Read Sukkot: Carrying the Torah forever

Reb Shlomo taught us that G-d inscribes each person’s fate for the coming year into a “book” on Rosh Hashanah and waits until Yom Kippur to “seal” the verdict. During the Ten Days of Repentance, we try to fix our behavior and seek forgiveness for wrongs done against G-d (bein adam leMakom) and against our fellow planet sharers (bein adam lechavero).

Read:

Rosh Hashanah: Give everyone a chance to begin again

Rosh Hashanah: Not putting any limits on where we could reach

Rosh Hashanah: Every second counts

Rosh Hashanah: Wake up the world

Rosh Hashanah: The fixing of the Tree of Knowledge

Saying Bad about others

Elul: Redemption Through Responsiveness

Rosh Hashanah: Let’s fix the world!

Opening the Gates

Ki Va Mo’ed: When the Time Comes

Redemption Through Responsiveness

click here to watch a video of Reb Shlomo leading the services on Hoshanna Rabbah.

Please, please, give each other strength. Don’t ever stop giving compliments to each other and most of all to your children, whose self confidence depends on you! On Rosh Hashanah, every second counts like a thousand years. Our holy master Reb Nachman says, “The greatest gift we can give somebody is to give him back his self confidence.

When we make a mistake, not only we do wrong, our soul is shriveling and we look down at ourselves. A whole year of mistakes — Gevalt! How do we look at ourselves? It doesn’t take much to give up on somebody else — but to give upon ourselves is always Federal Express. To have the guts to really begin again, takes a lot of inner strength.

So Rosh Hashanah, the holiest day of beginnings, we don’t mention our mistakes in order to have the strength to stand before G-d like newborn babies.

Our holy rabbis teach us that the sound of the shofar is the sound of our innermost soul and heart but also the sound of a newborn baby. It is everything. It wakes us up, gives us strength, reminds us how holy we are and how holy we can be, and also how close we are and how easy it is to be the best and most exalted.

Blessings and love. Shlomo

One of the last written messages Reb Shlomo gave over to the hevra.
Reprinted from Kehilat Jacob News New York, Elul 5754.

Please, please, give each other strength. Don’t ever stop giving compliments to each other and most of all to your children, whose self confidence depends on you! On Rosh Hashanah, every second counts like a thousand years. Our holy master Reb Nachman says, “The greatest gift we can give somebody is to give him back his self confidence.

When we make a mistake, not only we do wrong, our soul is shriveling and we look down at ourselves. A whole year of mistakes — Gevalt! How do we look at ourselves? It doesn’t take much to give up on somebody else — but to give upon ourselves is always Federal Express. To have the guts to really begin again, takes a lot of inner strength.

So Rosh Hashanah, the holiest day of beginnings, we don’t mention our mistakes in order to have the strength to stand before G-d like newborn babies.

Our holy rabbis teach us that the sound of the shofar is the sound of our innermost soul and heart but also the sound of a newborn baby. It is everything. It wakes us up, gives us strength, reminds us how holy we are and how holy we can be, and also how close we are and how easy it is to be the best and most exalted.

Blessings and love. Shlomo

One of the last written messages Reb Shlomo gave over to the hevra.
Reprinted from Kehilat Jacob News New York, Elul 5754.

Imagine I will tell you; begin your life all over. Where do you begin? Would you change your religion? Would you change your wife or husband? Which habit would you change? And which stupidity would you not let ruin your life? Or what is the most important thing to you? For what would you give your head? Who is your Rebbe? Which page of the Torah is a page of your life? Which Chassidish book is the one which gives you life?

To be in exile is maybe to know that evil is real bad. But what is lacking is not knowing how good “good” is. Or maybe, in other words, I don’t like the darkness, but don’t make the light too strong.

On Rosh Hashanah, I connect myself to the head of all heads, to the beginning of all beginnings, to the highest headquarters in Heaven, to the Holy Temple above, to Yerushalyim above, to my own soul. Rosh Hashanah is one day when I don’t put any limits on where I could reach.

A lot of people when they pray, the most unimportant part of them is praying — their head is somewhere else. On Rosh Hashanah every word we utter; every prayer every wish is reaching the highest place in Heaven, the highest place in our hearts.

Have the best year, the loftiest year and let us all be privileged that through us people will connected to the highest place.

Love, and blessings, Shlomo

New York, Elul 5753
Reprinted from Cong Kehilath Jacob News

The last few days before Rosh Hashanah are like twilight. Every afternoon when the sun sets, out holy rabbis teach us, the sun is red, red with shame that another day passed without Moshiach coming. So we all am a little bit red and ashamed, that, with all the miracles Hashem showed us this year, I guess we still don’t have our act together. On the other hand, we are so proud of Israel, we are so proud of every Jew. Is there a country like ours? Are there people like us? The holy ones, the chosen ones, the blessed ones? So our deepest hope for next year is that we should finally learn how really holy the land is, how really holy every Jew is, and how absolutely holy the whole world is.

