digest
Short Summary
Main recommendation: Do teshuvah (repentance) by getting rid of the "baggage" of materialism and worldly distractions so you can climb the spiritual mountain toward Hashem, and do not settle for merely touching the mountain. Rabbi Paysach Krohn draws this from the letter hei, the Ten Days of Teshuvah, a bike ride in New Zealand, and the life of Rabbi Moshe Sherer, and and ends with an appeal to support Hidabroot's Orthodox outreach media.
Key Points
- Teshuvah is always open: the speaker says the letter hei, the easiest letter to pronounce, was used to create the world, and that the door to return stays open no matter one's past.
- Small, insignificant things held too close block the view of what matters: the speaker compares a baseball held near the eye to the moon blocking the sun during the solar eclipse.
- Carrying "massa" (load), especially an obsession with money, clothes, and luxury, prevents climbing the spiritual mountain, based on Tehillim: "Who will climb the mountain of Hashem... one with clean hands and a pure heart."
- Do not merely touch the mountain: starting projects and then quitting out of burnout falls short, according to the Kotzker Rebbe's homiletical reading of the verse about Mount Sinai, as cited by Rabbi Sherer.
Details Worth Noting
- Concrete instructions: Remove the baggage that slows your climb: the speaker's example is a rider who threw out a heavy book, appliances, tools, and a tire to climb higher; apply this to whatever weighs you down spiritually. Work on teshuvah now, since the speaker says the Ten Days of Teshuvah (which begin with the letter hei) are the time to return. Donate on the table options at the event, whether $1,000, $5,000, or $10,000, to fund Hidabroot's studio and video and book production, as described by the speaker.
- The hei appears at the start and end of "Hoshi Vanya," which the speaker ties to the Ten Days of Teshuvah, and the speaker notes Abraham and Sarah each received a hei when their names changed.
- The speaker notes the sun is about 400 times bigger than the moon, and argues that what truly happened was the moon blocking our vision/perspective, not actually covering the sun.
- The Barnett twins, Mitch (now Mordechai) and Steve (now Simcha), are cited as examples of baalei teshuvah whose New Zealand bike ride illustrated shedding baggage.
- Rabbi Moshe Sherer, president of Agudath Israel of America, was writing his final speech before his death in 1998, and his son Shmuel asked the speaker to deliver it at the memorial service.
Bottom Line
Spiritual growth and teshuvah require letting go of what weighs you down and not stopping at the easy first step.
