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.

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.

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.

Shlomo Carlebach

Let me ask you, sweetest friends, how did King David conquer Jerusalem? Everybody knows that Jerusalem belongs to King David — it’s his personal property, did you know that? Ir Dovid — Sukkos Dovid hanofales. Why is Jerusalem King David’s own property? The answer is very simple. Everybody knew that — you know, the seven nations who occupied all of Israel — and then the Chiti Yevusi [Hittites, Jebusites] — they were such strong warriors, and they were living on that hill where Jerusalem is, and you couldn’t get close. You know, they were waiting for two hundred, for three hundred years in Israel after Y’hoshua, and nobody conquered Jerusalem. And do you know? Everybody knows — Hoshanah Rabbah, the seventh day of Sukkos, is the day of King David — right? If you remember. Why is this day, the seventh day of Sukkos — you know what happened on that Hoshanah Rabbah? King David decided, “I am going to take Yerushalayim all by myself.” One man — all by himself. Because really, if you trust God — does it matter to God if one man is going or if a thousand people are going? It’s the same thing, right? Hoshanah Rabbah, King David walked up to Yerushalayim, and he conquered the whole city, right? That’s a king, right? The king is not somebody who says, “Listen folks, let’s go. I want you to be killed, and I am sitting in my office, and I’m directing traffic.” Right? For that you don’t have to be Dovid HaMelekh, right?

So you see, I want you to know that two people who carried the burden of all of Israel on their shoulders — already: Yosef and Yehudah. You see, Yosef says, “Okay, you can go home.” So all the brothers say, “No, we’ll all be slaves instead of Binyomin.” Yehudah stands up, and he says, “I want to be the slave.” That means two people stood up, and they said, “We want to do it for all of you.” This is two kings, right? This is a king!

And maybe some of you know, according to the tradition, it’s called, “Ma’an malka? Rabbonim.” “Who are the great kings? Our teachers.” Why is it? Why is a real holy teacher supposed to be a king? (Always a king, hopefully.) It’s not someone who puts it on you, right? A real holy king is someone who says, “I’ll do it for you. I’ll take it off you.” L’chaim, l’chaim. [drinks some more milk].

So you see? Let me ask you something else. Why did Joseph tell the dream to his brothers? He couldn’t control himself? Why, he was a yenta — or was he in analysis, and one of his brothers was a psychiatrist, you know? I mean, what was going on there? The answer is very simple. You know, Joseph knew one thing. If I am supposed to be the slave — if I wanna do it — the saddest thing in the world is I have to separate myself a little bit from my brothers. You know? I have to go by myself, right?
So Joseph knew one thing: the moment I tell this dream to my brothers, they’ll be angry at me. But can you imagine? — I have to tell you one more thing, which is so beautiful and so heartbreaking. Let me ask you — what happened at that moment when the brothers saw Joseph? Were they laughing? Were they smiling at each other, you know, we’re finally getting rid of this disgusting Joseph? Without getting involved — because I have to daven Mincha — for whatever reason they decided they have to sell him as a slave, what do you think was going on at that moment? [Long pause.]

I want you to know something. Imagine you’d be up in heaven, right? Can you imagine if someone would have recorded the crying of the Jews when we went into exile? When the Holy Temple was destroyed when we went into exile? Can you just imagine it? Can you imagine the sounds of the crying? It does not compare to the crying of the holy tribes.
And here I want to share with you something which is so holy, that I just have to tell you, and I think if some of you remember — maybe Adina [Elana Friedman] remembers it. Okay, there are these two kings in the world. Joseph is the King of all the Tzaddikim, Joseph is the King of all the people who never did wrong in their life — and Yehudah is the King of all the people who went wrong — everything they did in their life is wrong. And they have the strength to fix it, right?

You see, Yosef is the one who gives you the strength not to do wrong, to keep yourself going all the time, and Yehudah is the one who gives you strength to fix it. And we need both, right? Those two kings [are] the pillars of all of Israel.

