Rosh Hashana is not boring.

[Music] I'm welcome to practical spirituality in the old city in Jerusalem at Asia tour overlooking the Western Wall welcome please subscribe and click and get all the bells and whistles share make it happen join the media club as well and get these talks out there we're pushing on the media Club and ready to we're just about ready to hire a second person we got new equipment I hope you're enjoying the sound those are on their commute to hear better as we could on people's commute they couldn't hear so well so we're working on that we're coming up to Russian Russian is a week like a week from today will be what's today's name money Monday week from today will be in the in Russia Sherman and a lot of people dread Russia shun it and a lot of people have kind of a not the best approach to it and so I'd like for us to heal our approach to Russia the reason you're listening to this class right now is because because you're interested in spirituality there's no other reason that you'd be sitting in this class or you'd be watching it online and it's only because you're you're interested in spirituality so you should be so excited for each other because we're gonna have two days of totally dedicated to what you're interested you know like for example I'm also interested in things like surfing and if someone told me I have two days of surfing next week in perfect waves and perfect conditions everything's gonna be exactly where I love it so I'm gonna be excited about that now now am i excitement's wrong for that but I found that people interested in spirituality aren't that excited about two days of surfing next week Rosh Hashanah so it must be there's something wrong with the way you're thinking about them precious other given that you are interested in spirituality otherwise again you wouldn't be here right now and and you know and Russia shun is about spirituality so like it's right up your alley you know it's an amazing freebie day of pure spirit you know I think a lot of us aren't really those of us those of us were interested in spirituality are kind of we're gonna we're not so excited about even having a body and responsibilities and like I think a lot of people who are working towards spirituality consider paying bills a hassle the fact they're gonna have to work is a hassle like hey there's some people just want to go out there and work and afford all kinds of nice things and they're usually not that in the spirit jogging people morning shouldn't spread John aren't that excited about work yeah so excited about all the fiscal responsibilities that come in here we got two days of pure spirituality where there will be no concerns whatsoever you know luxurious means and unless you have something against you know wearing your finest clothes and eating delicious food yeah don't know too many people are upset about that I mean people pay top dollar to you knows like that in restaurants so like what's the big deal Russia Shana like the only time you're breaking from pure spirituality is you're going to be sitting at you know meals that like that Gentiles might save up for months just to just to be able to throw it Thanksgiving dinner we're gonna be having that we're gonna have four of those meals all of this coming right up from Shabbos so it'll be shop is having two of those meals and then we'll have Sunday to get prepared for Rosh Hashanah and then we're just gonna do it all over again with partying with people we love and eating delicious food and that's like that's no-brainer I think so let's talk about what people are worried about yeah you know what I'll let you guys throw it out what y'all worried about so I can come up with one right away and that's a time in synagogue I don't know I just spell that how do you supposed to synagogue yeah okay very good okay time in synagogue right ain't nobody got time for that you know what else what else bothers us about Russia Shani if you have hearing aids maybe the shofar can cause feedback it's all day except for the meals we break for the meals it's really long but if you're you're lucky if you're anywhere near a nation Torah or a Habad which are user-friendly meaning meaning if you don't know if you don't know jack about how to do this so they all have like classes on this in a side room Asia tour we'll have classes going the whole day on the side about Russian and and you also have nobody user-friendly English in page them in all that and you know I would say I'd say one of my highest moments I'm Russia Shana was actually walking around the Jewish part it was some dude with long blonde hair that was like my mom was my moment where he he says to me he says to me so you're gonna you're like in on this whole Judaism Torah thing and I said yeah I mean I'm going for you know I'm going all the way now I didn't know what I was doing at the time I could barely reach her I didn't know much of Jewish law at all and almost nothing I knew you don't touch girls and that was like the most important law it seems to be a concern and the and then but besides I didn't know much else but this is this guy says to me we're just taking a walk because we couldn't like sit in synagogue anymore he says are you in and I was like I mean I'm like are you ain't there's long blonde hair dude I think that was our Rosh Hashanah that was gonna be like dedicating our hearts to God like on Russia and that was like that was that's what it was really kind of all about was like are we gonna be dedicated like that no normally that should happen in synagogue because it was designed to take place in synagogue they could get that dedicated but the frost happen in the middle of the street so don't over ate it don't over ate the synagogue time could be some powerful conversation that's gonna happen somewhere nearby the synagogue be them one and the both of us today are fully observing he became a doctor cut his hair became a doctor and specially dedicated you it's in Florida at least from South Africa and I became okay what else bothers us about risk showing know what else bothers us I'm gonna problems with honey too much honey what okay so uh excellent I and this goes for people who win the language as well they don't know yeah don't understand and the prayers donor yeah why two