Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe Podcast Collection

You're listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe of TORCH in Houston, Texas. This is the Jewish Inspiration Podcast.

It's great to be back here, my dear friends. It's so amazing.
And I want to just continue on one little point that Rabbi Busko said before I get to our topic tonight, and that is
that
he was saying here at the end that the
sounds of the shofar, the sounds of the shofar are a solid sound.
A broken sound and a solid sound. It comes as a package, tekiah,
shevarim, teruah, tekiah. Again, the tekiah is tekuah, means solid, firm.
Then you have the shevarim, which is broken. Our Seders tell us that these sounds represent each and every one of us
throughout our life. We have times where we're confident. We've got this. We've got this.
Then there are times when we're broken, and there's some times that we're so broken
we're not shevarim, we're a teruah. We're broken up into little, little itty-bitty pieces.
And then, you know what comes after that? You get strong again, and it's a form of
encouragement
where this
setup of the tekiah, the shevarim, the teruah, the tekiah, is telling you this is normal.
It's normal for us to have a cycle of
life where things go well for us, and then not so well for us.
And at times, we're at the top of the world, and it can never get any,
it can't get any better, and it can never get any worse, because look where I'm at. I made it! And then
we can fall down to the bottom again. But that is the exact cycle that God wants us to be in, in our
magnificent journey through life. So, my dear friends,
tonight, I wanted to do something I've never done in any of my classes before, and that is I wanted to learn
the 10
aspects of the blowing of the shofar
written by Raphsad Yagon. Raphsad Yagon
lived in the 10th century, and he was a Yagon. That means he was a great scholar, a great scholar who knew all of Torah,
all of mitzvot, he knew all of everything you can possibly know in Jewish wisdom, and
he listed 10
reasons for blowing the shofar. Now,
we don't know the reason for the blowing of the shofar.
Why don't we know the reason? Because it's a commandment in the Torah. The Torah commands us. God tells us
that we should blow the shofar on these days, the days of Rosh Hashanah.
That's why we blow the shofar. So, if anybody asks you, why do we blow the shofar? Because God commanded us.
That's the real reason. But we want to make it personal. We want to understand this. I want to share with you the 10 reasons
shared by Raphsad Yagon, and there are other sages throughout the years who have shared more reasons,
but these are very, very powerful, and I want to go through them one by one. The first is,
we blow the shofar because we're coronating Hashem as King of the universe.
Not only a king over the universe,
but a king over this world that we live in,
the king over the life that we live, and the king over us as
individuals. God is my king. God is here
with me every single day of my life.
How do I make that real?
When a king comes,
when the president comes out, they have a special
trumpets, that they have a special salute to the president, or hail to the
chief, right? Okay, that's one. But when the king comes, the king of England, or the queen of England,
when they were, when she was, you know, whenever she'd go someplace, he had these trumpets they would play. Why? Because that's the way,
you, not only the way you coronate a king, but the way you honor a king.
So blowing the shofar is like us blowing a trumpet
coronating Hashem. This is a very,
very powerful thing for us to stop for a moment. We're gonna talk again.
We have 10 reasons why we blow the shofar,
but if we stop for a moment and recognize when the sound of the shofar is about to be blown,
which is why I think it's an amazing thing that we're today, three days, you know, we still have Wednesday,
Thursday, Friday, and then is Rosh Hashanah. Three days to prepare ourselves for the power of this day of Rosh Hashanah.
Now, we're not gonna blow the shofar like Rabbi Basko mentioned.
We're not gonna blow the shofar on Shabbos, but we are gonna blow the shofar on Sunday.
And if we can prepare ourselves, you know what, one of the things I love to say about the shofar,
the shofar is like writing an email. You know, you can write an email. It's a draft,
but till you don't click send, it hasn't been sent. You can write whatever you want.
I have a friend of mine. He told me that whenever he used to get angry and I was,
I've seen some of his emails, he'd get mad. He gets so angry.
He would write these nasty emails and he would be yelling in those emails.
And I was like, whoa, whoa, right? And then he learned, he told me he learned to just draft emails.
He doesn't need to send them. Let your anger out. You let it out. You don't have to send it.
Okay? You don't have to send it. But when we ask God for the things that we want,
how are we sending that email, so to speak? When we hear the shofar being blown,
the shofar is what sends that, you know, that proverbial email to God, sending it up to the
heavens. It's being transmitted. That is our tower, our communication tower, transmitting
our messages to the Almighty. You know, the Almighty understands.
God knows what we're thinking. He knows what our needs are. He knows what our thoughts are.
He knows everything, what our desires are. God knows it all. But this is a form of communication.
A husband and a wife could know and understand each other's, they can have telepathy and know
exactly what they're thinking. But you still got to communicate to be in a healthy relationship.
