The Jewish Perspective

Ammunition had run out for a unit in the Russian army, but it was still under fierce attack. “Take out your bayonets,” said the corporal, “we are going to engage the enemy in hand-to-hand combat.”

“Please sir,” said Pvt. Finkelstein. “Show me my man. Maybe he and I can reach some kind of agreement.”

The Survivor

Let me share a story<a onclick="ty.scrollTo('_ednref1')" id="_edn1" href="javascript: void(0);" name="_ftnref1">[1]</a>:

After the war, a Holocaust survivor came to visit his one-time spiritual master, the famed Rebbe of the Chassidic dynasty of Ger, Rabbi Avraham Mordechai Alter<a onclick="ty.scrollTo('_ednref2')" id="_edn2" href="javascript: void(0);" name="_ftnref2">[2]</a>. This broken Jew had been deported to the death camps together with his wife, children, relatives, and the entire community. The man's wife and children were gassed, his relatives exterminated and his entire community wiped out. He emerged from the ashes a lonely man in a vast world that had silently swallowed the blood of six million Jews. This Jew lost one more thing in the camps: his G-d. After what he experienced in the Nazi death camps, he could not continue believing in a G-d who allowed Auschwitz.

Although after the war he made aliyah to Eretz Israel (then known as Palestine), he completely abandoned Jewish practice and observance. Yet he missed his old Rebbe and went to visit him in Tel Aviv. The Gerer Rebbe himself lost many grandchildren and relatives in the Holocaust. In addition, nearly all of his 200,000 followers were wiped out by the Germans. The Rebbe of Ger and his immediate children managed to escape Warsaw in 1940 and arrived in Eretz Israel soon after.

Upon hearing the story of his disciple, the Rebbe of Ger broke into tears. The man and his Rebbe sat together mourning what they had lost. After a long period of weeping, the Gerer Rebbe wiped his tears and communicated—in Yiddish—the following idea.

"Before Your Eyes"

In his farewell address to his people, in the Torah portion of Eikev, Moses recounts the moment when he descended from Mount Sinai with the two Divine tablets to present to the Jewish people<a onclick="ty.scrollTo('_ednref3')" id="_edn3" href="javascript: void(0);" name="_ftnref3">[3]</a>:

"I descended from the mountain," Moses recalls, "the mountain was still burning with fire and the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands. I immediately saw that you had sinned to G-d, making a calf. You were so quick to turn from the path that G-d had prescribed. "I grasped the two tablets, and threw them down from my two hands, and I smashed them before your eyes."

Moses proceeds to relate how after much toil he succeeded in “convincing” G-d to forgive the Jewish people for their sin. He then, as mentioned above, carved out a second pair of tablets to replace the first ones. Though the two sets were identical in content, containing the Ten Commandments, the second pair did not possess the same Divine quality as the first tablets, which were "G-d's handiwork and G-d's script<a onclick="ty.scrollTo('_ednref4')" id="_edn4" href="javascript: void(0);" name="_ftnref4">[4]</a>." The second tablets were Moses’ creation, endorsed by G-d, but not G-d’s own creation.

Now, considering the well-known meticulousness of each word in the Bible, Moses' words "I smashed them before your eyes" seem superfluous. Suppose Moses had turned around and broken the tablets out of view; would that in any way have lessened the tragedy? Why did Moses find it important to emphasize that the breaking of the tablets occurred "before your eyes"<a onclick="ty.scrollTo('_ednref5')" id="_edn5" href="javascript: void(0);" name="_ftnref5">[5]</a>?

Two Worlds

What Moses was saying, explained the Rebbe of Ger, was that "I smashed the tablets only before your eyes." The shattering of the tablets occurred only before your eyes and from your perception. In reality, though, there exists a world in which the tablets have never been broken.

What Moses was attempting to communicate, the Rebbe of Ger explained is that what may seem to us as utter destruction and chaos, does not always capture the complete story. "I smashed them before your eyes." Before your eyes, there is nothing but devastation. Yet, what in our world bespeaks total disaster may, in a different world, be wholesome.

