The Ten Wonders of Repentance

0:00The high holiday season is upon us. The season of repentance is upon us. The ten days of repentance are upon us. This is the high point, the pinotal, the acme, the apotheosis of the year. These are phenomenal days. Stryptor tells us, seek out God when He can be found. There are times where God can be found. Inplied, there are times where God can less easily be found. When is the time when God can be found when He is accessible, when He is closed to us? Says the Talmud, these are the ten days beginning with Rosh Hashanah and culminating with Yom Kippur. These are known as the ten days of repentance. We are advised, we are urged, we are coached and adored to seek out God, to pursue Him when

1:05He can be found. Now He is close. The rest of the year, of course, God is close to all those who call out Him with sincerity, but God is less close for the rest of the year. And therefore, we are being urged to make something of this time. These are days when we have the ability to transform ourselves and elevate ourselves in ways that we cannot the rest of the year. The ten days begin with the day of judgment. Rosh Hashanah. We blow the shofar, we pray, we carinate God and we are judged. And it culminates with Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, the day of mercy. And the one continuous theme is repentance. And that is what I want to talk about today.

2:06I want to present different angles of repentance that will make the subject more approachable, more interesting and hopefully position us to have a more productive ten days of repentance, to have a more productive period when we can exploit and utilize and maximize the opportunity of God being close. The Talmatazas in the book of Psaachem on page 54a. There are seven themes that were created before the world was created. And they are number one, Torah, number two, repentance, number three, paradise, number four, purgatory. The throne of glory, the holy temple, the name of Messiah. It's an unusual list of seven things that preceded the world.

3:07And the commentaries tell us that the reason why these things must be created before the world is created and cannot be created subsequently is because these things are so wondrous, so supernatural, so out of this world that had the world be created, it would have been impossible to create these things. They so thoroughly violate the rules of the world. But once the strictures of the world are in place, it would be impossible to create these seven things. And of course, in this list is Chuvah, is repentance. If the world was created and then God wanted to create repentance that Talmatazas, it would have been impossible. It's so unique. It's so special. And so supernatural and wondrous had the world been created.

4:09It would have been too late. And they forgot to want the repentance to exist. He had to create it before he created the world. A lot of people feel uncomfortable when the subject of repentance is raised because of course the subject of repentance. That's all about the fact that we're not living up to what we could be living up to. And maybe we've made mistakes and maybe we've made poor choices and maybe we have to change and that's frightening because we kind of like ourselves the way we are. Changes intimidating, it's daunting, it's painful, it's difficult. We are who we are now you are proposing that we change. That sounds like it's painful. I have some friends who told me like wake me up when repentance ends. I remember once it was at the very end of Yom Kippur at the high point of the whole

5:10year, Nila, the final prayer of the year, the final prayer of Yom Kippur, the absolute peak. And it's finally over. And someone sitting next to me in shul says, thank God I won't have to do that for another year. That was painful. I think that many of us perhaps have that attitude. I remember as a kid like the prayer butcher so sick and we're only up to page 72. We got to get to page 912. Calculating how many pages we have left. We're praying the whole day. It's interminable. But when you realize what we're trying to do or we're trying to accomplish what opportunities are availed to us, how wondrous this creation of repentance is. It may change our attitude. The classic work on repentance, Shaare Chuva, the gates of repentance, authored by the great

6:15Rabaynayona. It begins with this classic line of the great gifts that God gave His creations. One of the great gifts, God gave us so many gifts, one of the great gifts is that God prepared a path for them to ascend from the lowliness of their deeds, for them to escape the snare of their misdeeds, for them to spare their soul from destruction, for them to remove from upon themselves God's wrath. Repentance is one of the greatest, biggest, most wondrous gifts that God gave us. And today I want to focus on the different elements of repentance that make it so unique, so supernatural, so unexpected, so wondrous. A few years ago I made a list.

7:16Let's try to see the different ways that repentance is wondrous. We know we have the seven wonders of the ancient world. I'll find seven. So I found seven wonders of repentance. And the following year I said, you know what the fun enough, let's try to do eight, you know like the eighth wonder. We discovered it. Machu Picchu, the eighth wonder. And then I added a nice. And now for the first time we're going to have the ten wonders of repentance. There are ten aspects of repentance that are so unusual, so wonderful, so novel, so unexpected, and all stood in our favor that if we study them and we understand what our great gifts we have, hopefully it'll make our ten days of repentance more effective. We'll buy into the program and we'll have a more productive season of repentance.

