 Hey, welcome back to Community Matters. I'm here with Rabbi Ichel Kresenchansky. He's the Rabbi of Chabad of Hawaii, and we'd love to have him down. Talk about religious things and holidays and festivals and celebrations, and all about the Jewish people in Hawaii and elsewhere. It's an education every time, Rabbi. Thank you so much for coming down. Jay, thank you for being here. It's always a pleasure. Well, the big deal now is we're in September. We're proceeding rapidly with the lacrity, I would say, to the high holidays. And we talked about that last time a couple of weeks ago, and we couldn't possibly have finished it because, yeah, why don't you clip that back on? And we talked about it last time, and I want to talk about it some more, drill down maybe a little bit on how we celebrate it. I remember my own experience at Regal Park Jewish Center in the 50s. I was bombarded in 1955. In the 50s, and let me tell you, everybody in the community was there. The place was just teeming with people. They were falling out the doors. They spent the whole day, spent two days on Rosh Hashanah, hanging around the temple, and just, you know, and dovening and dovenant means praying, dovening and dovening all day long. It was for sure the most well-attended services in the whole year. Is this the same everywhere? Well, it depends. You know, you do have what they call three-day-a-year Jews, Rosh Hashanah, two days Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, those Jews who make sure to show up and show for the high holy days. You have Jews who are Shabbos Jews. They show up every Saturday at synagogue. And then you have everyday Jews who come to synagogue every day to pray. But it's interesting that in Judaism, the synagogue is not the central focal point of Jewish life. The home is. And it's something very, very interesting on the more philosophical note. That is that in Hebrew, there is no word, genuine Hebrew, for religion. Let's take a short break. We've got a technical break we should take. Rabbi, we'll be right back. You'll see. A really short one, OK? Hi, I'm Rusty Kamori, host of Beyond the Lines. I was the head coach for the Punahuboy's varsity tennis team for 22 years. And we're fortunate to win 22 consecutive state championship. This show is based on my book, which is also titled Beyond the Lines. And it's about leadership, creating a superior culture of excellence, achieving and sustaining success, and finding greatness. If you're a student, parent, sports or business person, and want to improve your life and the lives of people around you, tune in and join me on Mondays at 11 AM as we go Beyond the Lines on Think Kauai. Aloha. OK, problem solved. Rabbi Itchell Kresenjanski, talking about the high holidays today, more in the high holidays. We started already last time. And you were saying that there was no word in Hebrew or the word religion in English. What's that about? Because the whole concept of religion is actually very alien to Jewish thinking. Religion and religious is the Latin words that come from Latin. And they represent the idea that at certain times and in certain places, you step out of your life and you encounter God in whatever form. In Judaism, we serve God 24-7. Everything that we do, whether it's praying, whether it's eating, sleeping, engaging in work, is also connected our relationship with God. So are you telling me that I don't have to go to temple? That I can be connected to God? I can have a relationship, a one-on-one relationship, a beautiful relationship, a nourishing relationship, a sustaining relationship without going to temple? The answer is yes and no. It would be equivalent of someone saying I'm a diehard Republican but never shows up to Republican events. There's a lot of them like that. One's personal relationship with God is independent of going to synagogue or irrespective of going to synagogue or not. But it is part of the Jewish way when you pray, pray with other co-religionists, with other Jewish people. There are certain prayers that can only be said in the Minion, which is a quorum on men. For that reason, we go to shul. But we go to shul primarily to talk to God through prayer. But we communicate with God every moment of our waking lives and even when we sleep. And that's the, so in the Jewish idea, Judaism is a way of life. It's not a religion, something which is part of your life. It's not compartmentalized for Saturday or times like that. It's this unique relationship that we cultivate with Hashem, with God, something that manifests itself in everything that we do. That's very helpful, actually. Because sometimes people, they don't go to the temple. For who knows what reason? It could be any distance. It could be they don't like the rabbi. They don't like some of the parishioners. They'd rather not be involved in whatever politics there are in the temple. They don't want to be asked for money. Who knows what? And I think it's really interesting to look at it that way. The first order of business is your personal relationship with God. But I want to go into the nature of the service on Rosh Hashanah, especially. Because I remember there were some really very devoted prayer people who would pray the whole day long. They would go through the prayer book from cover to cover. They would read everything. And they would read it loud, some of them. And they were very good at reading Hebrew. I could read the Hebrew, rabbi. I didn't know most of what it was saying. And I'm sure I was in the majority. Because the Hebrew was the liturgy. You like hearing it. It has great liturgical music to it. You