Rosh Hashanah in a New Light - Rabbi Yaakov Hillel

we're more or less on the doorstep of of uh very very special time of the year probably the most special time of the year the head of the year rosh hashanah we know that everything depends on beginnings if the if the initial steps are good and the beginnings are powerful everything will follow in step and be successful and good depends where the first step is headed the direction so obviously everyone who came here tonight is making a very correct and proper step forward in the right direction and this means a lot it means we hope that that hashem the whole year will be a year of of moving forward in the right direction and with continuity and with strength and conviction and to grow that's what it's all about there's a lot to be said about rosh hashanah and i'm sure everyone is aware of a lot of that the point i would like to be to bear upon and discuss is the fact that on the first roger shana adama rishon was created adam was created on the first rosh hashanah and that has great significance because man is the sen is the most important and central point of creation the ultimate purpose of creation was the creation of man everything else is there for scenery scenery to make it a nice attractive world we have you know beautiful many countries and seas and rivers and valleys and mountains and trees and forests and animals millions of species birds fish hashem made it a very beautiful world for man to live in but as it says in the torah everything was created for man not only man was the peak of creation but really and this is a very deep concept which would make us feel a lot of responsibility man was given control of of the whole of creation we can develop and build the world and the physical world and the highest spiritual worlds or we can destroy them our actions are so powerful it's like we have what we call how you say in english remote control we have the buttons to press and to what extent do we press these buttons that we can cause anything that happens in the world for good or for bad which puts a very heavy responsibility on us to do the right things we all wish well to every jew but we know they're jews suffering and many of the jews who are suffering we don't even know them they could be living at the far corners of the world but we're connected as the rabbi say is israel are responsible for one another the biggest mistake of uh of uh of kind in heaven kane's mistake when he killed his brother and hashem asked them where's your brother he said i'm responsible for him so that's the biggest mistake when a person doesn't realize yes we are responsible what happens to any jew in the four corners of the world it could be that we could have been uh the cause of his suffering or the cause of his success just to make it a little more practically understood says one should always regard the world in the in the scales balance scales and the scales are equal to the right which is good and to the left which is not good they're balanced if a person there's one good deed he tilts the right side of the scales and he brings blessing and success and happiness to all the jewish people some people need to find their spouses others need to be successful in like earning a living others need have health issues they need to have cures and and all sorts of things everyone has needs if we tilt the scales in the right way it'll be a very successful year for all of our israel but if god forbid a one person one jew doing one sin when the scales are balanced he tits them the other way and then what's going to happen it'll be very negative for every jewish person so we have to realize this responsibility man has freedom of choice he is the only created being who is given freedom of choice even angels don't have freedom of choice that's why the pasuk says the verse says concerning man. i've given you ways to ascend or to go down among these static beings angels are static beings they can't go up on their own they can't go down on their own their functioning their functioning depends on us we give them the power to ascend or come down as it's as it says concerning yakuba vino akova vino had a dream he fell asleep on the temple mount on the place which eventually would be the holy of holies upon the rock of uh which was the the starting point of the of creation he fell asleep and hashem showed him a dream a vision he saw a ladder going up the ladder his feet were on the ground but the head of the ladder went up and up and up and he saw angels ascending on the ladder and coming down on the ladder so what is this ladder the answer the the answer is this ladder is the jewish soul true physically man was created from the dust of the earth hashem collected earth mixed some water with it and made like a clay and made it into a form of a human being and it was a chunk of mud with with the form human form but then it says hashem blew into his nostrils the spirit of life and this spirit of life is in essence what we call the jewish soul so through hashems blowing into this chunk of mud with the human form the spirit of life man was given it's almost forbidden to say excuse me that i'm saying it a divine soul as a rabbi say manden says it man when you blow you blow from within yourself so if hashem blew where did he blow from from within himself and his essence is divinity his ultimate spiritual being being with no limitations of power