A Compilation of Motivational Talk's on Rosh Hashanah to Help You Maximize This Holy Day

There isn't a more gripping and cliche storyline than that of the comeback, when one team seems to be down and out, totally dominated and demoralized, but then, behind the heart of a champion and one hero, the hero leads his team back from the depth to steal the game right before they cross the finish line. We love to root for the underdog. It seems like it's deeply connected into the human psyche. It's relatable and we love the story. It's thrilling and exhilarating, motivating. It goes back to the times of Dovid and Goliaths, and Dovid took down the giant. And in our lives we have to mount the same comeback and we need to believe, as the medrish tells us, that there is the great and dominant foe, the Eight Sahara, who holds us back from accomplishing this great task of kihamitzvahazos, asheranaychimitzavraayyimlayni flesheep, mimkhah, to know Torah. We are commanded to know Hashem's Torah, but as the medrish gives such a powerful muscle, the fool who hears about this mitzvah of knowing Torah will walk inside of the study hall and seek out the rabbi and say well, how do I sign up to know Torah? And the rabbi will point him to the bookshelf and say why don't you open up a book and take a seat? There are 25 books of Scripture and 63 tractates of Gemara. And, to be clear, that's 2711, over 2,000, over 2,700 double-sided folios of Talmudic pages. So why don't you get started? The fool says what Eimusayani lomakozos, how am I ever going to find the time to do all of that? So he gives it. But the pikeach, but the hero, the comeback kid. He says, well, if I do a chapter a day of learning khmish, I'll finish that after a couple years and then I'll move in to start learning Mishnah and then Gemara, and then some halacha and then some agada. But a little bit a day, a chapter a day, and at overtime you will amass great knowledge and eventually, yes, even finishing Torah is within reach. Kikarive e lecha, hadovar, maod, knowledge of Torah, the mitzvah of studying, it is very close to you. It is close to you and somebody that will take the steps forward and actually try it and notice that if I do a little bit a day and you can finish it, that's mounting, the ultimate comeback, the heroes. They see that this is a 50 point game. I don't got to get it all back now. Drive by drive, possession by possession, point by point, you claw your way back in and eventually, when you get close, you go for the kill. Only the fools the rest of the bum teammates say, oh, we're down by 50, there's no hope. So write the greatest comeback in the history of time. Start learning day by day, piece by piece, one chapter by one chapter, and then you will be the ultimate hero. When you stand there finishing all of Torah, it's a beautiful story. Time to come back here. You better be ready, because when opportunity comes knocking, he doesn't stay there for very long. You better open up that door and take full advantage before he's gone. And if success in your mind is to score that job and win over the hearts of the bosses at the job interview, or maybe to grab the podium in front of thousands of people and deliver a soul-stirring public speech that will coax the nation to action, or maybe you are just venturing, endeavoring to have the very simple but elusive great day, if you own this process and master this skill, you will undoubtedly succeed. But without this, absent this skill, you are either going to fail or deserve to fail. What is this wonderful secret sauce? There's none other than HaKhanah preparation. With necessary preparation, you will succeed. Without it, you are doomed. Nothing in life, no real accomplishment, can be had without sufficient preparation. Do you really hope to have a holy Shabbos without a Friday? Only the fools are upset when Shabbos doesn't go as planned, even though they haven't prepared properly. Misha Tariachbe Erev Shabbos, yochalba Shabbos. You set the table, you buy the wine, you buy the chala boom. Here we go with the Shabbos. Masilash Jasharm explains to us that really this world, at a very broad scale, is just a big ball of preparation for the next world. Ayom laasosom ulamachar lakabosacharam. Preparation. The best public speaking advice I ever received from one of the most, perhaps Yeshivas, yeshivas, gentiles I say that facetiously Dale Carnegie. Either him or Mark Twain is probably the most Yeshivas, but Dale Carnegie said that he heard, in the name of the great Abraham Lincoln, that a good speech is nine tenths delivered. It is before you even give the drusha. You have prepared it, rehearsed it so many times that you are merely going through the motions and just adding a bit of energy when you're actually in front of the crowd because you have put in the necessary preparation. So success is impending, an imminent and for sure. This is the depth behind Ella, for we hope that God will slice off another bite, another piece of life for us in the upcoming year. We hope to prove triumphant on the day of judgment and that God will forgive us on the day of atonement. But how can atonement and successful judgment be won without an ill of necessary preparation? That is Ella. The frying waxman says do you hear stories about the great Rabbi Saul Solander and the Yitzchak Blazer, about the rusheshanas, or do you hear it all about how they prepared during Ella? That's when the commitments happen, that's when all the magic goes down for the smart ones. Without preparation you're doomed. Somebody who doesn't enjoy Torah learning? They probably just haven't necessarily