days that's also crazy I mean let's say you didn't enjoy the first day thank you we're gonna do this again yeah what's that yeah two days or something and the same thing it's like we're not in this thing me a lot we're not gonna shift it around too much yeah yeah so you got to figure it right right you got you got to figure that out I don't know just idle still sets people up so you have just side down he helps people get meals get on it like now and like start finding out who to talk to and sounds like Jeff Seidel is one of those people and I'm sure there's other people that get set up with as well yeah what bothers you guys know a buzzy of Emerson I think you tell me um kid wrong holiday yeah that's coming later oh yeah the air factor excellent I think this is number one for Mustang there's a fear factor meaning your year is decided by God new years being decided by God I think a lot of people don't like that that your life's balance on that day I think people are have a negative relationship with that well as scared scared it's hard to be looking forward to things were scared sure maybe okay any other issues with Russia no it's kind of from what's your problem man yeah it's low-tech okay Judaism always has these low-tech days bike sir out on Shabbat no bikes kids are surfing's of the problem you can body surf as long as you're having a mix each time you make your make fun then decide you're going to the beach so you can take a wave in and then you can decide you want to go have another mate go and paddle back down have I done that maybe once or twice I mean how many times can you pretend you're going to have another mix left so you're you realize you're just body surfing you know any I think I made it out maybe the third time I realized that this is ridiculous like just be honest you're out here to ride these waves so anyway but there's a problem with carrying the forward a little bit like moving the board outside it because they you don't have an arrow to move stuff era of is a partition that encloses an area that allows you to move things from one place to another and you can't move something one place to another more than like about six feet out set it outside an enclosed space well once you're riding it you're moving enough writing is writing carry your no but you're the one transporting it yeah right you're the one transporting the board's not gonna do without you yeah the main thing is you're transporting it yeah that's moving the issue and yeah surfing is a bit of an issue in Sheba yeah I've never served on shoes I mean since I found out you weren't supposed to anyway what it's a major sacrifice and I feel like God sometimes tries to like make my reward higher by picking the waves up on Shabbat there's been many times I've waited all week for wave and the forecast says only on Shabbat little delays and then I wake up in the morning and look and it's like perfect wave and then Sunday morning comes there's no waves I think God wants me to get my hell on earth that is the definition of health purser breath an observance of course all the observing guys out there sir sorry all the secular secular Jewish people you know can't be bothered with such rules so here I am like doing the right thing and suffering doing the wrong thing and enjoying it which is which is really amazing in general is why I do good things happen to bad people well I just said it before is that uh is that some people get the reward in this world wishes you want a temporary we're already want to each other you know you want to reward that that is a spiritual nature which means beyond time but you want to reward it that's purely temple so I I don't mind getting good stuff in this world but I'd like to the really like the main reward for choices now it also brings up how we know there's a guy I know how how we know there's a job it's because one of the many ways of one of the ways is that is that the all of us have a sense of right and wrong insider built in and we have and we have choices we make some are for the good and somewhere for the bad but it doesn't seem to be any reward or punishment one way or the other you understand it's not like you're gonna like turn off a light on Shabbat and dime don't get killed for that you gonna turn off the light and you're gonna still be alive turn it back on you're still alive that's why you can do like a strobe effect I'm still there and so so well what's going on here because some being put conscience is I guess it's not understood the animals don't have it's certainly not evolutionary in any way epidemics right where it came from yet every human being has conscience where that coming and then I see that there's no there's no direct relationship to you utilizing that which was given I eat the conscience you were giving conscience and there doesn't seem to be any reward or punishment based on that conscience that's so clear I don't see it so we have this mysterious thing called conscience with no consequence to the use of it so the answer is is that there must be the next world so that was more of a proof of the next world that's why you must be a next world it must be you're inside some kind of testing ground system down here because otherwise you realize nothing makes sense why were you given a conscience it's not to listen to it yet the people ignore it don't assume that had paid any price for that so it must be that we're on the other side of some strange board game that the pieces you know go underneath the boards and we're we're like digging some kind of tunnels under there and you only get to see them at the end of the game you only get to see what you did later rage and if you followed that proof of the next world two people three people let's try that again please cuz I really when I took a poll it's like whether I'll ever to say that again okay yeah I saw you were losing vision if you were able to follow that proof of their being in this world no that wasn't analogy I used it again okay so about happy it makes me want to get it saved more clearly and those you raise your hand is it if you ever heard of proof of the next world like that before you like that it's pretty compelling right can't mess with that one too much it's hard to argue that one what's funny about it is on the in the