So we're getting ready for the holidays, for the high holidays. So we're going to spend some time about that. Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot.
There's a lot of questions that we overlook. We just, like, we're so used to the high holiday experience, and we just assume, like, Rosh Hashanah, it's the new year. What's the question, right?
It's Judgment Day, it's the new year. But the Torah doesn't actually say any of that. Nowhere in the Torah does it say that Rosh Hashanah is a new year. And it doesn't even say that it's a Judgment Day. So where do we get those ideas from?
That's the question. The rabbi. Okay, more specifically.
More specifically. More specifically. Where does that, any ideas? Where does that come from?
What does the Torah actually say about Rosh Hashanah? The word Rosh Hashanah is not in the Torah. It's not in the Chumash anyway.
So what is Rosh Hashanah called in the Torah? We have Sukkot and we have Kippur, which says you have to afflict yourself. But what about Rosh Hashanah?
What does it say about Rosh Hashanah? What is it called? What is this holiday called?
The Torah clearly tells us. Wait, when do we even start celebrating Rosh Hashanah? Well, it's in the Torah, for sure.
It is in the Torah? It's in the Torah. It says that on the first day of the seventh month, you have this special day. And what is the language used with Rosh Hashanah?
It says that it's essentially a... Zikaron? Nachon.
Exactly. It's a Yom Teruah. Zikron Teruah. It's a Yom Azikaron.
It's a Yom Teruah. It's a day for blowing the shofar. That's all. It's a day for remembering. Some kind of Yom Azikaron.
remembering something but the Torah doesn't tell us what we're supposed to remember and it just says you're supposed to blow the shofar. Okay, why? No explanation is given.
And this is another classic case of why we need to have a Torah Shebe Al Peh why we need an oral Torah why we need an oral tradition because without the oral tradition the written Torah can't make sense of anything. What is it? All the Torah tells us is here's this day on the first day of the seventh month blow the shofar. Okay, why?
No explanation, right? And it's also a day of remembrance. Remembrance of what?
What are we going to do? are we supposed to remember? So that's where you need the oral tradition to fill things in. And that's where we have to unravel across the Tanakh and across other Jewish texts of what, where does this even come from?
And then the whole thing of a new year, that seems totally strange because that seems even opposite to the Torah. Why? Because the Torah tells us that Rosh Hashanah is the seventh month and Nisan is the first month.
The Torah tells us the first month of the year is Rosh Chodeshim is Nisan. So why would we have a new year in the seventh month? It seems strange.
You would think that Nisan is the new year, and Rosh Hashanah is halfway through the year. So how did this become the new year? But I've heard debates about it. They're both new years from different perspectives. Right, exactly.
They're both new. So let's see. Let's open.
It's in Masechet Rosh Hashanah. So we'll open it right away, and we'll see what it says. It starts by saying like this. We actually have four Rosh Hashanahs in the Jewish calendar year.
There are four new years on the Jewish calendar. All right? So first is, so the first of Nisan, like we just said, Rosh Hashanah for who?
Yes, specifically that's true for Jews, which we'll see later. But here it says, Rosh Hashanah, So for kings and for the holidays. So we keep track of holidays from Nisan onwards. Nisan is the first month, and then we have Shavuot, we have Pesach, and then Shavuot, Sukkot, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur. This holiday is the seventh month.
Exactly, exactly. So that's why Rosh Hashanah is the seventh month, because we start counting the holidays from the first month, which is Nisan. And And also the years, the reigns of kings.
The kings of Israel, we count how they reigned from Nisan onwards. So this is really important when you're reading the Tanakh. Because if a king, if somebody became king at the end of, let's say in the month of Adar. Adar is the last, the 12th month. So then in Nisan, that's already the start of their second year.
Yeah, that's now already their second. you know, royal year of their rule. And so we count king's year, and we'll see where that comes from. Actually, the Gemara there asks, how do we know? Amar Rabbi Yochanan, minayin l'mlachim, how do we know that we count from Nisan?
Because there's a clear pasuk in the Tanakh that says, that says, that's the pasuk. It says that King Solomon, built the temple 480 years after the exodus. Very famous number, it's really important in biblical chronology.
King Solomon built the temple 480 years after the exodus, right? So from here you learn it says clearly that King Solomon ascended and it says that it was so the second month is and it's also known as the month of and of King King Solomon's reign. So we see there that we're clearly counting the months.
We're counting clearly from Nisan, the second month from Nisan. And it's talking about King Solomon's reign. So it's a really clear verse that shows us that we count royal years from Nisan. Then, what's the next Rosh Hashanah on the calendar after Nisan? The second new year is Be'echad Be'elul.
The first of the month of Elul, which we just had recently. That's Rosh Hashanah for L'ma'asar be'ema. So for the tithe, tithes that have to do with cattle, cattle tithes.
People would bring donations of animal donations to the temple. And so they would count. It's like the fiscal year for cattle is in the first Tevelu.
And then Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Shimon have a different opinion. They say it's actually Be'echad B'tishrei, that animal's new year is also on Rosh Hashanah. And then Be'echad B'tishrei, Rosh Hashanah L'Shanim. So now the first of Tishrei, the first of the seventh month is the... new year for years that's how we count new years and for the shemitot for the jubilees for the shemitah like this past year was a shemitah year a sabbatical year so we can we start those from the first of tishrei okay and also for lintia for the planting season and the first of shvat is the new year for trees according to beit shamai but we don't follow beit shamai we follow beit hilal Husei Bechamishah Asar Bo.
