Transcript
Good morning boker tov, boker tov, may we hear, may we hear besoros tovos, may we hear good news today for our brothers and sisters in Israel and around the world. Welcome back to our Emuna series, our Emuna shiur, our Emuna series, thank you. This shiur is generously sponsored by Dr. Zavi and Bella Morgan in memory of Rabbi Dr. Brian Galbut and in memory of Bella's mother, Dr. Ellen Schanz, we remain very, very grateful to the Morgans for their sponsorship and for all that they do. Thank you again for your flexibility. Baruch Hashem, another simcha this week. We should always travel for simchas, it's the greatest reason to have to rearrange. If you want to keep up-to-date on our schedule, join our WhatsApp group rabbiefreimgoldberg.org/whatsapp. Join all the WhatsApp groups for some bonus material and as well to stay up-to-date. Okay, we'll start with a couple of Emuna emails as we always do and then we'll dive back into, we began learning last week a new section by Im Darchacha of Rav Itche Meir, Elul, Rosh Hashana, but really all to every time of the year how to grow, how to improve, and how to be our best selves but first a couple of emails. And this first one is a tough one. Dear Rabbi Goldberg, over the last 11 months here in Israel, I've often listened to the Emuna shiur for a second or third time for chizuk and to help get through the very difficult times that we find ourselves in. One of the most heart-wrenching aspects of the war for me has been the excruciatingly painful losses of our young brave Jewish soldiers. When I read or listen to each of their bios, I am amazed at what an incredible person each one of them was, truly the best of the best, and it brings me to tears. As a heart transplant surgeon, I recognize one of the very unfortunate but important consequences of losing so many young soldiers, which is their ability to serve as organ donors and save the lives of other unfortunate other unfortunate people who may otherwise have died while waiting on the transplant list. I know the author of this email, last time I was in Israel I actually had dinner with him and he shared as this heart transplant surgeon that there's been an uptick in those donating contributing organs unfortunately their soldiers. It's not a saving lives, that's the happy part of course the tragic circumstance through which they're able to save lives is that their organs are available because unfortunately, unfortunately they are not. Shortly after the war started I noticed the uptick of heart transplants from soldiers. One of the cardiologists started a practice of learning about and writing a narrative or poem about each fallen soldier and reading it in the OR during a moment of silence just before we start the surgery. He described it to me as that they gather all the personnel who are in the room and for a heart transplant you harvest the heart and before you transplant it into the new patient there is a large medical team involved. It's not a simple thing, certainly not one surgeon alone in the room. They gather everyone around, they quiet everyone down and they say something about the soldier whose heart they're about to put into that new person. Something about that soldier. A moment of silence, a prayer before they start the surgery. I've been to many funerals and shivas of fallen soldiers and even met parents of soldiers whose hearts we transplanted. During one such meeting I shared the video of the speech that was given in the OR with the soldier's parents and have since developed a relationship with them. The parents continue to text me occasionally to ask how the recipient of their son's heart is doing. In a way I think this provides them with some level of nechama to know that their son's heart continues to beat and save the life of another individual. Rabbi Goldberg, the real reason for me reaching out is because I'm struggling. I believe in Hashem 100% and am fortunate to feel Hashem's presence in my life baruch Hashem continuously. Emuna is not the issue, but I'm having a very tough time as are many people here in Israel seeing such incredible people, the best of our best, being taken from us. These are young men who undoubtedly would have been great husbands, fathers, and important contributors to Am Yisrael, but instead were taken from us during their very holy and selfless service. Any chizuk you can provide around the issue would be helpful. Yeah, no words. Yeah, I don't have anything intelligent to say and my parents tried to teach me if you don't have anything intelligent to say don't speak at all. The only thing I'll say is that this is part of belief in God. Belief in God is conceding and surrendering and submitting that just like we're not God, there are things about God we can't understand. The first thing I'll say is I share the exact same feeling and so do all of us. The more we learn and hear about these special individuals we say Hashem you're taking the best of the best of the best, the best in every which way, extraordinary