We need to communicate with God to be in a healthy relationship. We're coronating God when we stand
in front of, in the synagogue, and we're standing in front of God in prayer, and they're blowing the
shofar. We have to imagine to ourselves like we're standing in front of a king. And yes, the
blowing of the shofar, we're coronating that king, that king, not for everybody else, for me as an
individual. It's very easy to tell everybody else, oh, you should, you should, no, no, no, I should,
me, you are my king, Hashem. I am coronating you as my king. Now, what does this mean?
This means that if God is king of me, if God is king over me, then I don't have place to start
running after my own desires, my own temptations. Because when you have a king, you follow the order
of the king. Otherwise, chop, chop, right? That's not good. It's no good. When you, you have to
follow the, what the king wants. So now it brings into our consciousness, yes, God is my king.
God is the creator of heaven and earth. God, I need to follow what he wants, not what I want.
What he wants, very important. So that's part, number one, from where you go. Number two,
it's a call to teshuva. Now, as previously mentioned by Rabbi Bosco, although Rosh Hashanah
is a day, the first and the second day of the 10 days of repentance, we still have no mention of
teshuva of repentance on those two days. We don't have, you know, we don't say,
Hashem, forgive me. We don't say, you know, we don't, we don't get into any of that
on Rosh Hashanah. Rosh Hashanah is just the day, the crown God is king. But you know what we need
to, we need a call. We need a call to recognize that teshuva, repentance, is what is needed as
next step. Because when I understand that God is the king, and oh, he sees everything, I may have
done something, a thing or two, that were not according to his will. It's very simple to clean
that up. Very simple. We just ask for forgiveness. We say, Hashem, I'm sorry. I walked down the wrong
alleyway. I walked, I did the wrong thing. I said the wrong thing. I acted the wrong way.
Whatever it may be. So it's a wake-up call for teshuva. The beginning of the 10 days of repentance.
Number three, the amazing story of the Jewish people at Mount Sinai. The Jewish people are
receiving the Torah. What was Mount Sinai? Mount Sinai was the Jewish people having the greatest
vision ever between us and God. Imagine you're standing at the foot of Mount Sinai,
and God himself is speaking to us in first person. I am Hashem, your God. It's pretty phenomenal.
It's a pretty big, it's a pretty big thing. It's a pretty big deal. In fact, all the nations of
the world, by the way, acknowledge that the Jewish people had a revelation at Mount Sinai.
The Muslims document it. The Christians document it, obviously. But the Jewish people
had such a miraculous event over there at Mount Sinai. Such a revelation. Such clarity. There was
a blowing of the shofar. The Torah records in Parshat Yisro. There was a, right before the
receiving of the Torah, the receiving of the Ten Commandments, there was the blowing of the shofars.
You can hear the shofar blow. Our sages tell us something very special. So, were you at Mount
Sinai? Well, yeah, I was at Mount Sinai. But, you know, Mount Sinai Hospital, half the Jewish people
were born at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, right? But, you know, it's like, yeah,
technically I was, but I wasn't. I mean, I was just born in 1978. So, I mean,
was I really there 3,338 years ago? Maybe not. Our sages tell us every single neshamah,
those who are present and those who are going to be later born, were all at Mount Sinai. And if we
focus and if we make an effort, we can relive that experience of Mount Sinai. Imagine the power
of reliving that Mount Sinai when we hear the shofar, just like we did at Mount Sinai, we heard
the shofar being blown. We hear it. It moves us to, like, get that moment of clarity here,
to have that relationship just as solid. We mentioned this many times in our classes,
as recently as yesterday. We said, what is a mitzvah? A mitzvah is something that brings you
closer to G-d. What is a sin? A sin is something that distances you from G-d. So,
at Mount Sinai, the Jewish people had no more sin. They had only closeness with G-d,
oneness with Hashem. The shofar being blown can recall that experience. When we are standing there
listening to the shofar being blown, we have the ability to recall our experience at Mount Sinai,
our soul, individually, was there. Not only collectively, our soul as a Jewish people,
no, no, no. Each individual neshama was there at Mount Sinai and we have the ability by hearing
the shofar to recall that. The fourth, the prophets. The prophets tell us throughout our
history. We see Joshua. G-d tells Joshua, you want to conquer Jericho? Surround the city and blow the
shofar. The shofar was a tool to awaken the person. In modern day, meaning not back in ancient
days, not back only when the Torah was given, it's a tool to wake a person up. I was a guest in
someone's home over the summer. Now, have you ever heard of this sonic alarm clock? Ever heard about
this? Sonic alarm clock. Let me tell you about this. Don't ever buy it, okay? So, it's Shabbos
evening, okay? My wife and I are guests at someone's home, Friday evening, and our children
were with us. And, you know, we're staying. We're a guest at someone's house. Okay, great.
And they say, you're going to be sleeping in this, in this room. Okay, great. So, we go to the room
and suddenly at 4 15 a.m, this sonic alarm goes on. Now, okay, let me explain to you what the
sonic alarm is, okay? It's a vibrating alarm clock that vibrates so loud it can break your phone
by how much it vibrates. I mean, the whole room was shaking and the sound sounded like it was an
irate siren in Jerusalem, okay? It was, it was, you cannot imagine, this is 4 15 in the morning.
