Shaarei Teshuva Into 1:1 with Rabbi Aaron Dovid Poston

[Music] shalom alaikum everyone we are starting a brand new series it's called the shahree truvats based on the safer now if you don't have the safer i recommend getting it it's not the only one that's out it's not the only print or edition there's also a newer feldheym edition this is the older feldheym edition and i'm going to give a brief introduction i was asked to introduce myself i i don't do very well doing this but who i am i'm a rabbi living in you shalom for the last 30 plus years i spent a significant amount of torah uh amount of time learning torah at a little yeshiva in the old city called asia torah and i had the privilege of learning with who is now presently the rosh shiva and broke hashem i know a lot of the outreach professionals and uh look this is uh this is who i am or what i do i'm originally from a city uh outside of new york called philadelphia and like i mentioned i've been here uh for many years i have five children born in israel and i'm giving a big wave to them because if they're not watching now this will be recorded for those who want to watch it later i also invite you if you want to join in the live zoom class i'm going to put in the description box below in on the youtube description box my what's app number so you can send me a message and then i will give you more information of how you can join up with us so we meet israel time 7 pm on sundays but there's another group that will be listening on wednesdays so you can join either group or you could uh just watch us on youtube anytime you want okay so let's get started i wanted to mention about this um the safer itself right this is we call robino yona robino yona was one of the greats i don't even want to go into so much of his biography but he is one of the top-notch sages that ever existed okay we're talking about the 1200s right he died around the year 1260 something like that and he came immediately after the generation of the rambam the rambam maimonides had written his great magna opus called the mishnah torah and there was a lot of criticism okay there was a lot of criticism part of it was because he didn't actually put notes he didn't put footnotes he didn't tell you the macaron the sources and there was criticism i'm not going to go into it but robino yona was one of those who were arch i i'm not going to say arch enemy god forbid but we're talking about um i'll tell you how great the ravino yoda was his daughter married the ramban not the rambam minorities but nakhmanid's son so we're talking about the following generation after the rambam and he was one of the greatest now he came out many other great sages came out against the rambam shita and they even burned his books yeah can you believe it there was such fierce opposition and uh the truth be told there was a turning point in rebecca yona's life where at the same time similar i think it was two decades later it wasn't that much longer after the burning of the rambam's book books that the the non-jews in france burned 24 truckloads of talmud back then was all manuscripts they didn't have the printing press like we have today so this was a great loss to the jewish people and roberto yoda had an epiphany he really understood this was a message from heaven that he took the wrong side in this fight and he spent the rest of his days defending the rambam okay not just defending the realm but uh promoting the the the concept of what the the rambam had accomplished in his life and he wrote this treatise on truva on repentance and we know he was sincere and therefore based on the fact that he was honest right about his mistake mistakes and uh he was i told you he was a own he was one of the greatest geniuses that ever lived especially at that time this is a book that's used throughout the ages every mooser seder and any yeshiva is learning it every balabat every balabayet has this safer and for the women who are part of this group by the way i should have mentioned this is a women's group but it doesn't mean men can't listen but only women can join and that their husband should have this book in their library okay make sure to have make when you choose your husband make sure he has not just the book but that he opens it and he reads it more than once more than once a year okay so without any further ado i want to get into a little bit about truva chua means the gates of repentance we all know there are basically four main principles when we talk about truva three are well known and that would be like this you have to have kharata means a sense of regret for what was done you have to have like a moral compass to know that it was wrong and to have a simple sense of regret the next thing is called a ziva tahet which means you you've already stopped you have ceased and desisted you are no longer continuing in the same path we call that forsaking the sin and then vidoy which is confession now we're not talking about god forbid in these other religions where you go to a priest uh some father some kumar whatever they call these these people we're talking about your you open your heart to hashem and you cry out to hashem and you confess your sin to god there's a fourth level that is called how do you know that you actually did chuva when you are in the same situation the same circumstances the same desires and you didn't do that mistake that sin then you know that you have accomplished the level of chuva that is required of you now even though we just simply said there are three or four steps the robino yona breaks it down into even like little better bitter little bite size he breaks it down into 20 steps now that may sound like well it's a lot but trust me when you want to do truva you want to do it right okay and you want to do a mahadrin we're talking about well the whole point of life okay now that sounds like uh i'm over reaching and i'm exaggerating i am not in fact shabbos shabbos is the central point of the jewish people and the root