Elul: The Chance to Change Your Life

In this episode, we are learning the Nesivos Shalom on the month of Elul. We will see just how much power it has to change our lives in the upcoming year... if we take advantage of the opportunity!

If you want to follow along inside, it is in Nesivos Shalom on Devarim page reish lamed gimmel (233). You can find a pdf of the piece here.

This week’s episode is generously sponsored in memory of Mordecai ben Chaim Weinstein a"h. Thank you so much to this week's generous sponsor! If you would like to sponsor an episode of the podcast, please email Rabbi Charnoff at rabbicharnoff@gmail.com.

Transcript

Rabbi Charnoff 0:08

Hello everyone. This is Rabbi Robbie Chernoff, and you are listening to the Hasidist for Life podcast, the podcast where you learn a deep hasidic insight every single week and explore how it can lead us to a more meaningful, vibrant, and spiritually uplifted life. In this week's episode, we'll be learning O on the month of Ello. If you'd like to follow along inside, you can go to the show notes for a link to A PDF, but please feel free to sit back, listen, and enjoy the ride. This week's episode is sponsored in memory of Morde Hai Weinstein. Alum, thank you so much to this week's generous sponsor. Remember, your sponsorships are what make this podcast happen. If you would like to sponsor an episode of the podcast, please email Rabbi chernoff@gmail.com or see the show notes for more details. Alright, with that, let's jump into the Nativo Shalom on the month of Ellu. We are in the Olum on Hode ell. It is in the back of safer Devar in the first piece. page Reish La Gimo. I know that it's still a little bit before elo, but this year it struck me in my heart that, we often don't give ourselves enough time to prepare in elo, let alone for elo. And El is a very, very big month, and we're already coming out of Tuba. Ro Klo is a week and a half away. To already begin preparing for K. Everything that comes along with it, I think is very worthwhile and MiiR Chen will do so together here in this first piece and over the coming weeks. So he starts off and he says, the says few parses that the Muslim will say, the rulers will say. Ll explain who are these rulers who will say then when it says the the rulers, it means those who rule over their yb. What does mean common will make an accounting for the world. So what does this mean? That in certain times of life, hopefully every day, in fact, that there are certain times we make a, and accounting, and inner accounting about all of the details, all of the specifics of the way that they, itza, hara tempts us and draws us away from our, whether it's a level of arm. whether it's on a level of our desires or whether it's, you know, simple lowly things that we're, ways that we act, ways in which we fail to serve a Q, and this is something which we're working on hopefully all the time. I, every single day we're looking inside and at the end of the day asking ourselves in what ways we were successful and in what ways we were unsuccessful throughout the day. Whether it's, again, big things are small things and da this is that. We have to be careful even with the mitzvahs that we tend to dash, that we tend to, you know, step on with our heel. All the mitzvahs are important. I wanna actually pay attention and make sure to put on my right shoe and then my left shoe, and then to my left shoe, and then to my right shoe. I wanna give more kavana. When I say broccolis before I eat. If I've been not been saying bruco to the level of kavana that I wanna make sure to have, or maybe I get lazy sometimes and I'm not sure exactly what the BHA is, and even though I could really easily look up on an app, what bha, UNA is, I just say KO'cause I'm not sure, but I wanna be more recos, take it to the next level. the small ways in which I'm failing, ways in which I'm giving up time could be that I'm not learning, I'm not learning enough. When I learn, I allow myself to space out to check my phone. Whatever small things that constantly in my life I'm trying to upgrade, I'm trying to improve upon if you're sitting here and listening to this podcast, you're probably somebody who's committed to your Bo Hashem, so you're constantly working on your Bo Hashem. These are the constant work that you're putting in, in order to continuously improve on your jam. Those are the regular hash, those are daily hash, but he says. But there's a whole nother level, the level of a hash of the entire world. That's what the SK is talking about. Hash aone an accounting that encompasses the entirety of my inner world.'cause we know that every single Jew is anan. Every one of us is a small world. And we need to contemplate to reflect on are we fulfilling our purpose, our destiny in this world? That's a tremendous thing to think about. That's not the daily tweaking of Maya Vode. There are certain times in my life, there are certain times in the year when I need to not just look at the small things that I'm doing and fix the small things, but take a global picture. I'll look at the whole inner world of myself and ask myself, is my whole inner world where it's supposed to be? Am I the person who I'm supposed to be? Am I the ever Hashem who I'm supposed to be? The big questions in life, I've been going and I've been on a consistent cycle of learning. I have always this 15 minutes sitter here and this 20 minutes sitter there. Can I do more? Should I be doing more? Should I be moving on to the next level? Fila, I go to go into the