prepared for it. They just don't know what it is. They don't know the language, the jargon, they don't know the back and forth. Who's talking? Why am I learning? You gotta prepare, says the Ramam, if you want to have sweetness in your Torah learning. So if you want to ace that job, interview, the hair is good, the dimple in the tie. You know the questions they're going to ask and you have the answers prepared. The drusha you've gone over so many times. You know the questions the crowd might ask. And for rusheshanayyom kippur, all the morsah. You know that Hashem's going to ask all about the differences. He's going to ask all about the chuva efforts. So get it done now. Hayom la asosom, prepare properly, prepare to succeed. Tachana, preparation is everything. You have most definitely engaged in this highly treacherous activity sometime within the last 24 hours and probably engage in this practice nearly every single day, perhaps I should say every single night. It is something that is maybe the most unproductive way to spend some of your time. The sages have called this experience a partial death and, what's more, you will minimally spend 25 percent of your time involved in this activity. What is this practice and activity if you haven't discovered it already? There's none other than sleep, sleeping, getting your beauty rest at night time. And what if I told you that it's not only 25 percent of perhaps 35 percent of every single alive moment that you have on earth that you will engage in this practice of sleep? But what if, right now, while you are watching this, you may be sleeping? The Ram Bam tells us that, even though it is a clear edict and we do not necessarily need reasons or the depth behind the mitzvah, for if Hashem commands that, it's an edict and we just carry it out. But there is a ram, as there is a certain lesson behind the blowing of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah, and that is up individuals from your slumber. For you have fallen into this comatose, monotonous, sleep-like experience with the mitzvahs, you have distracted yourself with the havle hazman. You care more about the daily news than you do about your kriyashama. So let's send in the wrecking ball of the shofar with the glorious and melodious sound, the booming sound of this ram's horn, the natural blow that will ignite your soul, and then after that, immediately the trua like a jackhammer bup, bup, bup, bup, bup, bup, bup, waking you up, shaking you away. But what if I told you Not, what if I told you? I will tell you that there are times that it's not uncommon that I sleep through my alarm in the morning. So how can I protect myself? How can you protect yourself for not sleeping through with the alarm of the shofar? Maybe we don't hear it? Well, what is the way that you see to it that you don't oversleep your alarm in the morning, your alarm clock? Well, you don't sleep so hard If you are so deeply in rem with that slow sleep wave where you can't hear anything, you may not hear that alarm. But if you know you have some obligations and you're not such a deep sleeper, you're gonna hear that alarm. Maybe during ELL we should already be pulling ourselves out of the deep sleep, coma-like state in which our soul is lying so dormant and dead inside. But wake ourselves up a little bit already, before Rasha Shona, so that when the shofar does come we will actually hear the sound of that alarm clock waking us up. So hear the shofar already during ELL. Try to tune out all the other beeping and honking and rackets of people's cell phones and cars. Hear the shofar. Don't sleep so deeply so that when the alarm sounds on the holy day of Rasha Shona, with that beautiful shofar, it will shake you awake and remind you of your obligations. The following story changed my entire outlook on the holy month of ELL and the outlook on Chuvah, and it is my sincere hope that it will do the same for you. And it's just around a week left until the holy day of Rasha Shona. What better time to tell these stories and get down to business and get real about our Chuvah efforts? So the gentleman entered into the office of the holy Chazon-ish and poured out his heart, telling the Chazon-ish what's the point of Chuvah this year? See, every year I put in the effort and I see some success. I get serious about my davening and my learning. I take on a couple extra minutes. My prayers are great and concentrating, but it never endures. Just a couple days after Yom Kippur I've already forgotten my commitments, my Kabbalo's and my Chanukah. Forget about it. So why should I venture in to the intense world of ELL and Chuvah if it's not going to endure? So what's the point? And listen to the Chazon-ish's answer. He looked at the man. He said forget it, you got it all wrong. You must not understand what even one second of Chuvah and my Simtovim is worth. You must not know how precious and how Yafashaachaspe Chuvah and my Simtovim is in the eyes of Akhadash Baruchu. It matters not about the Chuvah you're doing now. If it even endures. Forget about it. It's better if it endures. But one second. You want to discredit and discount that because you know maybe it won't last when we understand and we get that real knowledge of K'yamitvahazoyz asheranoychim etzavchahayom leini flacey. It ain't far away, it ain't across the oceans or in the sky. It's practical. You can do it. You just put in the effort and will it last, will it persist? Eh, who knows. But now, noyachshaveimasai, we do it now and that second of Chuvah and my Simtovim can never be taken away from you. Chuvah can only be made in reality. Chuvah