So Tu B'Shvat is the new year for trees and for everything that has to do with fruit, harvest, tithes. all that stuff. Is there a reason for making it so complicated?
Because it's Judaism and everything's complicated. So we have four different New Years. Okay. So we already saw why kings are counted from Nisan, but it'll actually talk about, the Talmud also says that non-Jewish kings are counted from Tishrei as well.
So Jewish kings are counted from Nisan, but non-Jewish kings, like the Tanakh often speaks of the Persian kings, very Koresh, Daryavesh, Achashverosh, all those names we've heard. So those are actually, they count their years from Tishrei. Because, why?
Because Tishrei is, it says, So when it comes to the whole world, since the whole world came about in Tishrei, so this is actually the new year for the whole world, even for the non-Jewish world, technically, even though the non-Jewish world celebrates the new year on January 1st, actually, it's kind of ironic. Because we think of Rosh Hashanah as the Jewish New Year, but it's actually not. According to our tradition, Nisan is the Jewish New Year. Because Nisan is the time when we came out of Egypt, when we were forged as a nation.
So really, the Jewish New Year, the New Year of the Jewish calendar is Nisan. And Tishrei is the New Year for the whole world. And that's why in our prayers on Tishrei, we always say, in Rosh Hashanah, we always say, Hayom Arat Olam, that today is the day that the whole world was born or conceived. So it's a new year for everybody, technically.
And technically kids start school around this year. Yeah, it's a good time. And the school year starts at this time as well. It works perfectly, yeah.
So it's a new year for the whole world. Okay, now how do we know that the world was... created in Tishrei.
And that's the famous debate that we have between Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yeshua. So this is in Masechet Rosh Hashanah, also on page 10, at the end of page 10b. So it says, Tanya Rabbi Eliezer omer, so Rabbi Eliezer said, betishrei nivra ha'onam.
In Tishrei, the world was created. created. And the patriarchs were born in Tishrei.
They also died in the same month. And the Pesach nolad Yitzhak, so only Yitzhak was born, because that's clear in the Torah, that Yitzhak was born in Nisan, but Abraham and Yaakov were born in Tishrei. On Rosh Hashanah, Sarah, Rachel, Hannah, who were all barren, who couldn't get pregnant, and who really wanted to get pregnant, their prayers were finally answered on Rosh Hashanah, and they conceived on Rosh Hashanah.
So we know today that Rosh Hashanah is a segula for people to get pregnant. It's time to pray for fertility, Rosh Hashanah. And on Rosh Hashanah, Yosef was in prison for... 12 years in Egypt. Yeah, so he was 12 years in prison and he came out of prison on Rosh Hashanah.
And that's a really important one. We'll see why that's so important to mention here. And on Rosh Hashanah in Egypt, that's when they stopped being slaves.
So it's also associated with freedom. Our sages will say that the root of Tishrei also means freedom. Shari is like liberty.
So. We were freed from, we no longer had to work. So from Rosh Hashanah, they stopped being slaves, and then they had until Nisan when they actually came out of Egypt.
So there was those last... Half a year they weren't slaves anymore. They weren't slaves anymore?
In Egypt, yes. Wasn't it a plague for a whole year? Yeah, the plagues lasted a year.
At the beginning, remember, the pharaoh made their slavery worse when Moshe first came. And then eventually the slavery stopped and they were still there for another little while until Nisandei came out. So they weren't slaves but they weren't allowed to leave? They stopped their slavery but they were not yet allowed to leave.
But they were no longer working hard. Most of them never left in the end, right? That's right. According to tradition, only a fifth actually came out. Really?
Yeah. Yeah, one of the explanations for Hamushim Alu, that a fifth, that, well, really Hamushim means that they came out. out armed out of Egypt. They had weapons with them. But another meaning of Hamushim is like a fifth came out, like a Hamishit came out.
They perished in the plagues and in all these. But some of them liked it there, right? Because they liked it, because they had fallen too much into the idolatry and they couldn't handle the spiritual.
No, they completely died. I mean, and really that's what's happening now too, right? If you think about the world today, what percentage of the Jewish world is actually living a spiritual godly lifestyle?
It's probably about 20%. And that was foreseen a long time ago. I mean, the Arizal, many of the Mikubalim said that, that the final generation...
is a reincarnation of the Egypt generation. The generation of Moshiach is a reincarnation of the generation of Egypt. So we find a lot of parallels between these two things.
And Moshiach is like a reincarnation of Moshe or like a new Moses. Well, Yirmiyahu says that the plagues... Fruit of the plagues.
Maybe. Maybe a pharaoh. But yeah, so there's a lot of similarities between our generation and the generation of Moshiach. and the generation of Egypt.
Many, many things, including, if you look at what our sages, slaves, we are slaves, yeah, we're slaves to electronics, to all kinds of other things. We don't even realize that we're enslaved. Just like the Israelites in Egypt, a lot of them didn't realize how deeply enslaved they were.
And they wanted to go back. Think about how often they said, we wanna go back to Egypt, right? People are begging for slavery.
They were missing the Q-Bander. Yeah, exactly. And how's our... that's our world today.
That's our world today, right? People for pathetic material pleasures will take upon themselves all kinds of slavery. I mean, we've seen what happened in the last two, three years. The thing that people accepted upon themselves, total tyranny, that they went along with it.
They accepted all these restrictions and mandates and wouldn't leave their house. Why? Because somebody, some authority figure told them that they have to stay.
