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The Yanuka’s own words in this shiur, translated into English by Lehallel · 4,547 words · 21:41. Press a time to hear it said.
0:06 We are at the end of a year, or at the beginning of a year Rosh Hashanah connects the end of the year with the beginning of the year It stands in the middle, between the end and the beginning The day of Rosh Hashanah and the holy days are days of judgment Judgment is the middle pillar, which is Yaakov Avinu And therefore the middle pillar, which is Yaakov, is the day of Rosh Hashanah Rosh Hashanah stands in the middle, between the end of the year and the beginning of the year The end of the year is the aspect of Yitzchak Avinu, it is the attribute of strict judgment the judgment, in fact, in which Hashem judges us for the whole year that is why it is the attribute of strict judgment And the beginning of the year corresponds to Avraham Avinu, it is the attribute of kindness and mercy
0:56 That is why on Rosh Hashanah we read we read about Avraham Avinu and Sarah, "And Hashem remembered Sarah" "And it came to pass after these things, that G-d tested Avraham" etc... We mention Avraham and Sarah, we mention them on Rosh Hashanah so that we will have the kindnesses of Avraham Avinu so that we will have the supplication, the complete mercy of Avraham and Sarah, and we begin with this We receive the holy year with kindness, with the morning of Avraham with the kindness of Avraham, "And Avraham rose early in the morning" - with awakening with mercy, with kindness we begin Rosh Hashanah And Erev Rosh Hashanah, in fact, Erev Rosh Hashanah corresponds to Yitzchak Avinu, corresponds to that judgment in which we are judged for everything we did this year And then we search ourselves in teshuvah, and we feel sorrow
1:46 and we do teshuvah, with regret and shame for everything we did during the year And on the day of Rosh Hashanah itself then, in fact, we connect to the middle pillar, to Yaakov Rosh Hashanah connects the end with the beginning Where else do we find a connection between the end and the beginning? We find it in Bereishis, (the letters) 'b'Tishrei' - Bereishis, b'Tishrei This is the matter of Rosh Hashanah What is the thing whose end is a beginning?
2:20 It is the creation of the world; the creation of the world was the end and the finish of the darkness the end and the finish of the hiding of the revelation of His G-dliness, blessed be He that Hashem, blessed be He, was hidden and not revealed in the world, and they did not crown Him King and the whole world did not see His kingship which is, in fact, the purpose of the creation of the world that the whole world should see the kingship of Hashem There was an end and a finish to all the "darkness upon the face of the deep" etc.
2:46 Another thing in which we find that the end is the beginning The end of the Jewish people who were in Egypt, the end of their exile as the number of 'redu', that they were in Egypt, that they went down to Egypt the matter of the descent to Egypt, down, down, the end was the beginning of the Jewish people, the birth of Moshe Rabbeinu The end of the royalty of Moshe Rabbeinu in Pharaoh's house was, in fact, what was the beginning of the redemption of the Jewish people The end of Avraham Avinu and Sarah, who were old, advanced in days and were already elderly, and were not women any more, and were not young the end brought the beginning - Yitzchak Avinu That is why on Rosh Hashanah we read the end and the beginning together, which is, in fact, "And Hashem remembered Sarah"
3:31 because we read about something that happened at the end of Sarah, when she was already old but from the end the beginning begins; this is the secret of Rosh Hashanah that the whole matter of Rosh Hashanah is that its end is wedged into its beginning We begin everything from the beginning, everything draws close only to the beginning The destruction of the Beis HaMikdash, the Holy Temple, is the end that the House of Hashem was destroyed, the House of Hashem, the G-d of Israel, was destroyed and then, in fact, the birth of Mashiach begins, it begins at that very moment What we find is that wherever there was the light and the geulah and the purpose where the end and the beginning met that is, in fact, the greatest beginning that is the holiest and highest time that we find
Read the whole shiur in English (27 more parts)
4:16 "In the beginning G-d created the heavens and the earth" the creation of the world, or our Temple and our glory like the remembering of Sarah - "And Hashem remembered Sarah" that then, in fact, at the end the beginning begins like Yitzchak Avinu, who came into the world in such a way and at such an age which could not be grasped by the mind at all like Yaakov Avinu, when the end already seemed to have come with Yosef the tzaddik this end was that Yosef was brought down to Egypt, and was in the pit, which is the end in fact, the end of Yosef the tzaddik is found in the pit only then does the beginning of Yosef begin when he begins to come out of the pit and begins to rise to greatness and begins to rise and rise and rise