of shabbos is to return and we will be returning back to who we truly are and so basically that's what shabbos represents we get a taste of that in this world hopefully we accomplish everything we need to accomplish in this world before we go to the next world and the idea that the world was created in six days and then there's chavez is to remind us that this world is where the work is during we work for six days and at the end of the six days we then go and enter into a eternal shabbos when i say six days i'm talking about the six thousand year cycle right each one of the six days of creation is representing a thousand years in our what we call our calendar our um the blueprint of creation is up until the year six thousand and then we have an eternal shabbos and so therefore to remind us this world that we're in is the world of working the working the god put adam into the garden was to work the garden it wasn't to be a gardener it was to work on your character okay and we're going to see all this as we proceed so the the romano yona begins with this gr this great idea that what that the greatest gift god gave us was an instruction manual rav noah weinberg roshi vaishathara he called the torah the instruction manual he didn't just create us and leave us like some other religions or philosophies greek philosophy uh espouses but rather min the greatest gift that hashem bestowed upon his creation is he prepared for them a path unbelievable there's so many people that are sleeping that are in a deep slumber that are living in this world and have no idea what the world is about and hashem i guess i started to begin with the ideas of shabbos right is to return to who we truly are so he prepared for us a derek a way in order to what to get ourselves out la a lot to raise ourselves up meepok to raise ourselves up from the pit sorry it's a trash can to raise ourselves up from the trash can of our actions right how many mistakes have we made just today hopefully none how many mistakes have we made in this last week hopefully none but if we're honest with ourselves we'll see maybe some small ones maybe some medium-sized ones and i'm not just talking about you know eating trace god forbid or you know um uh doing one of the major sins i'm even talking about the small sins in character right where you might have said the wrong thing rubbed somebody the wrong way embarrass somebody even so slightly the you know we're all diking right so so we we make mistakes we have to be honest with ourselves but he's calling it to raise ourselves up from that he calls it a pit here but like the dustpan of our actions p shanghaim and to flee to run away so to speak to escape from the pach again meepak a pakistan of our sins of our misdeeds and to be held back god forbid right actually here and to escape from the trap in which i'm sorry in order to save our souls from destruction the word lakshak means to prevent or to be saved nafsham our souls types of destruction we're the ones that cause our own destruction i don't know if you realize that i mean that's why it's so important to understand how important truva can be because we're the ones the causes caused the downfall it's it's we'll talk about this also god did create within us what we call the yetzer hara the evil inclination and without the inclination we would never sin it's true we're going to we're going to discuss this why did god give us this inclination to do negative things not to be perfect this is a whole concept in itself we have to discuss it okay so but basically he's allowing us to be saved from our own cells so to speak and to return and to what to return god's anger from upon us okay so i have a couple ideas i wanted to share at this point and there's a there's a there's i'm sure you're familiar maybe you're not there's a gemara that asks the question who is greater about shuva or at sadiq and it's not so simple because the gemura discusses it and it doesn't really come out with a clear answer although we walk around claiming we know the answer and the answer is what the answer is that it's i'm sorry what i'm seeing if anybody's paying attention that a sadiq cannot even stand in the place of about true that means that the baal shuv is greater it's not so simple um if you go isaiah 57 19 it says like this in the english and then i'll tell you the hebrew i create speech of the lips peace peace for the far and near this says hashem and i will heal him listen to the words in hebrew neve i create the movement of lips shalom shalom peace peace to those who are rochok for the karov and those who are near so there's one tana in the mission in the gemara that says the word those who are far are closer to the word shalom shalom is a name for god so obviously those who were far that's the balchuva they were far originally from god and now they're as opposed to those who are close they're further away from the name shalom so according to the opinion it's the balchuva that is greater because the karov the word i'm sorry the word rahul far is closer to the word shalom however there's another opinion that says no that sadiq is greater because when it says ok it's not talking about someone who's far in sin it's talking about someone who's far away from sin and therefore who's far away from sin that sadiq so it sounds like for most of them before you that we do possibly in the end that the the real the real person who's higher higher my drag is the bout true so understand because we're going to see that hashem once he created this whole idea of trueva before he even created the world so this is part and parcel with creation he desires the the balchuva he wants people he created within us the yates and ara it's true but he wants us and we'll have to discuss this whole idea why did he create the gates and maybe we should discuss it now if we were given everything on a silver platter and we didn't have to work for anything how valuable would the reward we would receive would be we wouldn't have a real