Teshuva and the Fatal Flaw of Religious Mediocrity, by Rav Dovid Gottlieb
What does it take to be "written" in the Book of Life?
Is it enough NOT to be wicked or is something more impressive and ambitious expected of us?
KMTT - the Torah Podcast
Teshuva and the Fatal Flaw of Religious Mediocrity
Before you think that I'm going to give you some kind of a secret you hopefully those who know me well enough know I'm not into shortcuts or or cheap schoolers. So this will not be one of those And even if we didn't have the introduction that we had I don't claim to know the secrets of God's workings and His justice. I take it on a leap of faith like everybody else, but I have no special insight into how God calculates Who should live and who should die? however, what we do have and what we always have to come back to are the traditions that we have and the Tarshib al-Pah and There is one particular gomara which on some level again admittedly we're not going to be able to then At the end of today's year be able to go from A to B Well, if we do this it'll explain why in the coming years so and so lived and so and so did You're not going to get that from me. I would be very suspicious of anyone who claims they could give it to you I want to I don't want to say anything harsher than that I a lot of other not nice things to say about people who pretend to give people Insights, which I don't believe they have but if one good thing if you said about me is I don't pretend to know everything I never pretended to be a Navi but nevertheless There are insights. I think that we can use If not necessarily how the violence will help us live longer But even if not, it'll hopefully it'll definitely make us live better That is something that I can make an offer to you that if we can internalize the lesson of today's year Hopefully we'll live longer, but certainly we'll live better and the basis of this is a single gomara and the single gomara is Then quoted by the rambam and the rambam changes one word So from one gomara and one word change of the rambam That will yield a very powerful question, which will necessitate a number of I think very fascinating answers each of which is a very enriching lesson that we can try to internalize to hopefully really Increase the quality if not also the quantity of our lives So the gomara and question is one which you're probably familiar with in one form or another But this is the original in primary source source number one the gomara and russia shanam this davtet zainam at base 16 B amareb crucpadai amareb yochenan Shloshas for even if tachim russia shanam Don't worry. I know where she's over. We're getting to the part that's relevant for a young kipper and that's it Let me chew up, but says the gomara on russia shanah God opens up three books of judgment of judgment three books Ephat shah russia and get more in Ephat shahtadi kim get more in the Ephat shawbanonim One book he puts in all the totally righteous people One book he writes down all the totally wicked people in one book. He writes down those in the middle They're not totally righteous. Oh, it's not totally wicked. They're in the middle What what happens in those books? Second line tachim kim kim kim kim kim. I'm there to have them all to the high Those were totally righteous Incidentally, they don't need a sarsami chubah. They don't necessarily even need him kipper already on russia shanam signed in sealed for life russia and gomorim absolutely wicked They don't get the chance To change their judgment in a certain me chubah or yom kipper. They are ready nichtaba nichtaba nichtaba nichtaba nichtaba nichtaba nichtaba nichtaba nichtaba nichtaba nichtaba nichtaba nichtaba nichtaba nichtaba nichtaba nichtaba nichtaba nichtaba. They're already signed and sealed for death So what is a sarsami chubah for? Period that we're in now. What is yom kipper for evidently says the gomara? Benanim It's all for those of us in the middle Tluyunga om di mi russia shanad yom wikippurim Our judgment if we're a banany if someone's a banany, sorry if they're in the middle Their judgment is suspended. It sounds like delayed from russia shana Unlike the other two categories and they are not fully judged until yom kipper And therefore they have these intervening days including yom kipper itself to prove their situation Zafu They increase their merits So they can get out of the Banany book and into the Tzadik book, Nakhtavim l'chai, den Anyom Kippur, they will be signed for life. L'Ozaku, if they can't budge, they can't get themselves out of the Banany status, Nakhtavim l'amisa, then they're written to the same fate as the wicked. Okay, now let's deconstruct and make sure we all understand what this Gomara said. All right, good. It's a short Gomara. It's not a hard Gomara, but it includes a lot of important things which we need to digest before we go forward. So the first thing is that clearly with a very broad brush, the Gomara puts all of human population to three categories. Righteous, wicked, and somewhere in between. Okay, number one. Number two is the righteous. Already in Rosh Hashanah are signed up for life. Again, I want to add, maybe I'll make the caveat again, but this is about, he's already the second or third time. You don't have to be a skeptic and God forbid you're certainly not a heretic to question the Gomara. After all, you see lots of people who's going to be righteous who are alive last Rosh Hashanah and are not alive now. You're not a skeptic or a heretic. They're shown he messed the question. It's a legitimate question. And there are different answers to that question, which is not the topic of our sheer. Some say, well, it really means a la maba. And some say it means, this means they get a good judgment. There's different answers, but it's clearly a good question. And that's why I say that even if we can't take the Gomara in the most literal sense, there's still a very, very powerful message in the Gomara. So I'm not obfuscating or denying that issue. It's just not our focus because it doesn't help us to dwell on that. Okay, but that's what the Gomara says. And the wicked, again, even though we don't always see it with our eyes, the wicked, they were signed for death last year. So if you'll ask, what is Yum Kippur for? What are the search of a chugo for? Evidently, according to the Gomara, it's just for one of the three categories, the Baynani. Because their judgment, apparently, is not finalized until Yum Kippur. Everyone else is kind of going through the motions, meaning theoretically, if you knew you were exotic, maybe you could just sleep in on Yum Kippur. Right? But