Is that not slavery? Is that not tyranny? Same thing. So we're in Egypt. This is Egypt again.
And it's not just that. If you look at what our sages say that they would do in Egypt, that they made women do male work and men. That's one of the things, suffering, that the Egyptians imposed upon the Jews.
Make men do women things, to blur the gender roles, make women do male things. So we see that as well in our generation and all kinds of other areas. So we're very much in a reincarnation of ancient Egypt.
The idolatry, the sexual immorality. Listen, there's always hope. There's always hope.
But it seems like a fifth came out of Egypt and it looks like the numbers actually work out. We also have a tradition that there were 15 million Israelites enslaved in Egypt and that's how many Jews there are today in the world. So, how do we know? How do we know? Because we know that there were 600,000 men at Mount Sinai.
Between the ages of 20 and over, yeah. So, that implies... if you do the math, so times two with their wives plus some kids.
So we estimate that there were roughly 3 million people at Sinai. And since the Pasuk says that we interpret that as a fifth came out, so if you had 3 million at Sinai and that's only a fifth, then multiply by five, then you had 15 million in Egypt. It's a large number.
It's hard to comprehend. I've written about... Exactly. So I've written about how do we make sense of this number, because it seems like it's hard to practically accept that there were 15 million Israelites back then.
So I can refer you to that article about how can we make sense of that number. But it makes sense for us today because there were whatever, however you want to explain it, there were 15 million Jewish souls in Egypt. Whether there were 15 million bodies is a different question, but there were for sure 15 million souls enslaved there because all the Jews. Jewish souls were enslaved in Egypt. Just like we say on Pesach.
What do we say at the Pesach Seder? We say that it wasn't just they that came out of Egypt. We came out of Egypt. Us. Not them.
We also were in Egypt. And we don't mean that metaphorically. Literally.
Our souls were in Egypt. All the Jewish souls ever were in Egypt and also were at Mount Sinai. Everybody, including the souls of converts, somebody who converted to Judaism, how can they come to a Pesach Seder and say that I came out of Egypt? Because they did, because the soul that they received through their conversion was there, a slave in Egypt and at Mount Sinai.
So there are 15 million souls there, and there's 15 million roughly souls today. So it seems like that's another one of these prophecies that's coming true, that the generation of Mashiach is the reincarnation of, or a repeat of the generation of Moshe and of Egypt. So we're living that today. But hopefully people will wake up.
The good thing about that is... In Egypt, how long were the Israelites supposed to be in Egypt? 400 years.
How long were they actually there, if you can? 210. So they were released early by how many years? 190. 190. why they did a lot of overtime so they worked they had 400 years of slavery in in less in a small amount they were actually only slaves for 86 years hard slaves if you do the math if you calculate it so they were released from Egypt 190 years early. So now we're at the cusp of Rosh Hashanah 57, 83. We have a tradition that civilization as we know it lasts to the year 6,000. So if back then, if in the first redemption they were redeemed 190 years early, what about if we were now, if it's the same generation again, we can expect that we should also be redeemed 190 years early.
So do the math. 6,000 minus 190 is? 5810 and we're in 5783 so that's not so long how many years is that yeah so it's not much it's not much if we have till 5810 but who knows we're not supposed to make calculations but so many of the other points seem to be coming true that maybe by 5810 this one will will also hopefully sooner So that was Rabbi Eliezer's opinion.
Oh, and Rabbi Eliezer finishes by saying, Ben Nisan Nigalu, we were redeemed first time in Nisan, Betishrei, Betishrei Atidin Leigad. So in Nisan, we were redeemed first in Egypt, and this time we will be redeemed in Tishrei. But I also said, we also said in the prayers, Let's see, because now Rabbi Yeshua is going to give his opinion. So Rabbi Yeshua now, famous opponent, not opponent, but colleague of Rabbi Eliezer, but sometimes they contradict, they have different opinions. Rabbi Yeshua says, So Rabbi Eliezer said, The world was created in Tishrei.
Rabbi Yeshua is saying, no, The world was created in Nisan. And all the patriarchs were born in Nisan. And they all died in Nisan. That for sure we know. And Berosh Hashanah Nivkeda Sarah, that also they agree on.
So it was on Rosh Hashanah that Sarah, Rachel, and Hannah were answered and got pregnant. And Berosh Hashanah Yetzai Yosef Mi Beit HaAsorin, so that we also agree on, and we'll see how we know soon. And Berosh Hashanah Batla Avodah Me'avotayim B'mitzrayim, so that we also agree on.
And Ben Nisan Nigalu, and Ben Nisan Atidin L'igayen. So Rabbi Eliezer is saying, Mashiach will come in Tishrei. And Rabbi Yeshua is saying, Mashiach will come in Nisan. Just like the first time around.
Moshe came in Nisan, this time as well, Moshiach will come in Nisan. Okay, then we continue. Rabbi Eliezer is saying, how do I know, how does he know, minayin shebet tishrei nivra haolam, how does he derive, why do they have this conflict? Rabbi Yoshua claims the world was created in Nisan. Rabbi Eliezer says in Tishrei, how do we know?
What's their source? Because you always need a source to back up what you're saying. So what is Rabbi Eliezer saying? Shana Emar, because the verse says, V'yomer Elokim, Tad'she ha'aretz deshe'esev mazri'azera etzpri. So remember in the third day of creation, on the third day of creation, God said, let the earth bring forth grasses and fruit trees.
