High Holiday Torahs from Favorite Rebbes. Reb Shlomo

High Holidays -  Favorite Torahs from favorite rebbes

 Reb Shlomo Carlebach zt"l taught a Torah delivered in 1990:

 The month of Elul, according to Sefer Yetzirah, is associated with the left hand and also the letter "yud." This signifies that during the month of Elul, we are 'fixing' our subconscious.

On Yom Kippur, we were asking Hashem to forgive us for the sins that we committed on a conscious level. But then when the end of the year comes around, we realize that though we may have succeeded in fixing our 'external' behaviors, there is still much work to be done on the in-side of our selves. We still need to work at getting the Torah and mitzvot to reach us deeper and deeper within.

As long as we still have anger inside us on a subconscious level, as long as we still have to deal with jealousy and attachment to physical pleasure, the Torah and the mitzvot have not yet reached the deepest depths of our being. It is easier to stop eating non-kosher foods, than to stop having negative thoughts about yourself and others, for example.

The letter "yud" is the smallest letter and it is also a part of every letter (as soon as you put the quill to the parchment, you have already written a "yud"). So the "yud" represents, the innermost point--your innermost point of being a "yid".

The left hand represents your subconscious actions. This means that in the month of Elul, we are able to access the energy needed for doing the inner work, which needs to get done before the year ends. The 'work', which we tried to accomplish on Yom Kippur, on a conscious level, needs to become real on a subconscious level. This is the spiritual task that we need to complete before the year is over.
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(Last week in preparation for ELUL, I was glad to davven in Reb Shlomo's NY Carlebach shul. - Joy)

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SHOFAR excerpt from Reb Shlomo Carlebach, z'l, on Netzavim/Vayelech

The All of Me

You know friends, life is also a combination of two things. On the one hand I have to do things like everybody else, meaning that there are certain rules which everybody has to do. But then there is something which only I have to do, nobody else can do it. There is one thing which makes me so special. Everybody has something so special which is so deep and this cannot be written down in words. Once a year G-d is revealing to us what we have to do and this happens when we blow the shofar. When we hear this voice of G-d everybody hears what this special thing is that he has to do, and it's not in words.

Anything which has to do with me which everyone else is doing is on the level of details. Keeping Shabbos, putting on tefilin, being good, eat with a fork, don't talk evil about other people, be positive and do this and do that is all very beautiful, but it's all details. Then that one thing which is just 'I' is the all. There is one thing which touches the all of me which is the deepest depths of my existence.

Reb Shlomo Carlebach and Shlomo's drummer Joy Krauthammer

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