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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

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

How does a person know the taste of joy?   We are living between two worlds.

We live in the world of thinking and in the world of beyond thinking.

The Tree of Knowledge level means “everything is thinking”.

The tree of life level means beyond thinking (a first flash).

If you only live on a thinking level you never put your life together….

Beyond thinking goes much deeper.

Love does not come from thinking.

It’s so much deeper.

Doing a friend a favor without hesitation is also beyond thinking.

How much does a person have to work on himself to know when to think and when not to think?   Why does Rosh Hashanna come before Yom Kippur? Rosh Hashanah is like the tree of life.

It’s beyond thinking.

The whole value of doing teshuva before Rosh Hashanah is that something inside of me wakes up.

Yom Kippur is all thinking.

Every one of the six million Jews had a flash from God: LEAVE! A German person told me, “I was a spy for Russia.

One night at two am, I knocked on the door of my neighbors and told them “they are arresting you at three am.

He laughed in my face.

I had to tell this to another person.”   In 1967 we came back to the Holy Wall.

It was the awakening of Rosh Hashanah.

At this time we must cleanse ourselves from anger.

We are playing with our lives if we are angry.

G-d is building a new world and what are you doing — yelling! It’s of utmost importance that parent’s don’t yell at their children on Rosh Hashanah.

Yelling is destroying the world!   How do we cleanse our hearts from anger and fill our hearts with more joy? When we stand before G-d we have to stand straight.

Standing straight means my head is on top of my shoulders.

It means that I’m listening — my head is connected to G-d.

We hardly know what people are really saying to us! If we are CONNECTED TO ABOVE we know what to say to people.

We need to pay attention to the red lights and the green lights.

Whatever we need to fix can be fixed in one second if we pay attention to the moment.

To know the moment is so deep! Not every moment is meant for getting married — they call out in heaven the moment you are getting married.

A wedding is like the tree of life.

I don’t love you because I THOUGHT.

When you meet your mate you are beyond thinking — you become completely cleansed of anger when you get the first flash.
How can I make someone else dance at my wedding? If I’m really happy with my joy, others will dance at my wedding.

When the bride and groom are not happy, then there is no desire to dance when people are fill with anger.

Between husband and wife — if you think, you’ll never make it! Marriage counseling needs to be connected on a “beyond thinking” level to get rid of anger…

The Shofar doesn’t come from thinking: the Shofar has no words.

It comes from the deepest deepest depths…

The soul operates on the level of the first fig.

The Isbitzer tells a Torah of the greatest joy being to come back to the Holy Land.

It was the greatest thing to take the first fruit and come back to the Holy Temple.

Imagine Michele the slipper coming with his first fruit of one fig! Baron Rothschild comes with ten thousand figs.

Word gets around that Michele is coming with one fig for his fruit for the holy temple.

Baron Rothschild is also coming with his ten thousand figs to Yerushalyim.

Both are coming with their first fruits.

Michele thinks inside– “Baron Rothschild squeezed the blood out of poor shleppers like me to get his ten thousand figs– I won’t dance with Baron Rothschild.

Michele was not happy with his one fig.

(When people brought their first fig — you don’t know what jealousy was!) The problem of the world is people aren’t happy with their portion.

How much a person has to cleanse him self to know when to think and when not to think.

It must start with the first flash in your head — without thinking.

The soul operates on the level of the first fig.

People whose lives are not so good do not bring their first fig to the Holy temple.

What is the greatest ANTI first fig? The arch enemy of G-d is when you don’t listen to the first flash of your heart.

Imagine in Sanz do you think that people didn’t listen to the inner words of the Rebbe? The greatest thing is to teach each other to listen to the first flash.

You don’t listen when your heart is full of anger.

Anger destroys everything inside and you lose touch of the little holy prophesy.

The Isbitzer says we must cleanse ourselves of anger.

To cleanse myself from anger I have to start first to fill my heart with joy.

Only a heart that is full of joy can be void of anger.