don't mind repeating it, but it's my memory or by association with the Hebrew characters. It is not by meaning. According to Jewish law, if a person's first language is not Hebrew, or if you don't understand Hebrew, it's more appropriate to pray in the language you understand rather than the Hebrew. The only one prayer that rabbi get to say in Hebrew is the Shema Yisrael. Here, Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one. My Yisrael, Hashem alakina, Hashem al-kad, which is on the tip of every Jewish. Why is that so important? Yes, of course, that's in every temple, every serious meeting of Jews. Why is that so important? Because that declares not only our faith in God, but also the nature of our faith in God. And that is when we say God is one, we don't just mean that there are no other gods. We express our fidelity just to one God. But when we say God is one, we mean that all is God. God is unifying being for every person and everything in creation. We're all part of this harmonious, unifying reality. And that's one of the cornerstones of Jewish faith. Well, isn't it historically, I mean, leaving Egypt and all that, it was an issue with Moses, wasn't it? Are we going to have many gods here? Are we going to worship idols? Or are we going to worship the one God, which is who is not an idol? And so when you say God is one, you're saying, forget the idols. Let's just talk about God as we now know God. That is, it's the Jews now know God. It's a person, it's a being up there somewhere. Is it saying that? Yes. And today, worshiping idols is almost non-existent, maybe in some cultures, but in the West. Worshiping idols is a thing of the past. But there was a time when there was this thing when people would worship the sun, worship the moon, the stars, the water, different gods. And Judaism, beginning with Abraham, the first Jew, who introduced this idea of monotheism, meaning the belief in one and only one God. But the truth is, as the rabbis point out, that in every generation, the form of idol worship changes. So today, you may have people who worship money. That's their God, meaning that they profess their allegiance and pursue that exclusively. And it's interesting, one of the big, big sins that the Jewish people committed when Moses led them out of Egypt was in a very short order, they sinned the golden calf. Moses went on to the mountain. The Torah tells us it didn't come down on the 40th day, as he told him he would. Because they mistakenly counted the days. And so they immediately turned to his brother Aaron, and they said, we need a God that will guide us. And they created this golden calf. And this is the sin of the golden calf, which actually, Anyom Kippur, which is 10 days after the high holy days of Rosh Hashanah, Anyom Kippur is a day of atonement. That's when God forgave the Jewish people for this sin. So we look at that story and we say, oh my, how they messed up so terribly. How can they worship a golden calf? But as someone once pointed out, we're actually, we are very, very, very far off from even the level that they were at, because they were ready and actually hearted with their gold to find a God to lead them. Today, people in a heartbeat would heart with God to find the gold. So who's more lost? Absolutely. Well, this is very interesting. I also, you know, so here we are. And we have a temple full of people just all the chandeliers just spilling out into the street every Rosh Hashanah. There were steps on Regal Park Jewish Center. By the way, I went back on Google Earth to look at it. I should have brought a picture in for you. It's still there. And it still has these steps and a wonderful, big design in front of it. It's a beautiful temple built today. And people would sit on the steps. The kids would sit on the steps. And all the men would be having conversations. And the women would be in the back because they weren't supposed to be with the men. And so then they would rotate. After a while, they'd say, oh, I got to go back in now. I'm going to go back in and pray. So what are they praying? What are they praying all day long for two days like that? What is the substance of the prayer, whether it be in Hebrew or some of the language? OK, good question. And basically, Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, is, as we mentioned last week, called the Yom Hadin, the Day of Judgment. We're taught that on this day, which is the anniversary of the birth of man, Adam was created the last day of creation on the sixth day. And every year since, on the sixth day following creation, is Rosh Hashanah, is the Jewish New Year. So the Jewish New Year is set on the birthday of man rather than the birthday of the world. And it is a day of judgment where God examines our deeds and our good deeds, also our shortcomings. And we are judged for them. And implicit in this teaching is the idea that we matter to God. That what we do does, in fact, matter. Not only to our own personal macro world and small world, but actually also cosmically, every action we do matters to God and also has a bearing on the standing of the world. So we own up to our actions. And those things that need to be corrected, Rosh Hashanah and the 10 days of repentance that follow, is the time of the year when that's done. So we're talking about that. I mean, if I looked at the prayer book and I translated it to English, I mean, of course, there's a lot of routine prayers. No prayer is routine. But there are prayers that you repeat every Saturday, prayers that you repeat every holiday. But there are some prayers that are specific to the new