Lets look at the subject of the work of this time of year between Rosh Hashana and Yom Koppur about what is happening and what is the attitude or approach that is required now.

The mitzvah is teshuva, self correction, repentance and we have looked at the practtical, technical details of that mitzvah of how you correct mistakes of the past, and the mistakes made between the individual of G-d and Hashem and interpersonal relationships, the dmagae and harm that one has done to other people - we review the laws that are required, on Rosh Hashana we dont do teshuva - we are relating to that thats beyond us - we dont do the mitzvah of correcting ourselves to the details of what we have done - these 10 days are what we do - yom kippur we 10 times go through the confession - its very heavy and an extremly joyous time - an opportunity to release or cleaned or atoned and thats an occasion for great joy and also a heavy time - big responsibillity.

Lets look at one of the ideas that has practical application that is going around the conciousness of these days - its a complex subject - touching on many areas - lets see how far we can get! Theres no time in the year that takes us deeper to the core than this time of year - of the anniversary of the creation of the human being - rosh hashana - yom kippur is the time when there is an anniversary of the opportunity to correct the mistakes a person has made - the damage done to the world - talking about living close to the core - the essence of what it means to be human not just jewish - there are jewish areas here but a lot of the language the Rambam uses is describing these laws is all those beings coming into the world - he doesnt just talk about Jews here. We are getting to the core of the human condition itself apart from this specifically Jewish torah issues - the Talmud says the folowing - he says when a child is in the womb (Niddah) - it has a description of what the child looks like - how its folded up - describing the features and the anatomy of the child - the features of the process of the birth from the spiritual perspective - the gemara says it has a light lid on his head and he sees from one end of the world to the other - this has to do with the place the babies skull is open when it is born - where man wheres tefillin - which is a reconnecting of thsi light - i thinkw e mentioned thats why a man that never puts on tefillin is in a serious spiritual situation because this is the mitzvah that reopens that connection but apart from all the other elements of thsi child that is in the womb of this child that about to be born - there is a detail thats perplexing - the gemara says that before the child is allowed to be born into the air of the world - they make the child take and oath - so int he spiritual world while the child is still in that rarefied atmosphere of spirituallity - learning Torah with the malach it says the child is taught the whole Torah by that angelic being - when it says he see from one end of the world to the other - by the light above its head it says he knew all there is to know abou the world - some sources say it means the child knows all he is meant to know about the world - he sees the light, the world reflected through the light through his own world - he sees the world reflected through his own unique contribution, he knows his own Torah he knows what he has to bring to the world - its remarkable that it says his light is lit above his head it says - 'by that light he sees from one end to the other' - if you want to see from one end of the world to the other you dont shine a light onto your head - you shine a light on the object

