High Holidays - Words from the Heart from Rabbi Benzion Klatzko

we had a final banquet and everyone gets up and they speak about how much torah they learned and how israel affected them and how inspired and actually about half the students who came ended up staying in israel to study torah further uh which which was remarkable they stayed in a yeshiva or submarine they wanted to learn more to know more and i'm sitting in front of a coca-cola bottle an israeli coca-cola bottle and of course everything has a tagline and that's how commercials are made and that's how uh the the products create memories and the the tagline which i think is familiar is similar to the american tagline that they used in the past is uh this is uh that's the tagline tom means the taste akaim of life the taste of life and i'm staring at this coca-cola bottle and i'm thinking this is not tamarind that's not the taste of life i mean simply put it's just like incredibly unhealthy and full of sugar and fizziness and it tastes like motor oil but okay let's say people can acquire a taste for cola that's not the taste of life uh life is so much richer so much deeper so much more profound so much more than a a fizzy drink unfortunately it's not that common to taste life what does life taste like the grand quest is to figure out what is the tamahaim what is the taste of life and is the taste of life fizzy water is it a fancy purse is it a beautiful car is it an extra big jacuzzi in the bathroom is it kids getting a degree from this college or that college what is the tamikhayam and this is especially relevant right before rosh hashanah where we speak about being written in the book of life and we don't want to be written in the book of coca-cola so what is the book of life what is the what is the lachaim so the truth of the matter is that we really have to get down a little bit deeper and understand what life is what is life what is existence so scientifically speaking if we drill down what life is we are nothing but a set a set of cells and each cell has a life unto itself and we combined together we create one life but each cell has its own bit of life and those cells that made of different kinds of proteins and those are made of molecules and then those are made of atoms and then those are made of electrons protons neutrons neutrinos quarks bosons leptons up down straight we can keep going drilling down until it's all just perhaps a bunch of vibrating strings vibrating this way and that way in different dimensions and the entire concept of life becomes a very murky prospect what is life what is life are we vibrating strings are we just colliding leptons and bosons and perhaps a little bit of photons thrown in there for our light what is life so our understanding is that life is connected to the source of life and that is connected to the source of everything that is the almighty that is god that is hashem the talmud the taste of life is not coca-cola and it's not a fancy car and it's not a vacation for two weeks in cancun the taste of life real life is to taste the essence of meaning existence thankfully the essence of existence hashem is kind and he's loving and he's giving and the more i recognize my source and the more connected i am and the more i mirror what that source is the greater life i'm tasting and the more disconnected i am from the source and the more cloudy my vision becomes the further away i am from life and the closer i am to death i get close to death when i'm connected to things they're not grounded in reality when meaning and purpose and value are attached to things that don't have real intrinsic value and purpose uh there's a well-known story i'll say it very quickly because many of you i'm sure know it but there's a point to this of the person who saw his neighbor very wealthy and he says to his neighbor how did you become so wealthy and the neighbor says i would tell you but you're never going to believe me says i'll believe you you live in a big house how and he said uh you know i was backpacking as a teenager i got to be a little bit older and i started going sailing and i ended up going once in a boat on my own and i ended up on an island that's not marked in any in any map an unknown island and an island of course was full of diamonds it was full the seashore that the shore of the dime was full of diamonds the shore of the island was full of diamonds and the neighbor got interested and said will you perhaps tell me how to locate such an island my wife would be very pleased if i could pay a few bills now and then he said i'll tell you this is my memory go over here and the fellow buys his own little boat that ends up going to this place in the middle of the ocean and as he pulls up to the island that's full of diamonds he sees it glistening and shining the rudder of his little boat breaks and he's stuck on the island well he goes down bends down and picks up the diamonds on one hand he feels fortunate he's found literally diamond island with diamonds two carrots four carrots eight carrots pink purple diamonds yellow diamonds except that he's stuck on the island and so he he goes into the island he goes deeper through the thicket and decides to figure out a way how am i going to get