same minion with the same sitter for the last five years. Is it time to change up? What time I show up to shul? How I da in the preparation I put into it? Maybe change the sitter that I'm davening from to switch things up a little bit. Like this is not just tweaking whether or not I have Cavan on this word or not. No. My whole te tila to upgrade my tila of my whole world of Tila and my a hashem in every aspect of my being. In terms of what I think my purpose in this world is, is the job that I'm currently at, is that job? Is that what I'm supposed to be doing? I picked it a year ago, two years ago, five years ago, 10 years ago. Is this what my purpose is? To think about that big picture. I'm coming out of Tisha. Is this where I'm supposed to be? If I'm in Chuda Arts, am I still supposed to be in Chu Arts? Yes. I've been here for years. Yes. I said I was gonna come to our L eventually. Big picture questions. Has the time passed and the time to make a change? To start looking at the bigger picture pieces of my life and ask myself am I fulfilling my purpose in this world? Because if I'm making these small tweaks and these small changes, and I'm constantly growing. I'm growing within a certain sphere and within a certain spectrum, and I'm taking steps within this level. But there's times where you're not supposed to be taking steps in the level. I'm supposed to change to a whole new level. After all of this time of growing, I've peaked in this level, and maybe I've even been hanging out in the peak of this level because it's been comfortable for a very long time, and it's time to change things up. It's time to learn a lot more or learn differently. Maybe it's ausa, maybe it's a new sheer change things up. It's time change up, perhaps where I am supposed to be living. Is it time to finally make aliyah? Is it time to finally come to tro this job that I've been going through? Okay, so I, it was gonna be a starter job, but that was 10 years ago and it's still, is it a starter job? For what, What am I trying to start here? Where am I going? Where am I going? Am I being afar to my family? Am I supporting my family? Maybe it's time to upgrade and to say no. First of all, maybe this is not supporting my family enough and it's time. I need to bring in more money to support my family, maybe to support my community now that I've become older, to donate to my shul, to give more takah, whatever the thing may be. Or maybe I had a goal of what I wanted to accomplish. Am I helping the people that I wanted to help? Am I fixing the world in the way that I wanted to fix the world? Am I the Jew who I was meant to be? So I have the, the, that I was meant to have. Is it time to jump to the next level? It's time to look at my whole inner world. It's time to come and think of a one of the entire world. There are times in life we need to stop and ask the big questions and not be afraid of the hard answers and not be unwilling to make the big changes. This is the kufa that we're in. This is the kufa that we're coming to. On the one hand, right as we are learning this now it's only a of elo, but by the time you listen to this, it might already be elo, then you're in it. But I would say even a of elo, it's post sha. Once we get past the Shaba av, once we look back at the Shaba AV and we see the tremendous capacity that we have for destruction. That we can remove a Q who's shaina from this world, that we can destroy our shalom bias, that we can destroy the be that we can remove our consistent Voda like we had in the times of the Be. If I have that capacity to destroy and remove Aakash Bhu from this world, now is the time. It starts from the day after and certainly from Tuba Avan to start doing this big picture reflection. If I can break the world to that extent. I can make the world to that extent. I can build the world. I can build the beam ash. I can build my inner mishka. I can change my whole inner being, my whole inner world, that who can be hin within me and therefore back in the world and work towards getting back to bean ash. EL is a time to repair, but we need to prepare for El. Both are true. this is the time. This is not a one day process. This isn't like something to wake up and start doing. The day before Rosh Hashanah takes time to start asking myself the hard questions. Who am I? Who was I meant to be? What was I meant to accomplish in this world? Not was, what am I meant to accomplish in this world? How much beauty am I bringing to the world already to my a hash, my relationship with the q. How much farther could I go if I jump to the next level? If I take things to the next level, big picture in myself, Torah, my destiny, the things that I think I'm destined for in this world wants me to fix in this world. My marriage, my kids, big picture, These are things we always have to be doing, and they always have to be at this time of the year. But da, this time of year we, we, we have to be engaged in these things. You know, a month ago I was thinking about these issues myself because that was when it hit me. That was the time that it came to me that I wanted to work on these things and I sat down with my rabbi and hopefully we should all have a rabbi that we could sit with and we could talk to and we can discuss these issues with. And I shared with him where I was at and how I've been serving Al Q Boku and how I've been connected to my family. And I said, I feel like I need to change things up. I feel like I need to upgrade, and I don't know if it's this or that, or the other