sense of value okay but when you have to work for something so then you have and you sense the value i mean this is a very fundamental principle in judaism i think there are other religions that don't really get it and that's okay i mean we're here to teach them okay that and it's i'm not talking about the protestants they have this like work ethic okay that's a little bit extreme um but it's called um it's basically in english called the bread of shame if you're handed bread without working for it so then it's you're ashamed you're just receiving and you're not really working for you're not giving any any part of your own blood sweat and tears towards earning it but when you and i'm using the word blood sweat and tears it doesn't have to be that hard but let's use the word effort when you make the effort and the truth is when when you're working on your character trait really and sincerely doing something like that there is an effort that you have maybe it is blood sweat and tears and in the end you will feel so much greater you you'll feel the accomplishment of breaking a bad character trait you'll have immense pleasure this is what we're talking about this is why we're here to have this pleasure of closeness with god because these are the things that separate us from god okay so just keeping that in mind let's go forward where he's now says the lim dam so they were taught this hero and they were warned or encouraged to return to god when they sin against him larov tuvo the yoshiro so this basically means that god did so because of his let me just find we're at abundant to the abundant kindness and his uprightness from he knows more than anybody else he created the inclination right and you know it's so easy we could have just turned around to hashem and said how can you give us any punishment you have to have mercy on us you're the one that created us with this inclination so i want to read something for you just to get an idea this inclination came to us while we were where well listen to this when we were in our mother's womb we had both mostly the um we're going to talk about the actual good inclination left us when we were born and returns to us when we are bar or bat mitzvah so woman matures much faster than men which you already know right that's so obvious and not just physically we're talking about emotionally and um mentally and whatnot and but the the tar tells us in genesis 8 21 the inclination of man's heart is evil from his youth that means one once he's born he's only left with his evil inclination it's all selfish me me me very childish but once you turn bar or bot mitzvah that's when your positive the positive inclination joins up with you now let me ask you something no matter how old you are i'm not going to ask you how old you are you never ask a woman how old they are but no matter how let's say you're 50 years old that means you're within you you have an evil inclination that is 13 or 12 years older then you're positive you're you're you're good inclination so you always have like this older brother who knows better right he knows better she knows better well guess what we're going to have to discuss why don't we try to get rid of this inclination altogether we're commanded to try to overcome it okay to kovesh to subdue but not to destroy it because without the evil inclination we wouldn't be able to um not just persist and be persistent but we'll talk about some of the things that that the evil inclination actually helps us do in life i'll give you an example uh you wouldn't try to have children right for men anyway um you wouldn't try to gain admiration of others you wouldn't try to have more money or more possessions right you wouldn't be interested in the other in the other gender and trying to be competitive to win prizes to exercise power a lot of a lot of the inclination even though it's we call it negative it's an evil inclination without it in fact the rabbis even prayed they in back in the time of the ancient conestoga they actually prayed that we should not have the inclination for idol worship and it was removed at the same time they asked hashem to remove the evil inclination for sexual improprieties and guess what happened even the chickens stopped laying eggs it was a it was a disaster and they asked for it back so their this evil inclination is what is really driving us to be able to grow and i don't want to you know talking to women here okay so this there's a certain idea a woman and it's really you have to think about it in both ways but the woman is is stronger in the sense because god says i'm gonna give you your right to the man and azer connecto the azer part you would translate as a help mate okay so the the spouse is to act as a help mate but then there's a second hebrew word connecto connecto means opposite you what does that mean a helmet opposite you god forbid we're not talking about the the spouse being the satan and the evil inclination but without the friction there's no growth you know i tell my students the male students that i have you're going to wake up in the morning when you're single and you're going to look in the mirror and you think you're god's gift to the world and you're perfect and you go out there and you're really not perfect but you're not going to work on yourself because you don't have your azer connect though the one who is waking up with you and seeing all your warts and your you know your blemishes and your your mistakes and being honest with you right people on the street broke hashem okay sometimes they don't have to be right so honest with you but the wife especially you know she she's going to be honest and hopefully the husband also in a slightly different way will also be honest and not hurt anybody's feeling at the same time so it's so important to be able to um to be able to see these things otherwise we wouldn't stand the chance of improving so the the evil inclination is actually serving us in order to improve ourselves meaning into um to