off the island without a rudder on my boat and he sees that there's actually a civilization in the middle of the island and he finds a carpenter and he says i'd love you to make a rudder so i can get off this island and the competitor says unfortunately the material that you need has to be imported it cannot be just wood it has to be a certain kind of wood that doesn't we don't have that this kind of wood on the island it'll be a few months and the fellow figures okay if i'm gonna be here let me live it up and he goes to a local hotel and says please kind sir give me the penthouse suite with all the amenities and the breakfast service and the room service and the fellow says wonderful how will you be paying for that and he sticks his hand into his pocket and he takes out one of the diamonds that he shoved into his pocket when he arrived on the island and he said here you go and keep the change [Music] and the fella says what are you what are you what are you offering me i says what do you mean this has got to be eight eight carrots at least this should pay for a year rent at the penthouse suite and the owner of the establishment said my dear sir do you know where you're located you're on diamond island i can go a mile or two through the thicket and pick these up myself he said so i don't understand this has no value he says no it doesn't on our on our island the currency are milk packets there are very few cows and the mainlanders they're used to milk in their coffee and cows are very rare so we trade in milk packets and unless you have those you cannot stay at our hotel the guy's wandering the streets and he finds a restaurant and he says anyway that i can work for a supper and he works and he's given not just a supper but a few milk packets and he goes back to the hotel and he offers them these milk packets and he's given the uh perhaps the janitor suite the lowest of the low class and he keeps going back to the restaurant and he makes a little more money these milk packets and each day he makes more and more and he begins to invest and buy and sell and trade and for the first time in his life he's not a schlemazel he's actually making he's he's making good on his on his potential and he's amassing these milk packets and after a few months the carpenter calls them in and says you know your rudder is ready and at this point he's one of the wealthiest men on the island and he has his servants take wheelbarrows and and take those milk packets and he brings them all to his boat wheelbarrows full of milk packets and they load up the boat with milk packets and he sails home and his wife is waiting at the dock waving or handkerchief and she's waiting she can't wait how wealthy they'll be out comfortable it's been so difficult and when he sees her he's standing with pride and he's holding on to a suit that he's gonna make sure that she's so proud of him and she gets on the boat and she says were you successful he says yes i was and she says wonderful and will you tell me what is this smell that i'm smelling and he says oh that's the smell of success and she said i don't think that's what success smells like it smells terrible what is that and she discovers tens of thousands of milk packets and she says what are these he says this is our fortune and he says what she says what do you mean this is nothing these are milk packets where are the diamonds the diamonds you're supposed to get diamonds and he slaps his face and says oh my goodness i i got so distracted whenever and this island milk packets were the currency she said did you not bring any diamonds whatsoever and he checks in his pocket the pocket of the pants he was wearing the day he arrived on the island and he finds a few diamonds in the seams the bottom of his pocket and he hands those three diamonds through she pays off a few bills but they remain poor and they remain uh not uh wealthy enough to live the lifestyle that she had hoped and dreamed for dreamt for him and i i'm just telling you this story you may have heard it it's one of my favorite mashalam but i mentioned this on my trip to israel and it became sort of a a a password a byword for when things were a little bit rough or uncomfortable or when we sort of ran after those things that were not so necessary and the students returned to me and they would say milk packets i'd say yeah probably these are milk packets and we live in a world that has been selling us milk packets and the milk packets are are paid for by madison avenue and they they strategize and they scheme and they conference how are we gonna sell the population milk package how are we going to take a shirt and make it something more how are we going to take a netflix show and show how some lady abandons judaism and instead has hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pairs of shoes each one worth a fortune that could feed so many hungry families collecting milk packets how can you be proud of milk packets you can't be buried with a lexus a rolex has no has no value in shamayim that's not tom hakaian that's not life that's not what life tastes like life tastes good when it's connected to the source to the makura kayam and hashem says with you will be the source of all life but through your light