbergasted by the talent and then an old baba a jewish grandmother gets up and says can i do my rendition of psalm 23 and he says of course and she begins her rendition you'll forgive me she couldn't carry a tune she didn't have the word straight but her neshama her neshama was there and everybody started to cry as she was saying this chapter of tehillim 23 at shem roy and at the end he turns to her and he says i don't understand this i did a beautiful impeccable job nobody shed a tear they just clapped you you broke every rule of singing of communication and yet everybody is crying why so she looks at him and she says because you may know the psalm but i know the shepherd so when we get to know the shepherd when you have a personal relationship with the shepherd everything changes thank you that's so beautiful thank you so much thank you everybody for joining us about jacobson and god's blessings for health and healing to my entire world thank you so much for your time what a privilege i've so enjoyed it could continue chatting and god bless thank you everyone for joining this class is brought to you by the yeshiva.net please help us continue the classes make even a small contribution at triple w dot the yeshiva.net donate