to gain the reward because god only wants to bestow the greatest reward so that left that the that bread of shame we wouldn't really even be receiving the greatest reward if it was just given to us without the inclination to work to to have us being work on our character this is the way god created us he wants us to work the garden okay there is this idea of chuva is to return not just to get rid of the sin but to actually get regain our innocence so think about it for a second when we left egypt we were 50 let's say 49 levels below zero right we were minus we were dirty we were involved in idle worship okay we were lowly but it was minus fifth minus 49 let's say minus 49 levels of tumor now 50 days later we're at sinai receiving the torah right we should be at zero right we count through the sphere at the omer and we're supposed to be working on our character during these 49 50 days and by the time we get there we should be clean it doesn't work like that hashem actually brought us to the 50th level of purity we weren't at zero so this is an idea we're going to be talking about because what god is going to do for us and what he wants to do is to bring us to a level that we would not be able to even get to on our own doing chuva is something we actually need help from god to do and to become not just clean but beyond clean back to the original pristine state we were before the sin while we were in the garden of eden so this is you can imagine how important this class should be because the shari chuva is going to teach us and give us the pathway to get to the highest levels of closeness with hashem to remove those obstacles that are in the way so we just said this last piece that hashem taught us and he urges his creations to return to him when they sin against him and he did so out of his abundant goodness and uprightness because he knows their inclination to sin and he knows they need the help to repent as it says if you open up psalms to him 25 8 it says told the yashar hashem god is good god is toth god is yashar therefore al cain yo what's the word yo red yo re is like the word torah it's instructions he directed he guides the sinners badarich on the way so he actually encourages us he'll send us signs there's an idea of prophecy right what is prophecy prophecy we don't have the level today we used to have excuse me the role of the prophet is not to predict the future that's not his goal that is not his role what he's there to do is to guide the people back to the true path okay so he gives rebuke now just keep in mind when we talk about the tanakh many people are not aware of this maybe they are but it was new to me when i i'm about trevor so i didn't realize this but the first five books that's the instruction manual right once you get to joshua on till the end of chronicles this is what we call the nach part this is all part of the prophecy so it's not just history it is it is the oral torah it's actually the orator already there's nothing new there's nothing new in the nach part in the naveem in the that hasn't already been told to the jewish people in the first five books or in the desert worldly so in other words when they come and rebuke the people which is their job rebuke is to remind you of the true path that's why there's nothing new that's why these other religions also have it quite wrong i don't know what they mean by new testament or whatever but there's nothing new this was given to god in front of three million people okay this was handed directly to the jewish people who were the gods witnesses and we're going to talk about that tonight also bizarre hashem but the rest of the nach whenever we read something that's like wow that already was known to the israelites in the desert so there's nothing new this is a big to me it was a big because you read things you say well i don't see it in the words but guess what it has to be there the principle whatever the prophets are going to talk about it's in the torah itself somewhere so king david even though he's in the two of him he's not in the navy he he had prophecy but his writings he wrote this is in the it's in the the ketuving part that's what the torah is the torah is to guide mankind even in the shemona estrella right we pray three times a day and we say herod said we're actually saying god wants repentance god wants repentance he wants it that's his desire and you know that god doesn't change god is and was and always is and always will be he doesn't change so this from the very beginning now we understand when it says why god created true he actually created the whole mechanism for truth even before he created the world so this is what one of his greatest desires not only that he made it available to the worst of the sinners the lipsawa the limb road even if someone had abundant amount of sins and rebelliousness within him and now this word this is a phrase from isaiah chapter 24 16. it uses the word boged six times he quotes part of the verse which uses it three times and he says meaning even if you were absolutely treacherous because the word boged is a traitor but i want you to look at that verse a second it's it's it uses that verb that word boged it's isaiah 24 16. this is what hashem he he he'll we anybody can do children someone who is so treacherous is that a word treacherous like traitorous traitorous uh here we are 24 16. you have to look at the hebrew but we'll start with the english it is 24-16 it's it's a long verse but it's towards the end from the edge of the earth we have heard songs glory for the righteous but i say my lot is to waste away my lot is to waste away what was to me the treacherous have dealt with treachery with the treachery of the treacherous have they dealt treacherously but in hebrew it really gives you this idea that even the worst sinner can become righteous here we are just the last part of the verse sorry it's five times the word beggar is used beggad is a cl is a clothing how can the word treacherous or traitorous be