Secrets of the Shofar: Wake Up Your Soul This Rosh Hashanah - Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer

Tonight's topic is about the chauffeur. Last year, right after the chauffeur blowing, I asked a man, a very sweet guy, old style. I said, "How's your rush shana?" And he says to me, "Shaar so good." So far so good. The central mitzvah, the focal point, the pivotal mitzvah of Rashashana is chauffeur. The Rambam Rabam says in chauffeur al he says mitzvah's essay. It's a positive commandment from the Torah to chauffeur. one must hear the blowing of the chauffeur. The question is what is the significance of the chauffeur? You think about it seems to be a little archaic. We're not living in an agarian society where we're farmers planting crops. A horn that seems ancient was a contemporary relevance. How can we today relate to the mitzvah of chauffeur jam the cleite the med 269 the med says that chauffeur comes the word you should beautify your ways work on yourself as the villagon says in his ev that the entire point of being a Torah Jew is one purpose to work on your midos character development, personal growth. If you're angry, get rid of your anger. If you're a jealous person, get rid of your jealousy. If you're lustful, get rid of the lust. We are here not to sleep behind the wheel. We are here in service of God. We are here to work on ourselves, to shape our personalities, to mold our souls, to become better individuals. There's another reason. The Rambam invad says that chauffeur is the alarm clock. The chauffeur blast will awaken us from our slumber and stuper from our lethargy. The chauffeur is meant to awaken us, to arouse us, to understand I'm on a mission. I'm godly. I'm not from the 7 billion people on the planet. God gave me a Jewish soul. I'm here to make a difference in this world. I'm here to affect the change. Incidentally, there was a couple, a husband and wife. They were giving each other silent treatment. Something went wrong with the schol. They had problems. And instead of resolving it and approaching a great moradas like Rabbi Kayakov, they just decided to give each other the silent treatment. Truth is, I don't know if Rabi Kai would want to deal with this couple. >> I don't know. I've been ignoring their phone. No, anyhow, they're giving each other the silent treatment. Now, the guy the next morning he has to catch a flight. He's got to be out of the house. by 6:00 a.m. She writes a note because he's not talking to her. He puts a note and it says, "Wake me up at 5:00 a.m." The next morning, he finally gets up. It's 900 a.m. He is infuriated. He's about to scream, even though they're in the silent treatment. And then he finds a note by his pillow. It's 6. It's 5:00 a.m. Wake up. It's like one time I got a uh ticket in the mail and it was a picture of my car and it said I did something wrong. Me. Can you imagine? I did something wrong. There must have been a mistake, right? So I went and I took a picture of a check. I took a camera. I took a picture check and I mailed it back. You send they send me a picture. I'll send them a picture. No shinas. You got to wake up the people from this slumber. The the chauffeur is the alarm clock. But I want to share with you a revolutionary idea. Where does chauffeur come from? Hold on to your seats. You ready for this? We learn out in the of chauffeur that a chauffeur has to come from a kosher animal from either a ram, a goat. It can't come from a cow and it can't come from a traer animal. It has to come from an animal that's horn is hollow. You hear? Hello. Hello. Not hollow. Hollow. Hello. And it has to be a hollow. The horn has to be hollow. It can't have any cartilage. It can't have any inner tissue. This says to Mishnu Bura, a chauffeur has to be kimonoseres. He says, "And this is the source of the word for chauffeur shifer says toadam another great who preceded the mishnub of the of the goat says means something that's hollow." But the question is if a chauffeur is etmology if a chauffeur comes from chauffeures what in the world what is chauffeuris let's start from the itself in exodus in shimos in param [Applause] it says pharaoh the king of Egypt spoke to the midwives the Jewish midwives Hashem is poor. The first midwife's name was Shiffra. Why Shiffra? Shifraul. Shifra is synonymous with Y. So why this other type of nomenclature? Why another type of verbiage to describe who Yed was? Why? And the med says because Shifra was so loving and Shifra was so devoted. She would Michullied [Applause] and tarnished and ridden with blood. She would cleanse the child from the