8:17So let's begin to ten wonders of repentance, wonder number one. When someone blunders, someone makes a mistake, someone does something unwise or illegal. And there are some catastrophic consequences. They have to pay. They have to make amends. They have to pay their price to society. We have a system, a penal code, rehabilitation. All societies have an understanding, when someone doesn't be wronged, they are required to pay back to society as it were, to be punished for what they did. The concept of repentance doesn't really exist in our penal code. Yes, I committed that crime, but I really feel bad about it.

9:19Judge, I feel regret it. Of course you regret it. You're going to sit in the slumber now. I regret, I'll never do it again. Of course you won't do it again, maybe you will, because after all that's what you learn in prison. It had to be a better criminal. The rates of recidivism are through the roof. I regret, I'll embark on a new path. Those arguments don't carry any weight in our system, because you did a crime and there's no way to undo that crime. You got to pay for it. Have this repentance work. The Ramam tells us repentance, it cleanses all transgressions. A person could be a sin of their entire life and in the last day of their life, they repent. They go to heaven and they face the tribunal and the tribunal is the complete account and

10:22the complete reckoning of everything that they did. Where are all those sins, where are all those misdeeds, where are all those crimes? They are not mentioned at all. There's something very unique about the concept of repentance. A person doesn't be wronged. That's a serious thing. A lot of us feel like the law of the land that really matters. The law of God is kind of squishy, flexible. People will never run a red light. Oh no, that's the law. But when it comes to the law of God, there's a little bit more than we understand. The complete opposite is true. There's more squishiness in the law of men than the law of God. Whoever says God just foregoes misdeeds is a fool.

11:26The Thamathel is us. Every deed that a person does, they create an angel. It's real. And there's a blemish to their soul that's real. That cannot be parahuished. Absent repentance. Once you realize the gravity of a misdeed against God, it's astonishing. It's wondrous that that could be undone. There's an angel with more power than a nuclear bomb. And that was spawned by your deed against your creator. And now you go through a process, you do something, you regret it, and you commit to never do it again, and you embark on a new path, and you confess before God. And magically it's gone. Completely. There's no stars, there's no baggage, and there's no history. It's over.

12:27The concept of repentance is so astonishing. And the way it works, what's the mechanism? This is fascinated. A person can change. You really change. And I'm saying this to tell us that when a person repents, part of the repentance process should be for them to change their name. As if to say, I am not the same person that did those misdeeds, those crimes. Repentance allows a person to shed their previous identity. And to say yes, there was someone, I don't know who I was, but there was someone who did that crime. It was me looking at a different person. And that actually works. You are a different person. And therefore you cannot be tried or held accountable for the misdeeds of another. It's an amazing insight.

13:29We have you on tape, your fingerprints all over it. There's an abundance of evidence. Yes, it was a different person. My doppelganger. A twin, it's not me, I'm a different person. It's amazing. God allows us to change who we are. And that's why we're not accountable for those deeds of another person, which is why incidentally, the person says, you know what? I'll sin. And then I'll repent. I'll repent and you'll keep her off, take it really seriously. Their repentance won't work because they're not a different person. Some people are saying, I'll sin and I'll repent. That's the same person. It's the same person. The mechanism of repentance doesn't work. A sin is serious. It's rebellion. It's mutiny against God. Yet repentance says, oh no, no, it was a case of mistaken identity. I'm a different person. Repentance indeed is quite wondrous.

14:31We may think that you know what? For someone who made a mistake and we're not perfect, we're not angels, we're flawed, we're fallible. You make a mistake and God in His benevolence allows you to undo that. But if someone's like a really terrible person, like a really, really monstrous person, then this magic doesn't work. Every people say, I'm beyond repentance. That is not true. No one is beyond repentance. Wonder number two, repentance can cleanse everyone, everything. We'll quote the Ramam earlier. A person could be a sin of their entire life and they repent on the day that they die.