thing. And he pointed to one of the things he said, if, if that thing's even on the list, how could you not be upgrading that part of your life? How could you still be there on that part of your life? And we talked for two hours about how to upgrade that aspect of my life. That wasn't a tweak. It's not a tweak. I walked away from that conversation and I, he lives in the old city and I walked out of the old city and I walked through the streets of I mo of for a couple of hours just processing what we talked about, talked about with my wife, and we talked about how to implement it and just how to become the next level of who I am. Rabbi and I talked earlier this year, I'm sure I mentioned this on the podcast before. About how this year my goal was, in addition to whatever other learning I'm doing, my goal was to finish TaNaK in one year, my second time to go through second time TaNaK all in one year from Sim sim. And he said, and when you do that, you already lay in the groundwork. Then it's time to do mishna. I said, great. In how many years? He said, what do you mean how many years you get one? I don't know how I'm gonna do Sha Mishna in a year from this in Clustera to next Clustera, but I'm already thinking about that now.'cause that's my, in my mind, I can't even consider such a thing. the whole thing in a year. So I'm saying somebody on the outside to look at you and say, yeah, it's time to upgrade. Upgrade who you are, upgrade what you're doing. Upgrade where you are in life. These are the things we should be thinking about. This is the, we're talking about, sorry, I'm going on about this, but like for every one of you, For every one of us, it's gonna be different. And on the one hand, again, I'm sure that there are some of you thinking about why are we talking about L And We're still towards the end of aav. Hava, we have the answers to these questions in six weeks. When we come to a QAD and tell him who we are and who we promise, and we're gonna become hava in six weeks, we have the answer to that question. Now's the time to start thinking about these things on wherever level we, at whatever stage of life we're at, start thinking about these things. And he goes on and he says, this type of SB can only really be done objectively. A person who rules over their Yah, because people who are not ruling over their y. A person who still has their Ys ruling over them and they still have tva. So how are you gonna be able to make a proper objective, clear accounting? Only a person who truly rules over their Ys there only they can really, truly be able to come to a clear accounting on who they are, who they're meant to be, what their to is, what their purpose is, what their destiny is. And to that, I would say two things. So number one is I'll double down again, that it's important when making these big picture, even just talking it out, let alone coming to conclusions to have somebody objective on the outside. If we're not emotional on our guitar, I'm not emotional on my guitar. I still have tremendous guitars. Maybe all of you here don't, but I do. So for me, part of how I'm able to get through that is so when I feel like it's time to make a big ola. So I go to my rabbi, who I do believe is one motional on sir. And number two is an objective outsider with I believe Akash Burro, who is speaking to me through him, and he helps me come to clarity on these issues. So number one is, is that if you're not motional on Sir, yet, hopefully you have somebody who can help you think these things out to clarity. You have to push it as far as you can and make sure that you've actually clarified it. Again, A simple, example would be that if I'm like, okay, so I'm gonna take 3, 4, 5 years to do Shahs. So that's why each telling me, no, you're gonna do good. You're gonna do sch, you're gonna be great. Shahs. Can you imagine when you're able to, can you imagine that sea? Can you imagine how tremendous you're gonna be when you finally do shamnas? Five years valdi. And it takes an objective out to say no. That's your answer I talking to you. You get one. You get one year. Put in extra effort. Look at how much capacity you have, how much time are you actually committing to learning? How much are you expecting? Give yourself. So that's my answer, failing me or I guess my answer succeeding and therefore I'm failing myself. Right? So we need the objective outsider. If we're not. On the flip side, I would say if we don't have that person to talk to or whatever the case may be. You still have to make the best accounting that you can. Let's say I didn't get to talk to Arabia, and let's say I would've given myself five years instead of one year. You know what? At least in five years, I would've make my way through SNAs. That's still tremendous. That's still huge. I be one because I need the objective out there to get past my laziness and my lack of drive to my is pulling me back from, okay, so even if we're not motional on our Y, like he's talking about here. No, we may not come to clear objective truth of what we can accomplish, but everything that we're pushing ourselves forward counts. It all counts and it's all tremendous. And if you're able to look yourself in the mirror and look yourself in the eyes and say, I've been sitting here at this level and everything's been going fine, and I'm very complacent here, and I'm gonna move to a place of discomfort and go to the next level, even if you undershoot, that's a tremendous move. So those of us who are not al on our guitar, this is the time