blood and therefore God gives her the name Shiffra because she's Misha Paris. That's says the tour raino yakov that the reason why her name was shifra shavelad noter mace the infant the baby was born the baby was born deades the midwife took she took a tube a hollow tube whom and inserted it into the intestines of the infant whom and she blew into the tube into the chauffeered and infused life the spirit into the Maybe this is chaferis. The chaferis is the tube that was used to bring a dead baby. Now whether the baby was actually dead today, we know that you could resuscitate somebody sometimes just with rhythmic action. Sometimes you need a defibrillator, but the person is clinically dead, but obviously the person is not totally dead, but you're sort of resurrecting the person. It's revivifying the person. It's taking the person from being inanimate sort of to animate. And this is what chauffeur is. Chauffeur is from chauffeuris. The same way Shifra took a baby that was almost lifeless and breathed life into the baby, a chauffeur infuses, imbuss, injects, instills life into a person who's spiritually dead. A spiritual cadabver says that when man was created, man was a cloud of earth, a clump of a conglomeration, an amalgam of minerals, earth. How did the man get life? The Pik says, "God with his very breath breathed a breath into the earth and gave birth to life." Says a ner, the husak, says the dash of that this is why we blow chauffe for rashashana. On rashashana we are creating life itself. The same way God took something lifeless and he created life. You have the ability on rashashana to take a person who has no hope who has no faith who has no meaning who has no direction and you could blow the breath of life into a person. A person is what we call a stick flesh. The person is just meat and bones like a piece of steak. A twolegged animal perhaps. But where is it in the shorus? It's drowning. It's concealed. It's hiding. It's buried. It's buried with hurt. It's concealed with pain. It's shrouded by all the negative images and impure contamination it's seen, but it's waiting. It's waiting for that breath. And just as Shifra went ahead and was able to take that infant and give it life, Hashem gives us life on Russash. Today is the birthday, but it's a birthday not of the world on Russash. Of course, the world was created on the 25th day of El a whole week earlier. But today is the birthday of Adam, of the human being. In the same way, 5,786 years ago, God gave birth to man. Today on Rashashana, you will give birth to yourself and you will give birth to others. And this is our toughkid. This is our objective on rashashana is to breathe life to give people another chance to take a person who's feeling dulled. Some people they went through so much pain emotional torture so much rejection they're not interested in anything. They could barely feel I had a fellow who came to be jacks. He was a selective mute. He stopped talking. He went through trauma. He gave up. We breathed a breath of life into him. We gave him hope, faith, optimism. We caressed him, hugged him. This is a guy that said he would never get married. And today, Bar Hashem, he has a wife and four beautiful children. That's the chauffeur. You take the chauffeur, you blow into what? Into a piece of earth. From an animal. An animal comes from the earth. A horn. You can recharge, re-calibrate, reset, re-engineer. How many blows? The custom is 100. Mayos, why mayus? Why 100 blows? Why 100 blasts? What's the significance? What's the symbolism? What's the deep meaning behind it? And we know the medric says because it was an evil general, a very very evil man whose name was Cisra. And Cisra killed numerous Jews and he was in battle and his mother was waiting for him to come home. I just like Yiddishama. She wasn't Jewish. Where's my little monster? He wasn't so little. It was a big monster. You know, you take like Putin and all the bad guys and put them together and you have a Cisra. Cisra was very, very nefarious. Very, very wicked, very evil. And she was waiting by the window. Cisra, Cisra, where art thou? Where are you? Cisra, Cisra, my baby, my little monster. Where are you? Cisra, where are you? He was a grown man, but a mommy's a mommy. And she waited for him and waited for him and waited for him, and he never came home. And she's crying. 