Eizu chodesh she'aretz motziya desha'im ve'ilan male perot. So when do we see? That the world is full of grasses and trees are full of fruits. No, Tishrei. This would be Eliezer.
When are the fruits full on the tree? When are the... Because God is saying, I'm bringing forth trees full of fruit. So when are trees full of fruit?
In Tishrei. Tishrei is the fruit. Harvest, right? Sukkot is the final harvest of the year.
Sukkot is the fruit harvest. That's why there's all these fruits. We're in the month of Tishrei.
We have apples, we have pomegranates, we have the lulav, etrog. Like there's all these fruits. It's a fruit harvest.
So because of God, when God created the world, he created it in a full state. The trees, when they were created, were created with fruit. Adam and Eve were not created as babies.
They were created as adults, as 20-year-olds. So God created... Everything in a full state.
So Rabbi Eliezer is saying, when are trees full? That means that they must have been created in Tishrei, because that's when they're full of fruit. And later also we see God said in the account of creation, that a mist arose from the earth and it started to rain to, what's the word, to irrigate the Garden of Eden.
So that implies, when does it start to rain? Must have been Tishrei. So Rabbi Eliezer is bringing two proofs for why creation must have been in Tishrei.
Because we see that God brought rains to the Garden of Eden to irrigate the garden. Rain is in the fall. And because that's when fruit trees are full of fruit.
Different seasons all over the year, right? We know more or less where it was. We know the area, roughly.
So there's one explanation that it was in Israel. I was going to say, the only place that starts raining now is... Well, in the Middle East. Another opinion is that if you...
The Garden of Eden was... It says that four rivers came out or four rivers meet. It's a meeting place of four rivers.
That's what the Torah says. And some... scholars suggest that they're that it's in the persian what today is in the persian gulf today the persian gulf is underwater obviously it's the gulf but actually in ancient times it was dry land it was closed off uh the the straits over there were closed off and it was actually dry and if you we know that two of the rivers are the tigris and the euphrates right the hidekel and the prat so if you follow them down they meet they and and the two other rivers that actually run across saudi arabia The other two rivers are more mysterious.
We're not sure what they are. The Gihon and the Pishon, we're not sure what they are. But we can see from satellite images that there used to be two rivers that have since dried up in Saudi Arabia. And so those two rivers and the two rivers from Iraq, basically, the Tigris and Euphrates, where they meet, they would meet somewhere in the Persian Gulf.
So there are some that hypothesize that the Garden of Eden is currently underwater. some kind of Atlantis perhaps, lost underwater, but it would have met there in the Persian Gulf. So that's another idea.
Others will say that it's actually in Israel. Now, how does Rabbi Yeshua say, How does he argue? Where does he argue that it must have been in Nisan? Why? Because then the following verse says that God's told the earth to bring forth the grasses and fruit trees, and the earth brought it forth.
And it says, So when are the fruits just starting to come out? The first verse said, trees bearing fruit, full of fruit. But then the next verse said, trees making fruit. So when do the trees make fruit? Well, they start making fruit, they start budding and whatever, in the spring, in Nisan.
So it must have been in Nisan. So Hevei Omer is Nisan. And this chapter is about the time of life and nature, when this is the time when animals procreate in nature.
So this must have been the time of creation. Okay, so that's the two opinions, and we generally follow Rabbi Eliezer. You remember the story of Rabbi Eliezer and the Tanur Shelechnai, when Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yoshua and the others were debating, Rabban Gamliel, and Rabbi Eliezer said, regarding a particular oven, that it's one way, and everybody else said, no, it's not that way. And Rabbi Eliezer said, you remember the story? He said, if I'm right, the tree will fly, a fruit itself, and the tree flew out of the...
And then the rabbis said, no, we don't care, we don't get a lacha from trees. And Rabbi Eliezer said, if I'm right, the river or the water will, amat hamaim, will flow backwards, whatever there was a stream of water, and the stream started to flow backwards. And the rabbis told him, no, we don't take halacha from streams of water. You remember this? And Rabbi Eliezer said, if I'm right, then let the walls of the Beit Midrash collapse.
And they said, no, no, no. The walls started collapsing. And Rabbi Yeshua and the rabbis said, okay, what do you guys... The walls shouldn't get involved in rabbinic debate.
And finally a voice, a batkol, a voice from heaven came and said, don't you guys know that Rabbi Eliezer is always right? A heavenly... The voice said that Rabbi Eliezer is always right. And Rabbi Yeshua famously said, what did he say? He said that the Lord is in here.
Lo bashamayim hi. Yeah, but how can he say that? If a voice comes from heaven, then he is right.
why are you arguing? why are you saying no? but where did he get that verse?
lo b'shamayim hi it's from the Torah Moshe said lo b'shamayim hi Moshe told the people that the Torah is not in heaven it's for you you have it's not across the sea it's not in heaven in heaven, it's right here for you. The Torah is yours. And the Torah has a rule that we always go by majority vote. And the majority of the rabbis said it's this way. And Reb Eliezer was a singular opinion that's saying that he's right.
But we never go by singular. No, this is a majority in a scholarly debate among, like a democratic vote, essentially. That's how we vote, Allah is the way it was done back then.
Based on people who are actually studying Torah. Yeah, based on Torah scholars. I mean, the Torah also has a mitzvah. not to follow an evil majority, right?
There's two mitzvahs. One is that you have to listen to, that you should listen to the rabbinic consensus, the majority opinion. But there's also a separate mitzvah not to follow a majority for evil, not to follow an evil majority. So if everybody jumps off a bridge, you're not supposed to jump off a bridge. So is that the reason why we're in this rabbit hole?
