You Are the World — Rosh Hashanah

so um in preparation for rosh hashanah i want to share with you an idea from amit of klali from the rabbi that ebba would write throughout the year several times throughout the year a general letter an open letter uh all sons and daughters of israel wherever they may be and uh this is referred to as the myth of klali now um was written in yiddish and then it was translated into many different languages including english and hebrew and other languages as well but the particular message that i want to share with you tonight is i'm not going to share with you the entire myth of clawley but just rather one concept which hit me kind of hard where the rabbit speaks specifically to rabbis that abu speaks to the rabbis and tells the rabbis that they often squander the powerful energy that is available on those 48 hours of rosh hashanah and the way that they squander those 48 hours is by making the mistake of speaking about grace problem that's the expression in yiddish that rabbit uses as i mentioned the myth of klali was written in yiddish they speak about big global issues and it's such a shock it's such a pity such a waste because don't they realize what a powerful day rosh hashanah is now what is that what does that mean rosh hashanah is a powerful day so don't speak about big things what does that mean so to understand that we'll come back to this but uh i'll tell you a little bit more from this letter that that ebba wrote it ever speaks about the paradox i guess you could call it of rosh hashanah all of the jewish holidays throughout the year are associated with events that occurred to the jewish people right so for instance pesa is when the jewish people were taken out of bondage or shiva says when the jewish people received the torah at sinai or even sukkas the jewish people were protected with clouds as they went through the wilderness and then of course you know you have things like purim and hanukkah those are you know later events that happened post biblical events but again events that happened to the jewish people or or even yin kippur which is a biblical holiday but uh yum kippur is when the jewish people were forgiven after the sin of the golden calf what's interesting is rosh hashanah is the day that is not uniquely jewish in its significance but it's global and it's global in the sense that that is the day of the creation of adam and when i say the creation of adam i'm very careful to i have to catch myself from translating that as the first man because adam was not the first man he was not ish or isha odam doesn't adam is actually not a genderized term other means from the adama from the earth the earthling it also means adam i will resemble the one who resembles god so the highest and the lowest combined together that's the autumn and then later adam was separated into on them and have which is ish and isha and the genders emerged so that is something that is not unique to the jewish people adam isn't just the forbearer of the jewish people adam is the forbearer of all people and as such um we might think that the way we observe rosh hashanah should be something more universal now what might that observance be i'm i'm not sure um but we would we would imagine maybe it's some type of uh you know like like a united nations i don't mean the actual united nations which ended up not being as good of an idea in in in reality as it is on paper but i mean maybe maybe rosh hashanah we should get the whole world together and we should do something that shows you know something that's universal something that's global and uh and yet rosh hashanah is a day where you have like this paradox it's this day of the origin of all humanity furthermore it's the day when the entire universe all of creation is judged okay so that's that's how rosh hashanah is a very very general day but then on the other hand in actuality it's a day of personal introspection um it's a day of stock taking of teshuva it's a it's a personal day um and that personal idea that idea of like that personal connection that individual connection is exemplified by the chauffeur the rabbit mentions how the schaefer is a solo instrument um you don't have a symphony of of shape race in fact even halachically you're not allowed to have more than one schaefer at a time to do the mitzvah because then they you get confused we make the bracha is the singular not uh coiloise not plural but singular so the schaefer is a sing is a is a single sound a single voice a solo instrument and furthermore not only is it a solo instrument but the scheifer is not a very versatile instrument it doesn't produce a lot of notes and sort of like a one-note instrument which again is you know representing that individual or that personal um connection the the idea of the one as opposed to the all or the collective and so we ask like which one is it is is rosh hashanah this global day that's all about everyone or is it this very private personal individual day this that's about each of us and like every jewish question when we say is it this or is it this the answer is yes right it's both it's both but in this case it's very simple to understand why it's both the paradox isn't even that difficult to decipher it is personal precisely because it is global and it is global precisely because it is personal what does that mean on one hand it's global because that's when all of us were created of them was the beginning of all humanity on the other hand it's personal because that's the day of them was created all them one person in fact it's a that's a gemara sanhedrin it says why was adam created alone meaning not as a species not with a mate but just as an individual at first to teach us that a person is a world so there you have that paradox person or world yes a person is a world so you have the day of rosh hashanah which is the day where the whole world was created right all of humanity comes from other and yet it's this one person so therefore what's what's the application of this the application is that we have to understand that on rosh hashanah being personal is being global that the individual is the world and therefore the way to have the most impact globally is to focus on the personal connection with hashem and therefore going back to what we're talking about before the rabbi laments that the rabbis squander the