since you're not sure, I don't necessarily recommend it since you're not unless you're really sure. But this really brings us to the heart of today's sheer. What is a Baynani? Or what is exotic and what is a Russia? Right? These are terms that we use that seem that meaning. What does it mean to be in the middle? Niche the hen, Niche the hare, he's not exotic, he's not a Russia, somewhere in between. So if you go back into the Gomara, I wrote down twice in parentheses, I included Rashi's comments. Rashi seems to explain these categories in a very straightforward, maybe even simple, um, mathematical way. God adds up the mitzvos, and God adds up the various. In this conception, God is in fact not Santa Claus. But he is the great accountant in the sky. And he takes all of the invoices, and he does all the tabulations, and he lets you know at the end, if you're in the black, or you're in the red, says Rashi, if you are exotic, that means you have majority mitzvos. It doesn't mean you didn't know a Veros, who didn't know a Veros everyone says. But it's unbalanced, you have more mitzvos here at Sonic. What's a Russia? Someone who unbalanced has more a Veros, which is a little bit of a shock to us. You know, because the person, you got a sinwars of Russia, okay, just tell me something I didn't know ready. But Rashi seems to be saying that a lot of people could be Russia. Even if they did a lot of good things, they just did more bad things. But that's what Rashi says. And that brings us to the third and most important category. What's the bayini? So Rashi says, from the third line, I have it in parentheses. Maksa al-Maksa. The accountant does that up. Now, I imagine up in Shamayim, the big accountant does the whole ledger. Wow. You know, 17,741 mitzvos. 17,741 of arrows. It can't be right. I'm going to run it again. Run the numbers again. And again, they came out the same. 50/50. That's a bayini. Now, for now, let's just say this is correct. It's already interesting, and we're going to have to get to that as we continue, that apparently being a bayini is not good enough. But you get a week. You get 10 days. And now what do the gomara say? If that's ultra, let's read the gomara like we're Rashi. So when the gomara said, if in the 10 days in Onyum Kippur, that bayini, who's 50/50, is zocha, then he or she gets written in the Book of Life. So now, how would you explain in your own words what does the gomara mean? What does that mean in zocha? How do you get out of the book of the bayini, which apparently you don't want to stay in, to the book of Satikim? According to Rashi, how do you get out of the book? Do do more mitzvos. I could say it more modestly even than Alyssa. What is another way of saying it? Or even how about do a mitzvah? Do more mitzvahs is great. Why not? It's always good to have an extra padding. But in theory, if Rashi's right, that the bayini is 50/50. So one extra bit, but tilt the scales. Okay, you want to be sure, do two, three, but that seems to be all that is needed. Now, again, you could argue, if I only do one mitzvah on a sesame chuvah, that is risking what if I did an abeira. Okay, so she did a lot of it, but the point is it seems very straightforward. Now, we'll never be let into the bay accounting office. You're never going to make the corner office. You're never going to see exactly how they make the sausage and how they count up. And this is, again, something that not even in the context, only a viscomara. The rhombom says in generally, yes, we believe in reward and punishment, et cetera, but no human being can figure it out. First of all, we can't forget, forget, forget, we can't figure our own life. And how do we weigh how many points each mitzvah's work versus an abeira? And who said it's the same for you as it is for me? And who said it's the same for me at one stage of my life? It is a different stage of my life. We have no way of knowing how God's doing it. Okay, but there's attachment. There's an accountant in the sky. He's weighing everything. And if you are plus mitzvah's, that's great. If you're plus of arrows, that is not great. And if you're 50-50, you're somewhere in the middle. So it's a really different topic. So I don't want to totally delve into it. I have a whole sheer, a year or two ago, that was the topic of my shop of jewelry. That's a real sheer. So if you ask if I would take your question very simplistically, which is how much the points is being marked on a fluffy Strollworth. The OU says you could eat Cheerios. But some people hold it, Oreos, maybe. They're not supposed to add, I don't mean all year. I mean, Daphne starts to make Cheuva. You know, it is almost everything is pasti Stroll unless you're importing it. But certain things are not imported or not pasti Strolls. It could be like, how many points is a 100 worth of things? I don't know. If we're talking about an ledger, but it's certainly something that you asked me. That was a simple way in answering your question. The deeper one, which I'm not going to do is, what is the point of those things on a serious made Cheuva? Is it just because each one of those is as close? And maybe it's not as much as, you know, putting on Tillin. It's not enough. It's not as much as Daphne. It's not as much as keeping shop. It's but it's a something in any little points helps. Or is there something deeper? That was the topic of the shop of jewelry. So I don't want to revisit that. But let's go now to the rhombom. First number two. And to make it quick and easy, the rhombom paraphrases everything in the Gamara. It would be completely uninteresting to see the rhombom, except for one thing. He changes a word, but it's the most important word in the whole piece. The rhombom brings down this whole Gamara. And here also, he seems, it's at first glance, he seems to endorse Raji's definition. But exotic as someone who has more mitzvos, a Russia is the one who has more of Eros. And then he says, what about if a person is exactly even habanonee? Look at the last line of source number two. His judgment is delayed until Yom Kippur. And then Yom also Tishuvah. So you don't have to be the most perceptive observer to catch the sleight of hand. What did the rhombom do? He just swapped out. He showed you the coin, but now he turned his hand around. And instead of a coin, what did he put in his place? Chumah, where the Gamara had said. And Alyssa and everyone agreed with her. I could tell your silent ascent was powerful and conveyed clearly. Everyone was agreeing with Alyssa by not saying anything else. We say, if you do a mitzvah, if you do a mitzvah, I was agreeing with you. I was just not going as far as you. You're much firmer than me. You said mitzvos. I said, what about one mitzvah? I was thinking I can't say that. You're just firmer. It's okay. I'm okay with that. I'm okay with that. So the rhombom, instead of just saying you could do a mitzvah, the rhombom says the Beninii. He or she must do Tishuvah to get out of the book of the mediocre, to get out of the book of the medium, the middle crowd. You don't want to be in the middle of the road. That's when you get hit by cars in both directions. So you want to get out of the book of the Beninii. That's for sure clear in the Gamara. So the rhombom says, it's not enough to just zocha. What's zocha? I don't know. Helping an old lady across the street to turning off the lights when your mom asks. You know, doing the dishes, giving a one minute, giving a dollar of zidaka, giving ten dollars of zidaka, and they're on the toast. Everyone goes on the toast. That should be enough. 