the same word for clothing that we all wear so i'm not going to go into it in depth but in kabbalistically speaking the clothes are a camouflage it can act as a camouflage or it can act to beautify in a glorious way we see it by the kohen gadol his bagadin are the tetheris or actually even uh joseph joseph had this coat of many colors and it was used in a i'll use the word treacherous way but there was something um not mature about the way he used it okay and in the end there was something extremely mature of the beggar that he threw down and ran out of the house of potiphar mrs potiphar's house so the same thing of the clothing can either be used for for good bezerat hashem or for bad even when adam and eve realized in genesis 3 chapter 7 that they were naked this was before the sin and then they realized they were naked so they were clothing that was made for themselves right there was clothing made so question what are we going to do with the clothing that we have with the image that we present so this is going to be very deep i just wanted i thought that was very interesting to mention about the word boged and beggard and we can talk about it a lot more later but the the the point here is that even people who have rebelled greatly lim road right there's and they were bogeyed there's no problem that the doors of repentance are not closed right they're not slammed shut god forbid and god still encourages even those people we're talking about ourselves who have been treacherous the verse in isaiah chapter 31 verse 6 return to the one whom you have profoundly turned away from amik right deep who you have really turned away from um okay also in jeremiah chapter 3 verse you're still called god's sons god's children show the name of those who are really wild that he translates rebellious sons because i will heal heal i'm going to heal you from your rebelliousness there's hope okay i just want to mention rabbi kessen who is when he comes to eric cichelle he speaks for our organization eubank you can find many of his um videos on our you given a youtube channel or you can go directly to his channel which is called torahthinking.com there is a concept that he expresses through the ramkhal's words that god created a system the system was mitzvos he wants to have that intimate relationship in fact the word mitzvah means to join as a group like the word sevit is really the root of mitzvah which means a group a unified effort on behalf of like a staff right a group of people um it's unity it's to mitzvah is literally i want to go off on a small tangent and i don't want to waste too much time on it but i think it's important to know so if we do a mitzvah it means we're connecting to hashem and god forbid when we do an average we are distancing ourselves from god okay so so let me i do want to go off an attention but i want to stay with rabbi kessin's thing first and then i'll go for the tangent so god created the mitzvoth first as the opportunity to come close as we said um not to receive our ultimate reward as bread of shame but through our efforts but god knows that we're not perfect he created with us within us the yetzer so the next thing is called chuva he created chuva right he allows us to repent that's an option if we fail it plan a we got plan b and guess what he also knows but not when we're finished reading this when we're finished reading this and incorporating these lessons in our lives so then we will use chuva properly but let's say god forbid even we fail a little bit so there's a third way to recoup to fix to make a tikkun and that's through suffering but we don't have to suffer we have plan a do the misses plan b chuva and god forbid even suffering which we're going to see is going to talk about even suffering without intent to do trouba also cleanses so listen we don't fall back on right so gimmel is another word for the least most inferior possibility we're the sons of kings and queens right we want to go for the best sugarless let's go for the mitzvahs okay so we also have truva that's we're learning about in case we fall short and then we have okay now i wanted to talk about the word mitzvah sorry i happen to like camacho's a lot i'm not an expert in math but when i hear something i really like so there's a thing called atabash when i say a thing there's gematrias so there's also letters that are interchangeable there's five different parts of your mouth right with the tongue the the dental the the throat the nasal okay we'll talk about that another time but there's another thing called atpash where letters are also interchangeable so basically aleph is the same as tough bet is the same as shin they actually use this in the united states army during world war one and world war ii it's you look it up in google it's called the atash code and they used it for the american or i would say english alphabet but they they attribute it to the hebrew the ancient hebrews who used it in what we're talking about now in kabbalah but the word mitzvah is the first two letters are going to be at bash but the second two letters the last two letters are so memsadik in the athbash is when we do a mitzvah we're uniting we're bringing together god's name and that's how we are actually talking the world if you really think about it that's our goal is to make god's name one in this world and by doing the mitzvah we're flipping the mem and the tsarik into a yud and hey and uniting it with the vav and the hay so that's like olive that's the highest level i just wanted to add that in okay now we're at the the who's we have been urged to do chuva many or several places in the torah and that's what we're going to talk about now for example in numbers five seven that's bamidbar and five seven so it says over there to confess and repent we're going to talk about also in deuteronomy chapter 4 verses 29 and 30. you'll seek hashem you'll find him right but this is what we're going to focus on shortly that even when you're distressed at the end of your