15:34All of their sins are forgiven. It's a common trope, if you will, in the literature to find the word, elol, hinted, elol's the month before the high holidays. And in many places we find this word hinted. One of the places where the word elol is hinted is in the beginning of parasha's bow, I think it's chapter 12 of Exodus. The first verse, God says to Moshe, bow el paro, go to paro. Why? Because I have made heavy. S, libo, the S, lave, his heart and the heart of his servants. And the first letter of those four words, S, libo, the S, lave, spell out the word elol. Elol's all about repentance.

16:35And where's it hinted to in the Torah? In the genocidal pharaoh. Tell us even pharaoh, if he were to repent, it would work. He tells me, gives us an outrageous story about one of the worst villains of our history. Menace, King of Judah, son of the righteous, Chiskiyah, Hezekiah. He ruled for fifty-five years. And he was a monster. The crimes they committed are unimaginable, including by the way, sacrificing his own son to the idols. He was one of the worst. And the tomotras make a list of the worst Jews in history. Menace is on the top of the list. King Menace. He did idolatry. He promulgated idolatry. And it's a long story. But he was taken captive and he was being tortured.

17:37And he started praying to his idols. And of course, the idols were not there for him. And then he had this faint memory of his father, his righteous pious father telling him, a verse in scripture, when you're in pain, where you're suffering, call out to God Almighty, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. So he did. And say to us that the angels tried to stifle this prayer. They tried to plug up all the portals. So that way, Menace is praying. Should not be able to ascend to God. And God said, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm going to make a special portal as it were. God dug a hole, a special, a special portal bypassing all the blockages of the angels. But Menace can repent.

18:39If Menace can be restored, we can also be restored. Pharaoh, Menace, Nevus Rodin, who's Nevus Rodin? Nevus Rodin was the general who destroyed the temple, first temple. He worked for Nevuhad Nezah, Nebukhanezah. And his body count was Gorganshin, according to our sources and secular sources, other sources, a million people he killed. And he repented. And he converted and he was accepted. Repented to self is quite wondrous. And it's just even more wondrous. When someone says, oh, I'm being repentance, they have to ask him, did you kill more than

19:40a million people, innocent people? Were you a genocidal maniac like Pharaoh? Did you worship all the idols in the world that sacrifice your own son to the idols like Menace? Oh, no, you're still capable of repentance, so long as you are alive, so long as the flicker of your soul still burns. You can repent entirely. All your misdeeds, all of your baggage, all of it can be cleansed. One number three, when you read about the instructions of repentance, there's a lot of details, four main parts. The first thing you have to do is you have to stop the behavior that's inappropriate. You have to regret that behavior. You have to embark on a new path, committing never to do it again.

20:43And you have to confess before God, four parts. Now, if you open up the aforementioned book, Shari Chuvha, gives us more details. Everyone have an even more perfect repentance. There are twenty different elements in addition to these four that you should do. And to us, we want to quit in the easy, the idiots died for dummies. It sounds cumbersome. Even though it's not four steps, my goodness, how hard is that? It's like an easier-than-assembling and a piece of furniture. Four steps, that's it. Stop doing it. Regret, doing it. Commit to never do it again, embark on a new path. And confess. It seems pretty easy. But even if someone says, you know what, that sounds like it's too much. There's another wondrous insight.

21:45We have many myths, folks, that are four parts. For example, Titzus, four coroners, four sets of streams, that's your thesis. Tvillain, you have four compartments, four scrolls. Let's see, someone does three. Three coroners, three sets of three and a four, 75% surpassing grade. Three compartments in their fillin'. Three and a four-napped bat. He is fulfilled exactly zero percent of the mitzvah. All or nothing. Repentance is not like that. Whatever a person does, any little bit of stopping their previous behavior, any little bit of regret of their previous behavior, any little bit of embarking on a new path, any little bit of confession of Vydui, in all registers and all yields, partial forgiveness.

22:45If a person only has a fluttering sensation in their heart, they don't even express it. They just feel in their heart that they want to improve. That already registers and that already counts for something. The Thamutara talks about someone who's a wicked person, who says, Behold, I betroth you on the condition that I'm totally righteous. He makes a conditional marriage transaction. Is this transaction good? Is it valid? Says the Thalmud, yes. Because maybe, maybe, maybe, he had a fluttering thought of repentance. And that's enough to transform a totally wicked person into being totally righteous.