people. And we're being robbed not only of their lives right now we're being robbed of the unknown future. What were they going to invent and what were they going to discover and what were they going to solve and what were they going to heal and who were they going to be, what families were they going to build, what children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. devastating is not only that loss in the present but loss of the unknown potential of what would have been in their in their future. So belief in Hashem isn't I believe in you Hashem, but now I demand and feel entitled to understand entirely how you run the world. With faith in Hashem is the submission that there are things I can't understand. He's infinite and I'm finite. He's omnipotent and I'm a mere mortal. This is his world, I work for him, he doesn't work for me. And therefore is the concession, is the admission, is the surrender, I can't understand, I can't understand. But all I'll say is what we find ourselves saying often, is when we feel that hopelessness and helplessness and this author of this email, a very special holy person who's become a friend, when he describes I have emuna one hundred percent but I'm struggling in this area, the two go together. The leaning in and the work on emuna gives us the koach and the strength to not accept. I mean, every time we think about how they're robbing and stealing, how they're murdering and taking from us the best of the best, we should double down on our resolve and our commitment to defeat them and to eliminate them and to not allow them to take one more, that they can't take even one more. We have to double down, double down on that. That's how we should have to channel that feeling, not in questioning or challenging Hashem, but in a deeper, deeper resolve to defeat our enemies who want to take more of the best of the best. But I'll tell you what I do to try to to try to navigate that feeling. If you saw Rachel Polin-Goldberg's speech at her son Hersh's funeral, Hashem yikom damo, I don't know where this, you know where these extraordinary soldiers are coming from because we hear from and meet their parents. So it's not a surprise where they're coming from. But she somehow had the wherewithal after 11 months, 11 months of not sleeping, 11 months of endless prayer, 11 months of of heroic advocacy, 11 months of a mother and a father just like the parents and family of all the hostages moving heaven and earth. She stood up at the funeral of her son and she thanked Hashem for the years that she had him. So we often talk about emuna working as a hotspot. When we're buffering and we're struggling and we don't have a strong connection, find that hotspot. And it's not hard. You watch these funerals. When Rabbi Leo Dee spoke at the funeral separately because they passed away separately after their murder, after their attack, his wife and his two daughters, he became an emuna hotspot and he still is. He still is an emuna hotspot. And Rachel is an emuna hotspot and so many of these others, just when you feel that doubt and you feel that despondency, just turn on and watch that funeral again and that a mother after those agonizing 11 months and finding out what the end was and learning now and understanding how they struggled, came out yesterday from the autopsy that these six hostages struggled and tried to fight back and and they were executed in cold blood after the conditions, the the inhumane conditions in which they were kept, and the wherewithal to get up after all that, after all that. And I had the privilege of having a text exchange with her throughout these 11 months and every time she texted, her faith, her emuna, her bitachon, her tefilla, her connection to Hashem is just, there are private texts, they weren't for the world to see, for someone to write a book about her, for everyone to admire, just private texts, that was her, that is her way of speaking. So there are amazing people. There are amazing people. And on October 6th, none of us heard of Rachel Polin, unless you lived in her neighborhood or you know you came from Virginia where she was or you knew her in advance. You didn't know her. There are ordinary Jews all around us and extraordinary circumstances reveal them to the world and then they become our hotspot. Then we can lean in and lean on them when we're struggling. So I don't have an answer. I certainly don't have an answer. I don't have the beginning of an answer. I can only share first of all that I feel the same and second of all what I do is lean in on these hotspots. Holocaust survivors, Holocaust survivors. This week on Behind the Bima we have Rav Moshe Weinberger, my Rebbe, a Rebbe to many of us, whose mother is still alive, a survivor of Auschwitz, and he talks in our conversation in Behind the Bima this week about how she's still in conversation with Hashem after after Auschwitz, after surviving, after what she went through. So hotspots, find hotspots. There are still hotspots of people of emuna