“As difficult as it is to digest, the Gerer Rebbe went on to say, “there is meaning in the absurdness of history; there is dignity in the valley of tears. G-d—the G-d who transcends all human logic, understanding, and imagination—was present in our broken pieces."&nbsp;

"As difficult as it is for you and me to believe," the Rebbe concluded, "I want you to know that the extermination of our families, our communities, and our people occurred only 'before our eyes.' There remains a world in which the Jewish people are wholesome. Beneath the surface of our perception, there exists a reality in which every single Jew from Abraham till our present day is alive, his or her soul absolutely intact."&nbsp;

"The day will come," said the Rebbe of Ger, "when that world will be exposed. G-d will transform our perceptions and paradigms. He will mend our broken tablets and our broken nation. We will discover how the tablets were really never broken and the Jewish people were always complete."

These are words that could be effective only when communicated by a man who experienced the suffering of the&nbsp;war on his own flesh. Pain is not an intellectual subject; it is raw, personal, and real.&nbsp;When the Rebbe of Ger spoke these words, he spoke them with tears, with grief. He was not an objective preacher of religion; together with the Holocaust survivor, he walked through his tunnel of darkness. Thus, his words gave back to this broken Jew his soul, his faith, and his courage.

Shattered Dreams

Notwithstanding the grand distinctions, the above message&nbsp;applies&nbsp;to our lives as well. Many of us once owned a set of sacred tablets that at some point in our lives were destroyed. It may have been the death of a mother or father at a young age, bringing to an abrupt end the nurturing and security a child so desperately needs from parents. It may have been any other form of pain, abuse, or loss that you experienced during your life that denied you the love, confidence, joy, and optimism you once called your own. It may be profound fear, shame, insecurity, guilt, disappointment, mistrust, or other forms of emotional trauma that afflict you, shattering your inner sacred and Divine “tablets.”

Many of us create for ourselves a second pair of "tablets" in order to substitute for the first ones that were lost. But they are not quite the same. The second set of "tablets" lacks the magic and the innocence of the original "tablets" that no longer exist. In the depth of our hearts, we crave to reclaim something of the wonder of the old tablets.

But it is to no avail: The clock of life never turns back. Here lay the empowering message of Moses to his beloved people before his own demise: There is a secret world in which your first tablets were never broken. Notwithstanding the abuse and pain you experienced, each of you possesses a core self that forever remains invincible, pure, and sacred.

What is more,&nbsp;when your perception expands, you might discover how your shattered dreams may be part of your individual path to wholesomeness. Wholesomeness does not come in one shape; for some, it comes in the form of a broken heart. What is broken in one level of perception may be wholesome in another.

The Final Month

In a few days, we will commence the last month of the Hebrew calendar, known as the month of Elul, when we bid farewell to a year gone by, and prepare to embrace a new one in its stead, beginning on Rosh Hashanah.

The great sage and mystic Rabbi Nathan Shapiro (d. 1640 in Krakow, Poland) writes<a onclick="ty.scrollTo('_ednref6')" id="_edn6" href="javascript: void(0);" name="_ftnref6">[6]</a> that the four Hebrew letters of the name Elul (spelled Aleph, Lamed, Vuv, Lamed) is the acronym of the four Hebrew words “Aron, Luchos, V’shevrei, Luchos” (which also begin with the Hebrew letters Aleph, Lamed, Vuv, Lamed). These words, quoted from the Talmud<a onclick="ty.scrollTo('_ednref7')" id="_edn7" href="javascript: void(0);" name="_ftnref7">[7]</a>, mean this: “The Ark containing the whole tablets and the broken tablets.”

What does this mean? In the book of Exodus, the Torah captures the dramatic tale of how, following the Revelation at Sinai, G-d carved out two tablets, engraved the Ten Commandments on them, and presented them to Moses on Mount Sinai. When Moses descended the mountain, however, he observed that the Israelites had created a golden calf as an idol. Seeing this, Moses threw the tablets from his hands and smashed them on the ground. After a powerful confrontation with G-d, Moses persuades Him, as it were, to forgive the Jewish people for their betrayal. Moses then, acting on G-d’s instructions, carves out a second pair of tablets, to replace the smashed first ones. When the Ark was built to be located inside the holiest chamber in the Tabernacle the Jews erected in the desert, both sets of tablets were placed therein: the second whole pair of tablets, as well as the fragmented pieces of the first smashed tablets<a onclick="ty.scrollTo('_ednref8')" id="_edn8" href="javascript: void(0);" name="_ftnref8">[8]</a>.