4:54 That is to say, the end is, in fact, the beginning Rosh Hashanah is the end, the Temple that was destroyed is the end but opposite this, it is connected to the beginning of all beginnings The days of Rosh Hashanah have the power for a true beginning for each and every one of us The days of Rosh Hashanah turn a person's whole life around, for good and for blessing That is why the holy days of Rosh Hashanah - one must ask Hashem already from now that He purify our thoughts on Rosh Hashanah Let us speak a little about very good practices for Rosh Hashanah Not to eat foods that have sharpness or saltiness in them or to eat sour things - only things that will be sweet for a person only sweet, to think only good, only and solely good, only and solely good
5:45 Not to get angry, not to be sorrowful, not to be sad not to speak or think about matters that pain a person only to be in joy and not to worry, and not to be in grief and not to get into pressure, only to be with a settled mind and to ask Hashem to purify our thoughts to protest against all foreign and bad thoughts There is the protest that a person should make in the Shacharis prayer in the morning after a person says the morning blessings, it appears in every siddur to make the protest and to protest against anything that is not according to the will of Hashem to protest against all the foreign thoughts, and to understand that on this day it is the beginning of all beginnings it is a day on which the thoughts must be clean
6:26 a day on which a person must be calm, to try to be holy and pure to cleave to Hashem, to be important and cleaving to Hashem to try not to engage much in laughter and idle things in mundane talk, in foolishness; each one should cleave to Hashem as much as possible to increase in prayer, to increase in Torah to understand that this day is the day of the beginning of beginnings it all begins on this day And we draw near to judgment before Hashem, blessed be He, Himself for Hashem, blessed be He, Himself judges us, He and no other This is the great kindness of Hashem, blessed be He, that He did with us This is the great kindness of Hashem, blessed be He, that He did with us We have the kindness and we have the judgment
7:07 And Hashem, blessed be He, in the holy days of Rosh Hashanah judges us with complete mercy; the judgment, in fact, proceeds in that Hashem, blessed be He, judges us, but it is He and no other Even though it is a judgment and it is strict justice nevertheless it is complete mercy Hashem Himself, alone, sits on the throne and He Himself judges and decides for each and every one; this is the complete mercy that a person can lean on in the days of Rosh Hashanah that the end is a beginning; whoever sees that he is close and he is really at the end, he is really down low then his main comfort is to know that from this end the beginning begins as we now see plainly, before our eyes in the holy days of Rosh Hashanah
7:49 This is what Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev would say; he would say to Hashem Master of the world, if You are the Guardian of Israel then surely You will guard them in the best way with the best consideration, and surely You will judge them favorably for You are the King, and You are merciful, full of mercy, etc. - and so he would come to Hashem And this is the thought a person must go with on Rosh Hashanah to remove all the thoughts of judgment not to think, Heaven forbid, that there is, Heaven forbid, cruelty or the attribute of strict judgment in the judgment; a person should not think, Heaven forbid even though he committed a sin and distanced himself from holiness and he knows that he is not truly, genuinely right and he knows that he is very, very far
8:25 nevertheless, not to think in the mind, Heaven forbid that in Heaven they can be cruel or judge harshly or do terrible things, because that is not the way of Heaven Heaven is full of complete mercy Hashem, blessed be He, is merciful, full of mercy, He bears the whole entire world and is patient until Mashiach, our righteous one, comes and redeems us and Hashem, blessed be He, will be our King at our head And even though we are not yet redeemed and we do not see what we see, and we do not draw close, etc.
8:52 nevertheless, no one is permitted to be broken; everyone must know that the beginning is very close, and as we know and we learned that the end is a beginning; whoever sees that he is close he is really at the end, he is really down low then his main comfort is to know that from this end the beginning begins as we now see plainly, before our eyes, in the holy days of Rosh Hashanah The meaning of Rosh Hashanah is that each one of us as I explained, and I come back and say it again and again 'Rosh Hashanah' has the same numerical value as 'Beis HaMikdash' We have no greater loss than this if in this year that has come upon us for good we are not redeemed Let us hope that already in this year we will be redeemed
9:36 but if we are not redeemed by then, surely everyone will pay attention and understand the true purpose is to learn and to pray with Hashem, blessed be He, Himself We stand before Hashem, before our G-d our Master, our Mighty One, our Awesome One and we have not forgotten the true mitzvos We are no longer in those days when we came out of Egypt and saw the revelation of G-dliness We are not in those days of the Mishkan We are not in those days of the Temple, of the offerings We are not in those days of the Levites, of the Kohanim We are not in those days of going up to Jerusalem and seeing the miracles and wonders, and the pillar of smoke We are not in those days when each one would say "This is my G-d and I will glorify Him"