Anger destroys everything in the world.

It is hard to tear out anger from your heart.

Imagine you wipe out Amalak, that you have cleansed yourself of anger.

When Michele with one fig and Baron Rothschild with ten thousand are dancing together! Gevalt! Israel is only given to us completely when we have cleansed ourselves from anger.

Anger is still evident in Yerushalyim.

Cleanse yourself from anger at the Holy Wall.

Everybody knows that there’s nothing wrong with the tree of knowledge, that it is okay to think and to use your brain.

Just know what comes first.

First Adam should eat from the tree of life — the first fig — then he should eat from the tree of knowledge.

Wishing everyone the sweetest and most joyous New Year.

Transcribed by Michele Garner for Connections Magazine Issue.

Fall 1988.

From a class given by Reb Shlomo in Chana Klemberg’s  home.

So we are inviting each other again for an even deeper Rosh Hashanah / Yom Kippur, a more heavenly Succos, and a more beyond heaven Simchas Torah.

When I was a little boy, I always asked my father, “Where are the songs of the Holy Temple?” And I never got a good answer because I could not believe that Jews can live without at least one song from the Holy Temple, a song of King David, a song of beyond time and space, a song that reminds us that we are part of G-d.

A few years ago, late at night, I saw a frail Jew by the Holy Wall who drew my attention. He really prayed. I waited until he finished and he began telling me he had arrived that day from Russia after ten years in Siberia. I asked him, “How did you survive Siberia?” He said, “I was singing all the time.” Suddenly I had this flash and I asked, “Did you sing the songs of the Holy Temple?” And he was quiet for a long time tears of ten years of Siberia and maybe two thousand years of exile came out from his holy eyes. And he said, “My whole family are Chassidim from the time of the Baal Shem Tov, and my holy grandfather told me in the name of the holy Baal Shem Toy, that the way we chant prayers on the High Holidays is the way they were singing them in the Holy Temple – the way King David composed them.”

That evening changed my life. Whenever I give a concert, I always include the prayers of the High Holidays. The melodies reach, like the Shofar, to the deepest chambers of our souls.

Just imagine Baron Rothschild, suffering from amnesia, standing on it street corner, dirty and filthy, begging for dimes. The first thing he needs is to remember is that he is Rothschild and then to wash up and change his clothes, and then to go back to his home. All year long everyone in his own way is suffering from amnesia. We forgot what a Jew is, we forgot what a human being is, and we forgot who G-d is. Rosh Hashanah when we blow the Shofar, we remember everything. On Yom Kippur, we wash up and on Succoth we move back into our heavenly abode –to the palace we are meant to live in.

There is war in the world and hatred because the world has amnesia and his forgotten what it is to be human. There is so much trouble in Israel because the whole world refuses to remember that G-d gave us the land.

Let this Rosh Hashanah wake up the world.

Let this Yom Kippur clean us and the whole world.

Let this Succos, when we bring sacrifices for all the seventy nations in the Holy Temple, restore dignity all the nations of the world.

There were never so many homeless people in New York as today and this phenomenon is actually all over the world. It is as if G-d is reminding us that if true humanity, true belief in G-d has no home in the world yet. Succos we are building a new home for G-d, for all of Israel and, via Israel, for the whole world.

Let the New Year be the year we have been waiting for.

Love,
Shlomo

New York, Elul 5748
Reprinted from Cong Kehilath Jacob News

There is a story of the Alter Rebbe. Once he laughed in the middle of prayers and afterward told the Hassidim that he couldn’t help stop laughing. He went up to Paradise and there he saw a man sitting next to our Father Abraham, bored stiff. He did everything right but he did it without heart. So he is sitting in paradise but doesn’t feel anything. It is possible to do teshuva all year long without touching the depths of ones own soul. Yes, but not on Rosh Hashanah.