days eventually you will return and obey also in deuteronomy chapter 30 after all the blessings and the curses you will return also in deuteronomy chapter 3 verses 8 through 10 right you're going to return and there'll be blessings so basically what we're about to tell you he's about to tell you is that even when you don't do chuva the suffering itself will bring about repentance i want to stop here just for one second to talk about a very important lesson of knock spoke about during the gulf war i forget it was 90 or 91 but you all know what i'm talking about you had to go for there were tilim there were rockets being shot or threatened to be shot at israel and we were walking around with the gas masks and ravnok said this is an opportunity you think of tahilim in place of tilim thi lim are the word for rockets it sounds exactly like the word tehilim take this opportunity to shuver what does god want from us think what does god want from you ultimately god wants us to be unified just like we unify god god unifies us right in the shabbos afternoon prayer who is like you this nation this one this one this one nation in the land of israel that's that's us that's what god is praising the one nation and we're unifying him but you know what ultimately god wants his desire is that we're unified we're his children any parent especially mothers i think more more cognizant of this fact when the children fight it really it really hurts so the the you know you come in and you do everything you can to make everything all right and so god wants us to be unified and he wants us to be unified so bad that he'll even bring suffering like the threat of these rockets or maybe even perhaps what's going on now in america he wants us to be unified the question ravnak always pose to us is what are we going to do about it because actually if we unify we don't need those tealing we don't need those outward signs to bring us together god wants us to do chuva by re you know coming together right put those petty sometimes not so petty but put aside some of the disagreements we have put that aside you have to be unified because when you're sitting in a miklot when you're sitting in a bomb shelter where you in our case right now what are we doing we're some of us are are quite isolated but some of us are instead of these big minyani of two 300 people we're gathering into these small groups of ten i'm not saying it's so bad right maybe maybe that's that's going to help us understand what unity is really about but god wants us to unify through the suffering or whatever we're going through with a threat hopefully just be a threat but we could actually bypass hashem in other words we don't need the negative consequences that he's about to bring upon us if we understand the lesson that he wants us to to to get to absorb this is also an idea that in prophecy even though we don't have the level of prophets walking around we still have a level of ruach hakodesh where hashem will send a message to you measure for measure me the negative meda right i i don't want to give too many very specific examples but each person has to meditate and think about themselves you stub your toe you say i was just having that thought right before i stubbed my toe so hashem will send you a sign hopefully you'll be smart enough to pick up on it and realize what it was that you were doing wrong that he sent this hopefully measure for measure when i say measure for measure and i say hopefully because hopefully we'll be able to recognize it why does he send you measure for measure sign because he cares and he like the prophet would come and tell the people exactly what they're doing wrong we don't have that today so god you should pray that hashem enlightens you to what you might be doing wrong so you can straighten your own path out right and how you're going to do that through learning torah joining a khabura talking to your friends venting sometimes and hopefully your friend loves you enough to say i think i think you said the wrong thing to that person or whatever right so there are ways that we could figure things out without the suffering but sometimes the suffering is measured for measure and it's it's a sense of prophecy a sort of prophecy in fact they say it says in gemara that if if you don't know what you sinned you know you you know you're suffering and you're not sure what you sinned chalk it up to not learning enough tara now what could that mean the simple meaning is well maybe it's beetle torah and for a woman it could be making sure her husband gets to shu sits and learns for between men mari or has uh one two three hours a week whatever it is whatever it is right and the woman is also participating in limutar so basically it's not it is that but it's not only bittaltara it's the very fact that if you don't know what your sin is it means you're not learning enough torah because if you would be learning enough torah you would know what your sin was okay if you dive into hashem please i want to know what my sins are and all of a sudden you open up a book to the right page when i say the right page you don't know what page it is but god knows and you see it right there wow i never knew that was the halakhah or i didn't know that's how you're supposed to you know respond in the torah in such a such a situation so this is god talking to you this is the most amazing thing god talks to us he cares about us about us and he wants to he's yo red he's teaching us the way of juva so be open to that david for that um okay listen to this it's clearly set out in the torah that the chuva will be accepted by hashem even if the sinner himself is repenting only because of the tsar only because of the pain that god is sending him it says in deuteronomy chapter 4 verse 30. i'll read in english first this is uh when when you are in distress and all these things have befallen you at the end of days you will return to hashem your god and hearken to his voice with all the pains that are coming