50-50 now. I'm 51-49. The rhombom doesn't say that though. The rhombom doesn't have to do Tishuvah. Now, that question is profound and very difficult on two levels. On the easiest level we could just say, why is he taking away my options? Human beings love options. I myself, I was at meetings all day yesterday. I was in Rana from like, I left the house at nine. I got on with like almost three, meeting after meeting after meeting. And some of the meetings that you want to get me a commitment of a specific time, you can meet every week or I stood at this. I was like, I was ready. I was ready to get nervous. I don't like that. Like, let's become each. You know, we can, now again, I know there's a reason why it's important to have things in the calendar and to put things down. And if you're too gummiesh that doesn't happen, I know all the downsides, but I know I'm wired. So why take away my options? We like options. I want flexibility. Maybe I will do Tishuvah or maybe I'll just give a lecture to Todaka. Why shouldn't that have been enough? Why wasn't the gamara right? But it's more than just options. It's much more than that. I don't need to tell you, Tishuvah's hard. Why make it so hard? Why can't I just do a little mitzvah? I'll invite someone over for the break fast. Hey, maybe that's afternoon kipper. Maybe that's too okay. I'll for the pre-fast. I'll invite someone over. I'll invite someone over Shabashuvah lunch. I'll do a mitzvah. I'll bid someone in a nursing home. One mitzvah. I'll call up a friend I know is having a hard day and see how she's doing. One mitzvah. One kind word. Chuvah. Oh my gosh. That's demanding. Why wouldn't that make it so hard on us? Not that it's me. It doesn't make any sense. Is it gamara right? Zahra should be enough. If it's really 50/50, that's a definition. So why isn't one mitzvah enough? Why does the raman require truth? And that is not only my question. That is a question that was asked hundreds of years ago in source number three. This is one of the primary commentaries on the ramban. He asked the question. Okay. So I want to spend the rest of this year sharing briefly a few of the different approaches. And then, lean at it. I'll do something that I'm not usually good at. I'll be good at time management. And I'll leave enough time that we can focus on what I think is the best answer. But all the answers I want to share with you I think are important. But there is one that I think is the best answer which we'll save for last. So one answer which already is alluded to in source number three by the left emission himself is very, very simplistic. It's just and I already alluded to it actually. I already hinted at it before. Which is that maybe the ramban was just worried that we don't want you running in place. Because there's a mitzvah to do Chuvah. So if I don't do Chuvah, that's already a negative. That's already a minus. I've only do one mitzvah and I start saying Chuvah. But I didn't do Chuvah. So that negates itself. And I'm back to where I started. I'm still in the banany. So a better version even of that answer. A better version of that answer which is the first answer I really want to focus on. And it is a very meaningful one especially in the time of year that we're in right now this week. Leading up to Yom Kippur is contained in the next few sources. Sources four through six. Which is that we need to appreciate what this time of year means. And therefore we need to appreciate what not doing Chuvah would be. The ramban, obviously the ramban. The Gamara in source number four, very famous Gamara. I'm sure I've quoted it many times in various contexts in this year and in ratios and things like that. The Gamara here is source number four. It tells us that there's a unique period of the year. Even though a person can call after a sham all year round, a person can and should the Chuvah all year round. With a specific time of the year, which is a certain propitiousness, you could even call it a Skula for a Chuvah. Not a Skula in a sense if I could have a gimmick. But a certain time of the year where evidently it's easier or more effective, where to be used the Gamara's terminology quoting the Pasak in the prophet, Isaiah, the Naveyushayahu. Pregnant, hey, dear Shuhashem, behemotho. There's a certain time of the year where if you call after sham, you turn to sham, you find that he's present. He's there. I sometimes recall a person's my home. Sometimes they don't want to talk to you and they don't pick up the phone. Call or ID has revolutionized. Who can even remember a world without call or ID? It was rhetorical, but thank you ladies. I wasn't going to date. You look way too young to be who could remember that now. I would never accuse you of that. But even I do. Don't worry. It's like a different world, but just the nose falling before you put up the phone. We can't even go back to that other place. Anyway, so what is that place where we know Hashem is present? He's there. So it says the Gamara, the last line of source number four, amraba barabua, elo asari yamimishimirashashana yamikippuram. These 10 days between Russia's Shana and Yom Kippur, the 10 days of Judah, God is somehow closer. It's not exactly good from the girl. What does that mean? So in order to explain what that means, there's a very famous teaching, which if you haven't heard of it, trust me, your children or your grandchildren have become part even non-religious Israelis for Shumara about outside of Israel, but non-religious Israelis, many of them have heard about this. It's an idea which is origin's rich actually, and a very brief piece in the La Baba Terebi, the founding one, the