intellectual argument circles you know that like the weird the debates hack but online YouTube at the they they love arguing the believers love argument against the atheist about crunches about the conscience because it's which is not explainable of course the faith is always in trouble trying to explain it's just really hard to explain just doesn't make any sense but they do their best but no one takes it to the next level to discuss the fact that well once you say it's there there's automatically the next world they don't even discuss that once you say there's a conscience you're automatically dealing with the next world because even the Atheist well the the atheist answer usually is that is that you know if they can somehow figure out how evolutionary forces caused the consciousness which let's just say they can pull it off that it did cause a conscience so then then how could it be that that that thing that we evolved for it doesn't matter because nothing ever no consequence you understand how could it be the thing we evolved for doesn't matter you show me one thing in evolution that didn't matter understand things have to matter yet you see people with that conscience don't seem to get rewarded or punished so what what are they talking about you know if the second they say there's an evolutionary source for conscience they're automatically have to say now that there's a next world after we die which is like evolution is are necessary i've never lose a theist materialism they don't believe in that so it's like you understand what a pickle they get themselves in they're in a total pretzel and they can't get out of the discussion of conscience you just can't you can't everyone has it they have it we all have it no matter where you go every human being has it in it are according evolutions our closest you know ancestor would be a primate and they don't have it you know they the chimpanzees have no conscience that's why they're behind cages understand they if you go into a chimpanzees cage yeah you would be you being about a hundred pieces literally they're they're like they're like I don't know what their strength is compared to human strength but it's like yeah it's like five to ten times then maybe a hundred times I forget how many times they know how many times it's like way stronger and and with their with their hands and their grip they actually tear enemies from limb to limb and leave million pieces that's why the behind cages I mean if they're so close to us just let him roam the zoo with us you know they those cute little those cute little chimpanzees would rip you to shreds if they felt you were a threat to their environment in their cage over there and you would be because just people aren't hanging around in there obviously if you raise a baby chimp and domesticate it properly you're gonna be pretty safe because they're they're pretty advanced but no conscious that's definitely no and what is it to raise a chimp that doesn't tear you limb into limp limp limp is that well I've never felt threatened it probably thinks it's a human brain thinks it's just got lower IQ or it doesn't feel chimp like and when an all it's seen as human beings and we've even had cases of vicious animals that have raised humans I think even a wolf a pack of wolves racing and they never felt threatened it was an infant there's no threat I waste your energy Terry okay back to roasters so so first of all time in synagogue is we've got we've got to switch our heads around that while you'll be in synagogue on Rosh Hashanah you're going to be doing intense meditation very intense meditation I raise your hands anyone who's done intense meditation they've done intense meditation like hours and hours of meditation if one's okay so one of you you're gonna love Russia Shannon you like prison you probably like those you like Reza's honor oh it's you're over here the fear factor where your year is decided yet uh-huh well anyway so we're gonna talk about that um what are your problems is is that you're not used to sitting one seat for hours in a commensal you know like listening to someone saying all this Kabbalistic stuff you don't understand you know and repeating in certain places that words you don't understand but if you just go in there even not understanding with a dedication of an entire day's meditation broken up by meals you probably look forward to I mean people like you fly to India and like learn to meditate all like what's the big deal you get to you get to do that here without a flight you don't have to fly anywhere don't feel custon and don't do a bag I don't know yeah you know at that bring extra clothes for a week you know you're just it's just two days and I just what well when you get in there you're gonna do deep breathing you have your eyes closed most of the time and especially when the leaders gonna be praying you're gonna sit with perfect posture preferably on the edge of your seat and so you can take a little weight off your spine by putting your feet firmly on the ground in front of you and you'll be doing deep breathing and focusing on the breaths and on the words and the melodies they could be hearing and your and your your main job I guess I'm Russia Shana is to is to dedicate all of your faculties to God to be the king over them like think about it who's been the king over your eyes this year meaning what you'll look at who's been the king of the eyes you were God you've been a king over your eyes okay so that's one meditation for sure you can do a whole ayah meditation and how about what you'll listen to like for example there's movies that have pretty violent you know kind of curse words very rough speech and there's also music that way and also people will gossip about others and people will let you know all kinds of stuff we hear a lot of stuff so you just hear whatever the hell you want or are your ears dedicated to God what do you say about your ears yours are God's yours okay and then there's your your food intake do you ever stop and think like what would be right for the body temple that houses your soul for her did you just eat whatever it happens to taste good you know like whatever is in the doorway you know doorways your mouth obviously but the actual house that the food hangs out in for 24 hours