23:49Every little bit made it a big impact. The symbol, perhaps, of repentance is the shofar. And the shofar, it's a pipe, but it's got a funny shape. On one side, it's really, really small. On the other side, it's really big. And the way you operate it is that you put something in the small side. You blow into the small opening. And what emits comes out of the large opening. That's symbolic of repentance. You do a little bit. Whatever little bit you do, it manifests. It comes actualized in a much bigger way. It's pretty wondrous indeed. So repentance is wondrous. It works for everyone. And you don't need to do all or nothing. Every little bit has a big impact.

24:50Wonder number four. This is not our first rodeo. This is not our first Russian shana. We've been here before. We've had a Russian shana. We've had a Yom Kippur. We've had this repentance. We've had a flattering thought of repentance in our heart. We've maybe even confessed before God. We've embarked on a new path. And somehow it seems that we just slide back into our previous habits. We have a high point on Yom Kippur, on that most lofty day. And then I'd say we're kind of back to business as usual. And the silly phrase say, you know what? I've tried repentance before. It doesn't work. Yes, at the time you have a high point in your heart of commitment, of devotion, of atonement, you sense, regret, and commitment to a new path, a new you.

25:53And simply you just slide right back. Residivism. So obviously it doesn't work. So I shouldn't even try. That's a terrible mistake. Because when someone repents, the repentance works. And even if they slide back into their previous behavior, that does not invalidate or disqualify their repentance. Residivism does not annul the repentance. Now, I'll explain something very, very subtle. How does this actually work? You repented. You said I'm not going to do it again, but you did it again. You committed to go on a new path, but you slid back to the old path. You were granted a somehow you don't seem to regret it anymore. So how could you tell me this repentance was legit?

26:55Very important point, very subtle point. I would say a point that's not well known. The repentance did work. So long as you were sincere at the time. But what happens? We know that as we grow in our development, something else grows with us. That's the Yaitsahara. So we became greater. And guess what? We got a greater antagonist, a greater foe. We upgraded ourselves. And guess what became upgraded with us? Our evil inclination. So yes, the repentance was complete. But we got a renewed and empowered evil inclination that presented us with a new challenge that was a fitting challenge for us on our new level. It's not me sliding it back into the same behavior. It's not me sliding back into the same pattern into the same ways as before.

27:56It's something brand new. It's a new challenge from a renewed and empowered evil inclination. One to number four, someone repents? The repentance worked. And even if it seems subsequently that they've lapsed back into the previous behavior, that is something completely different. And it does not call into question or delegitimize the repentance. Now repentance may feel like second class citizens. They may feel, you know what? Yes, repentance works and yes, it's pretty wondrous for all these different reasons. But someone who's completely flawless who's been pristine their whole life righteous from beginning to end, from cradle to grave, those are the real superstars.

28:57I'm damaged goods. I have baggage with me. I'm not as lofty and elevated. It actually is just not true. The Talmatelz us, Book of Brakhus, page 34b. I always like to quote the actual page so you could read it yourself. So you know, I'm not making this up. Book of Brakhus, page 34b. This is from the Talmud, the most authoritative source. Makom Shabali Chuvahumdum. In the place where the Bali Chuvah, where their penitence, where they stand, Sadikim Ramurim, completely righteous people, do not stand. The loftiness of a penitent is higher

29:57than the loftiness of someone who is completely flawless who never sent. Now I would try to figure out, well, what does this mean? What does it mean? So I'll tell you what the Hadhramah explains this. Again, give you the quotes. So you know, I'm not pulling wool over your eyes. Rambaam laws of repentance. Chapter 7. Law number 4. Quote, Vali Yudhama Adembal Chuvah, person was about Chuvah penitent. Should not think that he is distant from the lofty level of the righteous because of all the sins and inequities that they have done. Aime Hadavar, Kane, the matter is not so. Rather, Ella Ahu, he is beloved and he is cherished before God as if he never sinned in the world. Moreover, his reward is great because he tasted the taste of sin

31:00and he departed from it and he conquered his inclination and then Rambaam quotes the Talmud. Makam Shaballi Chuvah, Umdim, in the place where the penitent stand, the Saditim Ramuram, the holy righteous, cannot stand. What does I mean? Kilomer, as if to say, Ma'ala San Gidolba, Mima'ala San, Alushlokhatemola, the stature and the distinction of the penitents is higher than that of the perfect righteous ones who have never sinned. It's pretty wondrous. Not only does repentance work and as it claims for all people and it's not all or nothing, someone's penitent, they are catapulted to a level higher than someone who never sinned.