the end result is you will return let's read in hebrew actually i skipped one line before i read that line he says that's what he says about just pains the culture came in yeshu miura how much more so if you go for plan a or plan b right that would have been the best but guess what even deuteronomy chapter 4 verse 30 when you are in distress all these things before you in the end of days the shaft has and you will listen to his voice i wanted to sing a song with you but i think i'll sing it in the next paragraph it's clearly set out in the torah azure show hashem to those who are allah they're the ones who repent when a person doesn't even have the natural abilities to to repent god will be there and will help elevate you to out to to levels you were not capable of doing yourself and he will renew within you a ruach tahur a pure spirit he will renew within them a pure spirit that will enable them to attain the nobel a trait of loving him okay there's a verse we'll read and then i want to go to this song the the song the verse is in um it's i think i think it's in in deuteronomy uh chapter yeah we i think we did read it but it's chapter 30 verse 2. right that you will return to hashem your god and listen to his voice according to everything i command you today you and your children with all your heart with all your soul the latter part of the verse is going to talk about the next verse 6 sorry is going to about circumcision of the heart before we get to that just the idea in in malachi in the prophet chapter 3 verse 23 where it talks about that god will cause right elijah and they're going to return the hearts of the children to the fathers and the fathers to the children this is very deep before we we go there i just want to talk about this one song and this is my favorite song on shabbos it's laith tahor this is king david if you read the whole chapter i believe it's 50 where is it 51 chapter 51 51 and nun alef it's verse 12 but really you read the whole the whole chapter it's amazing this is all about truva maybe we'll read it in english and then we'll sing the song this is it's my favorite song and i'm not really good at singing so you're gonna bear with me a star is born and we said it's chapter 51 here we are listen to these they're just so beautiful the whole but we'll get to 12 in a second for the conductor a song by david when nathan the prophet came to him when he came to batsheva show me favor of god according to your kindness according to your vast comp vast compassion erase my transgressions abundantly cleanse me from my iniquity and from my sin purify me if i recognize my transgressions and my sin is before me always against you alone that i sit in and for that which is evil in your eyes i did that i do therefore you are justified when you speak and thoughtless when you judge imagine if we had that clarity behold iniquity was i fashioned and in sin did my mother conceive me by the way for those christians that means this is totally not what it means it's an amazing story about what king david yishai thought that he was actually not allowed to be with a jewish woman because he was from moab meaning his great-grandmother his grandmother ruth he you know there was back and forth whether a moabite can join the jewish people or not join the jewish people before boaz it was wrong meaning they had the wrong tradition that they couldn't marry in boaz held that they could by you shy he thought maybe boss was wrong and you know what in the end he separated from his wife and imagine what she did his wife got wind that yishai was no longer not sleeping with her anymore he was only sleeping with his handmaid and he made a condition with his handmaid right that if if if i'm really allowed to marry a jew then i free you and you're really a jew but if you're if i'm not allowed to marry a jew i'm still like a moabite uh you know even though it came from a female moabite which is permissible but if if it was forbidden so then then i'm i'm married to you as a a shift as a slave so that was the plan but the handmaiden went and she confided in her uh in her um in ishai's wife you know negisha's wife's name mitsevic okay uh he she he could fight she could fight it in her and so when it came for ye sha to sleep with the handmaid he actually slept with his own wife and she got pregnant and very similar to the story of um yehuda and tamar well he didn't kill her or he didn't attempt to kill her but he shunned her and everyone knew this is a black sheep this kid this young david is not my kid right he's a momser you know because my wife was not with me or i didn't think i was with her but in truth yeshua of course was the father and david knew the truth his whole life imagine the pain him and his mother knew the secret oh when you read the psalms you have a better idea of what is really transpiring in david's soul and how he felt so when he says when he says in iniquity was i fashioned and in sin did my mother conceive me behold the truth which you desire is in your concealed parts and in the covered part of is the wisdom that you teach me purge me of my sin with hyssop and i shall be pure cleanse me and i shall be whiter than snow make me hear the joy and gladness may the bones that you crushed exalt hide your face from my sins and erase all my iniquities everything up unto this point is just absolutely beautiful this is the verse create a pure heart for me o god and a steadfast spirit renew within me cast me not away from your presence and take not your holy spirit from me now what i plan to do because i am not the greatest singer i'm going to try to sing it but i have here a recording of i think it's called a group called de vegas to vegas you know what i'm not even going to attempt when people sing and i i don't really make fun of them like i say this to my wife all the time what'd you do with the money what money the money your mother gave you for singing lessons it's a joke anyway that's for sean we don't want to hurt anybody's feeling