of the body you know so have you been like overly focus on the doorway you hang around the doorway too much and just eating whatever you want but your body's just kind of becoming a dumpster and and the other thing is Judaism in a serious diet area obviously you can just make sure everything has a kosher certificate else have to careful milking meat even if they're kosher you got it separate those there's a lot involved with it so whose mouth has this bin who's been the king over your mouth you or God then there's your venture there's your speech back to the mouth we don't just eat with this mouth we speak with them and you know we raised your voice and appropriately and these words inappropriately of you you know like that that's also amazing meditation dedicating your your speech to God you can everything speech you see the whole creation like God's saying this and there it is and God saying that and there it is and and you know I love a hi-low and blessed is he was spoken he created the world like speeches is you know what took cast into order there was total cast the Torah says it was total chaos then God starts speaking and order comes into existence and think about your life like how much speed to use to to somehow push out some chaos from yourself you can lotta speech for that create some kind of order in your life use a lot of speech and if you choose not to speak much if I have a lot of gaps we've been taught to articulate yourself in ways that create important just like God which is exactly what God said he's gonna create us in His image and he creates order from speech and we create that's how you're here right now someone asked me to speak and someone spoke to me and asked if I would teach this class which decades and Here I am still all from that one request and I said something to my wife under the hook under a canopy one day here we are one isn't moving we're coming up after so does our 25th anniversary all these kids so how dedicated is your speech I mean you know with speech you can build worlds and the speech you can't destroy them believe me a lot of words were said that caused those Twin Towers of fallen 911 much more speech was said to build it it's easier to take it down but your speech can build greatness and your speech can be a destructive thing but if you if you were to use one of the meditation of dedicating your speech to God your life's going to me like it's nice to know you have one kita for sure have your life get better and better I'm just like it if you like just got better and better how cool would that be you like that better and better when you would y'all like that your life would get better and better so there's a speak positively I think you have a way to create order around houses cast make like better or worse no it's a trick question inside hey kid it was total truth but now chaos is how you make like better but you make it better by first creating a little you know you push out of the Givens and the nones of order take some risks you push out the order of the world into some chaos and then you build that into your new order until you do it again that's how people invest in making money investing more makes more chaos and you turn that into the new water and the same thing in a relationship how many of us introduce Kaos information but aren't we much more bonded after afterwards everything works like that and guy works out his muscles ripping the muscles does that order a cast for the Muslims okay you just ripped it what good was that the answer is that it'll rebuild bigger so it was a lot of good but especially when you're helping me build my suck up which is uh which is gonna be built on Tuesday when are we done with the huh when's the holiday over there Monday night and Tuesday we're in Tuesday night when Wednesday we're in Thursday there is a Sookie building any volunteers didn't want to help build will suck up a lot of schlepping yeah two volunteers think of any other volunteers two guys you're not around oh thank you that's three don't just mean um we live in a neighborhood where the only thing is that you need to either borrow from me or bring like pants it's not a shorts neighbor there's a full Yiddish speaking Fiddler on the Roof scene okay see say I'll keep out I'm gonna have like a stack of old clothes to put on people when they come to build the circuit I get these guys you know it's hot out with that it's a fast day dude and ends with piece of B remember and these guys okay just like take their shirt off so like you know really get into the building and I'm like you put your shirt back on please anyway B by the way I'm counting on you three for Thursday any day yeah I don't think we have classes anyway sick of building surround him I think we started okay what do we do we did the ears we did the mouth we did the eyes smell I brought I've run incense today's I think we better snow it then we're talking about the census there it so this is a sense total godly sense of smell and this is a what I'm burning now is called lavona or frankincense this was one of the main ingredients in the temple there were 11 spices some of which with the biggest ingredients and this was a part of the back through you'll smell it in a sec is that air conditioners gonna think everybody otherwise I would have to walk around the room I love I hate air conditioners but I love them I'm burning incense they really circulate it's not yet you guys smell it already smell yeah it okay so this is used in meditation got it you got it are into me back there yeah it'll come it's gonna come now I shouldn't mention there's no know it's like I hear it still don't snot he's not get fat it's about it'll come around right right yeah yeah I think I think the sorry the game they say the good yeah you're nuts what's an essential part of our rules I think the Christians burn yeah but you got it you gotta like I agree with you by the way nothing everyone's Church but I I sense it's too sweet for Jewish smells but it's actually when the main ingredients which probably why they burn it because Christianity was a take-off on temple Judaism think about it I've got priests we had priests it's got us you know this centralized service we had it centralized in Jerusalem they have it in a church it's got a