100 cries. Where is Cisra? Says the medish that that's why we blow the chauffeer a hundred times. corresponding to the hund sobs of sister's mommy. I ask you, does that make any sense? That's terrible. It's almost irrational. Think about a Hamas terrorist. The mother's crying from Tamo and we're going to replicate those actions. I don't mean to sound irreverent sacriiggious but how do you explain this says that sister's mother she saw that there's something very special that's supposed to come out of Cisra a holy nishama a precious holy soul, a unique soul. And that's why she was crying because she didn't know if sister would ever have an opportunity to be able to create that soul of the future. Who was that soul? The garetronic says mav shall cisra a descendant of cisra learn tora and who was that descendant of cisra that learned to rush says sim says rabisim goan it was none other than rabiko raba was a soul that was supposed to emanate from Cisra. Cisra's mother had intuition. Sisra's mother had the foresight to know that someone holy and special is supposed to come out of this evil person. And that's why she was crying. Every tear represented the fear that Rabika would never be born. She wasn't waiting for Cisra to come home. She was waiting for Rabaka to be created. Where is Rabaka? And when we hear chauffeur and rashana think about the cries of Hashem, where are my kind? Where are my precious children? Why are they so lost? Why are they so assimilated? When are they ever going to return? Where are those holy souls that are supposed to be born that will never be born if he doesn't marry a Jew? It's the cry of the chauffeur. Where are those souls? Who saved Raika? Do you know that almost languished? Did you know that Raika almost spiritually perished? The dun the stuff tells us that was a waste. He was an amor. It's an ignoramis. He was a boar. A pitiful person amounting to nothing. But every Jew's got something. Every Jew's got that pentilate. Every Jew's got that spark. And all it's waiting for is to be ignited. All it's waiting for is to be set a flame. Comes along Raba's boss's daughter, Rael. And Rael sees something beautiful in Rabbi that no one else saw. And Raul gives up everything. Everything. Her father was the wealthiest man. She was destined to inherit fortunes become like Mrs. Elon Musk. By the way, Musk is in Gahakaurus now. Ellison took him over. Can you imagine? I hope he doesn't jump off the bridge. It reminds me of the guy that Ravn Weinberg used to say this. He said that there was a guy on the Golden Gate Bridge in California who was jumping off. So the cops come and the cops say, "What's the matter? Why are you jumping off? He says, I lost $7 million. So I lost 7. He says, well, how much do you have left in the bank? Only5 million, Rabika's wife, Rahul, she said, I'm not going to let this nishama go. I'm going to take care of this Nishama. I'm gonna kindle this nishama until this nishama is alive. Until this nishama is dynamic, her father disinherits her. She loses everything. She breathes into a breath of life. How do we translate chaferisima? She gives him hope. She has faith in him. He becomes the greatest rabbi. The greatest rabbi to ever live. Second to Mosher Raenu. What Mosha Rabbenu says when Moshu Rabenu sees when he goes up to receive the Torah in heaven after 40 days and 40 nights. Imagine no sushi for 40 days and 40 nights. I don't know how he survived. I don't know. He didn't eat anything. He goes on 40 days, 40 nights. Who does he see there? He sees in the heavens. He sees a rabbi thousands of years later and he says, "God, you need me? You have him?" This is a person that didn't know an olive from a bay, a tough from a ra a kof from a sadic, a lammed from a hey, nothing. Nothing becomes the greatest rabbi to ever live because one person breathed a soul into him. But it goes further because obvious says you can look it up in sid 62 in Oreosen that how did he learn alphabet alphabes. It says that when his child was preschool age he went with his child at 5 years old and they learned together on a tablet. See, by the way, which company invented tablet? Was it Apple? Apple? Huh? So, you think you see it was way before thousands of years ago, they already had a tablet. It wasn't a tablet. We're thinking about it. It was a stone. Tablet was a stone. They're learning on the stone. Olive, B, Gimmel, Donald. Hey, I have a question. Listen to this question. It's an astonishing shocking question. Rael marries Rabika. She puts everything everything at risk. Her whole life at risk because she sees a person that she thinks has a brilliant future. She breathes a soul into him and she waits five years for him to learn olive to send them off to school with her son. You ever think about this question? We've heard the story so many times. How can nobody asked