It's like it was in one of the kids' rooms. It was one of the children was, we're in camp
and we had this, you know, we slept in one of their children's rooms and, you know, the beds
were just like, it was, I'm telling you, you can't even imagine. Now, why was it set to 4 15,
you're wondering? Because he had to catch a flight a week earlier, right? So, he set it and forgot to
turn it off. Now, it's Shabbos. I can't turn off the alarm clock. So, there I am, right? What am I
going to do? So, my wife, my wife happened to have taken a sleeping pill. So, she slept pretty
well. But I was there and I'm, you know, the sound, I was able to wrap a towel around it and
then it has this wire for this sonic, this vibrating thing and it was, it was just in my hand
so that it doesn't shake the whole room. And I was like, it probably took me two hours. It doesn't
turn off. Till you turn off, it doesn't turn off. So, two hours until eventually it turned off.
And I was like, like my hands were like, you know, by the time I was done. What does sound?
Sound has a tremendous power. Music has a tremendous power. Has a transformative power.
Has a transformative power. Music, you know, a movie would have no influence on a person if it
didn't have a soundtrack. The soundtrack adds the emotion to the story. You can watch an emotional
scene, emotion, an emotional clip of something. And they add the music to it. And if it's appropriate
music, it can make you cry. And you don't even realize why you're crying. You're crying for the
music. The music has such a power. The blowing of the shofar has a tremendous power. A power of
transformation. Our sages, our prophets would use the blowing of the shofar to awaken the people.
Guys, don't go down the path of sin. They would blow the shofar so that the community would wake
up. When they needed to make an appeal to people's emotions, they would blow the shofar.
They'd blow the shofar to awaken them. That's number four. Number five is the destruction
of the temple. When they did service in the temple, there was a shofar that was blown.
There were trumpets that were blown by the Levites. Unfortunately, we don't have a temple
today to commemorate and to pray that we bring back the temple, that we do the right thing so
that we deserve to have the temple restored. For that, we blow the shofar. Rapsad Yagon, who's
about 1,500 years after the destruction of the temple, he put together these aspects of why we
blow the shofar so that we can relive it when we hear the shofar being blown. We can connect with
these things. And we have a bunch of different opportunities. We hear if you're in a traditional
synagogue, you'll have three sets of shofar being blown before the Amidah. During the Amidah,
you'll have three sets. During the repetition, you'll have three sets. And after, you'll have
another one set. That's 10 sets of the shofar being blown. So each one of these reasons we
can dedicate to one of those shofar blowings so that we can focus on each one. We have to
think of all of them at once. But it's a special time to utilize the blowing of the shofar,
not to just look around who's here or what's going on, right? Our sages specifically say
you're not supposed to talk from the beginning, from the beginning blessing
of L'shemar Kol Shofar to hear the blowing of the shofar, all the way till the last shofar
blowing, to the last sound is blown. Because we need to be awakened. We need to be alert.
We need to be connected. And if we talk, we're distracted. We don't want to be distracted. We
want to be present when we're hearing the shofar. And the way to do this is to prepare,
to prepare. We have a few days before to think of these things. Is God really king or just every
once in a while when I'm having trouble, I'll reach out to him. And if he listens, great. If
he doesn't, then you know. But of course, God is always listening. Our Talmud, the Talmud teaches
us that there is no prayer that comes back unanswered. There's no prayer. You hear this?
There's no prayer that comes back unanswered. Every single prayer is answered. So how can it
be? I was praying to God for that job. I didn't get that job. I was praying for the raise. I
didn't get the raise. So you're telling me God returns, every prayer is answered. He answered
no. He answered no. Sometimes God says, you know what? You want to take that job. I have a better
job for you. You want to marry that person. I might have a better mate for you, right? There's
a better option out there. We want something, but sometimes we don't even realize because of our own
limitations. We don't realize that some of the things that we want are not necessarily
for our best. The sixth reason, and by the way, the Reb Sadyagon includes in his writings,
he writes that when we think about the destruction of the temple during the blowing of the shofar,
we should add a prayer for the rebuilding of the temple. We want to have our third temple
rebuilt in its completion, where there will be peace in the world, where there won't be any more
wars, where there won't be any more antisemitism, where you'll be able to turn on the radio and go
onto Twitter and go onto all of the social media and not see so much Jew hate. And you'll be able
to walk in the street without hearing antisemitic slurs. I grew up with it. I grew up in Brooklyn.
I heard Jew boy all the time. People knocked off our yarmulke. I grew up with that in Brooklyn.