The teshuva of Rosh Hashanah is crying from the deepest depths of one’s soul, because the shofar is the voice of the deepest deepest depths of our soul and humanly speaking, of G-d’s Soul. Everybody knows Rosh Hashanah is the fixing of the Tree of Knowledge which Adam and Eve ate on Rosh Hashanah, the sixth day of creation. The Tree of Knowledge has two shortcomings:

1) My whole operation is from my head. I know there is right, so I do it, or I am not doing it because I know it is wrong.2) Even if I am doing it right, it is dead, meaningless.

Once, when I was a young man, still in yeshiva, learning 48 hours a day, I met on the train a so called “playboy”. I was sixteen at the time. He was twenty-four years old. We talked to each other and he told me that his whole life consisted of wine and women. I asked him, “What do you think of yourself before you go to sleep?” He answered, “I hate myself and I swear tomorrow I shall not do it again, but I lack the strength.” Deeply impressed by his confession, I told him,” Do you know the way I live? When I go to sleep I swear to G-d and to myself that I do the same thing again tomorrow. Obviously you live in hell and I live in heaven.”

On Rosh Hashanah a great miracle happens. G-d takes us out from the cycle of death; the cycle of not having the strength to change what we do wrong nor having the guts to do what is right with all of our hearts. When we blow shofar G-d takes our souls, cleanses them like from before we were born, gives them back to us free from our past and with so much G-dliness and holiness that we feel everything and let everything touch us. The last rehearsal before blowing the shofar is the blessing we give one other Rosh Hashanah night. The more we bless each other with all our heart, which is how much soul G-d breathes back into us the next day. I bless you with everything.

From the Holy City, Brother Shlomo

Reprinted from Kehilat Jacob News Yerushalayim, Elul 5747.

Our holy rabbis tell us the middle is in our hands, but beginnings are only in G-d’s hands. Then it’s up to me what I do with it. How do I begin on Rosh Hashanah? Sadly enough, a lot of people think Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, especially Rosh Hashanah is a time to regret what I did wrong and to promise G-d I’ll be better. All cute and sweet but don’t waste your time with that on Rosh Hashanah. Rosh Hashanah is not a time for cleaning. Yom Kippur, G-d’s Laundromat is open. Rosh Hashanah is so much deeper. The beginning of all beginnings is connecting the deepest, deepest depth of your being to that which is above that that which is above the above of the above.

Rosh Hashanah is the beginning of all beginnings. You know beautiful friends if someone said I promised G-d to be good last year and I didn’t keep it it’s not my promise that wasn’t real. It was my beginning that wasn’t real because if I really began then I’m a new person and I have all the strength in the world to fix my entire life. You know we live in such a broken world.Marriages break apart, friendships are broken, parents and children don’t talk to each other… and it’s all because they don’t know how to begin again. So here our holy rabbis tell us that as long as our hearts are full of anger we don’t have the vessels for new beginnings. As long as your heart is filled with sadness there is no way for you to begin and as long as your heart is filled with jealousy, beginnings will never help you.

So friends in these few days we still have left before Rosh Hashanah & on Rosh Hashanah itself, I bless you and me and I’m begging you and I’m begging myself –let’s get all the “anger” out of our heart…

all the jealousy…

all the pettiness.

You know if I’m petty with other people, G-d forbid, then G-d is petty with me. But if I’m big enough, the more I open my heart for other people, the more I open the gates for myself. Friends, the blessing people give each other on Rosh Hashanah is so deep, so forceful, so very awesome. On Rosh Hashanah every person can open gates for another person if you really mean it. I want to bless you and me that we should open gates for our husbands, wives, children and the entire world this Rosh Hashanah.

Friends, I’m begging you, I’m begging you, don’t be angry, not even at yourself. Just let’s cleanse our hair, let’s cleanse our thoughts… our holy rabbis tell us, the greatest joy in the world is when you “fargen”, you rejoice when something good happens for another person.
‘
On Rosh Hashanah, the acid test is, how much are you praying for someone else? In the Rosh Hashanah prayers, it’s never singular, always plural. Because I’m standing before G-d and I’m saying unless you give life to the entire world, please don’t give it to me. Unless you make everyone rich, please I don’t want to be the only rich man. Unless you give peace to the whole world, don’t give me anything, unless you give it to my husband, my wife, my children, unless you give it to Yerushalayim. Friends! Let this year be a “real” beginning not the same beginning we go through every year. Let’s not begin the old record over again — let there be a “new” record.