space or time and he blew in from his spirit the spirit of life into man and man came alive so now man has literally two extremes on one hand he's physical from the dust of the earth on the other hand he's spiritual his his soul is a spark of divinity obviously his spiritual side wants to soar upwards and cleave to hashem and the physical side comes from the dust of the earth wants to enjoy life physically there's a lot to do we have beautiful beaches and sun you can you know swim in the sea and and lie on the bui the beach and get suntan and enjoy all the comforts of life have uh all sorts of pleasant relationships and enjoy the physical life but when that happens really you're giving vent to all your physical necessity necessities more or less like hippopotamus or an alligator they also love the water they jump in they plunge into the water they wag their tails then they come onto the dry land and they lay over backwards or frontwards and enjoy the sand eh you know you pat a horse is is an ecstasy wow a dog same thing so people enjoy what's physical physically we enjoy what's physical but then there's nothing to differentiate between a human being and any other created animal and of course man was created with two very very very highly developed entities number one a human brain all the animals cannot communicate yeah if there's a fire and uh so if they probably have some sort of a shout a bark which warns and they run they can that type of thing or if they're hungry they can make sounds which people know oh he's hungry things like that okay but to communicate you're never going to see a dog giving a shiur you know a lecture in university and telling all the other dogs about some very highly developed scientific equations maybe einstein's theory of relativity or some great mathematical or physical or in physics or in scientific theory no they have no way of communicating ideas man has a brain and the power of speech and communicate ideas can communicate ideas that's why our rabbis tell us that there are four levels of creation domain domain ah rocks earth anything which has which doesn't even move it's static completely static it's like a rock the rock on its own can't jump can't run can't do anything it doesn't even grow but it is it is okay that's domain it's like a dead chunk of of stone or whatever somehow plants can grow they have a high level where they can grow you plant the seeds and slowly it sprouts it'll become you know a bush then it'll go into a tree then it'll yield fruit it can grow so that's called some it grows then you have animals which are called high domains they are living entities and plants are not living in essence they grow but they don't live whereas any animal in birds okay i mean maybe you know how to can you talk to can you discuss with a dog sign a sign excuse me then you're also you're talking like a 2k i don't insult him let me explain why i'll explain why because the tuki yeah he doesn't know what you're saying when you tell him boo and he'll say boom he doesn't know what boo means he doesn't know anything what it means he has the power to repeat what you say and you're right there people in this world who go around like two keys boo whatever you know they hear someone say this they say that that's not called conversation where speaking mida bear means the power i said it from the beginning the power to discuss to develop an idea and to say it over that's only man has so many is called a mida bear it's not just like any other animal which lives he has the power of speech and this puts him on the highest plane that he has intellect and speech communication that means he can understand things and he can communicate them and say them over so that so obviously man even if we're not going to speak now anything deeper kabbalistic or anything like that just on a very physical plane simple domains we understand that man is on a much higher level than anything else created so it certainly is not appropriate that a human being who has this this power of understanding and communication will then will live the life of an animal true the physical side he's equal to an animal but already mentally and with the power of speech is on a different plane now all this is even if we didn't have the spiritual soul which hashem blew into us the moment hashem gave us spirituality and and gave us the opportunity to link ourselves to spirituality and unto god so again we're on a much much much much higher level now we're not just you know uh someone who has a brain and can invent things and create cures or scientific inventions high tech and also communicate them and teach them now it's something on a different level you can you can you can be spiritual you can make spiritual connections you can use spirituality to come closer to hashem but spirituality has to be developed like anything else if you want to be a scientist or a doctor or whatever you want to be it's not that you're just going to sit back and lie on the beach and you're going to be a great professor of course not you have to work and study if you want to have a connection to spirituality you have to work on spirituality but there's a problem half of us is physical and we are our first tendency is towards physicality the biggest professor and the biggest rabbi if he's hungry it's over his mind is on he's hungry he wants something to eat so he doesn't function so he has the potential