10:21 and each one would lift his head and see the revelation of G-dliness Today we are not in those days; we are in those days today only in order to talk about emunah in order to talk with people; each one thinks he has reached the goal and this is the one mistake, that we already forget to accept the King upon ourselves, and to long for Him and to know where our G-d is; we cannot walk alone We are like a child who is in the forest and instead of walking with his father hand in hand, instead of being with him and returning to his palace, and being at his table and sitting with him on the throne in the royal palace we are in the forest, in the desert, alone only hearing the voice of the King from time to time
11:01 how He is searching for us, and asking us Where are you, my son? Where are you, my son? And from time to time a person chirps a little and says Here, I hear the voice of my father and he already thinks that if he hears his father's voice then he can already understand that he has already reached the goal or that he has already arrived at the palace - and that is not true We must understand, we are soldiers in the army of Hashem until the Temple is built and the geulah comes and the Jewish people are redeemed, the Torah that we learn and the mitzvos, and the prayer, and everything we learn is still not clean, it is still not in cleanliness There were holy and pure ones and tzaddikim who testified about their Torah
11:39 that it is still not enough, it is still not the holy Torah still, we have not really, really arrived As the holy Baal Shem Tov said, "The Torah of Hashem is perfect" who touched the holy Torah? asks the Baal Shem Tov Did someone touch the holy Torah? What can we do? What can we answer? We are found... there is nothing among us, we cannot hold ourselves up we can only lean and rely only on the merit of the holy Torah, only on a free gift only on the abundant mercy of Hashem, that He judge us favorably that He simply have mercy on us in His abundant mercy, in His immense kindness Beyond this we have nothing to lean on, we have nothing to rely on because only Hashem can help us, and we, instead of seeking Him
12:22 and revealing Him, that He is our G-d that He will help us and save us - we have no life without Him All the Jews must gather from all the corners of the earth from the whole entire world, and be in the House of Hashem in the Temple with Hashem, blessed be He But now we do not understand at all how far we are from this We do not ask for Hashem, that He be with us we ask from Him: send us, give us we do not ask for Him: be with us, be with us This is the difference between a demand and a request There is a great difference in Heaven between a demand and a request We never have such a thing as a siddur of demands we have no such thing as a prayer of demands, or demands from Hashem
13:08 The difference between a demand and a request is the difference between heaven and earth A request is already when you ask Him even to join you to accompany you; all our prayers and requests are always in the language of asking for King David pleaded and asked of Hashem, "Do not hide Your face from me" David's whole request is: Hashem, be with me be with me in my life, that I may see You that I may see You with contentment that I may see You, that I did something for You in the world that I may see You in Your kingship, that I may see You, You as King Instead of this, we do not understand that we are in a world where all kingship is false; Hashem must be at the head of the kingship
13:55 Hashem, the G-d of Israel, must be at the head of every kingship It is of Hashem, blessed be He, that one must speak; there is no such thing as praising flesh and blood that there should be presidents in the world, and all kinds of heads in the world who talk and scoff at the Holy Land, which was promised to our forefathers' forefathers There is no such thing as our enemies ruling over us There is no such thing as all kinds of haters oppressing and talking or all kinds of such people who take control and lord it over the people of Hashem and lead them on crooked paths The meaning of Rosh Hashanah is that each one of us as I explained, and I come back and say it again and again Rosh Hashanah has the same numerical value as 'Beis HaMikdash'
14:33 We have no greater loss than this if this year that has come upon us for good, we are not redeemed Let us hope that already in this year we will be redeemed but if we are not redeemed by then, surely everyone will pay attention and understand the true purpose is to learn and to pray with Hashem, blessed be He, Himself A person prays on Rosh Hashanah like someone waiting for some airplane that will send him some delivery for the whole entire year Like the manna that was then, enough only for one day so it will be enough for him for the whole year - but it is not right to rely like that We must ask the One who is in the plane to come down to us, to the earth and to dine with us; we ask Hashem for everything
15:16 On Rosh Hashanah we will ask Hashem to give us livelihood to be with Him in livelihood, to do with Him the charity and the kindness We will ask Hashem to eat together with us in the Temple, in Jerusalem and we will bring offerings and we will give Him contentment; we ask Hashem to go with us to Jerusalem The whole world asks, "Master of the world, it is Rosh Hashanah now give me success, I need to travel to such-and-such a place I need to be in a place..."