Our holy rabbis teach us that when we blow the shofar, G-d is blowing a new soul into us. And aren’t we all longing to become new people? How much would we pay to remove our perverseness? To takeout all the negativity, the pettiness and the selfishness from our heart? We can make it happen on Rosh Hashanah. But still we have a choice. We can tell HaShem, I don’t like my new soul, give me back my old kvetchy soul. One can tell Hashem that his greatest joy is telling bad things to people. And the Master of the World says, “Is that what you want? Please do so, but write your name in the other book.” Woe, woe, woe! Who wants to be in “that” book? I bless you and me to inscribe our names in the Book of Life. It’s so good to be alive, so good to be full of joy. It’s so important only to say good things to each other. You know I’m sure; G-d needs a maid to clean the world. To be covered with the garbage of the world. But don’t you want to be HaShem’s right hand man or woman rather than the garbage collector? So we pray Rosh Hashanah night, make me into the head, not a tail. There is a definite need for a tail but I’d like to be the head. I bless you and me to lift our heads, to lift our spirits, to lift up each other, and to lift up the world. And do you know, my beautiful friends, that physically the higher you fly, the further you get from the earth. But spiritually the higher you are, the closer you are to the earth, the closer you are to every human being, the closer you are to every one of Hashem’s creatures.

On Rosh Hashanah every second counts. Every person has one moment when they are judged in heaven. Let heaven not catch us faltering at that moment. Is there anything unimportant and unholy at this awesome moment?

I can’t wait for us to daven together with tears; a little bit of sadness, but mostly with joy that we have such a great Father in Heaven who will give us hopefully the best year ever.

The first thing we are doing on Rosh Hashanah night is eating apples with honey. The apples, the fruit, these are our children, the next generation. We pray just for their sake that the world be filled with honey. Let the Yiddishkeit that we are teaching them taste as sweet in their mouths.

Reprinted from Kehilat Jacob News Let’s Start Again High New York, Elul 5751

When I was in Russia on Sukkot¹, two non-Jewish girls in Moscow showed me the way to the synagogue. They stayed with us half the night in the Sukkah and then walked me back to the hotel. When they said goodbye, they said something prophetic to me:

“Maybe there shall never be peace in our days — maybe we shall never taste a peaceful world, but we shall always remember those few hours in the Succah of Peace, sitting in Paradise in the shade of G-d”.

My beautiful friends, every second in the Sukkah² you can taste Paradise in the most eternal way. Once a year we sit with our holy Mothers and our holy Fathers in the Sukkah. I bless you and me, let it also be with our children — all the children of Israel and eventually all the children of the world.

All year long the Torah is such a burden. Every word weighs ten thousand tons and how often do we think it is really too much, but after being in the Sukkah for eight days, living in G-d’s world again — a cleansed and purified holy world — I suddenly realize how light the Torah is. It’s not I who carries the Torah; it’s the Torah that carries me. So I run out from the Sukkah straight to the Holy Ark. I dance with the Torah for forty-eight hours. Before Sukkot I could barely carry the Torah four steps. After Sukkot I can carry the Torah forever.

Transcribed by (Rabbi) Samuel Intrator
Brooklyn, New York
Original version in Connections Magazine
Volume IV Number 1 — Succos 5749
Copyright (C) 1988 The Inner Foundation
Reprinted with Permission

1. Sukkot, is a Biblical pilgrimage festival that occurs in autumn on the 15th day of the month of Tishri. The holiday lasts 7 days. In Judaism it is one of the three major holidays known collectively as the Shalosh Regalim (three pilgrim festivals), when historically the Jewish populace traveled to the Temple in Jerusalem.

   The word Sukkot is the plural of the Hebrew word sukkah

2. A sukkah is a temporary dwelling that Jews use during the holiday of Sukkot, meaning booth or hut. During this holiday, Jews are instructed to build a temporary structure in which to eat their meals, entertain guests, relax, and even sleep. The sukkah is reminiscent of the type of huts in which the ancient Israelites dwelt during their 40 years of wandering in the desert after the Exodus from Egypt, and is intended to reflect God’s benevolence in providing for all the Jews’ needs in the desert. According to Halakha, a sukkah is a structure consisting of a roof made of organic material which has been disconnected from the ground (the s’chach). A sukkah must have at least 2-1/2 walls. It should be at least three feet tall, and be positioned so that all or part of its roof is open to the sky (only the part which is under the sky is kosher.) A sukkah can be built on the ground or on an open porch or balcony. Indeed, many observant Jews who design their home’s porch or deck will do so in a fashion that aligns with their sukkah building needs. Portable sukkahs have recently become available for those who have little space, or for those who are travelling (in order to have a place to eat one’s meals).