32:01It's one of the reasons why they say on Rosh Hashanah there are three books that are opened, the books of the righteous, the books of the wicked and the books of the inter-betweeners and the righteous their life right away. And the wicked, they get death right away and the inter-betweeners, well, we'll wait and see. If they repent, they get life. If they don't repent, then they get death. And it seems insufficient, just make two books. The books of the righteous and the wicked and then don't put the inter-betweeners into any of the book until they determine their own fate. The commentators tell us, if an in-betweener repents, you cannot put them in the same book as the righteous because they're in a higher level than the righteous. They must be in a class of their own. Someone who repents is close to God, is beloved by God previously before they mended their ways.

33:01They were repulsive before God. They were abominable to God. And today, not they're repented, they're beloved, they're cherished, they're close. They are almost a friend of God. Pretty amazing. Pretty wondrous. So we're up to one or number six. You ready for this? This is pertinent to all of us. Some people are inspired to repent because they really feel bad about what they did. And they really want to do good. That's not people. They just, what's in it for me? I don't want to be punished. I want to be rewarded. Maybe something happened to me in my life that woke me up, that maybe I'm not living up to the way I should be living. And I just have my own self-interest at heart. Fair weather repentance.

34:02God threw me a curveball. And I know it's my intention. So I'll repent not because I care about God or about my soul, because I just want to have an improvement to my life. And I sense that God tried to send me a message. Some are saying that's insincere. It's being done for the wrong reasons. Someone wants a salvation. They want a favorable judgment that they're suffering in one way or another. So they're trying to gain favor. And that's why they repent. Fair weather repentance works. God loves us as a parent loves a child. His right hand as a war is extended to accept the penitence, whether they are sincere, whether they are genuinely seeking to improve or even if they just have their own agenda,

35:02whatever it is, fair weather repentance works. Pretty wondrous. One to number seven. This is so outrageous. You won't believe me. I get off the give of the quotes. I'll have to say where you can find a chapter in verse. Otherwise you will believe me. Talmud, Book of Yoma, on page 86b towards the top. Gdola Chuva. Great is repentance. Shazidonos, Nasus, Ló, Kisruos. Missed deeds, via repentance, get transformed. Intermit those, intermerits. I won't read that like what? Someone does a million sins. Maybe they have a half a million mitzvos,

36:05but they're big time in the red. And they repent. Those million sins are now retroactively reclassified as merits. They got 1.5 million merits. Wait, I look back at the tape and I haven't seen no merits. Yes, that is how great repentance is. Again, I will quote you the page so you know that I'm not making this up. Book of Yoma, page 86b. How great is repentance? It can successfully transform and reclassify misdeeds as mitzvos. Now just for the sake of disclosure, the times is there's different types of repentance. This repentance out of fear of God and repentance out of love of God.

37:08When some repentance out of fear of God, the sin do not turn into mitzvos instead they turn into accidents. When someone does an accident, there was an negligence, could have happened to anyone, they're not held accountable for it. That is what happens to sins when there is repentance out of fear of God. When there's repentance out of love got a higher level of repentance. Then and only then the sins get transformed into mitzvos. There's a higher level of repentance that has such power, it can reclassify the past, those crimes. Crimes against God, the worst type of crimes. Can now magically, wondrously be reclassified as mitzvos. Wonder number eight. This one is very interesting.

38:11Our picture of the world, the picture of the universe, places man in the center. Of all the created beings. Some may argue while man is just a very sophisticated primate, a primate with some brains and technology. But we believe that God created the world for the purposes of man, which is why President Shana is on the anniversary of the creation of Adam. The whole creation is there to serve man. And man's job is to exercise his or her free will in service of God. But we believe that there are enormous ripple effects that castate throughout the created distance with every person's deed.