So to me, it's not, it's not, you know, unfortunately I was, you know, I was raised on
that. But today people think that those were living in a civilized world. How can it be
that you have so many people that are spewing antisemitism? We need a temple because when we
have that third temple, there will be peace in the world. We ask for it. On Sukkot, we ask
for Sukkot David Hanufalat. We want the house of David to be restored. God willing, speedily in
our days. Amen. What's the sixth reason given by Rav Sadio Gon? The binding of Isaac. The binding
of Isaac. Commitment, dedication at its absolute best. There is no story in the history of the
world that displays more commitment and dedication to God than Abraham being willing to sacrifice
his son. Why? For what purpose? Because God said so. That's it. That's the only reason. God said so.
God asked me to. I ask no questions. Now, how would, in all honesty, okay, we're flesh and
blood. We're human beings. Abraham was as well. If God tells us, okay, chop off your right hand.
No, God is not sadistic. God is not, right? Like, what benefit do you have from this?
Just because I asked you, are you willing to do it? Right? Imagine that. God tells Abraham,
and by the way, Abraham had his child from his wife, Sarah. When he was 99 years old, he was
promising he was 100 years old. He has a baby. Sarah was 90 years old when this all happens.
And she says, what am I, a young woman? My body doesn't function like a young woman anymore.
She laughed. That's why his name was Yitzchak. Vatitzchak. She laughed. She said, this is
nonsense. I can't have a baby. Oh, they bring a baby. What a miracle. What a celebration.
And God says, oh, by the way, can you bring him to me on the altar? Bring him as an offering.
What? What? Why do that? Why would you do that? Why would you make it such a great miracle,
by the way, so that nobody should think that it wasn't the child of Abraham? It was the most
our sages tell us. Abraham and Isaac looked like a carbon copy of one another. So nobody should
suspect that it was the king of Egypt that impregnated Sarah, or that it was somebody
else who impregnated Sarah. It was a copy of Abraham. God is telling him, go bring him on
the altar. Bring him as a sacrifice. For what purpose? What's the reason? Absolute dedication.
Because he lived with a coronation of God on a daily basis. Imagine, finally he has a child.
God says, bring it as an offering. Bring him as an offering. And it wasn't only Abraham being
a devoted servant of God. It was also Isaac being a devoted servant of God. Why? Because what did
Isaac do? Our sages tell us that Isaac was grabbing the knife, trying to pull it on him.
He says, I want to be a sacrifice for Hashem. I mean, it's difficult for us to write Bobby.
It's difficult for us to understand this, right? It's difficult. Like, how do we get a grasp on
this? Absolute devotion to God. Absolute. Imagine the devotion that someone has to their health.
There are people who all day, all night, all they're thinking about is their health, right?
There's nothing wrong on the contrary. I know some rabbis who go to the gym, right? But it's very
important. We're obligated to preserve our health. But then there's a very fine line between preserving
our health and idolizing our body. Where now it becomes, it's, you know, I don't want to get into
other cultures that used to idolize the body. It was all about the human body. It was all about the
physical aspects of, right? We don't have to get that far. But what's that? Yeah, let's not go
there. Let's not go there. Fitness. Yeah, be healthy. That's one thing. But you can go take
it overboard. And people who love luxuries, we mentioned this yesterday, they can take it
overboard. And people who love vacations, they can take it overboard. People in everything,
in sports, you have people who are just like sports. They're crazy about sports and they can't
miss a game. They can't miss a pitch. They can't miss a, what do they call that? Not a punt.
A snap, a snap, right? They can't miss a snap. And then there are those who show commitment
to Hashem, right? Is our dear friend David here? If our dear friend David is here, I don't want
to embarrass him, but I want to praise him. He never missed a game on Shabbos. He never, there
you go, David, an Alabama game. He never, Alabama, right? Never missed a game. But then he started
keeping Shabbos. And he said, is my commitment to Hashem? Or is my commitment to my team?
That's an example. That's an example of real commitment. I'm giving my most favorite thing.
He said his family thought he was nuts. Are you crazy? You're going to miss a game? You've never
missed a game in your life. Who is my God? Is my God the game? Or is my God the creator of heaven
and earth who commands me in his Torah to observe the Shabbos, to give it all up? Such an,
I'm telling you, you're such an inspiration, David. Thank you. Thank you for being part of our class.
I'm in awe. I really am. It's an unbelievable thing. It's an unbelievable that someone's ready
to turn over their whole world. You know that the Talmud says,
we're a, someone who is a Baal Teshuvah, someone who comes back to Hashem, where they stand,
even the most righteous and most pious cannot stand in their place. To change in such a way
is the most enviable thing. A kid who grew up in a religious home doesn't know what that means.
They never had a challenge of eating a cheeseburger. They never, you know, as I was always
saying, I always say, you know, it's like, I'm going to come to, hopefully to the heavenly court
after 120 and they're going to say, what did you, low life, what did you do with your life?
And I'm going to be like, you're kidding me? Well, do you know what I, I pass by McDonald's
every day and I never bought a cheeseburger. Where's my, where's my trophy? Like, what are
you talking about? It was never a challenge for you. It was never a challenge for you.