15:43 The Jewish people are scattered in exile, in remote places This is not the purpose; all the places in the world, all the graves of the Jews who were killed and bound as offerings for the sanctification of Hashem's Name all over the world their blood boils in the ground, and each one is already waiting for Mashiach to come and avenge their blood that was spilled like water and to bring them up and gather them, and they will all go up to Jerusalem The place of all the Jews in the whole entire world the place of Hashem, the G-d of Israel, is in Jerusalem, in the Temple There is nothing greater than this, there is nothing more immense than this There is no greater revelation of kingship than this; that is the place it is the dwelling place of Hashem; one must be there
16:18 Where is our contemplation, that Rosh Hashanah is approaching and we must ask of Hashem, at the judgment: Will You be with us? Will You reveal Yourself to us? Will You be with us? and we will not stay like this in exile for a long time And even if You leave us, show us more help from Heaven show us more that You are with us, show us more of Your face Do not hide Your face from us, for we came into the world for Your sake Whoever thinks - the Temple was destroyed and goes up in flames as we know that every day that the Temple was destroyed every day in which the Temple is not built, it is as if it was destroyed in his days it is truly going up in fire in our days, in our days it is burned
16:55 Whoever thinks that the meaning and the role of the Temple is to be burning in fire, and that the meaning of our G-d in Heaven is to give us everything we lack and we, from time to time, will murmur a little in the holy Torah we will learn, we will pray, and He, of course, will help in all matters Is this the meaning of your closeness to G-d? Of course there is no emunah in this, there is no trust in this and there is nothing at all in this; the meaning of a true Jew he knows that he came into the world for the sake of his Creator he knows that the purpose of his coming into the world is in order to give to Hashem Hashem, blessed be He, is not in Heaven only in order to give to us
17:33 or that we will receive and give nothing back; we must bestow and give We are soldiers who came to fight against every kingdom of wickedness; we came into the world, we succeeded we are the Jews, we are the living, we are the living Each one of us has a role to bring the geulah Each one of us has a role to act for the sake of the Creator to act for the sake of G-d, to act for His sake - not He for my sake All day long people talk only of salvations, and livelihood, and miracles and wonders Certainly that is an immense and very important thing but a Jew who acts for the sake of his G-d - certainly Hashem will save you certainly Hashem will give to you, there is no question here at all
18:15 that you are in the King's palace and you tell the King that you are going to bring back to Him the lost queen who is in exile - you are going to bring the queen then the King will say to you: What are you missing for the way? Take Do you need a servant? I will give you. Do you need a horse? Do you need money? Do you need vessels? I will give you everything, take The King Himself will ask you what you need in order to bring the queen. In contrast, that person who sees that the queen is so very far from the King and the King sits in sorrow that the queen is not in the palace and he comes before the King and asks: King, give me this King, give me this, King, give me this - well, and what for?
18:57 So the King gives you like that from time to time, throws a person a few things throws to him and leaves him in the corner; but the person does not taste the taste of true life, a person does not taste the taste of true Torah the taste of true prayer, the taste of true vitality this is not tasting anything; this is the will of Hashem, that we act for Him that we awaken for His sake, and understand what the holy days of Rosh Hashanah are they are beyond days of judgment over us, and over all that is ours, and over all around us rather beyond - we will ask Hashem, and then we judge ourselves and bring Hashem to a state where He must save us We say to Him: See, Master of the world, we live for Your sake
19:35 And if we think and come with such a claim, surely everyone will come out meritorious surely everyone will come out meritorious, and it is promised, with the help of Hashem that they will merit to complete their year, from year to year, until the coming of Mashiach and there will be no death in the world, because Hashem looks straight and gazes at you and sees and looks straight - did He come to judge to give? Not to give? He says to Him: Hashem, I live for Your sake, I believe in You He says to Him: Hashem, I live for Your sake, I believe in You I know that I must do for You, for Your sake, what gives You contentment for Your sake I came into the world - what am I asking?
20:05 and then at once in Heaven they remove him (from judgment); there is nothing at all to judge in such a person there is nothing to judge, they pass him straight through, quickly and they judge him favorably, etc., and already they pass him through Where one gets stuck is where the will to receive came about, and here the judgment begins Whoever scrutinizes his prayer - a leaning wall and expectation in prayer they bring a person to judgment, an awakening in Heaven What is the meaning of this? That you begin to look whether your request will be done that a person begins to scrutinize his request, and then the judgment begins That a person goes and understands - not only that nothing is due to me it is not only to think nothing is due to me; it is due to us, the souls of Israel
20:41 the highest kingship is due to us; to whom is it due, to the non-Jews? Is kingship due to the non-Jews? Are honor and greatness and dominion due to the non-Jews? It is due to us, it is due to us, yes, it is due to the souls of Israel - but what? We will use what is due to us toward Heaven, toward the heavens and we will return and restore the kingship, and gather the dispersed of Israel and the Holy One, blessed be He, will redeem us and we will merit that our Temple and our glory be built and You, blessed be You, alone our King at our head, redeem us with a complete redemption That we may all merit, with the help of Hashem; may the Holy One, blessed be He, bless each and every one
21:14 that you have a complete recovery, that you have help from Heaven length of days and years of life in health, a good old age and ripe old age wealth, all good and from all good and through this, and in the merit of this, you will merit and act for the sake of Hashem, blessed be He for the sake of the complete geulah, for the sake of our Temple and our glory and we will be redeemed with an upraised hand, amen, forever, selah, and ever! Rabbi Chananya ben Akashya says The Holy One, blessed be He, wished to give merit to the Jewish people...
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