New teachings.

New words.

New thoughts.

Let every breath we take feel like we never breathed before. The holy Sokhatshov says when we blow shofar, G-d “absolutely” blows a new soul into us. Let’s keep this new soul so “holy” and so beautiful and let’s inscribe each other into the book of life.

Reprinted from Kehilat Jacob News New York, Elul 5746.

I remember when I was a little boy. My tatte, my father, was such a sweet Jew, I could swear that there was not a second in his life when he was not thinking, “Moshiach is coming and we will be going to Yerushalayim.” I remember when I was little, I was sitting on my father’s knee and I asked him, “Can you teach me a melody from the holy Temple?” I shall never forget how my father started crying, and said to me, “We don’t know any melodies from the holy Temple. We don’t know any.” I said to my father, “I can’t believe it. How can we live without one note from the holy Temple?”

As time went by, just a few years ago, I met an old Yid who had just come from Siberia, by the holy wall. I asked him, “How did you survive in Siberia for ten years?” He said, “I was singing the whole time.” I had this flash in my head and I said, I can imagine that G-d must have revealed to you a melody from the holy Temple.” so he said to me, “I am in a direct line from the Baal Shem Tov. The Baal ShemTov said that the way we chant prayers on the High Holidays is like the way they did in the holy Temple.” It may not be one hundred percent, but it’s a little bit like that. Those melodies are so deep, that’s why they touch us so deeply.

All the Jews sing the same prayers. In the fifteenth century, there was a great Chazan in Maintz. He was a great Kabbalist. He was a divine musician. He stabilized all the melodies.

We have to keep to the nusach. The way he stabilized the melodies was that he knew exactly where each note reaches in heaven.

One beautiful prayer contains this phrase:

“ad aznecha bamarom, yoshev tehilla”,

Please, Ribbono Shel Olam, listen to me from the highest place in heaven, You Who Are Yoshev tehilla. I am a father. What is the sweetest thing in the world for a father? When his child says something good to him. You can give me two million dollars (I need it sometimes.) But, how does that compare to when my children say something good to me. G-d is the same way. When His children get together in this world to sing His praises — He Is sitting on it, so to speak. When G-d hears us singing, He feels it is worthwhile to be G-d, just to hear that.

The end of this phrase is

“lishmoa el harena ve-el hatefillah”

G-d, listen to our singing and to our prayers. To our singing first.

Sometimes, I am angry at my child, yelling and screaming at her. Suddenly, in the middle of my yelling, there is a fire. What do I do? I take my baby and carry her out with the greatest love in the world. This shows that the yelling didn’t reach very deep.

We are saying to G-d, it’s true our mistakes are very heavy. But, we know that on a certain level, our mistakes never even reach that high. There is one place where our relationship to G-d is so deep.

In a business deal, I have to offer something. If I walk into a bank, unless I have money in there, I can’t take anything out. If I walk into a store, I must have the exact amount of money to buy something. If I tell them I’m a little bit short, they won’t sell to me.

In a certain way, I am coming to G-d in heaven and I am saying,”Ribbono shel olam, give me a good year.” G-d says to me, “Let’s see how much you have.” I say to G-d, “The truth is, I have nothing. I’m not coming to buy. I’m coming to beg.”

When my child asks me for a favor, do I ask her for something in return? We say to G-d, “Please, don’t deal with us on a business level.”

I want to share something very deep with you. You know, I walk in Yerushalayim and see all my friends. I’m so glad to see every person. But, imagine, I am in the Fiji Islands and I don’t know anybody and suddenly, I see a Jew from Yerushalayim! Imagine how good I feel!