year. And what I get from what you say is that those prayers that are specific to the new year are prayers of examination, prayers of reminding ourselves that it's all on the record. Everything we do is being observed and judged. And we can't just tell ourselves from the reality. But at the same time, it's important to remember that while it's on the record, we still have the ability to change the record, to rewrite the record. And that's what the idea of the 10 days of repentance. That's the second part. That's the idea of the 10 days of repentance. So now there's a thing, and this happens every Saturday, too, called the Silent Amida, which is the silent prayer. And I'm recalling now that in the silent prayer, you have a prayer to read, but you read it to yourself. And so the temple, the congregation, is silent, not a sound. And everybody's reading this, and some people are able to read through it very quickly, not me, but some people can, it's in Hebrew. Some people can read through it quickly, other people, and they have time left over before the service resumes. Other people, they never finish. The service resumes before they finish. But I'm wondering what it is, the silent amida. Are we supposed to be reading this and thinking about what we're reading? Or are we supposed to be thinking to ourselves, communing, as you were describing before, with God? Yeah, very good question. In the Torah, the Bible, there's a story of Jacob, our forefather, Jacob, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, a third of the three patriarchs. Jacob is running away from his brother, Esau. Esau wants to kill him. And as he's running away from his father's house, he goes to sleep at night, and he has a dream. And then the dream is a ladder that's planted on the ground, and it reaches to the heavens. And he saw angels going up and coming down the ladder, the dream of Jacob's ladder. And the dream is a metaphor. And the metaphor of the ladder is metaphor for prayer, as our sages explain us. And the idea is the goal of prayer is to lift man up from the ground up so that he can commune with God, and he can reach the heavens. And there are rungs on the ladder, and there are rungs in the prayers. So the earlier part of the prayers is basically like a warm-up, warm us up to the most important moment, which is to stand before God and silently talk to God. And that's why it's called a silent prayer. What do you say? I'm sorry? What do you say? Oh, in that prayer, there are, for every day, the silent prayer is different. Every day there are, first, we acknowledge God's presence, and we give thanks to God for all the blessings that he provides for us. And then there's also prayers in there that we turn to God and ask for the things that we need, health and prosperity and... But it's whatever you want. There isn't a... You could pray for a new Rolex, too, couldn't you? There is a place in the prayer where you could inject your own personal prayers. I think... You want your family to be healthy? You want your business to succeed? You want to make friends with somebody maybe you're not so friendly with? You want to achieve something so you ask to achieve it? But on Rosh Hashanah, the silent prayer is tailored to the day and the significance of the day. One of the main themes of the prayer on Rosh Hashanah, besides for it being the day of judgment, is the story in the Torah where God tests Abraham, Abraham being the first Jew, the first of the patriarchs, and he tests them 10 different times throughout his life. And what Judaism teaches us that when God tests us, challenges us, it's not many people mistakenly feel and they're being tested by God. That is some form of a rejection that God is rejecting them and therefore they're going through the difficulty or the crisis what it may be. But the Torah teaches us on the contrary that it's an expression of God's love for us and the testing us is really the means to bring out our inner strength. One of the tests, the final test that God puts Abraham through is where he calls on him to take his only son, Isaac, and to bring him up as a sacrifice onto the mountain for God. And the Torah tells us, as we all know, that Abraham willingly was ready to bring up his son Isaac as a sacrifice and Isaac willingly went along. And then just a moment before he was about to slaughter his son, an angel came down from heaven and said to Abraham, don't kill your son because this is all a test and God now knows how God fearing you are. It says that Abraham lifted up his eyes and he saw a ram and the horn of the ram was stuck in the thicket of the woods there. So Abraham realized that this ram was to be sacrificed in place of Isaac and that's what he did. And therefore the main ritual that we do on Rosh Hashanah is we blow the shofar, we blow the horn, the ram's horn. The ram's horn. And so we recall this event and we recall most importantly Abraham and Isaac's willingness to surrender to God and to... Oh, how interesting, yeah. And there were certain sounds that you blow on the ram's horn and are them to keya, to ruwa. I remember those sounds. What do those sounds mean? So, keya is like a long winded sound and to ruwa and shawarma, the broken sounds. And as the sages explained, because idea of the shofar is idea of repentance. We're crying out to God. That's why the shofar is not a sophisticated musical instruments, a very simple instrument because when we come to God, we don't come to him. We don't hide behind any sophistication. We come as a child that comes to their parents and we ask God to provide, to embrace us and to bless us. And