but he has to be physically comfortable if he's sick forget about it he can't function because physically he's not well so we have to have our physical side in tune healthy strong and then to know that the spiritual side of us is the real important side that's the highest that's that's our highest level it's like someone who has you know he owns many things he's got properties he's got businesses lots of money in the bank okay but he has a crown jewel which was in the crown of some of the great monarchs of the world and he bought it and this jewel is priceless you can't buy it with money and no one in the world has such a crown jewel so that's our soul that's above and beyond anything else we have we have many assets but our soul is the main asset but if we unfortunately many people live only the physical life they go through life just thinking you know they want to dress nicely because that clothes are physical because it covers their body they want to they want to look good they want to eat good and enjoy eating a there's an art of eating also they want to eat well in the nice places with beautiful surroundings everything go for holidays to the riviera to wherever nice beautiful places in the world but what about denisham what about the soul which is the our main essence is our soul what are we doing for the soul i mean could we imagine someone taking care of you know let's say like today we're in a situation where they have all these refugees leaving the arab countries and going to europe and all over the world so let's say someone decides he wants to help the refugees but his own children and his wife are neglected they're living like they're starving to death he doesn't take care of them that's wrong i mean everyone agrees charity begins at home first be charitable in your home be kind to your wife and and children then take it further of course you have to take it further but you don't start internationally and your home is neglected the same thing here if people are taking care of their physical side and not thinking of their spiritual side which is their main essence really what life is about is our spirituality also growing the physical life even if you go to a shape or to a is it to a motorcycle you can get the the life of the creator in the in the motorcycle you get the light of the okay i agree with you i agree with you but you have to be i agree with you hashem is everywhere you're right but you have to train yourself to get to that level when you think of spirituality if you live a physical life and a life of sin and indulgement and say oh everything is spiritual you know i have a muslim girlfriend unbelievable when i'm with her i feel i'm with with hashem i'm with god you know your imagination can let you astray to think wow you know i'm so spiritual the truth is our friend who's asking this question is an israeli and with no offense meant there's uh a big problem for for our for israelis i have this big question to ask so many young israelis after the army go to the far east trekking the far east there are places in tibet in china where they have say it says grocery it says this in tamil and it says it in hebrew it doesn't say it in english it doesn't say it in french it doesn't say it in latin it doesn't say it in any language hebrew why because the the quantity of israelis trekking the far east is unbelievable when the tsunami happened 10 years ago the there was a lot of talk about the numbers they were worrying we don't know the first day the second day we don't know how many people maybe people lost their lives so they they said very clearly there's between very vague but between 300 000 to 400 israelis roaming the far east and all the different countries i ask a question why don't you find you know if we have 300 000 israelis continuously roaming the far east why don't we find a thousand englishmen or 500 frenchmen no who would roam the far east there isn't there isn't what happened the soul of a jew is spiritual when jews like what happened here they were uprooted from spirituality and they were taught a very very secular way of life they were cut off from their jewish roots now inside they're suffering they're thirsty they're lacking so so someone's going to tell them yeah but judaism is all about spirituality okay let me see it so they go to uh say yeshiva what is what's happening here there's a question and answer discussion and argument and it's all very dry no we want the real thing we want spirituality so they go to the far east and you have pop spirituality like today in hollywood you have pop kabala so also you can have gurus i know some people have been there and been through the whole system and got all the way to the top and believed in it but then found out it's all fake it's all fake or it's as the zoa says if you want to connect to the to the occult to the forces of impurity the forces of magic black magic it's very easy with the clip of the finger you're there so people go to the far east they meet the guru they're zooming yeah they see they see the spirits they see everything you know okay then sometimes they come back to israel and they okay i want to see yeshiva they get very uh very uh they lose all the inspiration they're not inspired what's their question answer argument what's going on here they don't see the spirituality but the zora says true spirituality you have to work for pop spirituality is therefore the