You don't get reward for something that's not a challenge for you. Yeah, I grew up in a Shomer
Shabbos kosher eating home, not a challenge. But for someone who grew up and has to make all of
these changes, it's the most remarkable thing. The most remarkable thing. Don't underestimate
the power of change. It's an unbelievable thing. Number seven, speaking of awe, our sages tell us,
tells us the seventh reason for blowing the chauffeur is awe and humility.
Awe and humility. When we blow the chauffeur, we suddenly realize, oh my goodness, I'm just a
little, I'm just a little speck on the screen. I'm one pixel on that whole big gigantic screen
that has millions and millions of pixels. I'm one pixel, but yet Hashem wants a relationship with
me. I'm not so little. You might think you're a little, you're not so little. You're great.
Hashem, you know, it's like we think, how can I connect with God? God, omnipresent. God is the
creator of heaven and earth. God can do anything. God has got a pretty loaded schedule, don't you
think? You think God cares about me? And how can I, me, a little physical being here in Houston,
Texas, how can I connect with God? God is everywhere. God is here. God is there. God is
up in the heavens. God is down here on earth. God is everywhere. How can I connect with something
that's so great? Plus, you know, my fingers, I can see. My car, I can see. My house, I can see. God,
I can't see. It's exactly how God wanted us to be in our relationship with him. We think God
doesn't know how he created us. He doesn't know the difficulties that we're going to experience
in our search for our connection with Hashem. There are so many tools in Hashem's Torah. Hashem
gives us the guidelines in his Torah. You want to see me? Read, learn, study, grow, connect,
observe the Torah. That's how you connect with God. God says, you'll never be able to see me,
but you'll be able to live with me. You'll be able to connect with me. You'll be able to
communicate with me. God says to Moshe, you'll never see my face, but you can know that I'm
there. And God communicates with us all the time. The shofar reminds us of that. It brings an awe
into our lives of how awesome Hashem is and how awesome we can be. Prayer, the fundamental
principle of prayer is humility. Prayer means I'm not capable. I'm talking to you, God,
who is all capable, right? It's pretty simple. I can't do it. You can. I have to humble myself
in front of Hashem. The shofar right before the prayer of Musaf on Rosh Hashanah is exactly the
message we're trying to incorporate. We're recognizing I am limited. Hashem is unlimited.
I am incapable. Hashem is all capable. Number seven. Okay. Number eight. The shofar reminds
us of the day of judgment. Okay. We didn't even talk about judgment. Rabbi Bosco mentioned judgment
in the previous program. Judgment. Hashem is going to judge. To me, the way I like to look at this is
I've said this many times before. You're walking into the boardroom. You're meeting your boss.
Okay. It's your annual review. And now what's your argument? That's it. What's your argument?
God, give me another year because fill in the blank. God, I want to have success this year
because. And you're like, because last year I was stellar. Now this year I'm going to be
even more stellar. Well, let's bring our case. Let's prepare our case. You don't come in front
of a judge unprepared with a defense, with an argument, right? And if you're on the offense,
you're going to come with a case. What's our case? Why should God, who's deciding on Rosh Hashanah,
whether or not we will live or die this coming year, why should He say, yes, you're going to
live another year. I'm going to give it to you. And I'm going to give it to you with all of the
sustenance that you need, right? It's not just, I'm going to give you life. I'm going to give you
everything you need for it. I'm going to give you the food that you need, the drink that you need.
I'm going to give you the livelihood. I'm going to give you the children. I'm going to give you
the success. I'm going to give you the blessing. I'm going to give you everything with it. So it's
a big, it's a big package. It's a big ask. Ask the boss. All he has to give you is money, right? The
boss only has to give you money. God's got to give you everything. It's a big ask. Why should
God give it to us.
Let's prepare that argument.
And if we don't have something
that we can pull back from this past year,
to say, God, look, I'm on a good trajectory.
If we don't have that, heaven forbid.
Say, you know what, Hashem?
Ze hayom t'chilas maasecha.
You in your Torah say
that Rosh Hashanah is the beginning of your creation.
Today I'm a new person.
It's a new beginning.
Starting fresh.
God, I just want you to give me a new beginning
because this year I will be dedicated to your service.
Maybe last year I wasn't.
Maybe last year I wasn't on my best behavior.
Maybe I didn't focus the way I should have.
Maybe I didn't go to synagogue the way I should have.
Maybe I didn't focus on what I ate properly.
Maybe I didn't put on tefillin every day.
Maybe I didn't keep Shabbos properly.
Maybe I didn't, whatever it may be,
maybe I didn't speak properly
the way you command in your Torah.
Shouldn't be undervalued.
There are 17 biblical prohibitions
to speaking Lashon Hara.
17.
It's not just like one mitzvah, blow the shofar.
17 commands.
It's very powerful.
Imagine you're standing with a bunch of friends
and you're about to say a good piece
of Lashon Hara about somebody.
And you say, you know what?
I'm not gonna say it.
Do you know where you stand in the eyes of heaven?