OG, the Balatanya. And it's very famous in his name, and it's become very, very popular and widespread. Two words. It's your day, Alissa. Ha-Meleh Bastadeh, the king is in the field. Now, what did the Balatanya mean by that? He explained, "Wouldn't I usually, if you want to go see the king, he's in his palace. There's a entourage. There are guards. There are days, if not weeks, and certainly hours every day where you couldn't possibly go, so you need to know when is the right time, and you need to wait online, and there could be rules, and maybe you can't get there, and you have 10 seconds, and if you're lucky, it's not that the king's not there, but it's very hard and very difficult to get through. And then there are other times, he says, "Where the king is walking through the fields, walking among the people." Now, in the world of democracy, we would say, "Oh yeah, there must be an election coming up." He wants your vote, all of a sudden they're accessible, but a king doesn't need anyone's vote. He could be just stop walking through the fields, or maybe every now and then he wants to be close with the people. One of the reason is, the point is, if you're lucky enough to catch him when he's just walking through the forest, it's really walking through the forest, or is it just like time now? What does that mean? It's a terminology just to say that it walking in the forest. Do you always have these stories about kingdoms walking in the forest? Do they really walk in the forest? Well, I'm not really interested in today. I'm really interested in he. Obviously, it's a metaphor, but the metaphor, which is very powerful, which is why it captures our imagination, is the idea that Hashem, the way he's about time, he's understanding this Camara, why is it easier? What did that mean? The nova used one word, behematso. And the Camara made a big deal about this. So what does behematso mean? It means Hashem is more accessible. What Uncle Maishi said is true. Hashem is here, Hashem is there, Hashem is truly everywhere. By the way, some of those walking out of Marv last night, I don't know if it's a hundred percent confirmed, but at least, you know, Netanyahu claimed that we killed Nasrallah's new person, whose name is Hashem. So he said to me, we have a new version, Hashem is there, Hashem is there, he got blown up, Hashem is truly everywhere. Now with bits of pieces, you know, there's gallows humor after a year of what we've been through, people can make any joke they want. We've suffered enough, we don't have to make jokes about poor little Mr. Hashem up and Lebanon being everywhere now, got blown up. Anyway, but Hashem is always everywhere, but on some level, whatever this means, and obviously we're all human, including me, I don't know, I can't tell you exactly what this means. He's harder to access during the year. What the Camara is saying is this is a special time to come back to him, to come close to him. He's accessible more. In source number five, this is not nearly as well known, but I think it's also just as powerful. Rabbi Jonas and Iberschitz basically says the same idea. He just kind of has a different metaphor, which if I would just slightly modernize his metaphor, imagine you're working in a company, let's say you're relatively new, and you're obviously on the bottom somewhere, and now there's like a cocktail party or some business meeting or lunch or something with everybody there, including your boss's boss's boss's boss and all the big shots of Lule. Now, if you had a certain kind of personality, you might, maybe they even say, oh yeah, the CEO's in that corner, people could sign up to meet him, or maybe you just have a little guts, you go over to the guy, introduce yourself at the party, right? If you didn't, maybe that was a little bit of a mistake, but it certainly wouldn't be in the end of the world. But now imagine, not that you didn't take the opportunity to sign up to meet the CEO or whatever. Imagine that you happen to be, I don't know, you're at the bar, I'm just getting Coke Zero, and while you're there, all of a sudden, the CEO comes right over there, says hi, you know, I'm Bob, or whatever, you know, and you don't take his hand, you walk away. That is clearly not the same thing as I didn't go over to him. Someone goes over to you and says hello, and you still don't respond, right? That's a, right? That's already a slap in the face. So says, that's the metaphor, basically, hush all year round, we have to extend our hand to our chef and hope he'll respond. But here our chef is responding to us, he's initiating, I should say, he's putting his hand out into us, or at the way of the ball time, you said it, he's coming out of the palace into the field. But we have to go up to the palace to him, he's already came to us to waste that opportunity, would be a catastrophic mistake. And that is exactly what he, and if you look at source number six, that's the kofle or, the source number, kofle or is Revitsa Mipathirberg, or if he's a blazer, it was his real name, he was one of the premier students of Ravi Stal Solander. And he doesn't quote those previous sources, but basically, basically, with this idea in mind, he gives, what I think is the first really good explanation of the Ramban. He says it's source number six. If you look at the last, we'll just go to the last line. If our sham is already, again, this time of year, you could have done Chiva in the summer too. I'll get you too busy. I mean, I wouldn't say this year, we weren't, we weren't on all vacation this year, but maybe the previous year you do busy, you're on vacation, you're redoing the house, you were doing whatever you were doing in the summer. You could have, it's not the end of the world, that means you didn't extend your hands on Shem. You didn't go up to the palace on your own, but now these 10 days of the year where Shem is extending this hands of you, Shem came out of the palace and is walking around, right, on a marketing message, you should be careful where he walks, but not our block, but everywhere else, you know, he's walking, you know, really everywhere, he'll find litter everywhere, he'll find all sorts of things, but he's there, you can stop him, the mayor's walking the streets, the king's walking the streets, and you still don't want to do a rapprochement, you're still not going to try to do chuva and still, you know, apologize for whatever he once did, says coffee or source number six, (in foreign language) what a catastrophic mistake, what a terrible sin it would be of (in foreign language) to not do chuva this time of year, (in foreign language) it's