of year. We still need to be asking these big questions, coming to these big answers, honest, genuine, clear answers, not overshooting either. The guitar can also push you in the opposite direction, can push you to take on too much to move, too much to overshoot, knowing that you'll fail, fall on your face. Then you got nothing in this entire year.'cause you'll think about yourself as such a. I made all these goals. I wasn't able to accomplish anything. I'm such a loser. I can't succeed in my Judaism. I can't succeed in my learning. I can't succeed in my connection with other people. Uh, no. So I'm just gonna give up the hr. I was like, yes. I planted those seeds six weeks ago that you're gonna jump so high that you're gonna fall on your face. And I waited it out and six weeks later I win. It has to be a clear hush point. You go too high or you go to low, could be a problem. But try to be as honest with yourself as you can be with whatever your Sahara is at, as honest with yourself as you can possibly be. Strive for the next level. That's the goal. And to start thinking about that now, six weeks, go start thinking about that now. Like he says here, va, this is the time. The time is bringing this out. Hey, we're coming towards the em. I know again, it's a bunch of weeks away, but it's closer than we think. To start thinking about, not to start to fully think about this huge, this accounting of my whole inner world in all of its aspects, because every single year on its own is totally unique from every year that came before. And he says this more at length, and we're gonna summarize here. Every single day from creation until now, every single day is new and unique and has its own unique fixings. Every single one of us. We have a purpose in this world and we have a goal, a bigger goal of what we're supposed to accomplish, but a daily goal of things that Ako Sparkle expects us to accomplish, to fix the world, and every single day, each day is unique. But when it comes to a new year, there's a whole new, a whole new spiritual reality that's coming out. There's this whole new reality that's coming out. And it's all because we as human beings, we're like the ladder of OV with its feet firmly implanted in the ground and its head going all the way up to Shama he's saying here very deeply, every year is a whole new reality, meaning even within the fact. I'm trying to become something new and always trying to progress and always trying to grow, and certain times of the year I'm ready to jump to a whole new level. When it comes to preparing for the new year, we need to think in a whole different way because when I'm within the context of the year, I'm elevating myself within the spiritual realities of the year that I'm in. But says that when a new year comes in, it's a whole new reality of time. It's a brand new reality of time and the things that you were able, you had the potential to accomplish spiritually this year has no relationship, no limitations to the things that you can accomplish spiritually within the context of the next year. It's a new reality of time. It's a new spiritual reality of time. And so you see yourself, listen, I wanna progress in this area of L Hashem, but I know myself and, and this I can't do, and I've got this problem going on, and this has been on top of my head and this has been distracting me. That'll only be true. But you come into the next year. You come into the next year, there's no limits. There's no limits for the potential of what that year can bring. You we often go into the year carrying the baggage of the previous year. And what he's telling us is, is you can take all that baggage and you leave it at the door of the new year. You leave it there. Yeah, but I struggled with this and I was unsatisfied with that. And I know myself, no, that's the R talking, you leave it at the door, you leave it at the exit of 57 85, and you walk in. Wait lists with infinite possibilities to float as high as you want to go into 57 86. The only thing that's holding you down is what you choose to schlep into the new year because it's not there. You have to bring it in. It's not there. It's a new reality of time that never existed with infinite potential. And it's up to you. It's up to you. You bring in, and he says, here, says. He asked the following question, we hold that on Rosh Hashanah. The world is judged if it's true that we're judged about the whole year on Rosh Hashanah. So then how come we DA in every single day? What's the point of dominating if we already were judged on Russia? It's already set in stone. Amar, as it says, Adam, a person to judged every single day. To gives his own answer, but then says a different answer. Beautiful. What he's saying here, he says, yes. Every single day we're told a person is judged every single day and every single day we turn to our, and we have to give an accounting of what we did, and we have to explain the expectations that we are hoping to live up to in the coming day. What we hope to accomplish in the coming day. In the coming days. In the coming weeks. In the coming months. Yes. And those are the small changes, the important tweaks, the important elevations that we make in every day of life.'cause we're judged every day and every day. We need to be progressing every single day. But on Rosh Hashanah, the Alam is nito. The world is judged. On the one hand, the whole world is being judged in a global way. And on the other hand, what we've been talking about, my whole inner world is being judged. Not