nearer or we will see light this is the great message for the month of ello all year long we can get distracted all year long we just we go to work in order to get a paycheck in order to pay for the bills so that we can have a roof over our head in order that we can have food on the table so we can eat and we can sleep so we wake up the next morning and once again work for the man in the cubicle so we can get the paycheck so we can pay for a roof over our head because of the gill gel as we say and it circles and it goes on and on and certainly we've tried to do things that are productive with our lives no matter what they are but never never underestimate the power and the lure of the messages that we've been fed all of our lives it's not a question of will we have an uh a smartphone it's a question only android or iphone it's not a question of what we need it's a question of how soon can we get it what's the american dream we had a fire this year i'm sure uh mr milner knows about this we had a fire in our home and one of the one of the lessons and it's not the first time we've gotten this lesson was how many things did we work for how many things did we covet were we excited about the birth of the fire that we don't miss and we wonder what was the fuss about what was why were we so excited why was it worth days and weeks and months and paychecks and running in amazon.com and click click click click click and free shipping free shipping click click click and what was it for it was nothing it was nothing how foolish we were how silly how blind uru yoshino wake up sleepy ones from your slumber you're sleepy we're sleepy we get sleepy we get tired we're blurry-eyed and we look around the world and the blurry eyedness it just it it makes us run after milk packets and you know what the diamonds are there are the moss oven they are the mixes they're the potential that we have when we stop focusing on the us and we start focusing on the we and the you when we start looking out for the next person and we pick up the phone when we're not in the mood of picking it up and speaking to the person that's somewhat of a nudge and when we give the person the benefit of the doubt literally right before this zoo meeting somebody who's a troubled person he left me a note and the note was you know it adds some bitterness to it and and naturally you know i let things go and then i decided i'll leave a message and then i left it and then i erased it and then i left another one then i erased that why what for this is not what hashem wants from us hashem wants us to be in control we have to be connected to the source of life now what is that source of life there's a pattern that's found in davening and this pattern is a pattern of our relationship with hashem and really it's a very interesting pattern it's almost hidden unless it's revealed and it's the pattern of love and it goes like this what does it take what are the steps of how we come to love someone hashem is somebody that we love anila dodie for dodi lee i'm to my beloved my beloved is to me so step number one of love is respect respect we have to understand if i'm going to love somebody who are they why are they worthy of my love if albert einstein's wife says i don't know math schmath i don't know about these things but i love albert's hair what a hairdo he's got is that sufficient nay if you if you're married to albert einstein you gotta know you're married to albert einstein you have to appreciate his contribution to the world to science to our understanding that's what it means to be married to albert einstein you cannot love somebody that you don't respect and you shouldn't invest in somebody unless you understand what it is that is worthy of that investment it's one of the reasons why within religious judaism there is very little dating until you're really grown up and ready for marriage because the puppy love almost always skips this step a 15 16 year old they don't know what there is to respect about the girl or the guy she's cute he's handsome well cute and handsome are not worthy of respect those are god-given gifts sometimes a gift can even be a curse you never know but it certainly is not respect respect is one of the person's values what do they stand for what have they accomplished what do they want to do with the world so respect is the first step to love what is it about them that makes them unique that is worthy of my investment step number two well that's the investment okay i get it they're amazing they're special we can do great things i'm ready to make a deposit and that deposit often is the commitment if it's marriage then it sounds like hareatmukudashisli any other kind of relationship there's also a commitment that's what uh the that step looks like it's the step of love the step of saying i love you you love me and then the third step the third step of love the first one respect second one invest and the third step of love trust now that i've invested don't break my heart now that i love you and now that you love me and i'm committed i'm going to expose myself emotionally i'm going to tell you some of my scariest secrets you're going to see me very human and very mortal you're going to realize i got terrible breath in