The unholy people have something that the holy don’t know. The holy people are sure G-d is everywhere, so, when they meet G-d, it doesn’t amaze them. But, people who aren’t holy, for them G-d seems far away and when suddenly, they discover that G-d is right there – it’s a great discovery for them.

“Obikashtem misham omatzatem ki tidrishenubechal levavech obechal nafshecha”

And you shall seek from there, and you shall find (Him), if you seek with all your heart.

This is a story the Heliege Rizhiner would tell every year, on the second night of Rosh Hashanah. One time, Rosh Hashanah was very heavy. The whole world, especially Yidden, was on the scale of justice and the side of the sins was very heavy. So, the heilege Rebbe Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev ran and stole all the sins from the scale. He took them off the scale and they just disappeared. Suddenly, there was a voice in heaven: “What’s going on here? Who stole all the sins of the Jews?” There was another voice proclaiming” Levi Yitzchak, ben Sorah Sasha stole all the aveiros (sins).” Okay, the heavenly court gets together. And, you know, if you steal something you have to pay double. Can Rebbe Levi Yitzhakl, one human being, pay for all the sins of the Jews? No, he cannot pay. Especially not double. Comes the next question: What happens when a person steals and cannot pay? He is sold as a slave. According to simple law, to Halacha, if a person steals and cannot pay, he is sold as a slave. So, the holy court announces that Rebbe Levi Yitzchak cannot pay and he has to be sold as a slave. They begin to auction off Rebbe Levi Yitzchak. They call out: “Who wants to buy Rebbe Levi Yitzchak?” There is another voice in heaven, the Ribbono Shel Olam Himself. “LeKonehavodov badin” (To the one who buys His servants with justice).Ribbono shel Olam says: “I am buying Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev.” Therefore, “Le-Rachem avodov bedin,” therefore, G-d is compassionate.

Do you know what this means? We all know some people whose scale is not so good. Imagine if I decide that before Yom Kippur, I am going to steal all your sins. You know what happens to us after that? We are becoming the disciples of G-d after that. So, in heaven, they auction us off. Who wants to buy a little Jew like you and me? Only G-d.

On Rosh Hashanah night, when you bless somebody with a good year, it’s not just like wishing someone a good Shabbos. On Rosh Hashanah night, when you bless somebody with a good year, you are telling them: “Tomorrow, I am going to steal away all your sins. I shall steal away our sins. I shall cover up for you.”

I want you to know something very deep. What was the downfall of the world? How did the downfall begin? The first person who did something wrong was our mother Eve. The Kotsker Rebbe said that he wished that one time in his life he would stand before G-d in so much holiness, on Yom Kippur, like Eve did when she stood before G-d after eating from the Tree of Knowledge. The downfall of the world was, when G-d said to Adam: “Why did you eat the fruit?” and he answered, “It is Eve’s fault.” Is this how he loved his wife? We are created in G-d’s image. Is this what you think G-d is all about? He should have said: “It’s all my fault.” He should have covered up for her.

If, G-d forbid, my child would do something wrong and someone will come and ask: “Who did that?” I will say, “I did.” When I love somebody, I cover for her.

We see the influence of the Tree of Knowledge. We are not permitted to lie. We have to tell the truth. So, when G-d asked Adam what happened, he blamed it all on Eve. He didn’t cover for his wife. He did not act like a mentsch. That’s why G-d said to him: “Get out of my Paradise.”

I want you to know, the deepest depths of Rosh Hashanah is that we cover for each other. We each say to G-d, “It’s all my fault. “Who is a Cohen Gadol (a High Priest)? If somebody killed another person, innocently without wanting to, the Cohen Gadol is responsible for it. The Gemara says, if you are a Cohen Gadol, why didn’t you pray that it shouldn’t happen?