But what is the connection to the month of Elul? Why does the name of this month symbolize this idea of the Ark containing both sets of Tablets, the complete ones, and the broken ones?

The above story can provide insight. The unique power of the final month of the year, the name of which spells out the words “The Ark containing the whole Tablets and the broken Tablets” is this: This is the month that allows you to build in your personal life an “ark” which will contain not only your second complete tablets but will also embrace the broken pieces of your first tablets. This is the time when you are empowered and can pick up the broken pieces of your life and discover that there is a part&nbsp;of yourself that was never really broken.

What is more, during this month you may lift up with tender love every broken component of your life, learning how each of them constituted another hue of wholesomeness.

(Please make even a small and secure contribution to help us continue our work.&nbsp;<a href="http://www.theyeshiva.net/donate">Click here.</a>)&nbsp;

____________

<a onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn1')" id="_ednref1" href="javascript: void(0);" name="_ftn1">[1]</a> I read the story in a sermon by Rabbi Moshe&nbsp;Weinberger shlita, spiritual leader of Aish Kodesh Institute in Woodmere,&nbsp;N.Y. Afterward I heard it from an elder Gerer Chassid who visited the Imrei Emes as a young man in Poland before the war. Another Gerer Chassid told me that this insight was presented by the Gerer Rebbe at a prayer gathering in the middle of the Holocaust, on 20 Kislev, 5703, in the "Churvah."

<a onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn2')" id="_ednref2" href="javascript: void(0);" name="_ftn2">[2]</a> Rabbi Avraham Mordechai (born in 1866), known as the Imrei Emes, was the third Rebbe of Ger and passed away in 1948 in Jerusalem. The city was under siege at the time, so he was buried in the courtyard of his yeshiva.

<a onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn3')" id="_ednref3" href="javascript: void(0);" name="_ftn3">[3]</a> Deuteronomy 9:15-17.

<a onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn4')" id="_ednref4" href="javascript: void(0);" name="_ftn4">[4]</a> Exodus 32:16.

<a onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn5')" id="_ednref5" href="javascript: void(0);" name="_ftn5">[5]</a> Cf. Abarbanel to Deuteronomy 9:17. Likkutei Sichos vol. 9 p. 241; vol. 26 p. 252. My gratitude to Shmuel Levin, a writer and editor in Pittsburgh, for his editorial assistance.

<a onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn6')" id="_ednref6" href="javascript: void(0);" name="_ftn6">[6]</a> Sefer Megaleh Amukos.

<a onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn7')" id="_ednref7" href="javascript: void(0);" name="_ftn7">[7]</a> Bava Basra 14b.

<a onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn8')" id="_ednref8" href="javascript: void(0);" name="_ftn8">[8]</a> On a literal level the connection is this: On the 29th of Av, at the end of Moses’ second 40-day period on Mount Sinai, G-d agreed to give the second set of tablets to Israel. The following day Moses ascended again, and remained on the mountain throughout the month of Elul. On Yom Kippur he descended with the new set of tablets (Rashi to Exodus).

The Survivor - How a Rebbe Helped a Survivor Embrace His Fragments

903_survivor.jpg

22_tisha_bav_5770-2.pdf

pain

broken tablets

first tablets

holocaust survivor

imrei emes

failure

How a Rebbe Helped a Survivor Embrace His Fragments

Essay Parshas Eikev/Elul

Never Broken

This women&#39;s class was presented on Tuesday Parshas Ki Savo, 14 Elul, 5777, September 5, 2017, at Bais Medrash Ohr Chaim, Monsey, NY.

5348_confidence.4dc8.jpg

21_womens_class_9_05_17.565e.mp4

21_womens_class_9_05_17.565e.mp3

teshuvah

confession

self confidence

vidu

vidu maasar

Confessing Your Sins Reflects Your Infinite Majesty 

Women's Ki Savo/ RH YK Class

You Can Only Do Teshuvah If You Get Rid of Guilt

Relativity

An Odessa Jew meets another one. "Have you heard, Einstein won the Noble Prize?"