the morning and that i don't always look the way i do after i'm you're going to learn a lot about me i trust you won't use it against me i trust you'll love me through all my faults and all my foibles i trust that's trust that's the third step of love don't break my heart and those three steps respect the investment of love and then trust are found in that order throughout davening when it comes to our relationship with hashem let's take a look at maharav we're going to be diving in maya soon it's night time here in new york these are this is the bracha of myrev the first barakah asha bidvaram almighty god you created the cosmos you created the nebula and the galaxies a lot of galaxies 100 billion galaxies each galaxy has 100 200 300 billion stars each god you're amazing the sun and the moon in proper orbit exactly the right distance not to burn us not to freeze us he created the stars that explode and give us all the heavy elements what an amazing world you've created you hashem very worthy of respect so the first bracha of mayrav is respect second bracha ah you've loved us we start speaking about the investment we say back shema that's the love that goes back and forth and then right after that love then comes the moon hashem you you're trustworthy you took us out of mitzrayim you took care of us you split the sea that's the emunah zos so love is the middle step the first is respect and the last one is trust chakras it's the same pattern yotts rose which is the first bracha yo you what you created the love it's far by shama and then once again trust even in this mona esre right away we have these three in the correct order of nora greatness tremendous respect oh how does that bracket end le mans for his name all that respect is to bring love and then the next bracha vane you're trustworthy you take care of the living and the dead you take care of the sick and the needy you're trustworthy these are the three steps the point is that akash who says the almighty says i want to be in a relationship with you and i want that relationship to be one that is not contingent on uh handbags and fancy luggage and fancy houses and ca and and vacations i want to love you i want you to love me and i want you to understand that i transcend all of these milk packets that have been offered to you i'm worthy of respect i'm worthy says hashem i'm the melech i'm the king of kings and yet i come down and take care of each one of you and i care about your deeds and i care about your speech and i even care about your thoughts hashem the most high infinite time is contained within hashem and hashem cares about my thoughts how granular how exact how precise how mundane perhaps why would god care about me one of eight billion people in the world let alone how many living things there are hashem says no not just you i care about every blade of grass that grows i put an angel by every blade of grass and i say to the grass grow if i care about a blade of grass how much more do i care about you there's a beautiful passage oh it's so wonderful we say this in darwining every day we say bonnie yerushalayim hashem hashem you're the one who builds jerusalem you're the one who will bring close those far flung the israel those who are scattered you're going to bring them close you're going to do kiruf you're going to bring everyone close you build yerushalayim you bring the jews back home to israel so hashem let's do it let's do it already and hashem responds back well you're forgetting one more thing i am you know what i am i'm a road fellaish foreign i'm not just the builder of your shalom i'm not the just the one that gathers in the exiles on the road fearless foreign i heal the brokenhearted and i gather in their sorrow says hashem you want me to rebuild yerushalayim good i also want to you want me to gather into exiles those who are stuck those who are lost those who are jewish and don't even know it and never learnt it i never were approached by a rabbi or a friend and never even saw never even realized that they're actually jewish their birthright is their soul and their connection to hashem you want me to do all that well then you do what i do be a role phyllis foreign be a doctor heal the shavuray lave the brokenhearted um gather in their sorrow take care of the poor take care of the needy take care of the homeless and the widow and the divorcee take care of those who are sick and have nobody to visit them nobody is obsolete unfortunately sometimes people are ignored and they're not noticed and they don't come to school and they haven't been out and about and maybe covet hit them and just nobody's checked in on them and nobody cares and you begin to wonder what happened to this community that i thought i was part of why aren't they calling in why are they checking in on me am i am i yesterday's news how do we do that how do we take care of the brokenhearted so then we have to go one more plastic further what a beautiful passage although when i tell you the plastic you're going to look at me and say rabbi this has got nothing to do with the before what was david on mello thinking listen to this next passage first pasak says hashem builds jerusalem he gathers in the exiles and he heals the brokenhearted but