awesome potential of the day and they talk about global issues because that's not how to have power on this day ironically or perhaps not so ironically because now we've explained it the way to have global impact on rosh hashanah is not by speaking about global issues it's not when the rabbi gets up and says a politics sermon that could have been you know you could have heard on talk radio no the rabbi should get up and talk about each individual and their personal connection with hashem and everybody doing one more mitzvah and changing one thing that they can change in their regular day-to-day life that's the paradox so when the rabbi misleads the congregation by speaking about big issues you missed the point the way to be global is by being specific there's a story that's told about a a little boy he went to his father and uh he wanted to play with his father but his father was busy his father was working at home he had a home office so the little boy says you know daddy come play with me the father didn't have time he didn't want to play with the boy so he wanted to distract him he saw a magazine and so he picked up the magazine and he tore the cover off of the magazine now on the cover there was a picture of the world with all the countries and the the continents and the oceans so the father removed the magazine cover from the magazine and then he started to tear apart the page until it was like you know 100 pieces of confetti and then he took it and he put it in the little boy's hands and he said here it's a puzzle put together the puzzle and then daddy will come play with you now obviously this was a diversion tactic the father didn't want to go play with the boy but he figures this boy he doesn't know what a world looks like right the whole globe with the countries and he doesn't know what that looks like he leaves a little kid so it'll keep him busy for a good long time little boy goes to the other room five minutes later comes running back in daddy i'm ready come look at the puzzle i finish the puzzle the father says it's not possible he says it is come so the father gets up he walks over to the dining room table he sees the magazine cover with the picture of the world is complete right there on the table so he says to the little kid how did you do this he says daddy i i don't know what the world looks like you know it has all these different shapes of land and water and i don't know what that is all the different countries and the boundaries the borders i i don't know what that looks like so i didn't know how to put that together but you see you know you know how magazine cover works right so you have a cover you have a picture on the cover but also on the inside you have the inside cover which is usually an advertisement right inside ad uh so the little boy says i didn't know what this world looks like i wasn't able to put that together but you see he picks up one of the torn pieces and he flips it over and he says on the back on the back there was a picture of a man i don't know what the world looks like but i know what a man looks like so that's what i did you see he shows him the back of each piece how it's the picture of the person he says i just put the man together and the whole world fell into place so this is the message you put the man or the woman you put the individual together you clean up your act you look into your your own private business that no one knows but you and hashem and you resolve to be better even in a small way and then the whole world falls into place that is how we have power we don't have power by distracting ourselves talking about big things that are beyond our control we have power by focusing on the small things which are in our control and the small things are not small things at all there's a there's an old story they tell about back in russia when uh the communists were first coming to power they would go around indoctrinating the masses into communism so they would have these preachers not religious preachers but communist preachers who would go around and they would preach communism so one time this uh communist went to the uh the countryside was speaking to the farmers the the russian serfs the peasants and so the uh the communist speech speaking and he says to the farmers he says so comment i just want to make sure you understand communism uh if you have two cows what do you do so the little farmer says if i have two cows uh i keep a cow and i give one cow to the communist party the communist says that's correct comment very good okay let me make sure you understand this let's say you have two goats what do you do he says if i have two goats i keep a goat and i give another go i give the other goat to the communist party he says yes comrade very good okay now here's an easy one you have two chickens what do you do and the little farmer hesitates he says comrade do chickens what do you do the farmer's hesitating comrade two chickens what do you do the farmer won't answer so the communist says i don't understand two big cows you're ready to give one away to the communist party two goats not as big as cows but goats are you know goats are expensive too and you're ready to give away one to the communist party now two little chickens two little chickens and now you're hesitating what you're going to do with with the chickens why is this all of a sudden different the farmer says i'll tell you why it's different i really have two chickens so cows he didn't have and he didn't even dream of having goats he didn't have and he knew he was never going to have but chickens chickens was a real thing he actually had two chickens what what's what's the vault what's the the moral of this story it's very easy to make big decisions global decisions right but when it comes to the small quote-unquote small decisions all of a sudden now you're getting personal now you're getting personal and that's where the struggle is but that's also where the power is simple personal decisions that are going to affect my personal day-to-day life stuff that nobody else is necessarily even going to know about maybe even my family doesn't know about maybe it's just me something that's just between me and hashem but that's where the power is because rosh hashanah is the anniversary of the creation of the world and the creation of the individual and those are one in the same concept