in this room right now, there are hotspots who've been through What we can't begin to imagine and who nevertheless have this relationship with Hashem. So yes, it's unbearably painful that the best of the best and that should make us even stronger in our resolve to not let them take one more. Whatever that means, whatever that takes, whatever we can do to contribute our part. But also then to lean in on the hotspots of extraordinary people and to be able to connect, to continue to connect to Hashem through them. Next email is certainly not as is not as heavy, but is one of those winks, one of those hugs from above from Hashem that we're encouraged every day go through life and see and feel and look for and connect to that hug from Hashem. Rabbi Goldberg, I continue to enjoy listening to emunah shiurim all the way here on our shlichut in Haifa working for JLIC on campus. I feel it gives me chizuk every day. Have not yet made a community for ourselves, we're building a community of students. I feel like I always retroactively look at situations where emunah sometimes do not in the moment realize Hashem is acting, but when I think about the situation after the fact, I can see it all worked out in Hashem's plan. Here's a small little story. I was buying thin sheet plastic mirrors for a craft activity for our ladies' Rosh Chodesh Elul spa night. We're going to do face masks, nails, decorating mirrors with the idea of reflecting on this past year and working on ourselves and our middot for the next year. Like Michael Jackson says, I've got to change the man in the mirror. And as we know in Judaism, as we know in Judaism, change starts with ourselves. So I just got back from the USA after summer break and had saved this for the last minute. I walked into the local craft stores to see if there are only two packages of mirrors left on the shelf. The medium nice-sized ones and then little ones. They each came in packs of six, but we had around eight ladies coming to the intimate gathering. I thought it'd be chaval to have just enough for half of the ladies and then buy little ones for the other half. That wouldn't be fair or nice. At the same time, the woman called another branch of the store, they didn't have any more in stock. At that point I thought, I put in my hishtadlus, I tried, but I'm not going to shlep to every craft store in town to find more mirrors. Either way, I had to run off and teach lunch and learn on campus. It would have to suffice. In the end, two ladies didn't show and one brought a surprise friend. The event was beautiful. We put out lights, had snacks, spoke about a change we each wanted to make this year, said some yehi ratzons for the soldiers, the wounded, the hostages. We did our face masks, and when it came time to decorate the mirrors, we were seven ladies and me. They opened the package that was labeled having six mirrors and lo and behold, there were seven in the pack. Perfect number, pure hashgacha, chodesh tov, shana tova, a little wink, a little smile from Hashem. So again, love these emails. One could easily dismiss, what a coincidence, how random, what chance, what a fluke. Supposed to be six, there were seven, we're seven, what a fluke. Or you could look up and say, I'm giving you a hug back. Thank you for the hug, thank you for the wink, thank you for the affirmation and confirmation, thank you for reminding me that you are there and that we have a special relationship together. So we've many more emunah emails, we'll save them for the future. Please keep writing, please keep sending, because please keep looking, please keep looking to find Hashem in our lives and to share. Someone asked if we could make a public emunah hashgacha pratis WhatsApp group. We have one in our family, we try to share with each other, and I'll tell you the main reason I'm not is because I want you to keep writing emails. And if we have the group, people are just going to send voice notes and not emails. So we're not going to make the group, but you should in your family. And we don't need to, it doesn't have to have another group with a lot of people. Do it yourself. You could have a group to yourself with no one else in it and leave yourself a voice note where you're just the original idea for this came from a sefer, a letter that was written by Rabbi Moshe, Rabbi Yaakov Kamenetsky, I think Rav Ruderman and others who signed on a letter together saying that the Jewish people need to work in emunah and bitachon and the number one way to do it is to have an emunah journal. Every day to journal where and when and how you saw Hashem wink and nod and hug you in your life. When it worked out great and when it didn't. Yocheved left, it's okay, left an emunah voice note in our family hashgacha group the other day. She took one of my daughters to get a passport. She went all the way there, she figured she didn't need a check. It is 2024, you could pay in Venmo, Zelle, credit card, cash, carrier pigeon, there's a hundred and one ways to pay. Who has checks