the question? How did you sleep at night without knowing the answer to this? Why should you wait 5 years? This is my question. It bothered me to no end. I become an insomniac from this. Okay. I had to take I had to take all these types of sleeping pills and melatonin. No, I'm just kidding. It bothered me very much until I found the answer. And the mafar, you know what he says? It's going to blow your mind. It wasn't her kid. The 5-year-old wasn't her child. Raba was previously married, had children from a different marriage. This 5-year-old boy was her stepson. You know, this blows my mind. You know why it makes me so inspired and almost cry? Because I realized that not only did Rabel give up every every guy that was a young man that could have been the best best and sadic. It was all predestined. It was all written, right? She married a guy that was a nothing, a nobody. She lost everything. She lost her family. She lost her money, everything. It says that she had to sleep on hay. She had no food, nothing. She even married a guy that was divorced presumably. They had kids. She had to become a stepmother. That's what it means to believe in somebody. You believe in somebody. You're shuffer. You're shifra. Forget about shifa. the God that you bought the apple. This is chauffeur. Chauffeur means take someone who you gave up on, recalibrate, reset, recharge, give them another chance. Think differently, think positively. I want to tell you an amazing story. Has anybody here? All right, I think you're too young, but you never know. Anybody here ever go on the line for the lab? I don't mean he's not alive anymore. Okay, we got that straight. Okay, I apologize if anybody's watching this. Mashia is I apologize, but I have to clear I love the Rebi. No one liked the Rebi, but he ain't he's not here. So, anybody I'm not talking about the oil talking about I'm not talking when he was alive, you were there. Okay. I also I went online. It was hours and hours. Okay. I think I had a sleeping bag end up sleeping in the streets, you know. So, okay. Somebody gave me a dollar, you know. It wasn't the Reb gave me the dollar. It was a passer by thinking I'm a homeless man, you know. I said, "You have some sushi, too? Come on. I'm Jewish. I need some sushi." But anyhow, used to give out dollars. People went online. So, this is a crazy story. who was actually a samuras who was supposedly even a rasha I guess sar lab which should know he's got so long so I guess he had to have like you know protective uh bodyguards with him when he went to see the whatever it was in front of him though he wanted to get a bra from the rebi and in front of him was a hippie this like goes back to 1970s the story and there was a guy who was a hippie for those not familiar with hippies you know they lived a certain lifestyle that wasn't so kosher counterculture and he had you know all the markings he had tattoos and piercing He had a lot of interesting things on him, very colorful. And the Rebi was spending time with the hippie. It was Arab Torah and the Rebi was telling him, "You have to come for you have to come and dance with the safet." And the guy's like, "I'm not religious. I don't believe in it. You have to come. You have to come. You have to come." And the Reb is trying to convince him and persuade him and cajol him and prevail upon him. You have to come. You have to come. Reb said, "You're coming." No, you got me. You coming? Finally, the guy leaves and then it's the SR guy's turn. He says, "You're probably wondering." And of course, the SR guy couldn't understand what's Rebi doing was spending so much time with this guy. He doesn't even look Jewish. He's Jewish, but hips, you know. He says, "I want to tell you something from the Reb's ancestor, the Ismos." This mahmosha actually was originally a mnagget against but he was so and so blown away by the lublin he became reb himself and he's the ancestor of all the sabers rebas this is what he says he says that there was a famous famous reb I'm going to speak about right now is very personal to me because he was my great great great great great great great great grandfather his name was Zlatv was lure market if I'm not mistaken I think it's his art site just this week my ancestor very personal for me they say lov when his father who was actually the first one one of the first of the balshv then the balentv ended up deferring to him and said you can't be my rebi I'm sorry said I can't be a rebi you're too holy I have to become your student. And the bash became rebi and his son's rebi the father of the zlik went to shm and went to heaven