39:12When someone does a mitzvah, as we mentioned earlier, they spawn an angel. There's an angel. A powerful defending angel that is created via a mitzvah. Someone does a million mitzvah, there's a million angels, legions of angels. And of course, depending on the sincerity and the devotion and the commitment of the mitzvah, that determines how strong, how formidable that angel is. In the flip side, I'm going to admit someone does a sin. That also has cosmic impact because you now spawned a persecuting angel. And in all the spheres and all the realms, in the millions, billions of dimensions of existence, of created existence, man is the presenter. Man is created in the image of God. Everything that man does, ripples throughout created existence.

40:13Even the angels, they cannot praise God until we do. We hold the keys, we hold the levers. So sometimes a mitzvah, that has tremendous implications in all of created existence. God forbid someone does a sin, that creates damage up and down the stack everywhere in the created existence. So you may think that to repent, you have to find the place, the realm, the dimension in which the damage was done. And travel over there to do the rectification. We read a verse, we just read it in the Torah, a set of verses chapter 30 of the Varm.

41:14Mosheh is on the last step, his life is done in the nation. Kiha mitzvah has those, this mitzvah, that I command you today. It's not beyond you. It's not distant. It's not in the heavens. That you may say who's going to send the heaven so we can perform their mitzvah. And I think across the sea, that you may say who will cross the sea and take this mitzvah for us so we can do it. This mitzvah is very close. Be a ficha, ubl, va, vah, vah, aso, so it's in your mouth, it's in your heart to perform it. Now which mitzvah is being addressed? So the Rambantalzah, this is referring to repentance. Repentance, it's not in the heavens. It's not across the sea. It's very, very, very close. Be ficha, it's in your mouth, bil vah, vah, aso, in your heart to perform it. What does it mean that repentance is not in the heavens?

42:19The commentary's tell us. When someone does a sin, they create damage, damage to their soul, damage to their environment. Damage everywhere. You're a human, your endouchment is power, your tree of the image of God, you're like the soul of the universe as it were, of the creator universe. And therefore the damage is everywhere. It's in the heavens, and you may think that you may have to ascend to the heavens to go rectify what you have wronged, but no, the wondrous element of repentance is that standing where you are, and repenting in your heart, that can rectify all of the realms and the dimensions that the damage of the sin had wrought.

43:21And the commentaries give us a very striking episode. There was a thief, a thief who climbed onto the palace to try to go find a way into the palace to make a big heist. And he climbs onto the roof. And he's trying to find a way in to go plunder, but it's all blocked out. There's no access points, there's no vent shafts, nothing, you can't get in. But he risked so much to try to have this heist. He says, you know what I'm gonna grab something, so he sees a big bolt, big nut. He's like, you know what, this is like a lot of metal. I'll unscrew it, and I'll take this home with me. So he unscrews this nut massive. And he finally gets it off the screw, and he hears a big crash shattered.

44:22What he did was, there was a chandelier, very expensive chandelier that was connected on the roof. And he wanted to take away the metal to sell to the, to sell to the strap, to the yard. But what he actually did is he unknowingly, he unscrewed the chandelier and created this tremendous damage. So they rested him. And he argued in court, you know, I got to pay, I did a crime because I stole the little piece of metal. They said, no, you did a much bigger crime because all that crystal and all these prad, the precious chandelier that you destroyed. That's the question. When someone does a sin, they get something very small out of it. But the damage that they cause is much further away, and it's much larger. How much must they pay for? It's not in the heavens. It's not across the sea. All the damage that you did, the fallout of your misdeed,

45:22it's everywhere. You don't have to go there. Beficha, wo bil wafch lasoso, it's in your mouth, it's in your heart, two, performed the smithswa to rectify. And the final two wonders relate to the days, the lofty days, the elevated days. Roshasana, Dave Judgment, Yom Kippur, Day of Atonement. We're all judged on Roshasana. Called Boway Olum, all the people in the world, are judged. And what determines our state? The Babylonian Talmud says, in the book of Roshasana page 16B, a person is only judged based upon their current behavior.