In the Passover Haggadah, we have the four sons. One of them is wise and one is evil. The evil one is not the opposite of the wise one. No, tzadik is the opposite of evil. Why is not one of the sons called tzadik instead of wise? So, I learn peshat for myself. The wise one thinks he’s very clever — he’s a Rebbe, he’s a Rosh yeshiva. So, how come, in his neighborhood, there is a rasha, an evil man? He couldn’t even get through to him, so he’s surely not a tzadik.

Yom Kippur, we stand before G-d and say:

“I did everything wrong. Forgive me.”

On Rosh Hashanah my fixing is not that I am telling G-d my own mistakes. Rosh Hashanah, it’s the other way around. I say to G-d, “Ribbono Shel Olam, the way You created the world, the whole world should know that there is one G-d. And, I’m so afraid that if that didn’t happen yet, that it’s my entire fault.” On Rosh Hashanah, I am covering for the whole world.

There are two kinds of Torahs and two kinds of relationships in the world. There is a relationship where somebody gives me everything without my asking that person and there is something so much deeper –asking. There are some things that you cannot give without asking if the other person wants it. You cannot marry a woman unless you ask her first. The asking is so deep.

When G-d gave us the Torah, He asked us first if we want it and we answered,

“Na’ase venishma.”

We didn’t run after G-d asking, please give us the Torah. G-d didn’t ask Avraham if he wanted Eretz Israel; He said, “I am giving it to you.” So, what was missing was, we never ran after G-d begging Him for Eretz Yisrael. We had to go into exile, we had to go through all the mistakes, and we have to wait for Moshiach because He will only come when we beg for Him. Eretz Yisrael, the real Eretz Yisrael, the Moshiach Eretz Yisrael, will only be given to us when we beg for it.

There is Pesach, the getting out of Egypt when G-d didn’t ask. He just took us out. Pesach Sheni, the second Pesach, was given because the people were begging Moshe, “We lost the first Pesach. Give us Pesach Sheni.”

When people make mistakes in their relationships, if, instead of just saying, “I’m sorry”, they ask for another chance, it’s so much deeper.

There are two Torahs. There is Mount Sinai, the Torah from heaven that we learned from Moshe Rabbenu. And then, there is the Torah that we learned from Aharon HaCohen, the Torah of Yerushalayim, of Eretz Yisrael, the Torah of the Beis HaMikdash, the Torah of Teshuva. In short, there is the Torah of Moshiach ben Yosef, the tzadik who does everything right. The Torah of Teshuva, Mashiach’s Torah, is the Torah of mistakes. It is David HaMelech’s Torah. Yosef the Tzadik didn’t make any mistakes; he was holy from beginning to end. Yehuda made mistakes; he did everything wrong. Saul made one mistake and he was finished. David made many mistakes and still, David chai vekayam, David is still our king. Saul was the child of Rachel, Rachel the tzadekes. Saul was not supposed to make mistakes. David, from the beginning on was making mistakes, but, after every mistake, he said, “I’m sorry”, and ran right back to G-d.

The question is not how much you love each other when you love each other. The question is how much do you love each other when you hate each other? The question is not how much you love G-d when you love Him. The question is, how much are you running back to Him when you do something wrong?

Sometimes, I have the privilege of being with Jews who don’t keep Shabbos, but, gevalt, are they longing for Shabbos. They are not longing for the type of Shabbos that most frum people have — some chicken soup, some noodles, the Jewish Press. They are really longing for the Yom shekulo Shabbos, for the true Shabbos, the real Shabbos, which is so much deeper. The Torah, the Torah of rules, is very holy. You learn it and you do it. The Torah of mistakes reaches the deepest depths of our being.

Moshe Rabbenu is the master of Mount Sinai. Aharon HaCohen is the master of the Beis HaMikdash. Aharon is the one who made the Golden Calf. Aharon was the master of mistakes.

G-d gave us the Torah of non-mistakes. On Mount Sinai, G-d asked us if we want it, and we said yes. As for the Torah of mistakes, we have to run after G-d to get it.