anymore? Of course got there and found out the only way to pay was with a check. So she had to drive all the way home and come back and not lose the place in line. And I loved it. Why'd she leave that as a voice note for our family? Because that was also Hashem. That's also hashgacha. Not only when it worked out and was perfect and I found I had one more check in my wallet, I didn't even know it was there and I didn't have to go anywhere. No, I didn't have a check, it was annoying, I had to drive home, and that's also from Hashem. What am I leaving out? That it would start out being a lot of hashgacha because we only had a very short amount of time to go during my daughter's lunch period and then there was absolutely no line. It was amazing, you never get to an office like this with no line and we were so excited, Hashem loves us, we're going to get right in, we're going to get the passport in two seconds, it's a miracle, it's amazing. Baruch Hashem it worked out. It worked out and that should be the worst thing that we all have to go through. But what's my point in raising it? It's not the most amazing hashgacha pratis story at all. In fact most would say it's not hashgacha pratis. They would say it's a hashgacha pratis story if you found the check or if the person said for you you don't need a check that would be hashgacha. But the point is the hashgacha pratis stories in our lives are not only the ones that have the happy good amazing perfect endings. They're the ones where we say whatever happens good and bad it's all from Hashem. Apparently El Al this morning last night for the flight today last minute sent everyone an email the 1:00 flight instead left at 10:00 a.m. which is why half our kollel boker was missing. I assume that's where Josh was. They had to did you know they changed the flight they had to scramble? That's also hashgacha. It was last minute scramble get ready hope everyone got the email and they get off and they get there in time. The point is it's not only hashgacha pratis when it all works out wonderfully. It's hashgacha pratis no matter how it works out everything is from Hashem. This week's parsha Ki Seitzei the end of our parsha has the story of Amalek and Amalek is the gematria of safek. Everybody knows Amalek our arch-nemesis our arch-enemy Amalek whom we're obligated to wipe out and eliminate Amalek who are Hamas and Hezbollah and Iran and the Houthis they're all Amalek but there's also an Amalek inside us. Amalek is the doubt in our head of safek that says that's a hashgacha story? That had nothing to do with Hashem. The manufacturer put seven instead of six mirrors and she should have remembered to bring a check. What does Hashem have to do with anything? The Amalek inside each and us the Amalek in our minds and in our heads the Amalek ringing in our ears says safek doubt chance random coincidence Amalek. What's the obligation to defeat Amalek to purge Amalek to stamp out and obliterate Amalek is to eliminate Hamas and Hezbollah and the Houthis and Iran vechulu but it's to also and maybe it begins with eliminating the Amalek in our lives. No safek we have no doubt. Certainty certitude conviction faith there is Hashem Hakadosh Baruch Hu Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Okay back page chaf ches רב איטשע מאיר מארגנשטערן רב יצחק מאיר מארגנשטערן Bayam Darkecha on Elul and we've been learning we started last week. He introduced us to what is teshuva? Teshuva in Elul or if you're listening to this on erev Pesach teshuva on erev Pesach. It doesn't matter what time of year you can and should always do teshuva. So what is teshuva? We think teshuva is uh-oh I better be the right person because otherwise lightning's gonna strike. And if I want Hashem to give me everything I want I've got to be a good boy or girl. And if I'm a bad boy or girl he's going to punish me. So teshuva is I've got to change I've got to transform I've got to repent. Whatever that word repentance means we only use it this time of the year. But he absolutely transformed our understanding. Teshuva the root of the word teshuva is lashuv. I'm going back. And what am I going back to? I'm going back from living a physical material existence. I'm going back from seeing myself as a body that has a soul to for now on being a soul that has a body. I want to live a life lachyos chayei neshamos. I want to live on the plane I want to live a soul existence. I want to nourish my soul and nurture my soul. I want to protect my soul. I want to be aware of my soul. I want to be in conversation with my soul. I want to know that I have a soul that I am a soul. I want to be a soul and I want to engage and interact and experience this world as a soul with a purpose and a mission. I want to ושבת עד ה' אלהיך. I want to go back to being who I'm meant to be to become who I'm meant to be. I want to live that life which is not just about how do I get to the end of the day how do I stay out of trouble and how do I experience as much pleasure but I want to live a life that