i am not hurt i cannot sing for the life of me but here it's two minutes it's gonna be [Applause] [Music] beautiful yellow king [Music] be [Applause] [Music] me i'll touch this [Music] foreign [Music] oh [Applause] [Music] [Applause] foreign [Music] me okay look i cry every time i hear the song and i'll tell you meditate on it sing it this is shabbos this is really every single day of the week to be told anytime you can say the psalms but this is especially moving for me um you think about us right i'll just say the translation form a pure heart within me leif tahor borrow leah keem don't throw me away don't discard me don't reject me with the holy spirit altic talk me many your holy spirit do not take away from me i i i get my people my shabbos table let's do it four five six times let's get into it oh so beautiful so that's what i wanted to share although i i thought i would sing it but i think they did a much better job and i think it would have broken a few speakers out there okay so the last thing we read was it's clearly set on the torah hashem will assist those who repent raising them to an elevated spiritual levels which they could not even reach naturally themselves but what will he do he will renew within them a pure spirit which will help them attain this noble level of love of loving him read the verses okay so in verse six now it's talking about this idea that god will circumcise our heart and the heart of our offspring to love hashem your god with all your heart with all your soul now what does that mean god will will circumcise our heart we have to do the prep work we have to we have to work sorry guys we have to do all the preparation he's preparing our footsteps for chuva we have to walk in the path and then he will take us i'm sure you've all heard this expression maybe you haven't heard i said that all the time maybe you heard it but there's a story about two men walking on the beach and he says to god every time i've ever been walking with you there's always two footprints on the beach i know you're with me but my most troubling times i have i have a kind i have a question all my most troubling times i only found i feel like crying i only found one set of footprints where were you and hashem says i was carrying you think about that hashem it will elevate us he's carrying us god will circumcise our hearts okay and this is a little bit offbeat you know there's a movie it was a play shakespeare the merchant of venice okay there's obviously some anti-semitism involved but basically you can't cut out you can't circumcise a heart you can't cut out a pound of flesh if this is something that only hashem can do and we're talking metaphysically of course we're talking metaphysically hashem will remove the clepult it'll be so clear and this is talking about the messianic times by the way okay and this is the idea that well let me let me read it inside and then i'll tell you the comment down below what does it mean it means whatever level spirituality that you and your offspring could not reach through your best efforts hashem will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring again i just want to refer you back it's the very last prophet of all the prophets you go to the last page right before the the two the very last page right before psalms at least in my bible it's malachi it's the last sentence of the last of the prophets behold i will send elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and awesome day of hashem he will turn back to god the hearts of the fathers with their sons and the hearts of the sons with their fathers lest i come and strike the land with utter destruction which will not happen because elijah will do what the heishiev lev avos that will happen but we have work in this world that's going to happen at the end and we're going to be able to reach the highest level of purity in loving him so i'll just read the comments that are brought down here that uh if one comes this is the concept of the gomorrah if you come to purify yourself god will give you assistance in hebrew messiah really the truth is it's even if you want to go in the other direction hashem will will help you you want to be a sinner he'll he might make you the best you know most successful robber whatever thief listen god will direct you that's why this song is lit you're asking hashem for later you're asking hashem for the this is the right direction to go in right he gave you choose life he says i place before you good and evil life and death choose life this is his instruction manual it's so clear but okay so the comment here says that he actually grants a person a degree of purity that he could not have attained on his own efforts with this purity the one who does truva can rise to the level of truly loving god something that few managed to ever achieve so bazrat hashem we will come to that to that level uh he ends with um in the comments anyway and a summary so i will give the summary in a second he writes that the theme is in the ketuvim the books of the prophets and the writings they constantly speak about sugar and he's interested in introducing the next paragraph to the point that all the principles of truth are set out in their words right again we spoke about the role of the prophets is to do give rebuke so i'll just summarize this and then i'll open up for questions he says this is the commentary to summarize what ribena yonah's opening paragraph because that's all we read was the first paragraph number one truth is a great gift from god in his goodness provided mankind that means all of mankind two hashem actually encourages sinners to return to him three the doors of chuva are never close to anyone four truth is accepted even when it's motivated only by suffering hashem helps a repentant person attain spiritual levels beyond his name natural capacity and the last we just read was all the principles of chuva are set out in scripture okay so what we'll do now we can open this up to questions [Music] is