Now listen to this — and remind me to come back to it, because we have to daven Mincha. I just want to tell you this. Okay, the brothers decide — basically it was Yehudah’s decision — we have to sell him as a slave. Because they say like this: “We don’t know if he is a Tzaddik or not. We don’t know who he is. We give him a chance. If he goes to Egypt, and he remains a Jew, and he remains holy, he’s one of us.” Right? “If gets lost, then he wasn’t for real.” Right? Okay, they’re picking up Yosef from the pit, and they’re telling him, “Yosef, this is our decision. If you are real, if you are one of the holy tribes — ” You see, without getting involved, you know, they thought he is not one of the twelve tribes. Because if you’re one of the twelve tribes, how can you separate yourself from your brothers? How can you separate yourself from your brothers, right? And they didn’t know that he’s only separating himself because he wants to take off the burden of being a slave [from them]. But anyway, that’s what it was.

They said, “If you’re one of us, you’ll make it. But if you get lost — so you get lost.” I want you to visualize — it’s the deepest, deepest depths. But again, it’s so holy, it’s awesome even to think of it. How do you think the brothers said good-bye to Yosef? How do you think the brothers said good-bye to Yosef, right? Because deep down, can you imagine how much — how much love do you think was between the brothers and the house of Jacob? Unbearable, right? It was so deep and so holy, we have no concept, right?

Let me ask you, do you think, really, without knowing the depths, do you think there was jealousy between Rachel and Leah? Remind me to talk about it later. There [were] never two sisters in the world who loved each other more than Rachel and Leah, right? The deepest love, like Moshe and Aharon, right? Because everybody knows, Moshe and Aharon fixed the sin of Cain among men, and Rachel and Leah fixing jealousy between women and hatred between women until Mashiach is coming, right? The two pillars — Moshe and Aaron, Rochel and Leah.

Okay, the brothers saying good-bye to Yosef. Okay, so Yehudah, who’s the king, right? He says to Yosef, “Okay, we’re selling you as a slave, and you’ll have to prove yourself, if you remain a Tzaddik or not.” So you know what Yosef says to Yehudah? He says to Yehudah, “My holy brother, please bless me I should make it.” Right? “Bless me to be a Tzaddik.” Now listen to this unbelievable thing: Yehudah blessed Yosef to be a Tzaddik. And you know why Yosef remained a Tzaddik? Because of the blessing of Yehudah, right?
What do you think Yehudah says to Yosef? ‘Cause he’s selling his brother as a slave, as much as he knows “I have to do it,” so Yehudah says to Yosef, “Please bless me I should do t’shuva.” Right? So Yosef blessed Yehudah to do t’shuva, right? And Yehudah blessed Yosef to be a Tzaddik. Right? It’s mind-blowing. Mind-blowing is not the word, right? So the two pillars of Yiddishkeit, the Tzaddik and the Ba’al T’shuvah — they blessed each other. It’s unbelievable! Yosef is only a Tzaddik because of the blessing of Yehudah, and Yehudah is a Tzaddik because of the blessing of Yosef.