the next passage the very next one says here he counts he he counts the number of stars that are in the heavens he counts the number of stars and gives them each a name end of hard stop what what does that have to do with the puzzle before and why do i care that stars have names isn't that odd it's an odd pussac you gather in the exiles you take care of the brokenhearted and next possible and you count stars and give stars names how many stars exist in the universe the known universe it's an unknown universe but the known universe has 10 to the 23rd that's our best guesstimate 10 to the 23rd one with 23 zeros afterwards huge huge amount of stars huge amount there are so many stars that if you take human beings next to stars if you do the math it's about 10 million humans i'm sorry 10 million stars for every one human stars are huge our star is it's not a red dwarf yet it's still a regular star but it's a it's on the smaller side there are stars out there that can contain a million of our stars stars that are so huge that where our star is if it was that star it would burn well past earth it would even hit jupiter from where the star sits where the sun sits now stars are huge they burn the fire like a fiery furnace they're daunting we couldn't get within millions and billions and trillions of miles of some of them and yet what are they they're just a nuclear reaction they're just fusion they're just heat and yet hashem says they're important enough to me that i'm going to give them each a name all 10 to the 23rd are going to get a name says hashem listen carefully says hashem if a star which is nothing more than nuclear fusion which is nothing more than a ball of gas and that are so numerous that there are as many stars in the heavens as there are grains of dust on earth that's how many stars are on yet if i told you god gives a name to every grain of dust on earth you would say really hashem says yeah i give a name to every star in the heavens says hashem do you know how you're going to gather in the broken heart you know how you're going to you know you're going to heal them by understanding that if a star which is nothing but a but a a reaction has a name from almighty god how much more so does every person have a name how much more so does every single person that we meet that's created in the image of god that has a brain in their head that is more complex than anything that we know about in the universe and the wrinkles on their face belie their experience and the pain and the love that they've gone through and the twinkle in their eye and the smile of experience and age how valuable is a human being heal the broken heart by understanding that every person out there has a name hashem says you know what tom mccain is it's not coca-cola that stuff is nothing that's milk packets you want to be connected to me understand that i am somebody that values each and every person out there you want to love me love each other you want to connect with me connect with each other that's the that's the grand message of anila dodi vadodili forgive the next person give a break to the next person you have something to say delete it you want to be negative delete it it's not worth it people sometimes mess up they slip they say things they don't mean delete it you don't need it people have been through experience in life and sometimes that that forms and shapes them in a way that may not be that savory i'm gonna finish with an idea great artists like picasso and dolly very famous artists used to go to restaurants in their older age and they would order some delicious food maybe a steak maybe a nice bottle of wine and when it was time to pay they would offer the owner of the establishment the choice i can either give you my credit card or a check or i can take this year napkin and write a little doodle on it and sign it your choice if the restauranteer was a clever man do you think he would take the 300 for the meal if he was clever he would take the little doodle by dolly because today that little doodle by dolly is worth any anywhere from fifteen to twenty five thousand dollars if it could be proven that was actually by dolly why it's a nothing it's a doodle i could do that doodle the answer is what makes it valuable is not that it's a doodle what makes it valuable is the signature underneath it it was made by dolly it was made by shakal it was made by picasso it was made by monet it was made by a great one and by him signing it it says hey this is valuable it's got my imprint if a human being has value it's because the signature at the bottom of the doodle is hashem himself created in the image of god if dolly's doodle on a napkin has value how much does a human being have how valuable should they be could they be and here's a story that i end with i actually own an art gallery it's one of my passions i'm not going to give it a plug now but you could put in classical maybe you'll find it anyways one of the artists that i collected his name was rafaeli sv rafale he's an artist he lived in florida california and israel and new york fought for the ergun was a professor at the bazaal university and he passed away quite a while ago he was a religious jew he as a rabbi actually as well a very interesting