Entering Elul in memory and honor of Hersh Goldberg Polin

today is September 2nd it is the 29th of the month of a tonight will be the 30th and we actually begin Ros kodesh the beginning of the new month on the last day of this month so elul is about to start that is the last month on the Jewish calendar before the new Jewish year begins we have 40 days from today until yum kipur we have 30 days until rosashana we have 45 days till sukot which is my favorite holiday we have about 53 is days until which is the anniversary on the Jewish calendar of the massacre that occurred last year in Israel on October 7th which was the beginning of a war that we're still fighting um this year because the Jewish calendar the non-jewish calendar don't fully align October 7th will fall on the Jewish calendar uh in between Roshon and yum kipur which called the days of a all of this is considered an auspicious time um this really is our holiday season as Jews uh we celebrate Hanukah which usually falls in December but that's not our holiday season that's for people who celebrate Christmas that's their holiday season it's this big I wish it was a month long unfortunately it's even more than that this big season that um doesn't correspond in Judaism for us this is the beginning of that time and then we also have kind of a holiday season in spring with peso with p Passover but um this really is the most important time of the year as Jewish people we are supposed to be more inter perspective we're supposed to be thinking of our failings in the last year ways we did not live up to our full potential um hopefully also have some successes to look back on and think about um asking for forgiveness and probably also importantly um offering forgiveness uh at least in our hearts s uh whether or not we articulate that fully um I I don't I don't know uh but we definitely are supposed to be thinking about the ways in which we could improve uh I've always uh since maybe 2017 or so my father and I we read uh from this series we have different copies with different um with different book covers but this is from my mon are also known in Hebrew as the rambam a great Rabbi from the Medieval Times his writing on T shua on repentance that's the theme of this season tomorrow in synagogues that have daily prayer services or or or minim prayer services in the morning and the evening during the morning service people will start blowing the chauffeur and they'll be doing that all the way up until rashishana and it's a call to tshua call to repentance and tshua specifically I'm going in One Direction and I do a 180 turn and go in the opposite direction it's a way of calling us back to God um there's even a lot of ideas and teachings that God moves closer to us that if we're returning to God God is returning to us it's not just that we have to return to God but that God is coming out to meet us there there's often the um the this kind of um kind of parable understanding of God is a king and he's in the castle and that we are way far away and that we're going to meet God and that when we're in the field before we even get to the castle that God that the king is in the field that God comes out to meet us he comes out of the castle he comes out of the Interior he he leaves and he's meeting us there and so that if we draw closer to God God will draw closer to us and so I'm going to read this I've done this since 2017 last year for the first time in years I got about halfway through and I ended up stopping um I was struggling a lot last year uh to to do this and I actually put it aside and I read a different text um about halfway through getting to the high holidays and the the way this is set up you start um I'll start tonight and this will take me all the way there's little section each day will take me all the way through yum kipor and um I uh I'm using this version particularly because the person who who writes this Henry Abramson he's done different versions of this and this is the last one he did before the pandemic I have copies of the ones he did during the pandemic in 2020 and in 20122 and there's Reflections in there and I honestly I don't want to deal with it I don't want to think about those times I don't want to think about those years um I want to go back before and so this is what I used in 201 19 and so this is what I'm I'm going to go back to I also have another of his uh translations um this is called the kabala forgiveness and it's a devotion based on um uh tomor which is the the date palm tree of Deborah of d'vorah and it's um about forgiveness I've never really started this I bought this years ago uh prepandemic uh a while back and I've just I've never gotten around to it um I've struggled a lot with forgiveness I've struggled a lot with uh with anger and uh resentment and bitterness to a to a pretty large degree um not just kind of general you know kind of uh anger at the world but but very specifically um a very vengeful attitude uh another reason I don't want to read the uh pandemic versions of this is because I remember what my life was like during those times and I don't want to associate with that so I'm going back to a a previous time a translation and a copy from from a previous era I um I have a lot of anger I have a lot of resentment a lot of bitterness I haven't done videos on this channel for a while because at different times my would get discovered by somebody who was in the periphery of my life and who had a more positive View and I also used this channel kind of as an experiment a few years ago it was to I suppose I was in a I was in a very not good place but I used the channel to kind of I guess to be slightly vulnerable and to maybe put forth a more positive View maybe more sensitive view uh of than the person I actually am uh the person I am is is can be sensitive but I'm also like I said vengeful angry um bitter and I I kind of used the channel in a different way it was kind of like um kind of like an experiment it's like well the good part of me is this over here so let me try to let me try to use that and see what that's like and in the end it's just not me I mean and and it was I remember someone described it as cringey and I was like yeah it's cringey because it it's it's not me um it's uh it's who I would like to be or who people sometimes thought