Introduction to Elul – Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb

What’s said in this shiur

The opening of this shiur, in Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb’s own words — taken from the captions, so names and Hebrew terms may be approximate.

Well, I'm very happy to be with you. It was a long haul. I was really quite ill. I was in the hospital for a few days. I'm still recovering. Um >> Who was the layman? >> Thank you very much, everybody. I appreciate it. I had a very serious infection and I'm told that it can take weeks to get your strength back when you have a very serious infection like that. And that's the way I feel. So, it's coming back little by little, but it has a ways to go. You have surely heard that the letters Elul of this month stand for the famous words in the Song of Songs, Ani Ledodi ve Dodi Li. I am to my beloved, my beloved is to me. It's not obvious why a quote from the Song of Songs should characterize the month of Elul. The month of Elul we're preparing for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and then through Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur for service. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are in a certain sense the most serious days of the year. They are the days of judgment, days of reckoning, days of planning for the year to come. All sorts of important decisions are being made about the coming year. And we are struggled to take responsibility for our mistakes and change and improve. The Song of Songs, which depicts the relationship between two people who love one another on the surface of the parable and which depicts through the parable the relationship between God and the Jewish people as relationship of love isn't an obvious introduction to the period of time that will involve the days of judgment.

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1. 0:00Well, I'm very happy to be with you. It was a long haul. I was really…
2. 3:41when a considerable amount of the Torah doesn't deal with how you should treat your friend?…
3. 7:28Now the Song of Songs um Chazal say Kol haShirim Kodesh, all the songs of which…
4. 11:41to protect me. Then it goes on, one thing I asked of Hashem, and that shall…
5. 15:21uh having a reason to trust that the Kodesh Baruch Hu will want this for you.…
6. 19:41for the for the criminal. And he says, I just I just couldn't be absent. I…
7. 23:29Hebrew, which means like an autocrat. Someone who has the power to force obedience, but not…
8. 27:11the heart of the king is not neutral, not like the ancient statuary of justice with…
9. 31:22serious? When are you more in touch with reality than in Yom Kippur? Where you have…
10. 35:04petition that God should forgive us, and we do that before Yom Kippur. And in fact,…

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