So many rules because the majority of the rabbis are making consensus that keep getting stricter and stricter. Kind of, yeah, that's what was happening. In general, throughout history, what we find over the last 2,000, even 3,000 years, we tend to get more and more strict.
We tend to keep adding more and more fences. With each generation, we add more and more fences. So the halacha gets stricter and stricter.
Is there a need to make fences, though? There is. Not literally, but to make fences.
Yeah, we're supposed to... protect the Torah, so to speak, protect the law and make certain fences so that people don't transgress. Yeah.
But like, where do you draw the line? That's where it's tricky. It's like, how many fences is too many fence? At which point do you only have fences and you already don't see what you've fenced in? You have so much fence that what's, what are we fencing?
What is, what is over there? So that could be tricky. But generally speaking, we are supposed to do this.
We are supposed to make fences so that people don't transgress. Anyway, so the batkol, the heavenly voice said, Rabbi Eliezer is always right. And they said, no.
But then, you know, the story ends with one of the rabbis then asking Eliyahu. He meets Eliyahu, a Navi. And he says, what was happening in heaven at the time when this happened? And Eliyahu said that God laughed and said, He laughed and he said, my children have overruled me.
So that's a very interesting story that we need to devote time to it separately. What does that really mean? mean yeah what does it mean that my children overruled me god laughed and said that my children have like overruled me defeated me overruled me but as if that was all part of the plan that that was supposed to happen yeah and it was but that's that story needs for sure explanation we'll need to devote a whole and and the symbolic the symbolism is also important why did he say uproot the tree make the water run back why these things you have to to think about that. And what was this oven? Tanu shalachnai.
It's like the snake oven. The oven of the snake. What does that even mean? Was it kosher? Was it not kosher?
So that's a very deeply Kabbalistic. That story is so deeply mystical. And you never hear it explained in a mystical way.
Even though it's obviously deeply mystical and symbolic. But it needs its own. Maybe we'll do it in the future, in the near future.
Talk about that story. So the only reason I mention it is because Rabbi Eliezer is always... right.
And so Rabbi Eliezer says Rosh Hashanah is in Tishrei, and we go with that. Rabbi Eliezer is the teacher of Rabbi Akiva. Okay, he's one of the teachers of Rabbi Akiva.
Rabbi Akiva studied in his yeshiva, just to put things in context. So how do we know? Here's some proof that Rosh Hashanah is the new year.
How many seasons do we have in the year? That was a trick question. We have six seasons.
In Judaism, we have six seasons, which we derive from, yeah, we have 12 months. Each season's two months. So instead of four seasons of three months, we have six seasons of two months, which makes sense. Because like, look around you right now, it seems like we're already in fall.
It's chilly. The leaves are on the floor, but it's technically summer, right? Like, but it's already chilly, and yet it's technically still summer for another few weeks.
So we see that from... Bereshit chapter 8 from the whole story of Noah, it says, God promised not to destroy the world. Again, Those six terms are actually the six seasons of the Jewish year.
The last season, what do we call the last season? Is kaitz. Kaitz literally means the last, ketz means the end, the end of the year.
So when is the end of the year? Now, now is kaitz, it's the summer, it's the end. And so when should the new year start? In Tishrei, right?
Tishrei also has the root of beginning, of reshit, which is what the Tikkuni Zohar says. The Tikkuni Zohar, which gives 70 explanations of bereshit, of the just, the Tikkuni Zohar is one of the most amazing. ...Sfarium that we have, and it all explains, the whole thing is just about the first word of the Torah.
It's all about Bereshit. So you can imagine a book, a multi-volume book, that's on just one Torah. That's how Judaism works.
You can have a multi-set, several volumes of books and chapters, about 70 chapters actually of Tikkun Ezzor, 70 explanations of just one word. And one of those explanations is that Bereshit really means Betishrei, that the world was created in Tishrei. Bereshit, Tishrei, makes sense.
And the deeper meaning there, it actually, the Tikkuni Zohar says, Yashet Choshech Sitro, it brings this thing, because in the beginning of creation, it says, there's two key words there. It says that the world was Vechoshech alpnei Tehon, that there was Choshech. And it says, Ruach Elohim Erechefet alpnei Amayim, that the Spirit of God hovered over the waters. So again, when does it start raining?
When is there water? In Tishrei. because on the second day of creation, God separated, God created the whole water cycle, the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, clouds, upper waters, lower waters.
So when do we see? Yeah. So when does, that's the whole, the association of creation with water and water with Tishrei. Tishrei is the month when we start seeing water again, especially in Israel, the rainy season and all that.
So there's an association, so there's the association with water and the association with darkness. That in the beginning there was darkness. When is it dark?
When are the dark times? It's not in the summer. In Nisan, the days are getting longer.
Now the days are getting shorter. So that's two other hints why Rosh Hashanah is in Tishrei. When it's darker and wetter. That's the idea. Just like reminiscent of creation.
Now, there is one place in the whole Tanakh, just once, where the words Rosh Hashanah appear. Any idea where that is? Where does Rosh Hashanah appear in the Tanakh?
you know no so it's in yehazke in ezekiel the the book the prophecy book so it says in the 25th year since we were exiled ezekiel was one of the prophets that was with the exiles when the first temple was destroyed and here it says at the beginning of the year on the 10th of the month but it doesn't say which month and god came to him god came to ezekiel and gave him a prophecy so it doesn't It doesn't identify, it says just Berosh Hashanah, but it doesn't say which month it was, but it says it was on the tenth day of the month. So what day was that? If it was the tenth day, it was Yom Kippur.