"Oh, what for?"

"He developed this Relativity theory."

"Yeah, what's that?"

"Well, you know, five hairs on your head is relatively few. Five hairs in your soup is relatively many."

"And for that, he wins the Noble Prize?!"

Today we will discuss this “theory of relativity” in Jewish spirituality. What may seem small on one plane is seen quite differently on another.

What’s the Novelty?

Teshuvah, or repentance,&nbsp;one of the greatest gifts that Judaism and the Torah have given humanity, is the idea that G-d gives second chances. This is a fundamental part of the Jewish experience and is written in innumerable places in Torah -- and it is the focus during this time of the year, as we welcome Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.&nbsp;

Which is why it comes as a surprise that Rabbi Akiva, the famed Jewish leader and Talmudic scholar living in the second century CE, some 1500 years after Sinai and the writing of the Torah, seems to have been surprised, inspired, and even astounded by the idea that G-d gives a second chance to the sinner who repents.

I refer to a statement Rabbi Akiva made which has since gained fame in Jewish songs, chants, and liturgy, and it is recorded in the Mishna.<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_edn1" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_ednref1');">1</a>

אמר רבי עקיבא, אשריכם ישראל! לפני מי אתם מטהרין ומי מטהר אתכם? אביכם שבשמים! שנאמר (יחזקאל לו) וזרקתי עליכם מים טהורים וטהרתם, ואומר (ירמיהו יז) מקוה ישראל ה'. מה מקוה מטהר את הטמאים, אף הקב"ה מטהר את ישראל.

Rabbi Akiva said: How lucky are you, O Israel! Before whom are you purifying yourself, and who purifies you? Our father in Heaven! As it is written (Ezekiel 36), “I will sprinkle upon you purifying waters, and you will become purified,” and it is said (Jeremiah 17), “Hashem is the mikva of Israel,” just as the Mikvah purifies the impure, so too does G-d purify Israel.<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_edn2" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_ednref2');">2</a>

What innovation, what revolutionary idea is Rabbi Akiva teaching that has not been taught for over a thousand years? That G-d purifies the impure, forgives the penitents, and absolves the sinner? This is an axiom of Jewish thought dating back to Abraham! This idea is fundamental to Judaism itself. It is as old as Moses and the Jews of the Golden Calf, as Joseph forgiving his brothers, as G-d giving Adam a second chance after eating from the tree of knowledge. The entire concept and institution of Yom Kippur—discussed at length in the Book of Leviticus—is that G-d cleanses the people of Israel!

Comes Rabbi Akiva 1500 years after Yom Kippur was created, and declares a novelty! How fortunate are you Israel. Why? Because your father in heaven cleanses you from your blemishes. It seems that Rabbi Akiva has suddenly “discovered America,” when in essence he is repeating an ancient axiom of all of Tanach!

The question is stronger: To support this thought, Rabbi Akiva quotes verses that were transcribed some 500 years earlier which clearly state this very truth! Yet even the verses he quotes are from Ezekiel and Jeremiah, rather than from the Five Books of Moses, which clearly state the same truth.<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_edn3" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_ednref3');">3</a>

Even if you can find some reason why Rabbi Akiva repeated this ancient idea, why did the Mishna have to record it? The Mishna is a collection of original Jewish Law, and not the place to record inspirational sentiments that do not teach us anything new and innovative.

Two Extra Words

Many times, when studying Torah we will find, that if there are two questions on the same text, one question will be answered by resolving the other. Here too, there is another problem on the concluding words of Rabbi Akiva:

מה מקוה מטהר את הטמאים אף הקב"ה מטהר את ישראל.

“Just as the Mikvah purifies the impure, so too does G-d purify Israel.”

Every word in Mishna is precise. There is not an extra word used, not even for esthetical beauty. Every word of the Mishna was carefully edited by Rabbi Judah the Prince and is exact and necessary. Rabbi Judah chose from thousands of collected records of teachings and manuscripts and redacted in the Mishna only the best and most exact wordings.

In this statement of Rabbi Akiva, it seems, we have two superfluous words. It should have written simply, “Just as a Mikvah purifies, so too does G-d purify Israel.” Why add the extra words, “purify the impure”? We all know that a mikvah is designated to purify someone who is impure! Who else would be going to the Mikvah but someone who is impure? Why state the obvious?

