Episode Transcript
[00:00:18] Okay, well, here's. I have. I have one question, one question, easy question.
[00:00:24] I just want to know who is full in, who is all in. Who's pedal to the metal, making it happen, bull by the horns, putting out all the stops. Steve, he's back there pushing the envelope, stepping up to the plate, doing it. Who's laying it all on the line?
[00:00:58] Okay. Oh, oh, in context. You want that question? You want some context? Okay, here it is. Who's giving it all? They got to be the person you said you wanted to be during the High Holidays.
[00:01:18] Now you can answer. Throw those hands up.
[00:01:24] Who has started their upward ascent to the best version of themselves that they confessed and said over Yom Kippur, this is what I want to be and change? Who has revisited their soul accounting their Heshbon Hanefesh list spent daily time dedicated to being that best version of you. Let me see them shoot up in the air. Okay, good. Ruthie and David, it's not the whole gallery, but, you know, and I don't even mean like, I don't even mean like, stop sinning in certain areas. That certainly would be the first stop. I'm just saying, like some good things. Better question, who's taken one specific action toward this thing?
[00:02:17] Okay, good.
[00:02:19] That's good.
[00:02:21] That's good. It's not wildly, but who in the room remembers that we are on a life quest to be the best version of ourselves, and that the High holidays are a significant part of that and that it will, in order to do that requirement absolutely require some kind of growth and change. Spiritual, mental, physical, relational, maybe all. And that part of the holidays, the reason, a big part of why we do that in this modern age is to get in touch with those things. Who remembers that?
[00:03:01] Good.
[00:03:08] So if you haven't gotten started yet, or maybe you don't remember what you were going to tackle, or maybe you lost interest in it, or maybe you just started and realized, my gosh, this is hard. Let me go back to doing what I did do because that was easier and more comfortable. Listen, it's okay. You're not alone. It's often the way it is. It is such an awesome journey.
[00:03:31] I'll take you back over a month to the beginning of Elul. We have this soul searching journey. Then we go to Rosh Hashanah. It's the shofar and the feasting, and then 10 days of incredible awe. Between that and Yom Kippur and we show up for Yom Kippur services, we deny ourselves, we come out of that, we're excited. We feel like we gave something up. We gave back to God. We fasted, we did all those things. There's this energy that's a part of that. Then five days later, we come to Sukkot. We have this incredible party where we chill, we eat, we drink, we pray, we laugh.
[00:04:11] It's the best holiday. This year was particularly special. And then we have that strange little holiday that happened on Wednesday. On Thursday, Shmini yatseret, this commanded 8th day assembly where we just kind of show up. The sages tell us what this is. It's God's last big hug before you leave the Sukkah and say, you know what? Sukkot, that's behind you. But just come in here, big guy, big gal. No, God never says big gal.
[00:04:42] He says, little gal, come in here. Let me give you a big hug.
[00:04:52] That's what he does right before we get out there and do life again. Then Thursday night, we danced with the Torah, we celebrated. It all starts over again. We read Bereshit Bara. God created this thing. We rolled it back to the beginning. We prepare to start over again. That is quite a celebration that we have, beginning in the sixth and into the seventh month.
[00:05:19] God's so gracious to give us this festive calendar and an amazing community to do it with and to do it in.
[00:05:29] And, you know, here's the thing. I know. I told you. I told you on Nilah, the last service of Yom Kippur, I stood here at one of my absolute favorite moments of all time when Yom Kippur is about to end. And I told you, just be present right now. Feel the feeling of being free and unburdened and clean. Feel that. Right here, right now. Be present. Experience the moment. And guess what?
[00:06:05] That was then.
[00:06:12] The spiritual highs, the fun, the celebration, all the good. The work of attending services, fasting, scheduling your time off work, following a commandment to rejoice, to celebrate the fact that we made it another year to study and grow through the Torah. That was then and now we're here.
[00:06:33] And the point in reminding you of all of the good, having reminded you, and especially the responsibility to implement the changes we want to see. I'm asking you that one question. Have you gotten started? What are you implementing? Because as we sang from my dear brother, Stephen Curtis Chapman, the mountain is not to last forever.
[00:06:58] The mountaintop experience is for recharging, it's for rebuilding.
[00:07:04] Because you got to come down, you got to get out there, and you got to do it high. Holidays, Simchat Torah, Sukkot. It's that recharge.