can only be accomplished in reality. We once spoke from Rev Desler that long before Moshe Rabbenu was called the greatest servant to ever live and the most humble person to walk the earth, he removed his shoes. The ground was holy. A removing of one's shoes and noticing your own limitations, living in reality, is very much where it all begins and we can't start to ascend the ladder, and therefore it is very much the study of Moshe that is there to help us remove the lies that we may tell ourselves. A psychotherapist or regular therapist is there to help show the distorted reality that the client is living in and to bring him back to the home base that we call reality, where now progress can be made. And at a time right before Rosh Hashanah, in the months of Eloh, when a Hezbon HaNefesh and accounting of one's actions is vital, it's very hard to do. We have a big problem because we can't always look at ourselves with an honest eye and HD. It's a very blurry screen. We love ourselves and we never want to call ourselves to be doing something wrong. So how can we do it? Shigemar and Kedushan gives us a tip in 70B and says that man sees his own thought in others. This is what scientist and contemporary wisdom calls projection, in which it's a mental process that people will attribute to others what is, in their own mind, remarkable. You see things that are really happening in you on someone else, and it's most benign and mature form. It actually is the basis of empathy to be able to relate to somebody else's struggles and triumphs. But if you should find a class bully with exaggerated shots at his peers, making fun of one being obese or the other one being from a lower financial bracket, when all of it is totally false, it is really just a bully. Projecting his own exaggerated insights on others because he's living in his own reality and he's taking it out on others can be toxic, and Kedusharim says in fact that Kairach, when he said Moshe Rabbeinu, why are you looting? Why are you crowning yourself over everybody else? It was Kairach just projecting his own desire for honor and glory onto Moshe Rabbeinu Projection, and this was a classic modeling of this condemned behavior. Other is there for us to come back to reality and if you want to get an honest look at yourself, pick up on it. If you're projecting onto others. Do you see any shortcomings in your friend? Why is he always coming late to Davenin? Why do you notice that but no one else notices it? Maybe you're just seeing something from your own mind, something that's really going on inside. If a part of Torah doesn't speak to you doesn't mean the Torah is empty. It means that you are empty in regards to that piece of Torah and work must be done, and this is such an amazing way for us to notice our own impulses, traits and mannerisms and the limitations on them. That we may see in other people may really be going on inside of us. So projected feelings and the shortcomings that you see in others, take to heart and know that this is a spot that I may need to work on. In the jungle, it is simply kill or be killed a true survival of the fittest. But there is, however, one creature that all others bend the knee to. He is called very aptly the king of the jungle, and that is none other than the graceful and intimidating lion. See, the lion strikes fear in all of his opponents and all cower before him. But after further investigation, you may find it interesting that the lion is in fact not the fastest. That title is held for the cheetah. He is definitely not larger than the elephant, nor is he any wiser than the fox. So what is it that crowns the lion as the king of the jungle? And if you watch a standoff between a lion and an antelope, a lion, an elephant, a lion and any other creature, you will be able immediately to tell the difference and figure out the X factor. What is it? You will notice that the lion's opponent will cower in fear. He will look for the door, he will feel doomed, with a big gulp of oh no. However, staring right back at him is the face of a confident predator. The lion's confidence is what crowns him king, his belief in himself. The more you think about it, the more it seems to make sense, for the stories that we tell ourselves are very much the reality of what we live in, and we are not a step greater than what we think of ourselves. And it's hard not to connect the dots. For how many times does a Torah encourage us to repent and to show strength like a lion? Yisgaber kaari, you should be. Gibor kaari, lasot vitzon, avicha shubashomaiim Kaariye yishog. Judah was a lion, for doesn't it feel like the idea is that we must repent with strength. But coupled with the strength is a belief in self, with a confidence that I'm going to get this job done, that I will emerge victorious, and as well documented that there isn't a more debilitating and paralyzing mindset and that of a lack of self confidence, a lack of self worth, feeling like there's no hope. It takes a can do attitude to repent, repent like a lion and let the truth be told that the path to Chua, total repentance, leads through the Amazon. Oh, you got to go through the jungle and if you would like to survive, I reckon that you adopt the mindset of a lion and let all others, every single one of the tricks of the Yatesahara, bend a knee before you because you say I see lunch. And you see the Yatesahara run forth like Dovid towards Goliath, by your utterly crass Goliath, with a confidence, with a faith in yourself. Encourage yourself, know that it can be done and it will get done. It is the X factor in your Chua this year.