not like we saw previously, well, no, I don't do chuva, that's one of Eira, but I did a mitzvah and not, no, no, to not do chuva this time of year, to not take advantage of the opportunity of this week, of the unique and magical opportunity of the own kipper, and you still didn't do chuva, that's not just, I won't be thought of first when they're looking to give a promotion, that's not just, if I'd done that, maybe I would have taken an opportunity to get something good, and now I'm still where I am, no, no, that's Hashem going ahead, I was waiting to reach, you know, he wanted to hug you, you're like, personal space, that's, you think that, oh, you think you're gonna make up for that, you think Zocha is gonna make up for that, says again, all these sources are all working together to give us our first approach, which is that there is an incredible opportunity, chuva is easier this week than at any other time of the year, but the opportunity brings with it significant responsibility and consequences, because we don't take advantage of the opportunity, it's worse than just a missed opportunity, it's a pachampunum, it's like slapping on the face, here I am coming to you, taking the first step, and just, again, I'll give one last muscle, and since my wife's not here, you know what that means, good stories are about to happen, and she's not here to give me the eye roll, anyway, no, I think about it, I'm not talking about myself, just hypothetically a couple who might be almost 30 years married, a nice couple, a good looking couple, wonderful young couple, and they're dating for said amount of time, now the boy is thinking, I wonder how she feels, how would she say it, the big magic three words, okay, but she didn't, maybe she's timid, maybe she's shy, so eventually in the right moment he gets up the gumption, and he says, this theoretical person, hypothetically speaking of course, says, I love you, and the response isn't, I love you too, our hypothetical theoretical princess says, don't you have to get back to why you, isn't it late as there's still vans going, how are you going to get back, now the whole time that you're just waiting for the princess to tell the prince, I love you, on some level the princess hurt, how come she's not saying it, but can you compare that to being the one who goes out on the limb, and then the limb cracks, ain't nobody holding on, theoretically, hypothetically of course, I'm just saying, so that's what, that's our first approach, why did the ramam say it's not enough to just add a few mythos this time of year, but we really have to do chuva, because what is chuva, chuva isn't just as ritual, that's like chuva, chuva is making up with the cottage bar hoo, there's it, sometimes we had a fight with ushem, sometimes we just had a distance with ushem, the relationship was stale, there was a betrayal, what are they, okay chuva means making up, he saw cottage bar hoo, so to not use the opportunity of this time of year, you could pick your mushroom, the king is in the field, the boss extended his hand, and the prince that I love you, whatever it is, to not respond to those initiatives is to not do chuva this time of year, and there ain't no mythos as the club we are that's going to make up for the fact that you didn't do that, doing all the mythos this time of year is great, the hummus are great, the mythos are even better, but they can't be instead of doing chuva, right imagine you know if in our hypothetical case, this is really hypothetical because it's not what happened, in the hypothetical case, but hypothetically about the hypothetical case, if the princess said not just you know how you're gonna get back, but I called you a cab and don't worry I'll pay for it, so that's a myth, that's a nice cassette, but does that make up for the fact that there wasn't a response, I mean we're talking about apples and oranges to put it mildly, you did a lot of mythos, but I should have wanted a hug, I should have wanted you to say I love you, and you didn't do that, arkhenvei, so yes chuva is the most accessible, the easiest, this is a special time of year where chuva would be the most effective, and we should be appreciative of that, but with great opportunity comes consequences that we don't take advantage of the opportunity, okay that's all approach number one, approach number two is on the bottom of the page, and this is also something I kind of hinted at already, but here we'll see it in a very powerful way, until now we have assumed that the judgment of this person in the middle of the baneini, the Gomorris term was "Tluyan Vomden", and I think he was determined to have delayed, or we could say deferred, and the person has ten days until you get the judgment, as opposed to the other two categories, the wicked and the righteous, their judges are in arhishana, and Yom Kippur and assessment chuva is for the rest of us who are not absolutely evil or wicked, or or exotic, were in the middle. In source number seven, from Han Shul Levitz of the mirror, he quotes from the earlier, earlier great muster teachers, the altar of Navartic, who understood the Gomorris differently, not that the judgment of baneini is deferred until Yom Kippur. We said, we said in the master, call by Olam, over in the vanetha, kiss name Aram, every person, every human being, every now and then, every human being is judged on rasashana, not just the sadikim and the rasayan, I don't know for sure, but I would think maybe even the baneini is a very big group, whatever number of people it is, there's no exception to the rule that every rasashana's judgment day, rasashana's judgment day for everybody. So what does it mean that the baneini is told in the omen? She says, it's, you have to take it literally. What does it mean if I would describe a person that he or she is told in, that was the word mean? Hanging says the altar of Navarta, even the baneini, even the baneini is judged in rasashana, and take you guess what is his or her judgment? Misa, death. This is important point number one, which is, it is not acceptable to be mediocre. The mentality of do no harm may be appropriate as a motto for other areas of life, or certain professions, is not the motto of a Jew, but subconsciously many of us think that. As long as I'm not wicked, why shouldn't I give me another year? As we assume that we're the mukzuk, I'm alive, I should be alive next year, unless I've done something so bad I forgot to take it away from you. And says the altar in the verdict, but the grammar of teaching us is a mistake. Not that you need to, not that we're alive unless we gave God a reason