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If i shine the light on your head i make it hard for you to see - the concept there is that is what the child sees - he sees in his head - he sees from one end of the world to another - in his conciousness - he knows the whole world, the whole Torah and his role in it, that incredible atmoshphere which the child loses when he is born is a simple unlearned child that doesnt know anything about the world - he is only burned in his subconsious all the spiritual wisdom - which we all have - at that critical moment of transition that was about to be taken away by the malach that comes and strikes him in the mouth - and takes away the whoel world of his learning - the maharal says the mouth is the gift of speech as he gains the mechanism to become articulate in the world - as he begins the journey to be able to express himself in detail because of that he loses his connection to that which is beyond detail - totallity - another amazing moment, critical transtition at all of life is second only to a transition of this world to the next - in that moment the child is forced to take an oath - it says 'its enforced on this little baby to take a vow to be rightous and not evil' the child has to swaer so before you came into the world you took a solemn oath that you have come in the world to manifest yourself as a tzaddik taht is rightous - it means someone who is doing whats supposed to do! doesnt mean saintly person - it means 'one who fulfills his obligations' someone who is saintly is a chassid - someone that does more than he is meant to do, to be a tzaddik is superspiritual - too be more than a tzadik you dont have to swear - to be a chassid - they dont make you swear - there is no oath in that - but to live up to your own minimum standards is nothing more than to devote every second of your life to the correct spiritual persuit - the correct spirituual persuit - correct purity of thought and action - thats the minimum - if you want to do more than that then welcome! Thats what a Jew/ human being is supposed to do - you make an oath to be a tzaddik and not a rasha - this raises many questions - let me share you an avenue of access to the issue - that is - what is the nature  of this oath when child is brought into the world to be a tzaddik and not a rasha - first of all we have a concept in Jewish law of someone that already stands sworn - for example - lets say you make an oath to fulfill a mitzvah, there are halachic problems with such an oath - because youve already sworn to fulfill every mitzvah at sinai - the Jewish peopel are considereds to eb already bound in the corporate sendse - to have been obliged in all mitzvot - so what is this extra oath youve made to be a tzaddik? secondly what means being a tzaddik if it means not fullfilling the mitzvot - what is the difference between being a tzaddik and not fulfilling all the mitzvot -? surely if i fulfill all the mitzvot and i do not transgress the aveirot is that the definition of being a tzaddik - afterall the definition of being a tzaddik is doing what you are meant to do - what are you supposed to do than to fulfill all the mitzvot you are meant to? surely if you do that you are a tzaddik and your obliged to do that as a jew - in the broader sense because you are a hiuman - so what is the obligation to be a tzaddik? there is a set of obligations, all the mitzvot you have to fulfill and all the sins you have to avoid - then they make you take an oath you have to be a tzaddik - what does it add? many ways to state this problem - the sources say - when a person dies which is an ultimate time of judgement very similar to what happens on Rosh Hashanan also and its a form of judgement - when dies there is a certain process - one of the features of this transition is that 3 angels come to greet you - what ever these aminations are of the transcendent world - they come to greet you - the gemara says the 3 angels have the following functions - oen comes to add up all your mitzvot - one adds up all your sins - the third one comes to see where is your Tporah and is it complete in your hand? what does it mean where your torah is? it means if your a man your primary involvment in Torah and if your a woman - it means your Torah expression - connecting the source and connecting with your spiritual sparks. Whichever end it is - its your torah - is it complete in your hands ? are you arriving here at the end of your life time with a complete torah that you learned and practiced - the obvious question is its similar to what we asked before - if one angel counts up all your mitzvot and the second angel counts up all your sins - whats left? what other claim can there be on you? what si the angel coming to do? surely you cant ask of me more than fulfilling all the obligations and avoiding all the prohibitions - you put me in the world to do a job - to find out all the things i must do and all i must not do - did i fulfil torah? what does it mean?

The message is liek this - there is somthing going on here - lets look at it another way - the rambam says in the laws of teshuva which he emntions - how people go through process of self correction - the rambam says a very perplexing thing - the world is judged and your enviroment is judged according to the majority / minority calculation - the rambam says how are you judged on rosh hashana? when you are judged whther someone dies or kabbalistically someone is judged every night, when sleeping,t ehers a whole judgment of your neshama that is transcending on your body that is put back with a dispensatioon according to the judgement - the rambam says when this judgment is made - your judged according to the balance of your mitzvot or aveirot - it goes according to the najority - its a deep concept in torah that majority counts as if it the entirety - in many ways - why is that? why significant? in a democratic mode we are used to thinking that way - in torah we understand when beit din rules by majority that becomes a reality - its not just that we follow that way because we wanted it - its a reality there and analogy to this is if you have an object that has a fulcrom and the thing is balanced - then it stays put if moved in a situation where there is a majority of weight on one side then it falls- its not a question of a democratic issue - if on cliff - balance on both sides at point the balance is 51% on the wrong place you are in big trouble - there is 100% decision here!

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The majority determines in halachic matters, whether it is in the laws of Kashrut or many other areas, the najority determines the reality - The Rambam says, whats the majority of your actions? do you have more than 50% mitzvot than 50% aveirot? or vice versa and according to the majority judgment is who you are. You are being judged - how do they look at you? they could all mitzvot and sins? The Rambam makes clear its not only number it is also by weight! When you take the mass into account - there is an accounting and a balance - the Rambam says the judgment you get is according to the majority - if you are 50.1 to positivity then you are judged as a tzaddik - if you are 49.9 positive - you area rasha - Rambams assesment is where is the persons percentage points? if 51% positive they are judged for life immediatly - if less than 50 - you are judged as an evil man and die immediatly in your sin - within your sin you die immediatly.