Ask anything you want from God.
It's such a powerful thing.
We sometimes undervalue our greatness.
We undervalue the efforts that we put forward,
how precious they are in front of the Almighty.
I have to tell you an amazing story.
The Ribbentz Rebbe, he was one of the Hasidic masters.
He lived, he passed away about 20 years ago.
Very, very, very righteous man.
Didn't have any children, never.
And he had a different kind of schedule.
You know, there's none about the Hasidic masters.
They didn't exactly go by day and night.
They went whenever they felt emotionally
and spiritually and physically ready to pray,
that's when they would start praying.
So he always needed a minion on call.
So he turned to his Gabbai at the four in the morning.
I need my minion for Meiroth, for the evening service.
Boom, he would go get nine people
so that they would have eight more people
so that they would have a minion.
And the same thing happened with Selichos,
with the supplications that we recite before Shoshana.
Every day we wake up early
and the Ribbentzer was awake all day, all night,
praying for people, learning Torah.
Suddenly, a random moment, he tells his Gabbai,
he's ready to start Selichos, he needs a minion.
But only people who did not recite the Selichos,
only people who did not recite the Selichos yet,
the supplications yet.
Okay, he goes out, he gets people, he gets the minion.
They come into his little humble abode
and they're about to begin
and the Rebbe is making his preparations
and he turns around and he says,
did everybody, did everybody,
is there none of you who said Selichos yet?
None of you said the supplications yet?
Everyone's like, no, none of us.
Turns back around, prepares himself a little bit more,
turns around and he says, you're sure none of you?
Nobody, nobody said supplications yet?
Nobody said Selichos yet?
Like, no, we didn't, none of us.
Rabbi sees it's not working, he turns around
and he goes to one individual, he says,
you're sure you did not recite the supplications?
You didn't recite Selichos?
He said, no.
He says, I was in the synagogue,
we were about to get started,
I said the first three words
and then they called me in for your minions.
I didn't say Selichos.
He says, no, no, no, we need somebody else.
You already said Selichos.
He said, all I said was Lecha Hashem HaGedula,
to you Hashem is greatness, that's it.
He said, no, no, you already said Selichos.
You already said it.
That a human being can feel the holiness
of a person who just uttered three words in a Selichos,
that's it, three words.
We think like, oh, I'm such a bad Jew,
all I did today was recite the Shema.
You know, I had a friend of mine,
we were talking about putting on tefillin.
He says, Rabbi, it's impossible for me to put on tefillin.
Impossible.
I said, why?
He says, I'm a personal trainer.
You're a personal trainer, so what's the big deal?
He says, well, I wake up at the crack of dawn,
at four o'clock in the morning, right?
And I work out with people till late at night.
So he says, I just don't have the time.
I said, what do you mean?
He said, it just, it takes time.
I said, what are you talking about?
It takes five minutes.
You put your tefillin on, you say the Shema,
and you take it off.
He said, that's it?
I thought it has to be the whole prayer,
I have to recite from the beginning of the book
till the end of the book.
That takes an hour.
It takes a, you know, he didn't have an hour.
You're right.
Five minutes you do have.
Five minutes to do a mitzvah.
You know what that changes?
It changes us from human to angel.
We feel like we're on a cloud
of lofty spiritual connection with Hashem.
By one mitzvah, we recite one blessing.
We read one verse.
We underestimate the greatness,
the love that Hashem has for our service.
Number nine, our sages tell us
that the ingathering of the exiles
will come with the blowing of the shofar.
When Mashiach reveals himself
and the Jews from every corner of the world
come back to Jerusalem,
it's going to come with the blowing of the shofar.
Says Rav Sadia Goen,
that ninth reason for the blowing of the shofar
is we instill that prayer.
God, this blowing of the shofar
should be real soon
where we can have the incoming,
the ingathering of the exiles.
Now, think for a second
the power of such a prayer coming from us.
Where we're sitting, I'll tell you,
I was just traveling a few weeks ago.
I was traveling from the East Coast with my children.
And as I do every single day, praying three times a day,
I can pray the morning service in Virginia
and the afternoon service in Tennessee
and the evening service in Alabama
because we continue our drive, right?
And we'd stop in different rest stops
and I would put on my tefillin
and when you're on these little rest stops,
they have these like little gazebos.
So I would put on my tefillin there,
my son would do it as well.
We would daven together,
my daughter with the children,
they would all daven,
you know, then we would have breakfast
and then we'd continue on our drive.
And I was talking to Hashem in my prayer
and I said, Hashem,
do you realize where I am right now?
I'm in Knoxville, Tennessee
and I'm asking you to heal so-and-so.
I'm in, you know, Mobile, Alabama
and I'm asking you a prayer
for this person to find their shidduch.
And I'm in New Orleans, Louisiana
and I'm asking you,
it's like the prayer is not coming from Jerusalem.
The prayer is not coming from Brooklyn.
The prayer is coming from out of middle of no place.
I'm crying to you from no place.