aspects of myself, not successes and failures from the previous day. I'm being judged on my whole inner world. And we hear the word judgment doesn't. Judgment doesn't have to mean that is looking at us and saying, ne, you didn't do this right. You didn't do that right, and you have no hope in this. You're never gonna see in that no, we're being judged on the capacity of our inner world. And the more preparation that we put in, which is why we're starting early now, the more preparation that we put in. The more we're able to come with excitement and, and kavana and open-mindedness, to come with a limitless potential. On Rash Hashanah and say, I've been working on myself for the last bunch of weeks, and again, if you're listening to this a week or even a day before, has Hashanah, it doesn't matter. I've been working on this for a day. I've been working on this for a week. I've been working on this for a month, however long I've been working on this ak, I've been really thinking about this and I know that it's gonna be hard, and I know that it's gonna require sacrifice to give up this TIVA and that Tiva and this bad media and this issue that I have. This hangup that I have and this thing that I have to do this way and this thing that I wanna do that way and this thing that I enjoy doing, even though I know it's not right. I know it's gonna be hard, but this is the person that I want to be big picture, My whole world. I'm willing to give that stuff up because. You're here to judge me, and I believe that you're gonna judge me that I have the capacity to do this, to accomplish this. I have the capacity to learn that I have the capacity to dive in. In that way, I have the capacity to engage in this relationship in a meaningful way. I have the capacity to engage in a marriage. I have the capacity to elevate my marriage. I have the capacity to elevate my relationship with my kids. I have the capacity to do so much more. If I'm going out and I'm going into the workplace every single day, five days a week, I have the capacity to accomplish so much more in this world or for my family or for my community. Not the little things. Big picture and Akash Bur who says, I hear in your voice how much you've thought this out. I hear in your voice how much you want this. I hear in your voice that you wanna change your whole inner world, and in his. Kind and loving and merciful judgment. He grants us that whole new inner world in this whole new year. That's what we're building towards. That's what we're preparing for. Who do I wanna be? Who do I wanna be? What are we doing here and how is what I'm doing here fitting into the big picture of what I'm supposed to be doing in this world? What are you doing here? Do you know? And if you know, how old is that answer? And if there's answer old, how much work could you be doing?'cause what are you really doing here? What are you really doing here? A couple of sparkles asking, and he's asking Atka this time of year. This is a time where we're being judged. Yes, every single day we're judged, but we're being judged on our whole world. On our whole world. That's what's happening right now. He goes on and he says, bottom line of the first column comes out of all of this. Every single year, there's a renewal, a newness that's coming out in the whole world. This new reality, this new purpose, this new destiny for the world. For, for myself, jose. Every single year on Rosh Hashanah, the whole world goes all the way back to the beginning, all the way back toes, all the way back to the Big Bang, and it all spreads out fresh and new like it never was before. It's a whole new reality in mu maba and based this, we can understand that's what it says in the rba. Says frighteningly tremendously. Just like all of our actions, all our mitzvahs and all of our eras, all of our sins are wayed out at the time of our death. So too are they wait out at the end of every single year.'cause it's the end of a cycle. It's the end of a, it's the end of that reality. He says, how can make such a comparison between a year and one's entire lifetime? Just say he weighs out our sins at the end of every single year. Is reading beautifully into the words of the rba, just like at the time of a person's death where a person has finished everything that they're gonna accomplish in terms of their destiny, in terms of their purpose, in terms of what they're gonna do in this world. There's a similar calculation being made every single year. Why? Because it's not shy to make an accounting of the next year, on the previous year, because that year has already ended. So at the end of the year, Q says, we're closing the books on this year, we're closing the books on this reality. We're closing the books on this world, this inner world of yours. Let's finish up all the accountings'cause it's time to start a whole new year. A whole new reality, a whole new world for you. It's almost as big as the accounting that's done at the end of your life.'cause that year's coming to a close, the year is dying as a whole. New year is being birthed and we have to close the books, do the accounting, finish it up to be able to come fresh into the new year. Han and the year the previous year had already finished. And a whole new year is starting with all new purpose. Whatever your purpose was in this past year, it's done. It's finishing up now. Get it done, pack it into the next few weeks, it's done, and realize we're walking into a reality of something totally new. A a whole new purpose. A whole new me. A