of me as being but it's not me I I am very much um I'm very angry I'm very bitter I have a lot of Vengeance in my heart and that's no way to live and so part of this process of UL is to be introspective and it's honestly something that frightens me because it feels like I am setting myself up for failure now in previous years when I was reading from this particular book and when I was doing the process I recognized those parts of me but I was a happier person uh you know I I bought this house and I lived in this house and I read this book and these books around me and lived this life with another person a person who hurt me and my family very much and and used others to do it as well um in in ways beyond my comprehension and and that I don't fully understand because there is no more contact and so I don't even know I don't even know the wise um but someone someone hurt me in my family in a very prolonged fashion since that time there have been a lot of hurts there have been a lot of things that have just made me absolutely angry and and and have I have a very strong sense of being lost right now um I'm a teacher I have went from school to school and I've done I've done very well like in terms of like how I'm evaluated as a teacher with my scores um I know at some point I'm like this is gonna have to stop like at some point I'm not g to be a as as lost as I feel I can't continue can't continue to be as effective as I've been I've been able to be effective but I I know my limitations and I keep being in more and more extreme situations in terms of being in difficult situations with students who are so far behind or immature not able to kind of live up to the basic standards that I try to set and um you know my my life is I don't know if it's a disaster but I'm lost and this is a way of trying [Music] to to find peace I suppose I don't even like that term because to me when people talk about trying to find peace I I I I say it to people but I don't I don't really mean it you know it's one of those things where it's like oh I hope you find peace I mean I do but I mean really it's just a way of saying I hope you find acceptance with the shitty circumstances of your life um and I'm trying to go beyond that I'm trying to to grow into the better part of who I was as a human being or who I can be as a human being again and that's part of what a little is and and the reason I'm doing it now is because of one of the most horrible reasons of all and that is the fact fact that um six of the hostages uh were found murdered a few days ago and they had been murdered just a few days before they were found and one of those hostages was hirs and hirsh is one I didn't listen to a lot of interviews with hersh's mother and the after October 7th because I honestly believed that he was dead he had had part of his arm had been blown off and um I didn't think he made it I mean we would keep finding the remains of hostages that turn out to be hostage people who were taken and murdered on October 7th I mean even just a few months ago a few weeks ago they they found they find remains of of people that they thought had been taken into Gaza and had been killed um and so I I didn't think her should survive October 7th at all so I remember back in January Barry Weiss had an interview with his mother and I just and listen because as much as I I I felt for his mom who was like I know he's alive and I didn't I didn't believe that he was and I know a lot of people who were like me who they didn't think he was alive we didn't think a lot of the hostages were alive but for sure I mean part of his arm had been blown off so it just didn't think that he would have made it and um then when it turned out that was alive it it just his his mom and his dad took on such a a a a beautiful symbol he took on a symbolic nature but so did his parents I mean his mother is named Rael Rachel I couldn't help but compare her to Rael or Rachel Frankl from 2014 10 years ago this time when three boys were Abdu Ed and murdered in in Israel and um in in Judaism there's this figure of Rael IM Manu our mother Rachel the the patriarch's wife Jacob's wife Rachel who is uh who is always weeping for her people she is the for her children she is like the um the Jewish mother throughout history and um finding out that HS was alive it did it brought hope and there was hope for there was this idea that's almost like his mother and his father's their faith was was keeping this going and and they were the ones who first uh I first saw doing the thing where they wrote the number on tape and wore the number of days that the hostages were in captivity and again for the first I don't know 100 days didn't even think HS was alive thought it's sweet that she does that but we didn't we didn't think so and and then when it turned out he was it it inspired something and the graciousness of this family anyway hers along with five others were murdered just few days ago one of the hostages that was murdered his his uh his wife gave birth to their child while he was in captivity another had escaped and turned around and went back to to rescue others and he was captured one of them she uh did yoga with the captives and try to help them relax I mean it's just anyway as far as I can tell these are some of the best people in the world and hirs was known to be very generous and loving and kind and his parents are as well and there's an idea in Judaism of doing a a good deed in honor of someone uh to in their Merit we usually give money s charity sometimes we perform a Mitzvah and it's honestly wanting to live in a world where I can have the moral Clarity but also the moral hope not optimism but hope which I think is a Jewish idea optimism is not optimism is is goish it's Gentile things will not work out if you just sit back but the idea of Hope the idea of there is something that we're working towards uh I want to do that I want to be I want to study and push myself to be a better person in the Merit of these wonderful people who have been taken from us so as it will start I am returning to the process that I once engaged in much more bitter much more Angry much more resentful and even suspicious of my own failings but in the Merit of these much better people that I feel very much a privilege to be a part of and so the Journey Begins