Yom Kippur is the tenth of Tishrei. And Ezekiel, Yechezkel, he was a Kohen. And we know that the Kohen Gadol would go on Yom Kippur into the Holy of Holies and receive a prophecy from God.
And Ezekiel was a prophet. So if you put two and two together, the Rosh Hashanah here must be Tishrei, because then the tenth of the month must have been Yom Kippur. which is why Ezekiel, the high priest, got, or the priest got a vision.
So that's the one place really where we see clearly the words Rosh Hashanah, and the implication, again, is pretty clear that it must have been in Tishrei. So it's kind of like a puzzle that you have to piece together. The Torah never tells us that Rosh Hashanah... Why is it just straightforward?
Because nothing is straightforward. It's supposed to be a puzzle. Exactly.
It's supposed to be a puzzle. We're supposed to extract the information. The Torah is all about extracting.
It's a code, and we have to extract it. the code. It's a game. It's really, it's a puzzle that you have to figure out, right?
You have to meditate upon it day and night to really grasp what it's saying, to extract its meaning. And then the Talmud tells us where, when we said, that on Rosh Hashanah, Yosef came out of prison. How do we know that? And this is from Tehillim, which we recite on Rosh Hashanah.
What is that Psalm? It says, you remember this Psalm? It says, Psalm 81, That's the Pasuk, and then it says, Ki chok le'Yisrael hu. And then it says, Eidot be'yehosef samu be'ce'eto.
That's the verb, and we say it on Rosh Hashanah all the time. So it says, Tik'u be'chodesh shofar. So you should blow on Rosh Chodesh, blow the shofar.
And then be'kesah, which implies during the full moon, le'yom chagenu. Because during the full moon, there's going to be a Chag. So when is it that we have a Chag on the full moon? And we blow the shofar on Rosh Chodesh, that's Rosh Hashanah.
So we blow the shofar on the first of the month, and then we have, on the full moon, we have Sukkot, on the 15th of Tishrei. And that's where we get the whole, that's one of the proofs. where it's also Judgment Day. How do we know it's Judgment Day?
Because the psalm continues to say, Ki chok le'Yisrael hu, Mishpat le'Elohe Yaakov. Because this is when Israel is judged. When Yaakov, when Israel undergoes Mishpat. Okay, so I have a question. Yeah.
Because Rosh Hashanah is supposed to be one day. Yeah. Now the rabbis, like everything else, made it two days. So we're supposed to be judged, right?
So what, a kattabu judge is two days, one day a judge, then you come back again and judge the next day? There's different understandings. Some people say that the judgment is two days for different things. One for judges. But at the beginning, Roshanah was one day.
So that means all the judgment happened. You know, on a more mystical level, we call it one Yoma Arichta. It's one long, it's like two days, but it's really one long.
long day, one 48-hour day. The way that I like to think about it is, why do we keep two days of Rosh Hashanah? Because Rosh Hashanah is when Adam and Eve were created, and that was on the sixth day.
And what was the very next day? It was Shabbat. So Rosh Hashanah is the sixth day of creation, and the second day of Rosh Hashanah is the first Shabbat.
It commemorates the first Shabbat. And also, because Rosh Hashanah often often falls on Shabbat, and you can't blow the shofar on Shabbat. So then we have another day. So it's good that it's two days, because that way you have one day to blow the shofar. Otherwise, you wouldn't blow the shofar, and you'd miss it.
This ensures that we always hear the shofar. So from this Psalm 81, we see that Rosh Hashanah, the day of blowing the shofar, is also a day of Mishpat. It's a day of Chok and Mishpat, a day of judgment for Israel. And here it says that Yosef, Yosef, It says, And it's interesting because Yosef is spelled with a hey. Yehosef.
Not Yosef, but with an extra hey. Yehosef. Why does he have an extra hey over there?
Remember, Avraham became Avraham, got an extra hey. And now Yosef got an extra hey too. Why did he get an extra hey? Yes, that's true.
So there's a Midrash famously that says that when they took him out of Egypt, out of prison, and There's a whole thing of that he had to basically learn the angel Gavriel came and taught him 70 languages overnight. So that he can communicate with Pharaoh and all his advisors in whatever language they would throw at him. And to show how he's this great wise person.
So that hey was added to his name and that hey carried the 70 languages. The Arizal actually says that that hey came from the angel Metatron, who's the angel of the prince of the 70 nations. So that's how he learned all 70 languages overnight, with that extra hay. So that's the secret of writing Yosef with a hay, Yehosef. That's why there's an extra hay there.
The Talmud actually says that he got the extra hay. What was the merit? Where did he get the merit for that extra hay? From resisting the wife of Potiphar. From that one act, he merited the hay.
Another interesting thing, the last verse of Psalm 81 is, And they will eat from the hay of the hay. So there's a mention of dvash there, that God feeds us honey. So that's actually, I think, also a connection to Rosh Hashanah, why we have a tradition of eating the honey and dipping apples in honey. The verse, it says that God basically feeds us the choicest wheat, the fattest wheat, and honey.
mitzvah, like as if God brings out honey from rocks and satisfies us with honey. It's in Psalm 81, which starts by talking about Rosh Hashanah, which we read on Rosh Hashanah. So I think the tradition of also having honey on Rosh Hashanah is tied into this verse as well. And the other thing is, of course, the connection to the Garden of Eden. and putting in the apple, what does the apple have to do with the garden?