taking just the opposite if it comes easy you know it's faith if you have to work for it then you know it's the real thing you know you can have today uh custom jewelry you buy your wife a diamond necklace diamond like an inverted commerce uh unbelievable the queen of england doesn't have such but it's custom juliet bits of glass nothing but together the real thing a real diamond jewelry even one diamond which is worth a lot it's different level altogether so we have to know there's a lot of the fake and little of the true we have to look for the truth and looking for the truth is not easy so let's come to the you know to the point we have freedom of choice every every step in life is a decision which is really a crossroads to the right or to the left you know to the keeper or to the bare head to the good on the back so people don't realize it that it's a it's a crossroads sometimes you think oh it's a very small decision you know but they don't realize they're the repercussions and and what's going what could happen from such a decision anyone who wants to be connected and they come to this you know this community and are connected to the rabbis so that is a positive statement you're connected to good and this will bring lots of good and even if you have other connections slowly the trend will be towards goodness and spirituality and if you get to a very high spiritual level after maybe maybe 30 years of learning kabbalah and and serving hashem with all the mid-sport and working on your character traits which is the most important thing the torah makes demands of us to have good character traits to be accommodating to be kind to be charitable to feel for others to take others into consideration that's all what the torah is about the vilna gowan once said if not to perfect my personality and my character trace why am i in the world it's not here we're not here to put on the best the most expensive pair of trillian oh wonderful shining succeed that's not that's what it's about after all of that did you change the human being did you become correct in your behavior traits so here we are on the doorstep of rosh hashanah the significance of rosh hashanah is the shofar everyone knows what's rosh hashanah we blow the shofar what does this signify it's a loud wailing voice but it's a voice of crying their soul is awakened and they start thinking rosh hashanah i have to improve i have to do something in the right direction so that's the simple meaning of what the shofar is about but if we try to look into it a little more we'll see that the shofar is a is a hollow horn of uh let's say cow it's hollow a ram it's something you know a hell it's a shell it's a shell hollow shell that's what's left of it when you take out the inside what you left you have a shell which is the sofa and how do you make the shofar cry you blew into it what significance is there in our blowing into the shofar the significance is on this day hashem created man and he blew into him the spirit of life man is like the shell he's hollow he's nothing on his own you put the shofar on the table it doesn't it doesn't make any noise and it won't wake anybody up you can carry on sleeping it doesn't change anything in anyone blew into it from within yourself from your jewish soul which is within you which is divine and it will start crying and this is the whole idea of rosh hashanah to become aware of what we are hashem created us and blew into us the spirit of life and made us a living a spiritual being who can do great things who has control over the world you know what i see there miku bulimia we have control over hashem as well hashem created the world in such a way that he put us in the driving seat he gave us the steering wheel the brakes the clutch and the accelerator and hashem is there with us we're taking them along for a drive god forbid we have an accident it's not so nice we have hashem with us we're in control hashem will relate to us how we relate to him we are the ones who open up the divine channels hashem wants to give us unendingly with no limitations but to be able to receive unendingly so we have to do the right things which which cause this divine bounty to come down in gigantic quantities of spirituality so we run the world hashem is created in that way for good for bad if we sin we literally it says someone who sins pushes the way divine the divine presence because hashem says a proud person i can't live in the same world as him i move away he needs all the room he needs everything and even fco he fills up the world no room for hashem we have to live humble lives know our limitations and use our spirituality to connect to hashem and that's the message of rosh hashanah when you hear the shofar remember from where is this wailing sound coming from your soul which is going into it with your breath just like when hashem brew into adam rishon the jewish soul has many levels the zohar says five levels and they resp they correspond to how we do a mitzvah among them we have the actual physical doing of the mitzvah which is nephesh we learned the halakhord and we say the pasuk when we blow the shofar we read that's already the boo that's the we connect the speech and the torah to our mitzvah then kavanagh you have to have intention when you do a mitzvah that you're fulfilling the mitzvah to fulfill your obligation that's kavanagh then makshava you have to think about the mizvah while you're