whole new reality. Whole reality for CLA Israel, who knows what could come in the coming year, but it comes from the preparation that we put into it. You have to make sure to put judges and officers in all of your gates. He says very beautifully ye there are many, many different gates in life. Every single day is its own gate. That's real, that's relating to that day. Every single day has its gate, the, and so too. Every month is a gate, and there's the gate of the entire year. There's different gates as we go along in life, and what's the significance of a gate, and then we'll play it out for each one of those. He says, what is the SHA all about? What's the gate all about? It's a place of reflection, a place of contemplation. Nabi goes on and on about this. We certainly did when I was in Yeshiva that even back then, that we've lost the art of contemplation. We don't contemplate anymore. Especially in, that was 20 years ago now when you could just quickly Google anything on the internet or put something through ai. We have external things to process for us. We can get answers that way, but we don't get growth that way. It's not the same thing. You can know stuff. You can be more informed when you have a computer doing it for you and have AI doing it for you. You don't become something through the process unless you are doing it internally yourself. When you do the work, you become someone else. We need to be contemplative and it's not a 20 25, 20 26 issue with AI and Google, and it's not just 20 years ago and it's not even Andres before that. We just came out of before that with, we read the first per of Isha Yahoo. In there. He says, before my people don't contemplate. You're not a contemplate of people. And in that context, what he's talking about, if you look at the entirety in the naa, he's saying, you're going and you're bringing CoreOS, but you're not. By roe. You're doing some of the stuff, but you're lying and you don't care about anybody, and you don't care about me, and you're not ing to me, and you're not doing cva and you're sinning. your life doesn't make any sense because you're so busy doing this and doing that and going on autopilot and following whatever your auto plan takes you, including your Yates or hearts and your tivas. You're not contemplating what is this world about? What is your world about? What's your inner world about? What's your life about? Why are you here? What are you doing? Was screaming this out before we lose the be tummy dutch because we're not contemplative. And on the flip side, again, if you can break your life by not being contemplative, you can make your life by being contemplative. You can turn yourself around. there are realities, there are shaim, there are gates built into time. And those gates are places of heat, bone, they're places of contemplation. They're places of reflection. Who am I. Why am I here? What am I doing here in this world, in this place? How is it going into this space of time? A part of the journey of my life and getting me to my destination should be asking at every Shah. That's why the Zu is there. There was a guy in YUI wish I could remember his name. I dunno if I'd say it now Anyway, but I wish I could remember his name just'cause I wish I could remember his name. Sweet, sweet guy. short guy, long curly pace. I don't know if we spoke that much, but he always struck me. I would always watch him when he would move through the hallways. When he would run, He would always be running and he would run to a room, and even though this little guy, he was running super fast, he would get to a doorway and he would stop at the doorpost. He would put his hand on the mezuzah with his eyes closed, 2, 3, 4, 5 seconds. Kiss his hand and then keep on running. He understood what Aha was. I don't know exactly what he was thinking about when he walked into a room, but you could see that he was contemplating, he was reflecting, who am I and why am I going into this place? Am I bringing Haq Q Bohu into this place? Am I going here because I'm going here for the purpose of em? And am I bringing Barko Andina into this space? You could see it on his face. His face was shining. You could see it on his face. That's physical space. There's a doorway and a gate and a meza at every slice of time. There's is a mezuzah by every single day. It's called, we even referred to it basically previously in this piece already at the end of every day. This is the small HB bone. This is the daily HB bone. I stop there, I put my hand on the meza of the day of, and look, if you don't have one, get one or look at it in the sitter. Look at all the beautiful things that in the hi there, and also what's hidden, woven into the beauty of the te and the that are quoted there and the brahas there. It's a time where we stop, we're about to experience one 60th of death, and before I go and I one 60th die, I reflect and I contemplate in what way was I successful today? In what way did I fail today? In what way? I'm gonna do better tomorrow. And I kiss that za and I go to sleep, and then I wake up and it's a whole new day and I'm starting fresh. With all of the work that I did and the contemplation and the reflection at the gate last night when I went to sleep every single week, it's brought down. Every single week is birthed from the previous Shabbas. It gets its life from the previous Shabbas. Ha. Burko originally only intended the world to be seven days long. Had Adam Maio not eaten from the fruits he would've moved on into after that six