it is the creation of the world meaning all of humanity because of the creation of the individual the progenitor of all humanity so on this one in the same day one in the same moment where we're not only commemorating what happened in rosh hashanah but we're reliving it we're remembering that a person is a world and the paradox of if you want to be global be specific if you want to affect the world change yourself i think i've probably told you this story before because it's one of my favorites but you know the story of the hussyat nirov this yatnerov was a there's a whole string of of siddiq uh dynasties that come from russian from rabbis who comes from the magid ultimately through through the maggots on the malach so the husyatnirov was one of these dynasties or rabbi from one of those dynasties and they were in the ukraine but then during the interwar years in the 1930s they relocated to vienna austria for whatever reason and vienna today is uh you know there's a hasidic community there uh rather thriving one bar hashem but in the 30s vienna was like very cosmopolitan coffee shops universities you know sigmund freud it was like very secular so this hasidic deb is walking down the street in vienna and it was a sight to be seen so there was this german language newspaper reporter a non-jew and he asked somebody who is that interesting person they said that's the husyatnirof and he's not a regular rabiner rabiner is german for rabbi he's not a regular rabbinir he is a vunder rabbiner he's a wonder rabbi so the reporter says well i've never met a vunder i've been i've met a regular rabiner but i never met a vunder i've been there i didn't meet a wonder rabbi i want to meet one so they said okay we'll arrange it. so he sits with us yatnerov and he says pray tell what is a vunderabiner so this yatner says like this he says well i'll tell you first you have like a regular rabbit a regular rabbi a congregational rabbi he controls a shul a synagogue you know next level you have like a city rabbi and he controls the whole community then next level you have rav roshi you know chief rabbi and he controls the whole country and then you have the vunderabiner he controls himself the wounded rabbina controls himself so comes rosh hashanah and we contemplate on the fact that our greatest power our greatest agent for change in the world is to focus on ourselves to be a wonder rabbi and when we hear the chauffeur which is a solo instrument one instrument the sound of the shape for one instrument playing alone which makes a very simple tone one note basically when we hear the schaefer it reminds us of this power of the individual and we are invited urged to look within and to be introspective you know that during the sounding of the schaefer it says they're in the master in the prayer book the in between the the sounds that you're supposed to confess silently you see many people have a custom put the talus many men who have a tolerance they put the telos over their head and and and there's a reason for that i mean it's sort of like this you know little bubble this cocoon this isolation chamber because at that moment you put the talos over your head and confess silently and you know it's there's no one there but you and hashem it's the true embodiment of bishvili nivra for my sake the world was created not an arrogant sense of entitlement the whole world is owed to me but god forbid but the opposite of it all comes down to me the buck stops here i'm the change or i have to be the change it's all up to me what am i going to change about myself and i know that it's much easier to talk about the cows and the goats the big things that are beyond my control that i know are wrong in the world and this needs to be changed and that needs to be changed and he should be doing this and he should be doing that that's that's easy that's it's easy because it's a distraction it doesn't touch a nerve the hard work is to look within you know to look at the two chickens the personal stuff the small quote unquote small stuff that i do have control over little stuff one more mitzvah one more act of kindness studying torah you know one more class a week a little bit more tzedakah in prayer you know to daven and just a little bit more kavanagh or you know when i finish eating a meal to to look at the words when i'm when i'm benching when i'm saying grace after meals whatever it is these these quote unquote small things these are the massive things these are the massive things and and that is ultimately how we change the world you put the man together and the whole world falls into place so that's that's the basic gist of it and uh it's so hard to do it's the hardest thing it's the hardest thing to do to keep the focus on ourselves and uh to make those difficult decisions about little things lifestyle changes lifestyle changes things that we're going to really commit to not something you're going to do for a moment because it's dish day it's high holidays and you have to do no something really serious something where you know i'm making a decision that things are going to be different from now on things are going to be different from now on is it a small change yeah it's a small change small changes are the biggest changes and that and that's how we change the world so anyway we should uh all focus on ourselves focus on the power being given and make the make the right changes for the new year i should mention also i'll mention one more thing being that it's uh kyle today when the balchamptov came to the world at a time of spiritual crisis what was the balshampton's message i mean this is a time when the whole jewish people were in peril the future of jewelry was you know teetering on the brink and what was the balshampton's message every single one of you is beloved to hashem like an only child he elaborated on the muscle a beloved to hashem like an only child born to his parents in their old age what's what's the idea there how did the balshamptav save the whole world by saving the jewish people you saving the whole world the basham to save the whole jewish people by focusing on the jewish person by telling each jewish person you are beloved by hashem like an only child that when you realize you are the you are the only child it's all it all comes down to you that's how you save the jewish people that's how you save the world