Are You Afraid God Will Kill You?

if we understand what life is if we appreciate what life is it is scarier than death we always knew traditionally yom kippur is a time when you repent you ask forgiveness for your sins and you cleanse your soul from its impurities and unholiness and so on so how do you do it you review the year you remind yourself of all your misdeeds of all your sins and you ask for forgiveness that's that's what yom kippur is ask anyone but it came from russia in 1960 six and he sat down with us we were in the yeshiva we were studying he sat down with us and he said how do you how do you make an account of yourself how do you do soul searching we we were not gonna answer we wanted to hear what he had to say he says like on yom kippur right you do soul searching you remind yourself of all the sins you committed in the first month and all the sins you committed in the second month and all the sins you committed in the third month and then you asked forgiveness for all those sins right and we said yeah he said that's disgusting we were a little shocked he didn't say disgusting he said that's that's more articulate that's how you spend yom kippur thinking about sin and this is going to make you better on a holy day you sit and think about sin we were shocked that man the man's right what are we doing he pulled the rug out from he said let me tell you what it means it means you think about how god was good to you in the first month of the year how god tolerated you in the second month of the year how god put up with you in the third month of the year and then you ask yourself at the end of young kippur and what did i do for him that's soul searching that's repentance so we discovered in hasidis which is relatively new in history a whole new meaning to young keeper listen i was doing a service in toronto for jews who would come yom kippur to shul but they don't read hebrew they they're totally foreign to this whole thing and they didn't know how to participate so they made a special service for them they had gone up this was downstairs and the in the show the lower level issue and the service the formal service was upstairs they had gone up there and they had sat there for a while and they came downstairs and we were talking and i asked them what did you see upstairs i thought no wait were they impressed were they they appreciate what was going on and one of them said actually it's a little disturbing and what's disturbing he said there's a room full of healthy young people up there and they're all crying and asking god not to kill them they don't want to die they want to be written in the book of life i said that's disturbing he said that's paranoid why do they think they're gonna die what did they do that they think they don't deserve to live anymore it didn't feel right at all and you know it's so correct doesn't that sound a little weird healthy people most of them anyway begging and pleading and promising to be good just don't kill me there's something there's something disturbing about that particularly as the guy said particularly most of my friends will not come to the synagogue on yom kippur they don't die so calm down you're not dying what is this so here's here is the [Music] i think for us in our generation in our context here is what yom kippur means we are not going to die that's ridiculous on the contrary we're absolutely confident that god is going to give us a year of life and a year of life is good because the alternative not so good so if god gives us a year of life it's good however if we understand what life is if we appreciate what life is it is scarier than death debt is dead doesn't take any wisdom but if you have an entire year of life that's scary that's a responsibility for this you need wisdom so what is yom kippur yom kippur means god wants to forgive us desperately so he creates a day and he says today if you just let me i'm going to forgive you and you're going to have a year of life and that is so scary it's not death that is scary life is much scarier so what we're doing on yom kippur asking god to inscribe us in the book of life means i know you're going to give me a year of life but i need the wisdom to know what to do with a year of life and i don't want to waste it like i did last year so that's what the regret is that's what the new year's resolutions to be better to do better why because of the all that we have for life to waste a year of life that's scary don't want to do that we already did that last year and the year before we don't want this year to be wasted or less significant than it can be that's what yom kippur means so it's not a threat a punishment or a threat of not having a good year we're going to have a good year god grants us all a good year actually there's no such thing as a bad year because if you have a year it's already good and that's why the labor would always say you should have a good and sweet year and the main thing is the sweet because of course it's going to be good because that's coming from god but the sweetness is what we have to bring so this should be a year of a good life and a sweet life what makes it sweet we know what we're doing we know what we're living for we know why we have another year of life and we don't waste it that makes the year not only good but also sweet twenty years after the passing of the previous rebel it was nineteen sixty announced that he's going to conclude finish the writing of a torah that the previous rebbe had started before the previous level passed away he he um authorized the writing of a torah and he said this is the torah with which we will greet mashiach that he passed away and the torah remained incomplete 20 years later in 1970 the rebels said we're going to finish it people came flying in from all over the world they took all the chairs and benches and tables out of the show in 770. people were filling the place to capacity and the scribe came and finished the last letters it was so we were all standing there and um the devil was up on a stage with the scribe and the older siddhim and it it hit me like really strongly there is something awesome going on here something very holy what am i doing here what right do i have to be in such a holy event and some as i thought those thoughts or had that feeling that ebba who was looking down into the text of the sidder looked up at me there were there were like 500 people in front of me that ever looked up directly at me like cut it out he didn't say that it was just that look like stop it and he went back to the i the way i understood it i may be wrong [Music] that thought maybe i don't belong here maybe this is too holy for me was disruptive thoughts matter and that ever felt it and he looked up and said stop that you're disturbing the beauty of the moment we have to feel like we belong yes it's very holy and you don't know