day ing that burg should give us the eternal Chaz. What's the eternal Chaz? That was the Shaz that the Mio was gonna have. Had he not sinned. He would've gone on to the eternal sha whatever, seven days long. But he sins, and so history has to go forth. But where is their co-op in history to go forth? It was only seven days. Every chais gives birth to a new week. It gives life to a whole new week. So at that space between when I come out of Shadi Davan Mar, I come down and I sit down and I have Malva Malka, and I'm Malva the Malka. I escort the queen, the Shabbas queen, into the new week that she gave life to. I sit there and I contemplate, what is this week gonna bring? I put my hand on the Meza as a week has just passed by and a week is about to start. What is this new week gonna bring? Every Ro Ksh, there are people who don't, who literally do this in Ro Ksh. They don't just take the time to sit and contemplate. They don't just think about how it's a small new year. It's a small Roche. It's literally they have Yom Kippur Kata. There are people who go and find a Yom Ki minion and they Dave in it, Minka on the day before Kodesh they say. Vdo and they do on all this into the last month, and they think about the new one, and that's the goal of what the field is supposed to be. You can also just do that and go through it by rot, but hopefully if you're seeking, you're probably, hopefully somewhat more contemplative about these things. But every time I come to Roche kde, what was in the past month? What did I accomplish? What did I succeed? What do I feel? And what's the new ones gonna bring? And what's the biggest gate of all? The biggest gate is Rosh Hashanah. I'm coming into a whole new year. It's not the tweaks of a day, it's not the bigger changes of a week. It's not the thinking. A little bit more big picture of the month. Whole new world, whole new reality of time, whole new me that's coming out in this new reality, leaving behind, again, dropping like we talked about before. Imagine now with all of the imagery that we have, right? You're standing at the gate of 57 86. You're leaving all of the baggage of 57 85 behind you and it's, that's part of our voda. Leave the baggage behind. Yeah, but I can't. Yeah, but I'm not able to. Yeah. But with my personality being this way. Yeah. But with my hands this way. Yeah, but my tva, but my life limitations, but my money limitations. All of these things. Leave all your baggage at the door. Leave it at that gate. You stop at that gate, and like that guy who was running through YU, you stop there at that gate, you drop all of your baggage, you put your hand on that meza, and you ask yourself. Who's giving me the potential to make this new room, this new space, this new year? Anything I want it to be? How am I walking into 57, 86? How am I walking into it? That's what I'm asking myself. And again, we're building that up. We're preparing for that transition for all these weeks leading up to Rosh Hashanah. This is the time. Leading up to ELL is the time. Ella is the time leading up to the getting to that gate of the new year. And this is the whole point of Rosh Hashanah where we're thinking about what it means to go into, we're thinking about we're doing this accounting of our entire world ze, and he's saying it right. Your block on white, this hash that we're doing, this accounting that we're doing, it's not really about the past. Remember, drop all your baggage. It's not about the past. S, it's an accounting of the future. Here are the words. These are the, perhaps the four most important words you've read today. Spending the time to reflect and contemplate and work on for the next few weeks. How am I going to walk through that gate? Those will be the first steps. Everything follows the Roche. You put such an emphasis on Rosh Hashanah because the Roche, everything follows the beginning. Everything follows the Roche. You wake up and you feel you slept well, you feel refreshed. You put your feet on the ground, you say Madani. With Kavana, your whole day's different. You get no sleep and you're groggy and you trip and you fall outta bed and you bang your elbow on the desk and you don't know what's going on. You your day's, it's gonna be tougher to get on good footing for the rest of the day. We've all been there. It's a whole different thing. He put his dimension on R Hashan. It's the Roche is the beginning. It's so everything starts from the power that we have in the first step that we take through that gate of 57, 86, that step so much power. All of the future steps we take on 365 days of that year are set by the bar of that first step. How am I gonna walk through the gate of, forget about 55, forget about my failings and my lackings, and my hangups and my limitations. Forget about it. How am I gonna walk through the gate of 57 86? How? Who am I? Who am I projecting to myself? Who am I projecting to? Not in a way that's dis disingenuine dishonest. Who am I committing to being that even though I may not be able to in five, I want to, and I believe and I'm willing to commit and I'm willing to, to transform to live that 57 86, I'm willing to do it. I stand here and I'm taking the step as that person.'cause I believe that you will judge me as being proper and appropriate and I'm ready to become that person. And if you judge me that way, you're giving me that year, then I'm gonna go and I'm gonna accomplish everything that I'm taking that first step into. There are three books that are opened on Rosh Hashanah. Famously