46:28If a person is righteous, then their judges been righteous. What if the person in the future will become wicked? That does not enter the calculus of the judgment. So therefore, when Ishmael was being judged, he was righteous at the time, but in the future he's going to become wicked. It doesn't matter, he's judged as being righteous. That's what the Babylonian Talmud says. If someone is righteous, now, will become wicked in the future, judged as being righteous. But the Jerusalem Talmud says something even more powerful. Just as the future is not taken into account on Roshasana, so too is the past. If someone was wicked, will be wicked.

47:28But his righteous on Roshasana has a brief oasis of piety, of purity, of holiness, of repentance. They were wicked. They will be wicked. But there's a brief sliver in time, at the time of judgment, where they are Zakhviyasha. They are refined and upright. Then they're only judged based upon the way they are on Roshasana. Which is why it's so important to have a good Roshasana, to be ready for this awesome day. And to have a day that's completely flawless, two days of Roshasana that are completely flawless. If you are in a state of repentance on Roshasana, the fact that you have some history in the past, and you will have some history in the future, that will not impact your judgment on Roshasana.

48:30And finally, wonder number 10, the most wondrous day of the year, the most magnificent day of the year. Yom Kipper, the book of Talmud, that addresses this day is called Yoma. Yoma means Vade. Well, which day? There's lots of days. No, no, no. There's only one day. If I say Vade, I obviously am referring to the most awesome day. The day of them all, Yom Kipper. Yom Kipper is a day where a tiny little bit of repentance transforms a person. And I'll explain what I mean by this. Suppose it's a Tuesday in June. Is there the possibility of repentance? Sure. So, as long as you're alive, you can repent.

49:32What if it's a Monday in November? Is there the possibility of repentance? Of course, any day, any time, any moment. It's all open for repentance. But there's one day that we have to repent, and that's Yom Kipper. And Yom Kipper provides a toolment conditional on repentance. So, if someone doesn't repent in Yom Kipper, they don't have any of the toolsment of Yom Kipper. So, here's the question. If you repent on a Tuesday in November or a Monday in June or any day of the year, does repentance work? Yeah, it works. So, what is special about Yom Kipper? If you're in Kipper, any how you need to repent, why is this day different? Here's the powerful insight.

50:32Suppose a person has a thousand misdeeds. How many repentancees must they do? Or a thousand areas where they need to improve? They need to have a thousand different episodes of repentance. Because you've got to repent for this and for that and for that and for that. And each one of this is the only thing I feel bad about this. I regret it. I'm going to embark on a new path. I'm going to confess every area that needs improvement needs repentance. On Yom Kipper. Yom Kipper itself provides a toolment on this they got promises. He will forgive us. He will purify us from all of our sins. Lift nay, Hashem, Titar, but when you are close to God, you shall become pure. It's conditional on repentance. But unlike the rest of the year, you've got to do a piecemeal one at a time.

51:33Got to repent for this and for that and for that and for that all separately. When someone enters Yom Kipper as a penitent, when someone is returning to God on Yom Kipper, the alchemy of Yom Kipper is that it is able to spread repentance on every part of their persona because Yom Kipper itself provides a toolment for penitents. If you are a penitent, if you are a returner, you're returning. You don't need to repent in every area and every dimension. You are returning as best as you can. And the magic and the majesty and the wonder of Yom Kipper will provide a toolment for the entirety of the person. We have ten days of repentance. These are special days. These are days when God is close to us.

52:33His right hand as a word is extended to us. This is the time to make the most of this incredible gift, a gift that preceded the world. One of the great gifts that God gave us is a path out of our trap, our mistakes, our condemned self. We can get out of it. We can repent. We make a small step. God will amplify that step. We're righteous on Russia-Shana. That is what we're judged on. We are a penitent, Yom Kipper. We receive a toolment. And the toolment is irreversible. It cleanses us as if there never was a misdeed and no matter how far person may be. No matter how distant they may be from God, repentance is for all.

53:37May we all have a successful ten days of repentance? May we be judged favorably on Russia-Shana? May we all be inscribed and sealed in the book of life? May we have a productive Yom Kipper? May we be elevated during these most elevated days. My Mojus is rabbi. Walbiachima.com. I look forward and I anticipate and yearn and await for your questions, your comments and your feedback.