I am a soul I'm here for a mission I'm here for a purpose. What is my life and what is it all about? So it's a hard reboot it's a reset it's restoring factory settings it's going back turning off and back on getting rid of whatever viruses have entered the system so that I can operate now at all cylinders. Umimaila page chaf ches Umimaila la'asos teshuva is kol kach pashut. So if that's the case doing teshuva is pretty simple doing teshuva is pretty straightforward. Again Rav Itche Meir wasn't denying that the mechanics of teshuva are regret for the past accountability confession to admit a kabbalah l'atid a commitment not to repeat in the future. Of course those are the components and those are the mechanics. We likened it to marriage right? Of course the mechanics of the apology in marriage are I'm sorry for what I did. What are you sorry for? You know that thing. What's the thing? The thing whatever you're upset about. That's hardly an apology. If you apologize but you have no idea what you did wrong which is the case of many men apologizing to their spouses you have no idea you just generally sense something's wrong so I'm apologizing. What'd you do wrong? I don't know but whatever it is. Right? Sometimes if you're good you could preemptively apologize. So I'm submitting the apology now and just accept it for later. Let it work, let it kick in later. So does that work? No. Why doesn't it work? Because the whole apology has to be the sincerity, the acknowledgement, the confession, the admission. I did this, and I regret it. I have remorse for it. It was a mistake. I feel bad about it. I'm sorry. I hope you can forgive me, and here is how I plan to work to make sure it won't happen again. I can't work for something to not happen again if I don't even know what I did. And I'm not really sorry for what I did if I don't know what I did. I'm just sorry that you're upset about something that I don't even know what it is. That's hardly an apology. And the same is true with Hashem. It's hardly an apology to come in Elul על חטא אשמנו בגדנו. I'm so sorry. You have to say I'm sorry I did this and I need to work on that and I'm trying to improve the other thing. And I feel bad, I've remorse, I've regret, and I let you down, I let myself down. And here's how I plan to change it, here's how I plan to work on it. Those are all the mechanics, right, that apology. But do you know I've been present when a get's being given, when a divorce is happening and couples apologize to each other? You could apologize even in the context of a breakup, when an engagement falls apart, when a relationship dissolves, when business partners go separate ways. There's an apology there too. The apology isn't about the relationship; the apology is against the backdrop of the relationship. The teshuvah relationship is when the couples come together and say let's go to therapy, we need to work on this, I want to feel close and I feel distant. I want to confide, I want to be emotionally, physically, I want intimate connection with you that I don't have with anyone else. How do I get there? The help, the support, the therapist, or we're going to work on it, the mechanics. The mechanics are the details. But the platform under those details is this yearning, is this aspiration: I want to be close, I want to be connected. So says Rav Itche Meir: teshuvah, there are mechanics of teshuvah. Those are the details. But underlying it, the platform of it, the backdrop of it, the canvas of it has to be: Hashem, I miss you, I long for you, I feel far from you, I want to hear you talking to me, I want to talk to you, I want to confide in you, I want an intimate connection with you, I want to come close again. How? I've got the Rambam's formula. But it begins with I feel far, and I don't want to be far. I don't want to live this distance. I don't want to live this disconnect. I want to feel connected to you. So if a person understands that that's what teshuvah's about. Don't beat yourself up. As we said on Shabbos, if you beat yourself up, it doesn't leave you changed; it leaves you bruised. Beating yourself up doesn't leave you changed; it leaves you bruised. That's not what Elul is about, beating yourself up. It's not about feeling Hashem's hate and anger and punishment. It's about love. אני לדודי ודודי לי. Hashem loves us. A parent holds children accountable. A good parent. A good parent. Sometimes my children, our children, when we don't do something that they want, they say but all my friends can. And I say well your friends' parents don't love them, and I love you. They don't love them, that's why they don't care about them, and they're letting them do that. But because we love you, that's why you can't. It doesn't always go over so well. But I hope when they grow up and they're mature, and certainly when they become parents themselves, they will remember what we told them. Which is, the reason you couldn't do that is not because I don't love you, but davka because we do love you. And the parent