Yet, in these seemingly superfluous two words lies a wondrous secret. But first, we have to understand a little about the functioning of a Mikvah.

Two Types of Impurity

There are different degrees of impurity, and there are different methods of purification from these various states of impurity.

[These were mostly relevant in biblical times and during the days of the Temple, when people had to be very careful to maintain their ritual purity in order to enter the Temple, or eat the sacred food of sacrifices. Today, we don’t pay much attention to these ritual patterns; which is why most Jews would not tour the Temple Mount, since you may not enter the space of the Temple if ritually impure.]

For example, if one touches a dead rodent, he becomes impure for a day and can become pure simply by immersing in a mikva and waiting for nightfall. On the other hand, if he touches a human corpse he becomes impure for a week and needs a lengthy process of immersing in a mikvah, as well as being sprinkled with a mixture of water and ashes of the red heifer.

Now imagine if someone has become impure, on both accounts, he both touched a rodent, and a human corpse. He is inevitably impure due to the corpse for a week regardless of whether he goes to the mikva or not for the rodent-tumah. The mikvah, usually potent for purification from rodent-impurity, seems now meaningless and impotent due to the stricter corpse–impurity that remains inevitably for a week. Is there any benefit of him going to the mikvah? &nbsp;It would seem not. He will anyway remain impure because he has also touched a corpse.

However, that is not the case. And here we discover something fascinating. The law is that a mikvah will purify and remove the lesser impurity even if the stricter degree of impurity remains!<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_edn4" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_ednref4');">4</a>

This then is the profound innovation of Rabbi Akiva. “Just as a Mikvah will purify the impure person” who is destined to remain impure, even after going to the mikvah, so too does G-d purify the penitent who still remains, in some ways, distant and separate from G-d!

A person who is not prepared to repent and to return to G-d fully, he is not ready to take the plunge and surrender away all of his sins and pet peeves, this person might think that G-d accepts all or nothing. He might think: Either I truly repent for everything, or I do nothing. Either I entirely change my life, or not bother at all. Since I know that I cannot make so many changes in my life, let me not even begin.

Imagine if someone—a borrower, an investor, a partner—owes you $50,000, but really has neither the desire nor intention to pay you now. It’s not that he denies that he borrowed the money, it’s just that he cannot be bothered, and maybe does not have the money.

Then one fine morning, perhaps the day before Yom &nbsp;Kippur, your dear ungrateful and audacious borrower or partner shows up at your door announcing proudly: “I want to pay you $5,000!”

“$5,000?? What’s that for? You owe me 50,000!!”

“I know, but seriously, I only feel like paying you back 5,000. For now, let’s forget about the rest. We will deal with that another time. Ok? Deal, or no deal?”

How would you react? Chances are you would throw this man out head first, with his measly $5,000. And rightfully so. The sheer chutzpah! What is he thinking?

How Lucky!

This is what Rabbi Akiva is talking about. As Jews we turn to G-d each year, and all of us, to some degree or another, feel some sense of remorse or regret for one or two or three things in our life that need to be mended. Not that we are ready to turn over a new leaf, not that we are ready to make the serious changes in our life, not that we are ready for a complete transformation, but there is that one little aveira, that one little sin, that one little lie or cheat, that is nagging me. And I really want to get it off my chest.

I may have hurt someone in a dramatic way and it sits on me; I may have done something wrong that is really perturbing me; I may have insulted someone in a nasty way and I am upset at myself; I may have been involved in something that is eating up on my conscience.

So I repent for just that one thing. I ask G-d, or whoever it was that I wronged, to forgive me for that one act. What is going to be with the rest of my issues I cannot be bothered, and I neither know nor care too much at the moment. I don’t have time or energy to deal with all my sins. But this one thing I am ready to deal with.

Is this worth anything? Does G-d care for this type of repentance?

Comes Rabbi Akiva and says:

מה מקוה מטהר את הטמאים.

Just as a Mikvah purifies the impure, the one who will remain impure even after the mikvah, the one who either way has contracted a much more severe and serious impurity which he is not dealing with right now, yet, the mikva works and will purify him at that moment for the lesser impurity, exactly so does G-d purify Israel!