person and once i got a call from someone in california somebody that i dealt with in art and he said rabbi i have something interesting and i just would like to give it to you he said we were very good friends with rafaeli and he had made for us some stained glass windows and you know we didn't know what to do with it and we for whatever reason they were sitting in our backyard i guess we figured you know there were glass and they'll be okay but they ended up sinking into the ground they just sunk and over 20 plus years they just sunk deeper and deeper now you could just barely see the top of them from the ground and you know they're they're pretty ruined but who knows maybe you could take them and fix them up if you want them they're yours and i said thank you but no thanks you know i was collecting paintings but not stained glass windows i wouldn't even know what to do with them well a while later a few years later i moved from california i was a rabbi that time in ucla and then i moved to new york but i went back to california to officiate a wedding and i had a few ex extra hours to spare when i arrived and just out of curiosity i called them up and i said look if you still have them i'm just curious to see them and i would take them and they said sure go to our backyard and dig them up and i hired a few local people that i found and we took some shovels and we began to dig and we we actually uncovered five rafaeli stained glass windows and they were full of mud and dirt and worms and weeds and grass and didn't look like much but these people had a garden hose and i took the garden nose and i spritzed it on the stained glass and as the mud and the weed and the dirt washed away and the sun shone through these stained glass windows i saw that they were actually quite stunning they were gorgeous they were the yom tov they were the jewish holidays and they were so beautiful i told them i was grateful i'm so happy to have them and we took them back to new york and cleaned them up fixed them up it wasn't that hard we created shadow boxes with light in the back and we probably had them in our home and someone saw somebody said to me rabbi why did you even bother once you dug them up and there was mud and dirt and they looked pretty pretty bad at that point why did you even bother and i said i'll tell you why because at the bottom of each of these stained glass windows was the signature of rafaeli and that told me that they're worthwhile and it it it had me thinking that sometimes people have a little bit of mud on them a little bit of dirt they're not that savory and they're not the most pleasant person to be around and they have things about them that maybe are less attractive and a little bit annoying but rather than reject them and leave them alone understand that they're worthwhile it's worth spritzing a little bit of water and a little bit of love because when we do we realize that they two are signed by almighty god [Music] so to recap the tamakhaim the taste of life that's hashem and it's not cola and it's not steak and it's not sushi sorry sushi lover's out there it's not even sushi the tamakai was connection to god and everything else is an incredible facade and we get very swept up in it we get swept up in the milk packets that seem to tell us run after a louis vuitton i love to have an ugly black brown purse because it's valuable it's a louis vuitton it's a kate spade it's a rolex it's valuable look if enzo ferrari made this it must be valuable okay i would never recognize ferrari if i bumped into him in the street i wouldn't know where any of these people are and some of them probably had no love for us jews to begin with why do i care to have their name on it it means nothing it's meaningless it's milk packets what's worthwhile are those diamonds those mitzvos those that connection with hashem and how do we connect hashem three steps respect understand who hashem is number two invest take the plunge it's ill take the plunge as we say in hebrew the time has come and then trust that hashem is going to take good care of you and hashem will love you when you mirror hashem's ways and how do we do that so we said the pasik the passage is hashem you build yerushalayim you gather in those uh from exile the key thing is that you you take care and you heal the brokenhearted and you do that by reminding us that if stars have names how much more so do we as human beings create in the image of god do we have a name do we have a purpose are we valuable and just like art just like a doodle that could be signed by somebody famous and even though it looks like nothing but really it's significant because of its creator how much more so each and every one of us we mirror god we show god respect we act like hashem we trust hashem and at that point we begin to gather those diamonds that allow this rosh hashanah and every rosh hashanah to come may there be many many in the future may there be healthy ones we gather those diamonds so when the time comes after 120 years and we greet our maker we could show him not a bunch of milk packets that are worthless and rancid but rather beautiful huge diamonds of kindness and caring and reflecting the will of god to all of mankind thank you so much