doing it if you know the reasons behind the mitzvah think about them think about what the mitzvah is achieving mitzvahs are not just dry actions they achieve something they do great things in the world that's makshava and finally the highest level is the highest level of the jewish soul which is happiness we're meant to do we're meant to serve hashem with happiness and all this is going into the when we when the tokya blows the shofar and you hear this crying sound we have to remember hashem is reminding us today i created man i made him a being who has freedom of choice he can go after spirituality and be connected to god and achieve wonderful things in the world or you can go after physicality and and live a life like you know like we said like a hippopotamus or an alligator and enjoy life so we have that option but as human beings and as jews who have this nishmati israel which is divine we have to make the right decision and follow in the ways of spirituality that's the message of rosh hashanah how do we improve we start living more spiritual lives we we neglect a little bit physical comforts and you know all sorts of uh tendencies that human beings have to be very very very very physical and we live lives of spirituality but i must say and this is very important our religion is different from all other religions many other religions there is no way to to combine the physical with the spiritual so let's say priests they have to be selling what's it called sellable they can't marry nuns sellable can't marry forget about the fahees the sadhus the gurus they they don't they don't eat they don't you know they don't get married they all why because their way of thinking is you can't be at once physical and spiritual you want to be spiritual cut out physicality from your life but the jewish religion is just the opposite the torah teaches us to sanctify the physical to make your body holy by putting anti-feline unset seed and having a keeper on your head you make your when you do mitzvoth with your body you're making you're sanctifying your body we have 248 positive commandments corresponding to 248 limbs in the jew in the body we have 365 negative commandments corresponding to 365 sinews of the body every mitzvah that we do positive or negative brings perfection to one of our limbs and that's why when we say abraham before who has sanctified us and made us holy through the mitzvot every mitzvah we do brings holiness into one of our limbs one of our sinews as we do it so this is what it means our our lives are spiritual but everything is connected to physicality jews must get married there are many singles here we're going to give you alabraka this year eating on shabbat is a mitzvah even on a weekday whatever you need you should eat but on shabbat it's even to the extent that the rabbis say you should eat more than you need enjoy it because functioning as a husband as a wife a couple are meant to be happy together make each other happy fulfill the wishes and desires of one another we encourage that that's how it's meant to be but the ultimate purpose is not just to take for my fulfillment and my enjoyment the ultimate purpose is giving and beyond that to realize that we're creating the image of god and everything we do is holy and it's holy spiritually and physically so our work and in life is to connect the spirituality and then and then to sanctify the physical world that's why we know eric israel you're here you met living here it's a holy land because it has spirituality a relationship of a husband and wife marriage is spiritual more than it's physical people have to know that they're not marrying a chunk of flesh they're marrying a spiritual being with a soul which which wants to attain perfection through marriage marriage puts teams together a soul which was once together in the higher worlds the zwar says when they come down they split and they come down when they meet their soul mates they're uniting a soul and they're achieving perfection so of course we are we are spiritual we are physical and we have to serve hashem with our bodies as well doing the right thing but always giving preference to our spiritual side and not neglecting it as most people do unfortunately we have to make put their accent on the right thing to know yes we're physical we're here to have a lovely time in this world and we should be happy in every way but the main thing is our connection with god and this is the concept of rosh hashanah when we hear the wales of the shofar to do we should feel that these that with the voice with the air the breath of the one blowing the sofa hashem's breath is coming into the whole of creation and filling up the whole world with spirituality for the new year we're getting a rejuvenation we're getting our batteries retoned and regenerated with spirituality which hashem is bringing into the world especially on rosh hashanah for us to enjoy and to link up to and live our lives as jews and i want to give you all a blessing everybody and without hashem if you all want to be in touch in the future we have here our very special rabbis you can tell them and if they if they want from time to time we'll find the opportunities and come and maybe speak more specifically maybe we can answer questions and whatever we'll try our best to to be part of the community here and to help people get closer to good wishes and tidings are understood in all languages