Why? Why doesn’t G-d act as any normal person would, and throw our measly attempt at reconciliation back in our faces?

To this Rabbi Akiva tells us:

מי מטהר אתכם? אביכם שבשמים!

Because G-d is our “Father in heaven,” father who is anxiously waiting for the merest sign of positive movement from, us, his child. A good father will embrace and appreciate the tiniest effort his son makes to connect with him, regardless and oblivious to the fact that the son has done wrong in so many more areas.

Today, all psychologists and educators agree that the way to educate is by focusing and drawing attention to even the smallest positive successes of our children and building on them. Education through criticism has been debunked and proven to be futile at best, and destructive at worst.

But Rabbi Akiva said this almost 2000 years ago. G-d is the ultimate loving parent. When he sees that a Jew makes even the slightest movement of Teshuva, regardless of how much he has left to go, G-d immediately embraces this movement with the deepest love, and purifies him just as the mikvah does.<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_edn5" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_ednref5');">5</a>

Fix One Thing

How many of us have not attempted something because we are afraid of failure? How many of us give up on our dreams because we know we will never fulfill them perfectly? How many of us remain paralyzed by perfectionism? How many of us look at things as all or nothing, and therefore do not begin jobs that we know we can never fully complete?

How many of us deprive ourselves of this gift of a mitzvah that is so dear to us, just because we are scared to become “completely religious?” We feel that if we do not get it all right, we will get nothing right, and it is not worth the effort?

Rabbi Akiva is telling us that a Jew must know, that G-d values and cherishes every single mitzvah a Jew does. G-d embraced and cherished every act of change. Even if I regret one mistake in my life and change that, G-d accepts it fully and purifies me. Whatever you manage to accomplish, any step you manage to take forward, towards a better more inspired, G-dly life, is infinitely treasured by G-d who can purify even the one who still remains impure. It may be one small step for man; but a giant step for G-d.<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_edn6" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_ednref6');">6</a>

____________________

<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_ednref1" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn1');">1.</a>&nbsp;Mishna end of Yuma. 
<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_ednref1" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn2');">2.</a>&nbsp;In the original verse, mikva means hope. G-d is the hope of Israel. Rabbi Akiva interprets it as a “mikvah,” a gathering of natural water. 
<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_ednref1" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn3');">3.</a>&nbsp;He could have quoted for example the verse in Leviticus quoted earlier in this very Mishnah: For on this day He will forgive you, to cleanse you from all your sins…” You can’t get much clearer than this. 
<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_ednref1" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn4');">4.</a>See for example end of Ch. 3 of Mishna Berachos. משנה &nbsp;זב שראה קרי ונדה שפלטה שכבת זרע והמשמשת שראתה נדה צריכין טבילה 
<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_ednref1" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn5');">5.</a>&nbsp;This is an innovation revealed and espoused quite fittingly by Rabbi Akiva, the great lover of Jews, and a man who himself made a long and arduous journey from being an illiterate shepherd who actually hated Torah and Scholars, to becoming the pre-eminent Sage and leader of the Jewish people through one of the most difficult moments in their history. 
<a href="javascript: void(0);" id="_ednref1" onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn6');">6.</a>&nbsp;This novel interpretation in the Mishna was shared by the Lubavitcher Rebbe during a public address ("farbrengen"), as he concluded the study of Tractate Yuma on his mother’s yartziet, 6 Tishrei 5730, 1969. Part of it was published in Likkutei Sichos vol. 17 Parshas Acharei.

Perhaps one of the greatest gifts that Judaism has given humanity is the idea that G-d gives second chances. This is a fundamental part of the Jewish experience and is written in innumerable places in Torah. It is the theme of the entire Yom Kippur institution.

Yet, along come Rabbi Akiva and he discovers America! In a statement which has since gained fame in Jewish songs, chants, and liturgy, he seems astounded by the idea that G-d purifies the impure, and forgives the penitent!