Mima amakim k'rosich Hashem.
I'm calling you from the depths,
from the valleys,
from where there's nobody else here.
We are all wandering Jews
in our wherever we go
and we have tremendous power in our prayer.
Hashem, I'm reaching out to you.
I'm here by the JCC.
I need your help.
I need your help.
I had a guy came to my class once,
dear friend of mine.
He came to my class.
I used to teach a class in congregation Beth Rambam
every Shabbos morning.
And it was a class on prayer.
We do the parasha.
So the rabbi asked me,
he said, can you please,
after you've done the class,
send them into the sanctuary
so they can be part of the singing,
of the prayers.
You know, they can be part with everybody else,
with the congregation.
No problem.
So I tell everybody,
the rabbi has asked
if everyone can go join in the sanctuary
to be part of the end of the service.
So this one individual tells me,
says to me, rabbi, prayer is not for me.
I'm done with prayer.
I said, you're just the guy I'm looking for.
Sit right back down, right?
He sits down.
I say to him, what happened to you?
Why is prayer not for you?
And he says to me, I'll tell you,
I'll be honest with you.
He says, I come to synagogue.
I find the prayer book
and all I'm doing the entire time
is trying to catch up to where the chazan is going.
And I'm going, he said, by the time I'm done,
I'm just tired, I'm worn out.
I'm just trying to follow what the chazan is saying.
I'm like, what are you talking about?
He said, that's not prayer.
He says, what?
He says, it's not prayer.
Prayer means you close your eyes
and you open your heart
and you talk to God.
That's what prayer is.
Prayer, you don't need to be in a synagogue,
you don't need a prayer book.
You could be on the line at the bank.
You could be at a red light
and you could be waiting to board your plane.
You could be anywhere in the world
and just talk to God,
creator of heaven and earth.
That's it.
That's what prayer is.
Prayer means I'm having a conversation with God.
I'm talking with God.
That's what prayer is.
Wherever we are, we can talk to Hashem.
We have the most powerful ability in the world
with our mouth, with our heart,
to just talk to God.
And God answers us 100% of the time.
We can pray wherever we are
and not to underestimate the power that we have
to talk and communicate with the creator
of heaven and earth.
Such an amazing thing.
This individual, I told this to maybe 15 years ago.
Every time he sees me, he reminds me,
even at the red light, I pray.
He says, wherever I am, I pray now.
He says, I had no idea.
I thought prayer means I need to follow along
with the chazan, with the leader of the congregation.
What he says, that's why I just need to follow along.
He said, I didn't realize that prayer was within.
I can just talk to God wherever I am.
It's such a powerful thing.
You're dealing with a challenge.
You're sitting in the waiting room at the doctor's office
and you're afraid they're gonna come and tell you,
talk to God, talk to God.
He's listening.
He hears every word.
When we pray on Rosh Hashanah
for the ingathering of the exiles, God hears us.
God says, you know something?
Those people out in Houston,
they're praying for the ingathering of the exiles
so that we are all reunited back in Jerusalem
with the rebuilt temple.
Reason number nine for the blowing of the shofar.
We wanna hear the shofar of Moshiach.
We wanna hear the shofar that will end this exile.
And finally, number 10, the resurrection of the dead.
Our sages tell us that the shofar will be blown.
The verse tells us that when those who are already deceased
will come to life again,
it will come with the blowing of the shofar.
Shofar has a tremendous power
because it transforms sound, not words,
sound as a message to the Almighty.
It's an incredible thing on Rosh Hashanah.
We limit the words that we speak.
In fact, if you look, there are many customs
that people have on Rosh Hashanah.
One of them is that people don't,
no chitchat on Rosh Hashanah.
People limit the words that they use on Rosh Hashanah.
You know why?
You know what we do instead of it?
We eat different kinds of foods
that symbolize good tidings.
We dip the apple in honey
so we should have a sweet new year, right?
And some say that you should verbalize that,
but you have to eat it also.
You say, you say specifically, why?
Because we want the food to communicate for us.
Like we want the shofar, we don't need words,
we need action.
Rosh Hashanah is a time where we're saying,
God, I'm gonna let my actions speak for themselves,
not my words.
My action is my blowing of the shofar.
My action is dipping the apple in the honey,
eating the pomegranate.
It's just like the pomegranates is filled
with so many seeds.
We should be filled with so many mitzvahs, we say.
So many beautiful customs that we have.
If you look in the prayer book
for the service that we have during the meal
on Rosh Hashanah, it brings, it's really fascinating.
If you have the Wasserman edition on page 768, okay?
Dipping the apple in the honey.
May it be your will, Hashem, our God,
and the God of our forefathers,
that you renew for us a good and sweet year.
Carrots.
What does carrots have to do with this?
Sh'yir bus chuisenu, because the word of carrot
means to increase.
So what do we say?
May it be your will, Hashem, our God,
and the God of our forefathers,
that our merits increase.
You just take that word, right?