you know it's got people funky outfits and stuff we had people in funky outfits it had incense I mentioned yeah and it had music you know there's like church music and stuff we had a gigantic band playing over there and so it's like it's it's really just a take-off on temple Judaism and in Islam which showed up like seven hundred years later is it take off on synagogue Judaism non-centralized prayer nope he's got it non-centralized prayer you know you see guys print I know priesthood everyone's a practitioner multiple prayers a day you understand like they're there just to take off on the synagogue Judaism there's a bit of a ripoff you know like in Christians at least you know get to have this like old service going you know Muslims are just kind of like they don't get that have like people funky outfits we're like totally ripped off I don't even know what we have at this point but what what we what we do have is supposed to be really really really really special which let's get back to the special so anyway the last thing is dedicating to God your your your reproductive organs dedicating the God your reproductive organs which is two things mainly it's to not use them until you until marriage and and that's that's for sure dedicating to God your body and that's why the covenants where it is circumcision is there because that's you dedicate that to God what what age is circumcision in Judaism you know it's actually when you have your first sexual thought that's that's the age it's not that old for most people these days but it's getting we're supposed to dedicate that's the covenant with God the eighth day old baby doesn't know what's going on and it's for men in with this covenant you got yeah it's when the blood coagulates this highest in the person's life yeah now anyway but you dedicate all of this to God you make God the king over all your faculties in a meditation so I give one example meditation if you don't understand the prayers obviously using an English prayer books important and to study it before Rosh Hashanah you want to go in having studied it already you get to know its section isn't what and what are the sections born and there's probably someone teaching those I'm happy to teach them to I how many more days we got today is Monday so I can't Tuesday Wednesday Thursday already changed so second maybe I could have such a prayer class the whites two days I'm not gonna discuss that that's very technical and and and if I finished all the technical conversation your answer at the end would be that it should still be one day because the technical reason why it's two days is no longer valid with our current understanding of time you know in the cycle so because at one point it was necessary to do it two days but we don't change it because because when the great people that did it that moved it to two days when the great people moved it to two days that's how these great you know holy holy holy people did it generations and generations like generations of to day Orson later when we found out enough about time that we don't need two days I mean there's no doubt what day it is so we can just do it on one day now that we're in that position the we're not gonna mess with it I'm just not gonna mess with it two days of meditation is apparently good for us so we're gonna do two days of meditation and we're also don't forget you're gonna love it so it's like again back to the surfing analogy it's like they didn't say I got one day of surfing in perfectly all day with just breaks for meals but which took for a surfer two days it's not just two days yep two days straight a perfect condition so we're happy to meditate for two days straight that's a good thing for us okay the fear factor is it's really overrated they what happened was the men of the great assembly of these great leaders that all speak more about tomorrow perhaps they created a prayer book that didn't appear but later they they found that some people just don't get it and so someone wrote a really scary prayer I wouldn't even that longer maybe a thousand years ago or so to us it I know it means a lot to other traditions but it was like a thousand years ago does anyone know when that was when that when the Senate took it got put in there but uh anyway a really scary prayer got in there and the reason that really scary person there is it kind of wakes up people sleeping in the synagogue you know the people are like kind of passed out and they're just suffering so you know how long go in the Sun and token bliss right like a thousand years ago here a little more Oh like 30 minutes anyway it was put in there basically to wake you up and give you a direct relationship to who's gonna live who's gonna die by fire who by water by strangulation like who by sword you know and it doesn't matter who's sleeping in the synagogue at that point you wake up right there and the people who missed the whole day like that's becomes the meaning of their day and it's created this tremendous fear factor but meanwhile the the rabbi's can put that in the center in the prayer but did not they're not the ones who created our russia shannon liturgy the russian literature is created another thousand years plus earlier by these great rabbits we didn't mention anything like that that's not part of the prayers but unfortunately for so many people that that's kind of become the first that fear factor thing but it was later introduced than it had said it has its place i I don't think I've ever gotten through without crying I cry when I read it you know and but it has not usurped the actual literature of the prayer of the beauty of this meditation that we're doing okay we took a break in our meditation to like freak ourselves out the fact that you may like died horrific Allah this year you know like that we're gonna interrupt our meditation and realize we may die horrific leave this year and then we're then we go right back to it by the way it gets like super angelic right after it then we go like turbo angelic because it goes right into kedusha right after that so and the low tech is just the best thing that could have ever happen to any person is to go low-tech for 48 hours sometime everybody have a beautiful date as a pleasure so happy to be back hey we got a thousand subscribers on