Many problems here, why is it absolute life or death by just a slight majority - Hashem rewards for everything! For even the smallest mitzvot - What is 99% rightous - you would have to pay for the 1% negative! you dont want a blemish in the next world. One chassidic soucre says eventually in next world youd have to pay for the dust in the turnups of your trousers - even the slightest - of coarse you have to pay for that since its a process of perfection. what sense is it that we say we dont look at the details? how does it fit together with the accounting? Then he says somthing more impossible! Rambam says in effect every individual is 50% - that is utterly impossible to understand! is it conceivable that any person i9n life is exactly 50? you should regard your self as a benoni - sitting on a knife edge of perfectipon and disaster and you should regard your whole city and country as 50-50. Therefore the process mentally is that by doing one mitzvh you are tipping the balance - i.e the whole world is saved through one action! what is this? you have to understand this deeply of major importance. many other questions we could have, why on rosh hashana dont we do teshuva? whether you live or die? judgment of what you look like in the next world, and one question about what you look like in this world. First of all what does this mean 2 levles of judgment? how is that different? what is going? are there 2 kinds of life? some say you get judged both on rosh hashana, some say on yom kippur - 2 seperate systems of judgment - there is a judgement of life and death - its your chance toa ppeal, why dont we do teshuva? we are called to witness stand and were not allowed to confess? on r hashana we only speak about Hashem, why? the appraoch is the follows, there are 2 issues that run through the spiritual being - the inner being lives on 2 plaines - one is an accounting of mitzvot and aveirot - details of your life - of coarse you have to get the details right - every detail is either rewarded or punished - experianced in this and next world - theres another dimesnion - who are you? that has nothing to do with the details! you could be a person that is 99% mitzvot and you could be bad - or neutral - 99% aveeirot and not be a wicked person! what does it mean? the language in the sources if - Rav Moshe Shapiro says its what is called a Hachraah - a moving of youself in a particular direction - that is a seperate activity in the mind and neshama - it is possible to do a lot of mitzvot in your life and never moved who you are, its possible to do a lot of aveiort in your life and never moved who you are - in a more graphic way - there is a mishna that says for example that a person is like a tree - we have many ways in which we are compared to trees - like a tree of the field - the word 'eitz' in hebrew is the root of 'etzem' which means an intrinsic reality - why was gan eden a place of trees? it means a place of things which were intrinsic reality. The word etzem in hebrew means the bone of the thing or the actuallity - a person is like a tree! what kind of tree? there are 2 kinds of trees - a tree planted in a good place, good soil that norishes itself from it and has branches that hang over even places with bad air or you could have trees that are planted in a bad place and is nourished from posionous soil - but it has brances that hang over a good place - how do you percieve how this tree is in actuall rewlaity? you prune the brances that hang in the non typical place, then the tree is totally clarified for what it is. if you want to reveal where the tree is and it is a product of its root - you prune off the misleading branches - what does this mean? there are people that are planted in a good place - but even the best person in the world has aveirot - that person before he dies at the moemnt of death or shortly before/after has a pruning process - that is the bad things they have done have been pruned off - why? becuase the enxt world is a place of total crystal clear clarification. it a place of burning away the attached components.

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How do they take away those branches? one classic method is this reightous individual  has planted his tree in a good place suffers - one of the reasons of why the good suffer, even the most reightous of people have done somthing wrong and he suffers for that - why? its a big kindness since it leaves him totally clarified as pure and perfect in the next world and therefore he has his averot paid off for him fortunatly in this world. conversly you could have an individual whos tre is planted in a bad and poisionous place but even the worst individual has mitzvot - even the worst person has some good deeds - that person is awarded - since he did genuine mitzvot - so Hashem gives them a life of luxury - what happens in a world of total clarification where the reallity is pure, there is nothing left - since all they are are the reallity of the posion but they had to be paid - so there was a pruning process and that is one of the reasons why evil people prosper in the world. This needs a seperate side related to - how fair is that? a mitzvah is worth infity - there is a principal called 'there is no reward for a mitzvah in this world' - the reason theres no reward for a mitzvah in this world - since the word mitzvah means being together (with Hashem) - a deed in this world with spiritual value is repaid with infinite value - there is not enough currency in this world/ ecstacy in this world - our sources say that a payment for one mitzvah is more than all the pleasure a human being has felt in their entire lifetime since the creation of the end of the world from now - that is the compressed ecstacy that lasts forever that is felt for one second of mitzvah you had from this world - this world doesnt even have enough currency to pay for one mitzvah - you get paid for the next world where there is plenty of currency - what is fair about an evil individual getting paid for his mitzvot in this world? thats not fair! A whole world of e.g yotz in carrabian are nothing compared to a mitzvah - your talking about an infinite value - so if you did genuine mitzvot and Hashem gave you material e.g yotz in exchange - it is a joke! the answer is it is nothing - but the problem of the individual is is that is there scale of value - you can only put a deposit when the person has opened an account, if they lived in the next world and the tree was planted there - but they were not there! Hashem showers them but where is your bucket? this individual's bucket is in this world - the spiritual world is a world of arethmetic balance.

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