rashi himself went to raitz the great rashi raenu rashi and he said raitzical what does your son do that's so special in shmayim here there's a huge commotion. Every time your son is mentioned, there's like a whole whole symphony, a whole concert. Everybody erupts in applause. What is so special about Ramikl's of your son that he creates such a rash, such a tumult, such a commotion, such a euphoria in Shmayam in the himl in the heavens. says, "Oh, it must be his great Torah learning. He's a tremendous scholar, tremendous." And Rashi says, "No, it can't be that. There are people that surpassed him in that. It must be the fact that he fasts all the time for Chuva." Rashi says, "No, it's not because he fasts. It can't be that. It must be because he distributes so much seducka, so much charity. He goes out tremendous amounts of charity. He says, "No, it can't be that." He says, "So what is it?" Rabbits, I'm asking you, what's so unique and extraordinary about your your son that in Shayim they go crazy? Rabbit says, "Well, maybe it's because they're the Jews that are lost. They're are despondent that everyone gave up on. They're not religious. They don't have closeness to Hashem." And he brings them back. And Rashi said, "That's it. That's it. It's because your son's brings back Jews. He infuses and imbuss and inspires the Jews and brings them back to Hashem. That that's why there's such a commotion in Shayim because there's no greater service in this world than bringing back a lost Jew. And labbu told the that's why I gave so much time to the hippie guy because nothing greater in this world than bringing back one Jew being that chauffeur and blowing the breath the divine breath into another Jew to bring them back. And those that were there said that our toughest night all night passed until the very very end when who walked in and started clutching onto the Torah lovingly embracing the Torah with all the strength. the hippie the immortal words and say God says hey look see I'm giving you a choice in life it's two paths you have free will it's up to you to decide you choose the trajectory of life which route you going to take blessing or curse Some say these words were said right before Russash Shana. God is talking to us. Arab rashana, what are you going to choose? What kind of life are you going to choose? Ask the villagome. And I want to just explain to you who the vigome was. The vigome was an acidic. I know you think I said acidic. I didn't say acidic. He wasn't a kidic by any stretch of the imagination. As a matter of fact, he was opposed for different reasons toism. He was an aesthetic. He was an extreme aesthetic. He only slept in 24 hours span of time. He slept 2 hours. Don't try this at home. It is dangerous. Not good for your health. He was on a different caliber. Transcendental. He slept two hours. It was segmented into four periods of half an hour rests. He kept his feet in ice cold water in order to stay awake. By the time he was 9 years old, he knew Tanakh and Shas and already started learning Kabala. So you say, "Well, the Vagon, I can't relate to him. He doesn't understand the human condition and frailties and infirmities of the human being and all our trials and tribulations and temptations. How's he going to understand 21st century Drew 2025?" Really? asks the villagon if you translate this you know what it means see I am giving to you today blessing and curse two paths to choose should have said I gave you at harinai I gave you a choice you choose why say I'm giving you and why say hayom it's redundant it's superflous it's extraneous you don't have to say hayom today. And why does it say no? I of course it's God talking. We know who you're talking. We know who's talking. Says the vil ngo. God is talking to the person who's mired, who's drowning, who's submerged in sin. the Jew is disconnected in some ways or the Jew is connected and very from but he just can't get his eyes off of certain things or he can't get his lips to stop talking about certain things or his Shabbat his Shabas is not the way his Shabbat should be. Yeah, he doesn't turn on the phone. He doesn't turn the light but he sits there and he reads the newspaper. Hopefully it's not the New York Times. Almost as best as bad as Crescent National CNN, right? >> Crescent National News. And what does he do on Shabas? He sleeps the whole day. That's not Shabas. The says that Shabas is a Shabas. You got to make a Shabas. Yeah. Technically, according to the letter of the law, you fulfill Shabas. You didn't violate and break chabas. Come. Who you kidding? You didn't make