that's tired and lazy and takes the easy way out and lets their child do whatever they want is not because they love that child more; it's because they don't love that child enough. They don't love that child enough. So Hashem holds us accountable. Elul's not a big kumbaya feel-good let's sit around and Hashem it's all good, right? Of course there's accountability. We have to be remorseful, we have to apologize, we have to take responsibility. But it's against the backdrop of a parent who loves us, who's waiting and wanting and eager to forgive and embrace. He loves us, He's our Father. פשוט לבוא אל השם יתברך ולומר לו אבא טעיתי. It's easy to come to Hashem and say Tati, Abba, Daddy, I made a mistake. Azavti oscha. I abandoned you. והלכתי אחרי היצר הרע והבל. And you know what? I abandoned you. You were telling me what to do, you were asking me to spend time, you were inviting me with your sagacious wisdom and advice, but I dismissed it all. I didn't listen to any of it. I didn't try to spend time with you. I shut you out, I closed you out, I didn't listen to your advice, I didn't follow your way. ועכשיו אני מתחרט מאוד, but now the reality of my life and my situation, boy do I have regret. U'mitzta'er me'od. And I am suffering, I'm suffering because I should have listened to you. About the relationship, about the job, about my dress, about my behavior, about my technology, about that. about that investment, about how I spend my time. Mom, Dad, I should have listened. I have such regret and remorse. You loved me and you had so much advice for me and all you cared about was my best interest and I didn't and now I find myself in this debt or in this trouble or in this relationship or in this broken place. ואני כבר רואה שהיצר הוא כלום גמור and I realize that my instinct, my inclination, what made me not listen to you, it's gornisht. ורק רע ומר יש למי שהולך אחריו and it leads me that negative instinct, that poor judgment led me to make terrible mistakes ואיני חפץ בו יותר I don't want it anymore. Abba, Daddy, אני חוזר אליך בכל לבי I'm back. I am here with all my heart umehayom ani shelcha and from today I am yours. I tried to figure it out on my own. I dismissed you and I disconnected from you because I thought I'm smarter than you. Don't we all go through those stages of development? Right? We're smarter than our parents. What do they know? We can do it better. We know more. And then when we find ourselves in trouble, who's the first we come back to? Because we have this bill we can't pay, because we have this paper or this test that we don't know how to solve, because we find ourselves in a predicament or a dilemma and we can't see the way out. And we come back and we say I tried to figure it out on my own. Help me. My husband is drugging me. My husband is Richard Lenardi. He's drugging me severely. We're going to help you. Give me a couple minutes. We're going to finish our class and then I'm going to come talk to you and help you. Come sit. Come listen. Come listen and enjoy. It's for my life. I got it. Come sit and listen. No one's going to do anything to you here. He's drugging everything. Come sit. We're going to help you right after. No problem. So a person thinks I'm smarter and I'm better than my father, I'm going to take care of everything and then we come back to our father, and in this case we come back to our father in heaven and we say Abba, Tati, Hashem, we say Tati in Himmel, Hakadosh Baruch Hu, our father in heaven. I'm not smarter than you and I can't figure it out better than you. And in fact, when I follow my own instinct and I think I know more, I just end up in trouble. I'm here and I'm yours. I'm yours. Tell me what to do. מהיום הלב שלי איתך from today my heart is with you veharatzon sheli hu and my desire is lichyot itcha to live with you ואני אשתדל ללכת בדרכיך and I will try to walk in your path lefi kochi. So Reb Itche Meir is reducing and he's saying you know what all of teshuva is? Yes, a cheit and yes, ashamnu bagadnu and yes, I have to take inventory and accountability. Those are all the mechanics. Right? When you come back to your parent, a person who's alienated their parents or is alienated from their parent, a person who's dismissed and disregarded and disconnected from their parent and now they're in trouble and now they need to come back. Right? So they don't show up and say Mom, Dad, I have this bill I don't know how to pay it, I should have listened to you, I should have or Mom and Dad, I have this grade or this they're failing out and I need you to help me study or Mom and Dad. First thing you say is can you hug me? Can you hold me? I should have listened to you. I'm so sorry. I'm so, so, so, so sorry. I'm here now and I need you. I need you. Can you help me? Then you get to the details. What do I need help, where did I make a mistake, where did I go wrong, where should I have listened to you, how do we make it better? But it starts with I'm here. I'm here and can you help me and I love you and I'm sorry I didn't listen