In a talk commemorating his mother&rsquo;s yahrtzeit, the Lubavitcher Rebbe dissected Rabbi Akiva&rsquo;s statement and revealed its profound depth. Rabbi Akiva was teaching us a fundamental lesson in Teshuva, and a key to success in life. It is never about &ldquo;all or nothing.&rdquo;

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tumah

mikvah

It’s Never All or Nothing

Essay Rosh Hashanah & Yom Kippur

A Small Step for Man; A Giant Step for G-d

This women&#39;s class was presented on Tuesday Parshas Ki Savo, 17 Elul, August 28, 2018, Ohr Chaim, Monsey, NY

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21_yyj_the_power_of_now.4f22.mp4

21_yyj_the_power_of_now.4f22.mp3

teshuva

atah

"A Person Never Finds Himself in a Situation"

Women's Elul/Ki Savo Class

The Power of Now

Pre-Selichos Kumzitz -- Rabbi YY Jacobson &amp; Yoeli Lebovits

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21_2538_pre_selichos_kumzitz_rabbi_yy_jacobson_yoeli_lebovits_2015_audio_fixed.e459.mp4

21_2538_pre_selichos_kumzitz_rabbi_yy_jacobson_yoeli_lebovits_2015_audio_fixed.e459.mp3

yom kippur

repentance

selichos

selichot

rosh hashanah

kumzitz

Music & Inspiration to Access the Energy of Rosh Hashanah & Yom Kippur

Selichos 5775 Kumzitz -- Rabbi YY Jacobson & Yoeli Lebovits

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21_rabbi_yy_jacobson_5776_selichos_kumzits.mp4

21_rabbi_yy_jacobson_5776_selichos_kumzits.mp3

judgment day

yom hadin

haras olam

Live Music and Inspiration, Motzai Shabbos, Sep. 24, 2016, RCC College, Monsey, NY

Selichos 5776 Kumzitz

This class, explaining the secret of Kal Nidrei, and exploring the theme behind all of the holidays of Elul and Tishrei, was presented to women on 6 Tishrei 5778, September 28, 2017, at Ohr Chaim Shul, Monsey, NY

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tishrei

sukkos

shofar

marriage

freedom

relationships

elul

personal freedom

kal nidrei

dating

kol nidrei

Kol Nidrei -- When Your Soul Discovers Its Wings

Tuesday Women's Yom Kippur/Sukkos Class

The Journey of Elul/Tishrei: Courtship, Engagement, Marriage, Intimacy, Honeymoon, And...

Four Perspectives On Sin: An evening of song &amp; inspiration with Rabbi Jacobson and Cantor Berel Zucker singing stirring high-holiday melodies. The lecture explores a "panel discussion" between wisdom, prophecy, Torah and G-d on sin.

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teruah

tekiya

rosh hashana

shevarim

Kumzitz with Rabbi YY Jacobson & Cantor Berel Zucker

Four Perspectives On Sin

Likkutei Torah Reah Maamar Ani Ledodi #1. Part One

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ani ledodi

likkutei torah reah

likkutei torah elul

Likkutei Torah Reah Maamar Ani Ledodi #1. Part One

The King In the Field -- The Essence of Elul

You Must Search for Your Passion In the Place of Your Apathy. Likkutei Torah Reah Maamar Ani Ledodi #1. Second and Final Class

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You Must Search for Your Passion In the Place of Your Apathy. 

"I Don't Feel Anything:" Likkutei Torah Maamar Ani Ledodi (#1) -- Second and Final Class

Teshuvah: Accessing the Energy beyond Order to Reverse the Past. Likkutei Torah Reah Maamar Ani Ledodi #2

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maamar ani ledodi

Teshuvah: Accessing the Energy beyond Order to Reverse the Past. Likkutei Torah Reah Maamar Ani Ledodi #2

The Thirteen Petalled Rose: Likkutei Torah Ani Ledodi #2 

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likkutei sichos elul

The Insight of the Zohar

Why Is Elul Called The Wicked Month?!

Rosh Hashana is not the anniversary of creation

On Thursday, 11 Elul, 5781, August 19, 2021, Rabbi YY Jacobson presented the keynote address for &quot;Just One Life&quot;, an organization dedicated to helping mothers in Israel struggling with pregnancy.

The evening, led by the director of Just One Life, Rabbi Marty Katz, took place at the home of Azi and Rachel Mandel, in Bergenfield, New Jersey.&nbsp;

How Royalty Thinks

When Sears Towers Became Willis Towers

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