chabas. There's so many people that are really just not connected. They're not plugged in. They're keeping up aim. So many people they have no idea how to respect parents. They talk badly about their parents. They're not grateful to their parents. this big big a huge a it says every time a person doesn't it takes as of edom is whatever it is and it gives them a lot a lot of credits and it makes them be able to harm another Jew somewhere we're disconnected I'm giving you no saying who wherever you are whoever you are I'm constantly giving you an opportunity to be better I'm looking away God says I love you no sane constant constant in constant. It's not from the past, it's for today. Hom if you decide to change, it's like a new day. God says I recreate you. You're like a new person. I'm constantly nos say no say no say constantly in the present giving you another opportunity another shot another chance to be better to recreate yourself. H and then you'll say how could I do it? I'm so so removed. I have so many I'm so laid with so much blood stain with so much filth. You know what God says says good mornings that if a person really really wants a person really desires sincerely genuinely with a rot with a will Hashem says I will rescue no I will come and rescue you I'll save you this vagon the man who you thought couldn't relate to you because he never slept because he knew Kabal at 9 years old. He understands who you are. He understands what we're about. He understands me, understands you. And that's Rashashana. Rashana is the opportunity to recreate yourself. Hashem created Adam and now you could create yourself. But more important than creating yourself is also creating others. Being there for others, loving another Jew, uniting unity. There's nothing more important in Hashem's eyes than when Jewish people. We want to correate God and Rashana. That's what it's about. Declaring God, right? The whole thing is about malus. God should reign supreme. Appointing God as your king. says the only way you have a king is Russia. If the Jews are not united and they're splintered because you have then amongst the Persian and Syrian and Lebanese and Bkari and give me some others. Come on, there's a right there's 100 others and and in the Ashkanazm it's even worse and maybe I don't know Eric. That's not what God wants. God wants y when you blow the chauffeer. You know what the chauffeur is about, says Zahar? It's about the farmer taking all the sheep that are fragmented and splintered and alienated from each other and then bringing them together. I want to end with the story. I had a boy that was a mifa 16 years old and he was expelled from yeshiva. When you expel a boy from yeshiva today it's pikesh it's we call a death sentence. Okay you're basically relegating that boy to the streets unless you ensure immediately that the boy has another yeshiva to go to. God forbid a million times. What's gonna happen? I don't want to think about it, but I know it because I've seen it too often. So, I called I found out about this boy and yeah, the boy was he was disobedient. He wasn't subservient. He had too much color. I don't mean physical color. I mean, you know, but he was a precious boy. I saw him. I saw godless. I saw greatness. I called the man, the principal. Nothing doing. I called the rush Yeshiva. Nothing doing. They don't want to keep him. You know how hard it is to get him to another yeshiva if they find out he was expelled? It's almost a mission impossible. I tried every which way. I lost sleep over this. I was growing more white hair over this. And I finally said, "Listen, I tried." I said, "Really? I tried. Did I try hard enough? Did I blow a breath of life into him? I'm not giving up on him like everybody else did. Where's my shifer? Where's my chauffeur?" And I said to him, and God gave me an insight, an idea. And I made one more phone call. And that phone call changed history because that person I called was able to help. Yeshiva was beginning in five days. And that boy had a yeshiva to go. Great. Yeshiva to go to this story happened a few years ago this past summer. This boy came to me and showed me his machis his notebook with his own kidushim on shas what would have happened I dread to think if I didn't make that phone call if I went to try one more time to blow life into a piece of Earth. You can all do it. I guarantee you. Think about people in your life you've given up on or that you're not connected enough to or you think lowly of. Give them life. Blow that chauffeer. Thank you for listening. Wish you all. Thank you. Thank you. [Applause]