As for the Eretz Yisrael which G-d gave to Avraham, we have it. It belongs to us. But, this is not the Eretz Yisrael of Mashiach.

What is the holiness of a house? What is the difference if I live by somebody else or if I live in my own house? When I live with somebody else, if I knock on the door at four in the morning and I am drunk or I’m dirty, they might not let me in. My house is the place where I can go after all the mistakes. I can always get in.

Today, when so many young people are doing teshuva, we cannot ask them, “Why were you following that guru, why did you go to the Moonies?” Teshuva means that they are coming home. We cannot ask them anything. They are just coming back home. They must come home and we must be so glad they are back. We do not say a word.

The downfall of the world was caused by two things. The first is that Chava ate, and gave Adam to eat, the forbidden fruit. But, we were not driven out from Paradise at that moment. We were driven out when G-d asked Adam and Chava, “What’s going on here.” Chava should have jumped up and said, “I’m sorry. It was all my fault.” And Adam should have said, “I’m sorry. It was my entire fault. I should have told her better.”

What is the first sign of people loving each other? That they cover for each other. A house is a cover. Loving somebody is a cover. The beginning of a chupah, of a marriage, is that the husband covers the face of the bride. He is telling her, I won’t be like Adam who said, “Chava did it.” I’ll cover for you.

What did Aharon do when he walked into the Holy of Holies? He would say, “Ribbono Shel Olam, it’s all my fault.” Aharon is the Anan haKaovd, the cloud. On Yom Kippur Aharon says, “It’s all my fault.”

The Succah covers every Jew and every Jew says, “It’s all my fault.” On Simchat Torah, we dance with the Torah when it’s covered. The Torah covers for us. Until Simchat Torah, I open the covers Torah and I feel guilty. The Torah makes us feel guilty. On Simchat Torah, the Torah covers us. We don’t kiss the Torah, we only kiss the cover. We only kiss what covers for us.

Children dance the most on Simchat Torah. Parents are covering for their children. When babies are born, we cover them. When a baby is born, the mother doesn’t go to the Temple for one week or two weeks. Why? The mother is saying to her baby, “I shall cover for you. I am already not going to the Temple for a while. I am already covering what you will do wrong in your life.”

First of all, we ate from the Tree of Knowledge. That is not the tree of mistakes. According to the Tree of Knowledge, there is no such thing as covering for someone. If somebody did something wrong, let them fix it themselves.

Why is lashon hara such a sin? According to the Tree of Knowledge, lashon hara is not a sin. If you saw somebody do something, why not tell? You’re telling the truth. The moment Adam and Chava ate from the Tree of Knowledge, they didn’t cover for each other.

Why is the Temple the deepest fixing? Because Aharon HaCohen is coming again.

We have Gemara on almost everything. But, we have no masechta for loving each other, none for doing teshuva. Why not? Because this is the Torah of Moshiach, the Torah of the third Temple, the Torah of Aharon, of covering for each other.

How does Aharon cure the one who speaks lashon hara? Aharon comes and says, “Ribbono Shel Olam. It’s all my fault.” The person who speaks lashon hara can only be cured when it is clear to him that there is only one way to live in that world — to cover for each other.

The husband covers the bride’s face. The kallah gives him back a tallis. He covers her eyes, but she gives him back a tallis which covers all of him. A tallis covers until techivat hamaytim, until the dead will rise. When Yehuda left Tamar, he left with her a sign. The Zohar says that he left her with tallis and tefillin. Tefillin is the cover. Tallis is the ultimate covering. This was the beginning of bringing Moshiach. She was saying you have to cover for me. Everybody knows Boaz was the neshama of Yehuda and Ruth was the neshama of Tamar. When Ruth said, “And you will spread your wings over your servant”, she brought back the tallis which Yehuda gave to Tamar and she said, “Now, put it over me.” I wish every one of us a Good Year, a year in which we shall all cover for each other and we shall all be forgiven.

Brooklyn, Elul 5745

Transcribed by Rivka Haut for Connections