Think about Adam and Eve dipping an apple. The simple reason that we have apples is because it's the fruit harvest. There's lots of apples in the month of Tishrei. But why specifically an apple?
We associate the apple with the Garden of Eden. But not for the... Why do they say that she ate the apple? Yeah, yeah, it's not for the reason that you think.
People think that the tree of knowledge was an apple. But it wasn't. Actually, the Talmud gives us three opinions as to what it was.
So one opinion is that it's in Masachet Brachot. One opinion is that it was Gefen, okay, that it was grapes. And another opinion was that it was a Te'ena, that it was a fig.
How do we know that it was grapes? Because according to this opinion, what happened was they got drunk. And that's why they made the sin.
Another opinion is that it was a fig. How do we know it was figs? Because remember they made themselves fig leaves?
Clothes from figs. So say, well, they made the... Where do they have fig leaves?
Suddenly they ate and they saw they're naked. They covered themselves with fig leaves. So put two and two together.
Well, I guess they were right next to a fig tree. So it must have been a fig tree, right? That was what was right next to them, fig leaves.
So one opinion is that it was a fig tree. And the third opinion, or be'udah, says it must have been wheat. Why wheat?
Because wheat is... Exactly, so it's a problem, but it's a plant. So what are our sages really saying here?
Of course, it wasn't any of these, because it was a unique tree. What our sages are really saying, the secret of this passage, is that it was all three. That it was a unique tree with qualities of all three of these things. So a quality of grape, of like that wine quality of being alcoholic, being intoxicating. And the quality of figs, which has its own meaning of figs is associated with kind of fertility, reproduction and something very sensual.
And also like wheat, because wheat is associated with human civilization. We talked about that before, like Shavuot, the wheat harvest is. Remember, we said how like barley was animal food and wheat is human food, like only humans can make bread, can thresh and winnow and make flour and produce.
Making bread is a complex process and requires a human intellect. And that's what. Rabbi Yehuda is saying that wheat is human food. It requires civilization. And Adam and Eve were the birth of civilization.
But really what our sages are saying is that this fruit was all three. It had qualities of all three. And the beautiful thing is, Rabbi Yehuda is calling wheat here.
He says, is another word for grain. Well, grain, wheat. So if you put the words together, grapes are with an ein.
is tough. And Dagan is Dalit. Dalit, Dagan, Anavim, Ain, Ta'ena, Taf, Da'at. It's Da'at.
The tree of knowledge, Da'at. Why is it Da'at? Dalit, Ain, Taf, Dagan, Anavim, Ta'ena.
That had qualities of these three things. But it was a unique tree. It wasn't an apple. So where did the apple thing really come from? I mean, one explanation is that it came from Latin because the word malice, like the word apple sounds like the word evil.
But that's... That's not a Jewish explanation. The reason that there's an apple association with the Garden of Eden is because our sages say, we have a tradition, the Midrash says that the Garden of Eden smelled like an apple orchard. The smell in the Garden of Eden was like the smell of an apple orchard.
Right? Smells really good if you've ever been through an apple orchard. A very aromatic, nice smell in an apple orchard. So that's how the Garden of Eden smelled. And that whole idea of an apple orchard, that term you find in Kabbalistic texts very often.
Often, there's a whole explanation of why an apple orchard. So it's really the Garden of Eden. The tree of knowledge was not an apple tree, but the Garden of Eden did smell like an apple orchard.
So that's the association of apples and Adam and Eve. And so that's the connection also to Rosh Hashanah, which is the creation of Adam and Eve, and a connection back to remember. So to answer that question, what is the Torah telling us to remember? It's a Yom HaZikaron. It's a remembrance day.
What are we supposed to remember? We're supposed to remember that this is the day of the world's creation, the creation of Adam and Eve. And what happened to them?
and what happened to them. And they were judged, right? They ate from the fruit on Rosh Hashanah and they were judged on that day.
And therefore, henceforth, this is a judgment day. Actually for all mankind, not just for Israel. All mankind is judged on Rosh Hashanah. Okay, so now we have this judgment day. Everybody's getting judged.
And we know that there's a sanegor and a kategor. There's a defense and a prosecution. And in heaven, there's this trial going on.
And who's the lead prosecutor? What is, how do you say the prosecutor, the accuser in Hebrew? The Satan. HaSatan, right?
Satan literally means the accuser, the prosecution. That's what the Satan is. This is where, this is the difference between bad in the sense that his job is to create chaos.
But obviously he was created by God. So we do not have a Christian notion of Satan being some kind of like trying to like rebelling. Yeah. Christianity created this dualistic worldview where Satan and God are competing for souls.
And Satan is kind of going against God. And it's a very problematic, troublesome belief to have because it's a dualistic worldview. It's like almost like Satan is a deity of his own trying to like. go against God and steal souls.
No, because the Satan was created by God and is under God's control. He's not some rebel. that's beyond, you know... When he's taking a soul, he's taking it also back to Hashem sometimes, right?
Exactly. But he's taking it back to Hashem. He stands there, go and take the soul, soul, soul.
The Satan is still 100% under God's control. That's the thing. And he was, of course, created by God.
and does ultimately what God says. So God appointed him as the heavenly prosecution. That's the job. Just like in any trial, you have to have both a defense and a prosecution.