Then the merits increase.
That our enemies be decimated,
that our adversaries be removed,
that our enemies be consumed,
that the decree of our sentence be torn asunder,
and may our merits be proclaimed before you.
This is gourd and dates and beets and pomegranates.
That our merits increase as the seeds of a pomegranate.
Fish, that we should be fruitful and multiply like fish.
And we eat from the head of a fish or the head of a sheep.
In our family, we take the little gummy, the fish candy,
and the kids eat the head, right?
It's more, right?
The kids don't wanna eat from a fish head, right?
So I know that's also a band, right?
But okay, so that we be as the head
and not as the tail.
The symbolism, why do we do the symbolism?
For what?
There's some who add raisins with celery,
that they should have a raisin salary.
There are others who add cinnamon,
cinnamon so they should sin a minimum, right?
There are many things that you could do it
and have a good time with it.
Think of creative ideas.
Because we wanna symbolize
that we're trying to put our desire into action.
You wonder like, what, because, you know,
a carrot is to increase, so we should increase.
I mean, come on, really?
Yes, we're trying to find every piece we can, everything.
Be busy eating, be busy blowing the shofar.
Don't be busy chit-chatting.
Don't get carried away
because we're about to recognize on the day of Rosh Hashanah
Hashem is the king, the king of the universe.
Hashem is our creator.
And once we realize that on Rosh Hashanah,
we're ready to go into Yom Kippur
because what happens on Yom Kippur?
On Yom Kippur, we ask for atonement, for forgiveness.
Hashem, please, I didn't realize that you were there.
I didn't realize, I thought it was just me, so I sinned.
I didn't realize that you see everything that goes on.
I didn't realize that.
But on Rosh Hashanah, I just reestablished that.
We reestablished the relationship.
You're the king, you're the creator of heaven and earth.
You see everything.
You know my thoughts, you know my intentions,
you know my actions, you see everything,
you record everything.
You know, the Chavetz Chaim's daughter asked him
why there was so much technology in his generation.
Chavetz Chaim passed away over 100 years ago, all right?
There's so much technology.
They had an ability to what?
To ride a train, they had a locomotive.
Wow, what technology?
The Chavetz Chaim said the reason why there's going to be
more and more and more development of technology
is because when a little plastic camera can see,
people will suddenly realize, oh, of course Hashem can see.
When your phone can record, you'll notice, one second,
of course Hashem can record every word I say.
When your phone can react, you can look across the globe.
You can, I can sit there and talk to my children
8,000 miles away, but Hashem can't see us.
And Hashem knows,
Hashem knows our thoughts, our intentions.
Chavetz Chaim said the development of technology
will hopefully bring us closer to Hashem
because we will realize if technology can work so well,
even more so the creator of heaven and earth.
What do you think?
I've said this numerous times.
There are no inventions.
There hasn't been a single invention
since the creation of the world.
There's only been discoveries.
It was always there.
I was explaining to my daughter, my four-year-old daughter.
She was asking me, how does the phone work?
How does the phone work?
So I was explaining to her, I was trying to explain.
I wasn't going to get into the technology part of it
because I don't know it.
I don't understand it myself.
But obviously it's a miracle, right?
What's the miracle?
That we have sound waves.
I said to my daughter,
here, you're sitting across the table from me.
How do you hear me?
How do you hear me?
She says, because you're talking.
I said, yeah, but my words are here.
My sound is here.
How does my sound get to your ears, right?
It travels through sound waves.
Those sound waves are how we're able to communicate.
I'm able to sit here in Houston and many of you,
not only Alabama, other places, Brazoria, Texas.
I see other places, right?
Atas Casita is that, right?
Unbelievable, we're able to communicate.
People on Facebook, on YouTube, on Twitter, on LinkedIn,
on all these other places are able to hear.
How?
Oh, oh, but Hashem doesn't know how to communicate.
But Hashem doesn't know how to see
what's going on in this world.
It's a reminder.
Every single day, we need to be reminded.
Rosh Hashanah is the day we can infuse
our entire year with the kingship of Hashem.
Hashem should bless us all.
We should merit to have the most incredible Rosh Hashanah
and that every blow of that shofar
should awaken each of these 10 things.
And if you're able to think of more things,
send your messages to Hashem through these prayers.
I always tell people, before we blow the shofar,
close your eyes, stop what you're doing
and just contemplate what is your message for God?
And then we can blow the shofar.
Meditate for a moment.
Think, I'm about to send the most powerful message
to the creator of heaven and earth
with the blowing of the shofar.
What's my message?
What is my message?
And the message could be a plea of Hashem.
I wanna be closer to you.
I wanna be closer to you.
Last year, I took a good stride.
I want a bigger one next year.
I wanna do more.
I wanna get closer.
Remove the barriers.
Remove the limitations.
And sometimes the limitations we create for ourselves.
My dear friends, we should be blessed
with an incredible, beautiful new year.
Amen.
Shana Tova to you all.

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