what's happening and you don't you don't qualify you're not but make yourself at home okay you're a jew stop it that feeling that i'm uncomfortable do i belong here do i really know what i'm doing do that at home not when you come to the synagogue when you come to the synagogue settle in you're where you belong you're in your element you're being yourself so you don't know what the words mean so you stood up when you should have sat down and you sat down when you should have stood up this guy tells me he was very embarrassed he wasn't it was in south america or latin america he didn't understand the spanish he went for services so he just decided he'll do what everybody else does when they stood he stood when they sat he sat at one point the rabbi said something and the guy next time stood up so he stood up and the whole place broke out laughing what did he do there was a kid running around and the rabbi said will the father of that boy please stand up so you come to the show and maybe you don't know what the rabbi is saying and you don't know what the hebrew is and but you belong there's no place else you'd rather be there's no place else you should be you are where you belong and it doesn't matter how how fluid you are in your hebrew or your reading of the text or you've come home it's rosh hashanah this is where you belong let me tell you another story about a year ago i was at an event i think it was in texas before i spoke they introduced a woman who was a survivor that's what they called her who had just been given [Music] an honor slack or something she donated 5 million dollars to the israeli red cross five million dollars donated and they call her a survivor if you can donate five million dollars i think you did a little more than survive and i think we should stop calling these people survivors it's really a bad word i mean people who swim across the leo the rio grande and don't get eaten by a crocodile that's a survivor but when you come to a new country after the devastation and you build a life and you start a business and and you can donate five million dollars i think survivors gotta go it's insulting oh she survived no not holocaust survivors holocaust heroes is a little more appropriate anyway after she spoke i i there was nothing we know like how do you follow that she got up and told her story part of the story i want to repeat is she grew up in france during the war and her grandparents lived in poland in france her family was not at all observant really nothing nothing but they would send her to her grandfather in poland for special occasions for her birthday or something to be with grandpa she remembers being nine years old and they sent her to grandpa for young kipper she had no idea what jim kipper was her grandfather took her to the synagogue she didn't know what a synagogue was and she sat on his lap in front of this open book with letters that she couldn't read and at some point in the yom kippur davening a tear fell from her grandfather's eyes onto the onto the sider that was the exclusive uh unique only experience that she had with anything jewish her grandfather didn't explain anything to her she came away not knowing that it was hebrew not knowing yom kippur all she knows is that she was sitting on her grandfather's lap and a tear fell onto the during the war she ended up in an orphanage she was a teenager and it was a catholic a catholic orphanage she would go to the prayers every day and when it came time to kneel she refused she herself didn't know why she just couldn't do it she would not kneel and you know these nuns were not the nicest people in the world and they would make her life miserable but she wouldn't she couldn't one time they asked her why she wouldn't do it and she came up with this answer that she didn't understand herself she said he was jewish he wouldn't bow why should i and after that they didn't know what to say to her so they left her alone left after the war when she got older went to israel and there she discovered what it means to be a jew she had no idea that little experience of sitting on her grandfather's lap on yom kippur which she did not understand at all nobody explained it to her the feeling just the reality of how real yom kippur was without even knowing its young keeper it gave her that strength that in those years in the orphanage never kneeled because she's a jew so you may not know what the words mean but when you come to the synagogue on yom kippur you're sitting on zadie's lap you're exactly where you belong you're home so sit there think about who you are and what you want to do next year and what good deeds you can accomplish but be at home you are at home yom kippur is your day as as much as any other jews and this place is for you as well as to any other jew your talents are irrelevant because it doesn't you're not jewish as a result of any talents you're jewish in your soul yum kipper is not supposed to be a discouraging day it's supposed to be an encouragement every yomtif every holiday is supposed to encourage not discourage and unfortunately in many synagogues you feel so uncomfortable because you feel inadequate shouldn't feel that way a synagogue should feel like the safest warmest most welcoming home where you belong more than any other place and that's why i think that ever encouraged the uh the establishment of chabad houses synagogues means you're comfortable you want to sleep sleep it's your house but sleep comfortably sleep proudly knowing that you're a jew and this is a jewish place and today is a jewish holiday and you're home you're where you belong so just coming and sitting and participating that's fantastic so let the word out you don't have to pass any tests if you're jewish there's a chair waiting for you that's the debbie's message nobody is a stranger in a jewish home in fact if you don't come there will be a glaringly empty chair unoccupied because you're not there we have a sunday night program for vips that you might be interested in it's informal it's questions and answers it's conversation it's really relaxed it's really pleasant enjoyable informative and kind of community-like it's a sunday night program there's a wednesday morning program for the vips and there's a wednesday night program all of it just conversation casual laid-back unscripted so join us take a look click the link below and see which which of the three suits you best and join us for some enjoyable conversation

Channel: Rabbi Manis Friedman

Views: 12,299

Keywords: education, educational, training, torah, judaism, chabad, religion, which religion in china, judaism beliefs, judaism definition, manis friedman, rabbi manis friedman, life, inspiration, inspirational, rabbi, life advice, adive, advice, life changing

Id: kJ4pHe4ltb4

Length: 21min 58sec (1318 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 13 2021