the sounds, our sounds of crying is a child crying before God, before their parents. Isaac crying, perhaps. Or all of us. All of us. That's the idea of the shofar blowing on Rosh Hashanah. Yeah, and that's a really important part of the service. That is the theme, the main theme of the service. And the shofar blowing, as it's explained, not only is blown because, commemorate the story of Isaac and the sacrifice, but it's also, in days of old, when they would crown a king, they would blow the trumpet. That was a, that was heralded, the king is now sovereign. And on Rosh Hashanah, we, so to speak, we crown God as king of the world. We re-acknowledge and re-affirm our understanding that God is king of the world. What is a king? A king, today we don't have in our government structure kings, there are no more kings. In the countries that have kings, there's ceremonial name only, but there was a time in world history where there were kings. And kings had absolute authority. They didn't have to go to Congress, they didn't have to get the vote. Whatever the king decreed, it is what happened. Oh, for the good old days. And so we recognize God as king of the world and the blowing of the shofar heralds that recognition. And when we say God is king of the world, it's easy to acknowledge that if we're only thinking about the big, wide world out there, that's more important, as the sages point out, to contemplate and to meditate on God as the king in your world, your own personal life, in your own personal world. So I guess the Rosh Hashanah will start later this month on the sundown before the day of Rosh Hashanah. And then it will end on the sundown two days later, about a 48 hour period. And in there, there's no fasting, as there is later on Yom Kippur 10 days later. But in fact, there's celebration with food. So both of those, in fact, all three of those nights are a feast of one kind or another. Correct, correct. And we greet each other and we say that maybe we all be written and inscribed in the book of life, as the sages tell us that God and His heavenly throne. And we all, one of the prayers, one of the most beautiful prayers on Rosh Hashanah is, describes how every single being passes before God on this very day. And it is decreed whether this person will live or die when this person will be healthy or not. Everything about our life that we think is in our hands, we recognize that it's not in our hands. We're all in God's hands. We're looking forward into the new year. Exactly. And we want to be inscribed in the book of life because that means we'll be alive in the new year. We'll make it to the next Rosh Hashanah, yes. And the book of life is just, it's a notion of living for the next year. What is the prayer? Can you give me the Hebrew in that prayer? Sure. And it's a fascinating story. The prayer, and he was called Onesana Taykif Dushasayem, and which means let us declare the awesomeness of this day. And it says, Rosh Hashanah Yikosevan, on Rosh Hashanah it is written, We Yom Kippur Yikoseiman, and on Yom Kippur it is sealed. Who will live and who will die? How many will be born and how many will pass on? All of the things in those prayers. And as we end there that, like a shepherd who counts a sheep, same way God has everyone passes, we pass through God. And the very final line is, however, Shuva, which is repentance, Fila is prayer, Utsudaka and Charity, Mavirin Esroya Akzeta have the power to annul any decree. So ultimately it's in our hand because when we turn to God in genuine resolution to do good and to be better, then that repentance and that cleanses our slate, so to speak. Well, it seems to me that if you know this as a Jewish person or a member of a Jewish family, if you know this, you will go down to temple on Rosh Hashanah because you need that and you need to be inscribed in the Book of Life. And yeah, I suppose you could be inscribed in the Book of Life if you didn't go, but it's probably a smarter idea to go down there and try to see into the future and maybe it'll help your odds on being inscribed in the Book of Life. And what's most interesting is that even though like you say it's a celebration, it's a holiday, it has very serious elements to it and that's the way Jewish people celebrate the new year. It's not just fun and games and party, but it is first and foremost a very holy day. Very important and you know, we have to keep this tradition up, don't we? We have to make sure the generations to follow, know about Rosh Hashanah, celebrate Rosh Hashanah, commune with God, commune with their lives and the future and the Book of Life. So interesting to hear about this. Thank you so much. One last thing before we conclude is that it's customary on Rosh Hashanah, everything we eat, we dip into honey. Oh yeah. And there's even lekach, which is honey cake, which is traditional to be eaten on Rosh Hashanah. And then we even say a prayer, may this year be a year of sweetness. Sweetness. A sweet year, good year and a sweet year. And it wouldn't hurt to have a little bit of slivovitz alongside slivovitz as a Polish kind of vodka kind of thing. Wow! Thank you, Rabbi. It's great to see you again. Always a pleasure, always a pleasure. And a happy new year. Happy new year, thank you. And everyone was invited to come join us at Chabad for Rosh Hashanah. Thank you so much. Maybe we can do one more time before Rosh Hashanah. Yeah. Because Rosh Hashanah is in, is two and a half weeks. Maybe in luck, maybe. Okay, we'll have another, we'll have another talk. We'll include young people. Exactly. Thank you so much, Rabbi. Yeah, yeah, yeah.