to take it away. Each year we need to give God a reason to keep us around. We have to be worth his effort. And he's not saying that everyone has to be whoever you can insert your favorite sada court, said they get here. You don't have to be the biggest, the most righteous, the most whatever, but you got at least B5149. You can't be a minus. If you're 50-50, it's true you weren't terrible, but there's no net positive in having you. You haven't earned another year. If you're a banany, the nooses are, he says the nooses are ready around your head. Look at the first line, which is really a little bit inside. Yes, a banany is not good enough. Be exotic. Not the way they tell you in the storybooks that the sada woke up in the morning and went to the forest and chopped the wood and gave it to the widow and then went over to, and then dove until him 18 hours a day. That's great if you're such people, but you don't have to be that to be exotic, but you have to be in that positive. If you can't even be that, then I'm sorry. You haven't earned another year, and therefore the nooses around your neck. But here's the key. Unlike the Russia, when the noose gets put around his or her neck on Rosh Hashanah, and then the chair gets kicked away, no backsees, right, judgment and execution, so to speak. Again, metaphorically obviously, on Rosh Hashanah, when it comes to the banany, Tallulian Mizzouman, Laidu et Akisei, Mitaka Raghav, any minute, God can kick away the chair, El Shaddaiin, Yachalah, Khaaninah, Maesam Elah. The one thing God gives the banany is, I'm already putting the hangman's mister on your neck in order to convey this idea. When you were judged like everybody else on Rosh Hashanah and you're found lacking, because you did not earn it, you're not in the black, you're not a majority Mizzos. So therefore you need to already know that you've been judged guilty, but you have an opportunity to appeal. Instead of rushing to the electric chair, so to speak, to kick away the chair from the hangman's noose, you have an opportunity to get that call from the governor. You have a week now to take the noose off. It's not final yet. It's been written down, but it's in pencil. It's not in ink. That's the idea. But don't wait. What about the people who get sick? You're asking a fantastic question, which I told you in the beginning of this year, I can't remotely relate to. I'm not saying it's not a good question, but you're asking a question which is part of the whole, how do I understand God's ways? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I get asked 18 versions of the question and they're all going to be good and fair, and I'll have no answer to any of them. But just to close the loop, if you understand it this way, let's remember why we're trying to do this. We're trying to understand why do the rhombas say that poor Mrs. Bainanee, poor Mr. Bainanee, so I'm not going to just do a few mitzvos. They have to do a juva. What do we know? Fifty-fifty. One or two mitzvahs should tip over the scale. So the second approach is saying, let's say you have to understand something. You already were found guilty. You already found lacking. You can appeal to undo the judgment. Oh, undo a judgment. What is the one thing that can go back in time and undo a judgment? And the answer to that, obviously, is to shoe them, right? If I do a hundred mitzvos, a thousand mitzvos, we had a person in my shoe in Baltimore, who was a mama, a gem of a human being, and I guess technically he worked for a living, but I'm not sure when, because all he was doing was helping people all day. I used to call him Myron the mitzvah man. So let's say all of us put on our capes and became Myron or Merna, the mitzvah man, or the mitzvah woman this week. We were doing a hundred mitzvos, a thousand mitzvos. How does that help if the hangman loses his already on me for a week? I was a ready judge, so Shka'a, in theory, if I was still living next rosh Hashanah, so we're ready in touch and pay. Hey, all the mitzvos that I'm doing this week, where I was doing a keeper, are great to count up for next year. They don't go back to the D&Rosh Hashanah. The great mystery, the great theological quandary, the question, which all we can do is ask, how is Chula possible? If time is linear, how do you go back in time? Right? Michael J. Fox didn't give me his car. How did I go back in time? I was learning with the men just the last two nights after Marv were doing an essay from our solvéchic about Chula. He discusses this, and he mentioned, I don't think he'd only ask the question. He mentioned that, for example, people like Nietzsche and Spinoza denied the possibility of repentance because they couldn't figure out this philosophical question. It's good that I do something good now. It's nice that I regret my passive estate, but I was in college, I did this, and now I feel bad about it. What's it got to do with anything? How do you undo it? The harm was done. The crime was done. And yet Judaism declares it's possible. But it's not possible no matter what you do, it's possible if you do one thing, there's one magic bullet. That's called Tashubo. So if you assume that the vanity wasn't judged yet, and his or her judgment was deferred, then our question makes sense. Why can I do any mitzvah to get myself into the right book? Once you assume like he does a starts number seven, then I don't know, even the vanity was already judged. So if you want to go back in time 10 days later, you can't just do any mitzvah. You must do Tashubo. That's approach number two. Turn over the page, we'll skip now to approach number three, and this will be our final one and my favorite one. Source number 10. This is from the Safer Pachad Yitzchok. This is a Safer of the teachings of Rafifta Khotner, who was the Roshivah Chai in Berlin in Brooklyn, and it was a write-up of his talks. The, you know, the whispered, pretty well confirmed rumor is that his daughter wrote all the books. He only had one child, a daughter, who just passed away very recently, a year or two ago. Revits and Priya David was the head of BJJ for many, many years. But if there's only child, she was brilliant. And I don't think they should even talk about it too much. But I think everyone who knows knows that he gave the speeches. I'm not saying, she didn't ghost write it. It's his content. The first thing we really edited and took responsibility for writing it up and publishing the books. I believe, I believe, I'm sure there were some students who were involved too, but I think the main one responsible was his daughter. And there's a whole series. I have a half a