to you. And says Reb Itche Meir, that's teshuva. And most of us, most of us fail to do it. Most of us skip that most important step. And most of us go right to okay, I'm sorry and can you fix this and can you help me and can you make it okay because I want Whoa, whoa, whoa. Take a step back. Slow down. Start with Abba, Daddy, Mom, I'm here. I'm here. I should have listened. I'm yours. I want to feel connected. My heart is yours. וכשיהודי פונה לשוב אל אביו שבשמים when a Jew turns to their father in heaven Hashem Yitbarach מיד מקבל אותו אצלו Hashem immediately, immediately accepts such a person to him והוא חוזר להיות אהוב ורצוי אצל השם יתברך and Hakadosh Baruch Hu, a parent, does the parent ever say you're right, you should have listened to me, now get lost? You're right, you shouldn't have tried to figure it out on your own, I told you I'm smarter than you, figure it out on your own, I have no interest in helping you. No, you know what a parent does? They say come here. Come here. Tatele, let me hold you. Come here. We're going to figure this out. We're going to figure this out. Yeah, it's not so simple. Yeah, you've got some work to do to reconcile and make this right with me. But come here, you're my child. You're my child and I love you and I'm here to help you and there's nothing you can do that I don't want to help you fix. There's nothing you can do and there's no one you could be that would make me not want to hold you, accept you, receive you now and help you fix this. And we need to know that that's what Hashem is telling each and every one of us. He loves us, He's our father. And there's nothing we could have done and no one we could have become that Hashem doesn't say yes, you're going to be accountable and you've got to reconcile and you've got to take responsibility and you've got to make thing right, but you're my child. Tatele. Come here. I want to hold you. And we're going to figure this out and we're going to make this right. וחוזר להיות אהוב ורצוי אצל השם יתברך, we're going to go back to that being loved by him. כשהשם יתברך תמיד איתנו, Hashem is always with us. אלא שמבקש תנה בני לבך לי. וכשיהודי מחליט להיות מהיום איש של השם יתברך, and when a Jew decides, 'I want to be connected to Hashem,' ומצטער על העבר הרע, and we have regret and remorse and we look back and we say, 'Wow, what a mistake trying to figure out on my own. I was so foolish and so stupid.' מיד השם יתברך מוחק את כל העבר, Hashem deletes the whole past, ומתייחס אליו באהבה וקירבה כאילו לא חטא, and he interacts with us with love and closeness and connection and intimacy as if we didn't make those mistakes. How quickly, how quickly do parents pivot to be able to restore and return to what they had? Parents are able to have a very short memory. Sometimes other relationships can't have as short a memory, can't have as short a memory. Many marriages suffer because they remember every hurt, every injury, every offense, every mistaken thing someone said or did, every time someone came home late. And 37 years later, they say, 'You remember that Tuesday night, October whatever, 1902? You remember you said this or you came back then or you did that?' But not parents. Parents don't have that ledger. Parents don't keep that spreadsheet. Parents, when they sense from the child they just want to come back, they're willing to let it go. Let it go. Now, they don't let it go foolishly, they hold on and remember what went wrong so they can help their child, but whatever pain or distance and whatever they turned to each other, those parents, and they said about that kid, 'I'm done and I'm finished and all we've done is help and all we've done is invest and all we've done is throw money after them and it's finished and they come next time we're done.' And then they show up and they say, 'I love you. Welcome back. Let's fix this. We've got this.' Yes, with a little tough love sometimes when necessary, but a parent and Hakadosh Baruch Hu is the same way. Says Rabbi Itche Meir, that's what this work of Elul, אני לדודי ודודי לי, is to remember Malkeinu, Melech Hamelachim, but Avinu Malkeinu. Before he's Malkeinu, before he's our king, first he's our father. He's our father. And a father's just waiting with open arms, a father's sitting by the phone saying, 'Please call,' a father's saying, 'Come home, come home we'll figure this out,' and Hashem is saying, 'Come home, come home we're going to figure this out.' And that's what Elul is. Teshuvah Lashuv, go home. Go home to who you are, go home to your father in heaven. Maybe you haven't spoken to him in a long time. Maybe you haven't heard him speaking to you in a long time. Maybe you haven't felt his love and his embrace in a long time. We talked to Rav Weinberger about that on Behind the Bima this week. You say Hashem loves you, he desperately loves all of us as his children, how come it sometimes doesn't feel like it? What does one do when it doesn't feel like he loves us? But he loves us. Go home. אמנם בודאי צריך גם לתקן את המעשים, of course we have