And you know, I want you to know something. L’chaim [sips]. You know — [someone stifles a sneeze] God bless you. [And again] God bless you. What’s the holiness of the holy wall? You know what’s so strange? It’s a broken wall. And yet, you can see with an unclear prophecy the holy Temple, right? When you stand there, you see, mamesh, the Beis HaMikdash, right? But again, if you would see the Beis HaMikdash clear, it wouldn’t be so deep. Because behind all the brokenness — like on a dream level — you see the Beis HaMikdash — therefore, it’s so holy. Right?
I have to tell you just one more beautiful thing. When was the day that the wife of Potiphera mamesh really made it strong with Yosef — she says, [either] you do it, or I take you to prison. Which day was that? Everybody knows, it was Rosh HaShanah. But listen to this unbelievable thing. It was in the morning ’cause everybody — it was a whole big thing — it was a little thing in their pagan temple — and Yosef stayed home. Okay, I want to — [responding to someone's importunity] I’ll daven in a minute — I want to share this with you. [Hebrew quotation] — it says, “he saw his father’s face.” [Sotah 36b] What — he saw his father eating breakfast? They [had been] living together. He saw his father waking up? What moment did he see? Which moment was revealed to Yosef?  Which moment he saw his father? So the answer is very simple. He saw his father blowing the shofar.
You know, friends, I don’t know if you have ever seen mamash Tzaddikim. I had the privilege of seeing the Lubavitcher Rebbe, I saw the Bobover Rebbe, I saw mamesh Tzaddikim the way they looked before they blow the shofar, right? When you remember that, it’s something else, right? So I want you to know, Joseph went into prison on Rosh HaShanah, and everybody knows, he came out on Rosh HaShanah. L’chaim, l’chaim [he drinks again].
You know, the Ropshitzer says the portions of the winter wear heavy furs — you know? It’s all covered up. It’s all covered up. And it’s such a privilege — you know, it’s very crazy. Before Mashiach is coming, in our generation, really, we have such holy books; it’s getting more and more open to us, and it’s really more and more accessible to us — the deepest depths of the Torah, right? Let’s say twenty years ago, nobody was sitting in Santa Rosa talking about Yehudah and Yosef, right? L’chaim.
[This the end of Part Two. May the tears that we shed over the Joseph story be transformed into drops of rain to moisten the parched land of Israel, fill her rivers, lakes, and streams, her reservoirs and aquifers. — RG]

From the series, Reb Shlomo at Congregation Beth Ami, 4676 Mayette Avenue, Santa Rosa, CA 95405 . Sunday, November 30, 1980 (22 Kislev, 5741), Parashat Miketz. (Two days before Chanukah, the week of Parashat Miketz.)
Recorded and transcribed by Reuven Goldfarb.
Transcription dedicated to the complete refuah of Yitzchak ben Leah — Jerry Strauss, Shlomo’s great friend and supporter — who organized the concert and learning at which these teachings were given over.
Copyright held by the estate of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach.

On Rosh Hashanah we as Jews begin the year with the blowing of the shofar which reaches the highest place in heaven and the deepest, deepest depths of our souls. Everyone knows that there was a shofar blowing on Mt. Sinai, in the Holy Temple, and there will be great shofar blowing when the Moshiach comes.

On Rosh Hashanah when we blow shofar we experience all of this and we experience what life will be like after the Messiah has arrived when G-d is one and the whole world is one. Yet the finding of the shofar was when Abraham and Isaac were still on top of the mountain ready to give their lives for G-d. What we need the most in our generation is to find that shofar again — when a Jew and his child are both ready to give everything they have for G-d –and then the Messiach will come so fast to blow it.

Let it be you and I, your children and my children.

Let it be your shofar and my shofar that the Messiah will want to blow.

On Rosh Hashanah we don’t repent in the ordinary sense. We are not telling G-d our mistakes. What we’re doing all day and night is bringing down G-d’s oneness into the world. Our lives are so split and everything in the whole world seems to be falling apart that we begin the year with two days of living in a world of absolute deepest highest oneness there is. As long as my mother was alive whenever she blessed me on the high holidays I would also feel my father’s holy hands on my head and the hands of all my forefathers and grandfathers.

I bless you that your hands should be holy this year so that when you put them on your children’s heads they should feel the hands of Abraham and Sarah and all our forefathers. A lot of us are orphans; we need to become each other’s mother and father; so I shall wait for the holidays to be blessed by you holy brothers and sisters and to have the joy of blessing you in return.

Please remember that on the high holidays all the gates of heaven are opened wide and every Jew that comes to synagogue makes the doors open wider.

We invite you to pray with us, to become one with us and let us become one with you.

Please, please, please bring all your beautiful children.

Let’s fix the world — our lives and souls together.

Rabbi Shlomo

Moshav Meor Modiin. Erev Rosh Hashanah 5740.