shelf in my house of the Swaran Pachad Yitzchok on the holidays, and this is from Rafifta's teaching on the holidays. So in the volume of Rosh Hashanah, he discusses this topic. And just like our previous source, a previous answer took... the shidish was to view the Gamara differently that we had until now. You thought that Bandani was a judge, William Kipper. No, the Bandis are a judge. Rosh Hashanah, and then that led to the answer. A footer also has a shidish. A radical insight changes everything, and this is why I think it's so profound. Part of what makes this Gamara difficult, aside from the question of how do you understand sick people, where does that fit in, and how come Sinwar is still alive, and yet millions of Sadikim are dead? All those are good questions, real questions. And yet another question on our Gamara is, if we accept the Gamara, the Rashi seemed to have explained it. If we accept the Gamara, the problem seemed to be explaining it, which has been the assumption of everything we're doing until now, that there's this great accountants in the sky. And not only is there a great accountant in the sky, but that every year Rosh Hashanah, he's doing a tabulation, and to be exotic is one more mitzvah. To be a Rasha is one more Sin, and a Bandis is 50/50. Says Rupudnar, this is impossible. He says it doesn't make any sense. You're not a skeptic or a heretic. He says it's just not logical. Because the Gamara cannot be understood. He says, this is the Shikr at Hamak Shah. He says the simple way people are used to explain it. I think I could defend us. We were just following Rashi. We were just following Rama. But he says they can't mean it. You can't take what they mean at face value. It's impossible. First of all, words have meaning. Would you call a person who had one more mitzvah than a Vaira? Would you call her a Tzadik? I don't think so. And a person has one more Vaira. That's a Rasha. That seems a little bit extreme too. And his best question, how many did him you think there are? In a whole year, I'd exactly 50. I mean, I would think your odds of winning a lot of your greater than that. What are the odds? And if I would have pulled any of you until a minute ago, raise your hand if you're a Rasha, raise your hand if you're a Tzadik, raise your hand if you're better. Anyone who raised their hand if they were a Rasha, if I asked, if I asked, who is a Rasha Gammar? Anyone who raised their hand first of all, no one would raise their hand. And the second of all, you have issues. Anyone who would raise their hand, I'm a Tzadik Gammar, you have bigger issues. And you really need help, and I hope I'm not married to you. What kind of person thinks they're Tzadik Gammar, right? That's a megalomaniac, a narcissist. I'm sure everyone in this room, and certainly almost everyone in this room, assumes that there's somewhere in the middle. I'm a manganee. Well, really? You're exactly 50, 50. The eye of the needle, you hit it right there, right on the button. What are the odds? Moreover, let's say someone is at the moment more or less in the middle. So I woke up in the morning, and I was maybe a Rasha, because I didn't talk nicely to my spouse last night, and I forgot to bench, and then I woke up and I dropped in the good chakras, now I'm a Tzadik, but I cut someone off on the highway, now I'm a Rasha. It doesn't make any sense. You can't yo-yo in zigzag between terms if they have any meaning. It just doesn't make any sense. Okay, well, now that he's convinced us doesn't make any sense. So what does it mean? If it's not just this kamuti, this cumulative number, but he's not denying that there is a role for the big accounting in the sky, and that God is where every midst will we do, and he'll reward us for this, and God is where every avaira, and he'll punish us for that. That could be true, and that's it, not could be. It is true, but that's not what he thinks the gamara is trying to convey. That's not what the judgment of Rasha-Shana is about. That's not what it serves to be shoveless about. What is it about, says Rafunder? We have to have a Mabat Khadash. He says, "We can't look at it the way with our old eyes. Let's take a fresh look at this old gamara, a fresh look." And he says, "If we look at this with our fresh perspective, if you look at the fourth line, what is Rubo's huyos, or for that matter, Rubo of Eros? What did it mean to be a Rasha or Tzadik to have a majority? It didn't mean a majority in the simplistic sense of the great accountants in the sky counting the buttons or counting the beans to see, you know, more or less. Right? It's not an actuarial table. Rather, hukkav beofi ha-adam, or as he says in the middle of the line, mida banefesh, or as he says on the line below, it's humosh al-anefesh. All three synonyms of trying to say the same thing. These are character assessments. There's a personality type. There's a character type. You know what a tzadik is says on her? Some in his or her kishkis, in their heart of hearts, in the deepest part of who they really, really are. You want to be good. You don't want to do the right thing. Not on the outer levels where you lie to yourself. Not on the superficial levels where you lie to other people. If you were, you know, not just naked, but like didn't even have a body. The x-ray went right to the soul. Who are you really? If the answer to that question is really, really, really, I'm someone who wants to do good. Then you're a tzadik. I don't always do the right thing. I think you should try to be better. And guess what? We don't understand exactly how and why and when and where, but you're responsible for your actions, including the bad ones. But you're still a tzadik. Because it's me the banefish. Who am I? I'm a person who wants to do good. So what's a Russia? Someone who when you take that x-ray in the core of who that person is, they actually want to be bad. Now that's a very rare thing. It's so rare that in our day and age, certainly for Western people, we can't accept it. I don't want to digress too much at all, but not all of the stuff that we are upset about is anti-Semitism. A lot of it is. Maybe even most of it is. The double standards and all that stuff. But part of it is, especially with the ridiculous, stupid, naive college H people, is that they can't conceive that someone could just be evil. So it must be that we did something so, if they're doing something so bad, it must be that we do something so bad to revoke them. The idea that they're just evil, they cannot comprehend such a thing. They're wrong, obviously. They're wrong philosophically, they're wrong