write, written on Rosh Hashanah immediately for life, and people who are completely Russia. Kar signed for the opposite, and so he explains the she beautiful parish. I've seen him say this a bunch of times and it hits me every time. Unbelievable. He's saying here. We all like to relinquish our sense of responsibility. We all like to feel that we're helpless, that life and God are taking us at their whims, that we have no control. And the beauty is, is the way he frames this to show that no, it's all about us and our choices and our, this world. All AZA is all about our, it's what makes us humans. What defines as human beings is our free will gave it us the biggest gift, the biggest gift we have. We are in control. We choose. Definitely for sure called the Home. Rosh Hashanah. We choose. How do we choose? It's not that A kku pulls us up to the big courthouse in the sky and he opens up three books in front of us and we have to sit there, meek and sheepish with our head down and hoping for the best as a Kaku writes us into the book of being at or the book of being Russia. No says the Haku loves us and he gave us free will and he wants us to become, we're here to become. He opens up the three books and he flips them around and has them face us and with love and care and compassion and honesty and Ms and truth. He puts a pen in our hands and he says, you, which book are you gonna write yourself in this year? Who do you wanna be this year? Are you writing yourself in the book of s? Life or you writing yourself In the book of Rashman Death, you choose what we're doing on Rosh Hashanah, two days in shul, what we're doing in Rosh Hashanah. Imagine it in your mind's eye during its feel. It's a full day. Its flon. First day. Second day, Rosh Hashanah. We're taking a pen in our hand and for two days we're writing. We're feverishly writing and we're scripting. We're writing our own year into that book. We're writing ourselves, who we're gonna be, what we want, what we desire, what we, what we're pining for, what we're desperate for, who we wanna become, what we wanna accomplish. The emmi wanna be, we're spending two days writing all of our deepest wants and desires to serve a qba to succeed in this world. We're spending two days writing it all down, but you know, never. People can have writer's block. But if you spend all of the days of ello preparing, you sit down and then the ink starts to pour and you write yourself the most beautiful year, a beautiful year of Torah, of fah, of a Voda, of Debu, kri, a family. You write that book. Al's not looking to limit you or to dictate to you the biggest thing that limits who we are is us. And the one who can free us from the shackles of our limitations is us in our own free will. And we sit there on Rosh Hashanah and we write. And we write, and we. We hold our hand to that Meza and we say, I have all of these thoughts. And we take a step confidently through that gate and we sit down and we write for two days. And we define that year. Sky's the limit. Shama you. Shama sky's the limit. And it comes down to us. It comes down to us. Again, at the time that we're recording this, we have six weeks. At the time that you're listening to this, it might be five or four or three or two or one week, maybe even a couple of days, maybe even a couple of hours. What he's saying here is, is however much time we have left, we need to finish out this year. We need to make. To make our accounting of this year, close those books, seal them, put them away on a shelf, and leave them behind with all the baggage of the year. And then in this time that we have, however much time you have left, open up. Open up a new book, open up your mind, open up your possibilities, and prepare. Who are you going to be in the new year? Who are you? Who will you be? Who will you be? Who is going to walk up to the gate of 57 86? Who is gonna put their hand on that mezuzah? Who is gonna be writing in that book? And what is that person going to write for themselves that they know they can live up to and there are VO In the coming year, we can be those contemplative people. We can be those reflective people, and when we are, we can change the world, the world at large, in our inner world to anything we want it to become. Roku should bless us that we should be able to have the honesty to look ourselves in the eyes and know who we are now, the baggage that we carry to leave it behind, to free ourselves of the shackles, of our own limitations, and go without fear. Into the next level or levels of a hashem, to strive for them to commit to them, to prepare ourselves, to commit to them says, and the judgment means he's gonna say, who are you? And we respond with confidence. I'm going to be this person for you. And through that, receive all this shefa and BHA in the coming year to be able to accomplish that, to become the person that we can truly become, the O, the Hashem that we can truly be. Through that, fix the world in the ways that only we uniquely can fix the entire world. And through that, see the Ola, the return of the everybody. Thank you so much for tuning into this week's episode. If you enjoyed the episode, please rate the podcast and hit the follow button and join us every week for a new episode. Once again, thank you so much to this week's generous sponsor. And a reminder that you too can sponsor an episode of the podcast. Please email rabbi turnoff@gmail.com for more info or to share any thoughts, comments, or feedback on this week's episode. See you in the next one. I.