to correct. That the parent who embraces the child and says, 'Come home, this is your home,' doesn't say, 'Let bygones be bygones.' There's work to do, there's accountability to take. כמו שמהשמים אומרים לו לאדם הנה אתה שב אל השם יתברך בכל לבך הוא שמח בזה אבל בכל זאת יש עליך לכלוכים וצריך לנקותם, you have stains, you have contamination, you have to repair, you have to purify, you have to cleanse. כי אי אפשר להידבק במלך עם לכלוך. You can't reconnect to the king if you're covered in dirt. If you're covered in dirt. In order to connect, if you want to put that suction cup against the glass, first you've got to clean the glass. It doesn't stick if you don't wipe off the glass. So if we want to reconnect to the King, Hakadosh Baruch Hu, you've got to wipe off the glass before you could connect. So yes, the prerequisite, and yes, we have to cleanse, we have to purify, we have to take responsibility, we have to improve, we have to transform in order to connect. But know he's waiting for that connection. So the image what Rabbi Itche Meir is trying to do here and what we're, we'll finish the next paragraph, but what Rabbi Itche Meir is trying to change for us is this image of Elul and this time of the year, they're not days of awe. They're not awful days. They're not days of fear and lightning, they're not days of punishment. They're days of love. Love sometimes has tough love. Love doesn't mean no responsibility or accountability, but the environment, the atmosphere is one of love. וכמו כן גם לעתיד אומרים לו אתה מוכרח להשתנות, when it comes to the future, we say to him, 'Yes, you have to change,' כי עכשיו באמת חפץ ומשתוקק לעשות נחת לאביו. You can't come back and do the same. If you're ready to really come home, you're ready to really transform, you're ready to really take responsibility, you're ready to really change, open arms. But if you want to come home and have more of the same, then because I love you, I don't know that there's space for you. ובודאי שיזהר שלא להמרות את פיו, אבל העיקר הוא לשוב אל השם. The whole idea of teshuvah and that's why it says it's easy. Stop and think and breathe and sing and say Abba, Daddy, Tati, I want to come home. I want to come back to you. I'm ready. Lashuv le'ha'amin bo. I want to go back to believing in you and to seeing you and to putting my faith in you and to surrendering to you. ולחיות את החיים אתו יתברך. I want to, I want to, every morsel I eat, everything I drink, the air that I breathe, everything that I experience, the wind, the rustle of the trees, the people, the coincidences, I want to live with you in my life. באהבה עם כל הלב. With love with all of my heart. I want to talk every day. I don't want to allow days or weeks or months or years to go by anymore without talking. I want to talk every day. I want to trust and confide, I want to listen and follow. Uvidveikus vehargashas kirva. I want to live a life of feeling close to you. That is Elul. That is teshuvah. That is the backdrop and then we could get to what and how and where and what are the mechanics of it. And then Rav Itche Mayer's going to pick up with, or what we'll pick up with next week is, if that's the case, many of us have this image that you walk around Elul, oh it's sitting in fear and you look down and you have a frown and you're scared and you're shaking and you're afraid and that's Elul. He says, no, no, no. If you understand what Elul is, you're coming home and your father has open arms and he says come here, let me hold you and we're going to figure this out and we're going to make it right. So now you're b'simcha. Elul you've got the biggest smile and the biggest skip in your step and you're so happy and you're so excited because it's the version of you 2.0 or 3.0 or 50.0 or whatever version of you you're up to, but you're so excited. How excited are you? Got a new phone, I got a new laptop, I got a new lease, my new car, check out the features you want to see? I'm starting again. I got a new. So the new version of us with the new relationship and we've restored the settings and it's a new chance and a new opportunity. That doesn't lead to sadness. That leads to happiness, joy and excitement and enthusiasm and what's going to be and what are we going to see and where are we going on this adventure? It is super, super exciting. So Elul is simcha, but the simcha that comes from knowing that our father's waiting with open arms and even though there's a lot of hard work to do, you can't come home without doing the hard work. But if we're willing to do the work, he's waiting with open arms. We should feel his hug and embrace, we should feel the wink from above. Thank you for your flexibility with the schedule. We'll pick up imirtzeh Hashem next week. Special shiur tonight 8 o'clock, the three-part teshuvah series. Tonight we're speaking about your future self. If you're watching this online, you could watch that online too in real time or afterwards. That's at 8 o'clock tonight. We should have a week where we hear בשורות טובות ישועות ונחמות.