practically, they're wrong about everything, unfortunately. But even if I'm not as stupid as the college kids, it's hard for me to understand. What can make that person hate so much? I don't know. Thank God, I can't relate. But there are such people. They've been throughout history, and they even live right now. The mom is in their core. The evil people. Now, even the evil person. Maybe he's a good husband. Maybe he's a good father. Maybe she's a good mother. Maybe they give a lot of charity, and not only just, maybe because they actually care about them, who knows, the point is, come in, they do good things. No one's saying they don't do, no one's 100 percent, they don't do anything, everything a good thing in their life. Some mafiosos, some other might have done, but it doesn't change the fact that they're rotten to the core. Al Capone probably did a lot of good things. But who was he in his essence, Cesar Fudner? So he says, and I'm right, I just implied this, but let me say it explicitly, he says this yields something radical. I mean, this is like my blog. If a hooker didn't say it, I absolutely would have a little bit of say it. You could be exotic, but if I look back at the big accounting in the sky over the last 12 months, Taka, I did more of Eros. I was distracted, I had a hard year, it wasn't my best performance. My performance review was lacking. Right, you can add some at the end of the year, the boss has a performance review, you know, he fell, you know, really it was a down year for you. You're firing me? None of us are firing you. You're a good worker. You're a good person. You've had a lot of good years, but you got to, you got to, the performance has got to get better, but you're not getting rid of me? No, because I know you're a good person, I'm a good worker. So I share my sense, it could be, you could be exotic, but I'm going to give you another year, because I know when you're hard of hearts, but I do the x-ray on your soul and your core, you are a good person. This happens so good at implementing it. A bigger hit of sheep, that's a hit of sheep. What's a bigger hit of sheep? You could be a Russia Cesar holder, he says this, just read it. You could be a Russia with Rubo Zaglios. I'm a Russia, I'm just not so good at that either. Every day I dream about robbing, every day I dream about stealing, every day I dream about defrauding. Problem is, I'm not so smart or so slick. And every time I think I have an idea that a fraud my friend, it doesn't work. And every time I try to, you know, go into the bank with my ski mask on, I put it on backwards, and I've got to run out. I spent my whole year trying to rob people, but I didn't end up doing it. My heart of hearts, I'm on a Shaqor. I'm an evil, corrupt, rotten person. All I want to do is hurt people and steal from people. But for whatever reason, I never did it. Or if that made up in jail. I didn't hurt anybody, I didn't let me. I mean, isolation's for a year. I hope what I heard, I can't hurt anybody. Maybe, I'm not sure, I don't know, but again, the example he's giving is, there's even a person who, all they want to do, I don't think that person is Corriba then. I hope that person wouldn't be Corriba, in my opinion. But he said, "Let's say a person just didn't happen to do that many avaros this year." But it is Corrib, it is Rudy's rotten. So that's a Russia. So now, and with this, we're two minutes away from finishing, that brings us to the banany. How come the banany needs to do Chubo? That was our question. Why does he have to do Chubo? Why is it enough to just do one little extra mitzvah? But by now, we see clearly. What's our photos answered to that question? It's so profound. Because none of the categories, not Sadek, not Russia, not Sadek, not Bailey, none of them have to do with kamuyot of mitzvah, the quantity of mitzvahs. For all we know, the Russia has a lot of mitzvahs. The banany should do mitzvahs, we should all do mitzvahs. None of us should stand. That's obvious, but that's not what Russia, Sean and Yom Kippur are about. That's not what it says to me, Chubo's about. It's a character trait. It's a character determination. It's the essence of who you are at your core. So if Sadek is someone at his core who wants to do good and a Russia is someone at his or her core who want to talk to be evil, what's the banany? It says our footner, a person who has no commitment. They're morally Swiss. Today I'll do good. Tomorrow I'll do bad. They can go either way, they swing with the wind. They're not committed to anything. But says our footner, a Jew has to be committed. To be not committed is a flaw. Barely, barely, if at all better than being committed to bad. If you are not committed, again, not in the way you pose and not in your hashtags and not in your means and not in your Instagram posts and all the nourish guys and not even just what you talk to your friends and she'll. But in your art, if I shall, we'll do an x-ray into your soul. See who is this person really? If the answer isn't, I'm committed to doing good. I'm committed to being righteous. I'm committed to being closer to our sham. I'm committed to bringing good into this world. Then that is a fatal, but I'm not trying to be evil. That doesn't matter. It's not enough to be neutral as we saw in World War II or for that matter, even now. Neutral basically ends up on the side of bed. It's not enough to be neutral as a footer. It is a fatal character flaw. The baby is flawed. And therefore what's, if we're talking about a character trait and a personality trait and an essential definition, it has nothing to do with how many admits you do, how much seductive you learn, that you give, and how much tougher you learn. We should do all that this week. Shkaiif. We can keep past his role and don't eat cheerio. Do whatever. It's all good. Don't have, I don't know, hagandas, whatever people do. Don't have any of those things. Great, for a week, shkaiif. But if you don't fix the character flaw, you've done nothing. A person has no right to be of aid any. You have no right to be uncommitted. A person must be committed. Then once you're committed, then we try to actualize and actually have a good performance. But first principles, you must be committed and you must be committed to doing the right thing. This is a completely new and different interpretation of what we saw. And to me, all three of these are worth thinking about, especially the last one. And hopefully it will inspire us and give us what to think about as we approach this most special day of the year a few days from now. Kamaar khati mata vata, everybody. [BLANK_AUDIO]