You have to. Right, but Satan as an entity... He is an entity.
And this entity's job is to make sure to bring you down. Right. But God gave him that ability.
God gave him that ability. Right. That's the idea. The Satan is not outside God.
That's what's important. He's not rebelling against God. We're supposed to fight the Satan. That's right. Remember what Isaiah says.
Very important verse. That I am G-d, Ani Hashem, Yotzer Or, Uboray Choshech, and Oseh Shalom, Uboray, no, Uboray Etakol is in our prayers. That was reworded to make it gentler.
Oseh shalom u'borera. Ani Hashem oseh kol eleh. That's what Isaiah says. I make evil. God says, I make good and I make evil.
And just in case you weren't sure, he says again, Ani Hashem oseh kol eleh. I am God. Don't think that somebody else is... doing it there's one god that's it there's no other force in odmyl vado there's no other force that can oppose god nothing everything is under god's control anything that the satan does is still under god's control of god gives a limited amount of free will god programs each angel to do his bidding with within but they have certain limited free will so the satan has certain ability to act on his own whatever authority but still god gave him that authority That's important to remember. So we see in the book of Zechariah, Zechariah chapter 3, ויראה אני את יהושע הכהן, this is one of the haftarot, so it'll be familiar.
יהושע הכהן הגדול עומד לפני מלך השם, והסתן עומד על ימינו לסיתנו. So clearly it says that Yeshua was standing before God, and an angel of God was on one side, and the Satan was on the other side as the prosecution. So there was a defense attorney, and there was the prosecution. Another place we see the Satan is with Job, Eov. Remember Eov?
The book of Eov, Job, that the Satan basically asks God permission to go and make Eov's life miserable. And that's what he does. So, It says here, It's in the Zohar, actually.
I'm quoting from the Zohar. Zohar on Parashat Bo, and the verse in Eov says, V'yi hayom v'yavo b'nei ha'elohim le'it yatev al Hashem v'yavo gam hasatan betocham. That a day came, it says the day came, v'yi hayom, the day came, and the b'nei ha'elohim, literally like the children of God, but means the angels came, le'it yatev al Hashem, so they're coming for this trial, and the Satan is also there, so all the angels are coming for this trial.
And the Zohar says, what does it mean, what is the day? It must be Rosh Hashanah, the day. And that's the day when Kutzabrichu rises, that God rises to judge his world. And that was Rosh Hashanah, and that's Job. received all this suffering that the Satan gave him this bad sentence, or God sentenced him to suffer, it was on this day.
And there's many other places where we see in the Tanakh why Rosh Hashanah is a judgment day, and why Zikaron also, the idea of remembrance, is connected to judgment. So the Ramban, the Nachmanides, has a discourse on Rosh Hashanah, and he gives many verses, so I'm not going to go through all of them, but he gives different verses that show you why Yom HaZikaron, really just means a day of judging for sins and mitzvot and doing cheshbon nefesh, figuring out where your soul is and accounting of the soul and being judged. Okay, so just to conclude, to summarize and conclude, what is the zikaron?
What are we remembering? We're remembering Adam and Eve, we're remembering creation, and we're remembering that Adam and Eve were judged on that same day, and we all are because we're all descendants of Adam and Eve, and just as they were judged on this day, we are judged on this day. We blow the shofar as a wake-up call, of course, to remind us that we are being judged.
But the Shofar itself is supposed to be, our sages say, it has the shape of a birth canal, of a womb, and the sound of the Shofar is like a woman in childbirth, crying out in childbirth. And there's a lot to talk about there, but we'll leave that for another time. But mainly it's... It's like a wake-up call, it's a new birth, it's a rebirth, so it's a new beginning for everybody, a new year.
Make New Year's resolutions and think about your past year, sins, mitzvahs, what you need to improve, what you need to fix, what you did well, what you need to do better. And that's the wake-up call there to repent, to improve, and to be reborn as a new person. That's the symbolism, one of the symbolic meanings of the Shofar.
And remember also that we tishrei on the astrological, what is the astrological? the astrological sign of this month of Tishrei? Moznaim.
It's Libra, which is actually the scales of judgment, right? So even astrologically in the stars, this is a time of judgment, Libra, the scales of justice, judgment. And we are ultimately being inscribed, as we say, in the book, in the book of life, in the book of death.
And we know how we say, instead of saying, Oseh shalom b'mo'mav, we say, Oseh ha'sh shalom b'mo'mav. We add an extra hey. There's probably a connection there. the extra hay that Yosef got on Rosh Hashanah, right?
He became Yehosef when they took him out of jail on Rosh Hashanah. But the Arizal explains, why do we add the extra hay? Because when you add the extra hay, Hashalom, the Gematria becomes 381. The numerical value of Hashalom is 381. And the angel who is appointed by God as the scribe, Yeah, you have Satan, and you have the Sanagor, the defending angels, and the Satan, and the Katagor, and the prosecuting angels.
And then in every court, you have the person who's sitting and typing very quickly everything that's going on. So who is the person that's typing in heaven very quickly? name of that angel is Safriel, Safriel. And the Gematria of Safriel is 381. So that's why we say Hashalom as one of the meanings for that, is that it's an allusion also to the angel Safriel, and hopefully he'll also write in.
a few good things in there as he's typing or whatever it is that's happening. So that's the connection to that of Safriel and another one of the angels that's playing an important role during Rosh Hashanah. Okay, we'll end with that. May we all have a good inscription in the Book of Life.