[00:07:16] Now, does that resonate deeply with you, that holiday experience? Can you feel that? Is that still giving you drive and energy? Do you. We wake up thinking about that and saying, oh, man, I'm so glad I did that. Are you yearning to be that person for you, for others in your life?
[00:07:38] Maybe not. Probably not.
[00:07:41] Because it's very, very, very easy to just settle back. And you know what? I'm with you. Listen, of 20 years in ministry, 15 here.
[00:07:54] This was by far the most taxing, personal period of time. From Romans to the holidays, to the holidays, to the holidays, to the conference, to the holidays, the people. I'm a fairly people person, but there's a point at which I'm like.
[00:08:16] And then to think about, oh, my gosh, all right, well, let's get started on being the best me.
[00:08:24] It's easy. It's easy to just say, thank God we made it through that.
[00:08:35] I even told somebody, I know this is bad, but as the rabbi, I'm just saying, thank God you got me through this. God, is that the way we should feel about the holidays? Probably not. But it's okay.
[00:08:47] Sometimes it's just exhausting to do life and the last thing you want to do. You probably, you may have felt the same thing. And you come here on the Shabbat after all of it, and you're like, okay, good. Maybe he's going to give us a happy little, happy little teaching about something light. Let's do a little Bible study on why David picked up five stones.
[00:09:15] And instead you're going to get this. Because that was then, this is now, and there's work to be done. I told you that on Nilah, too, while I was telling you to be present. But listen, today is a special day. Today is a special day. There's one more day in the seventh month, an incredible day of celebration that you probably don't know about or you haven't paid attention to.
[00:09:42] Does anyone know what today is in the month of Tishrei? The date?
[00:09:48] It's the 24th of the seventh month. It's the 24th of Tishrei. Now, what does that mean to you?
[00:10:04] Have you missed? You have. Because no one said anything. You have missed the celebration and the opportunity that comes on this day of the seventh month, the 24th day of Tishrei.
[00:10:21] It's not one of the Lord's feasts, and yet it's a lesson that if you can take it and you can apply it and you can put it where it needs to go. It's just as important as celebrating the Lord's feasts. That's a pretty big thing, right? It's not in Leviticus 23. It's actually in Nehemiah.
[00:10:42] Okay, so for a little context, let me just remind you, we're going to take this, combine it with our holiday experience, combine it with some modern science, and give you a plan for 5,785 from Nehemiah. Quick, quick overview of the book of Nehemiah. Who's read it recently?
[00:11:02] Probably not very many people, especially the latter half. But remember, Nehemiah was the cupbearer for a Persian king. He hears that Jerusalem's walls are in ruins. He goes to the king. He begs, please, let us go back and rebuild Jerusalem by God's favor. The king grants that request. Then the people rally together. Each group is taking responsibility for different sections of the wall.
[00:11:28] External enemies who oppose them, they hate them. They don't want them to do it, but they press on. Nehemiah has this strategy where half the people take up swords and shields while the other half work. And then they switch.
[00:11:44] And then there's internal pressure because Nehemiah, the Israelites are complaining about how they're being treated by their own people. So he has to go and speak to the wealthy about not abusing the Israelites. They're fellow Jews. But through all of it, internal, external pressure, all the hassle and everything, they rebuild the wall in 52 days. And it's a miracle. And God is. It's like a confirmation to their enemies. God is with them. And, you know, when they do that, on the 25th of Elul, that's when they rebuild the wall. So that gives you some context of where they were in the calendar. That's the sixth month. That's right before Rosh Hashanah. Right. And then what happens? Well, the good stuff.
[00:12:35] With the wall rebuilt, the people gather for a monumental event. And Ezra comes out, the priest. He publicly reads the Torah. And here's what he read. Ezra. The priest brought the law before the assembly, both men and women, all who could understand what they heard on the first day of the seventh month.
[00:12:55] You know when that is, right?
[00:12:57] That's Rosh Hashanah.
[00:13:01] So that gives you some more calendar context. The people listened. They were moved to tears. They had a renewed understanding of God's commandments, and they were in tears. And Ezra and Nehemiah say, no, don't cry. Celebrate, celebrate. It's really good. And then they keep on reading and they learn that there's this thing called the feast of Booth.
[00:13:21] And they found written in the law in chapter eight, that the Lord commanded by Moses that the people of Israel should dwell in booths during the feast of the seventh month, that they should proclaim it and publish it in all their towns. And the assembly from those who had come back, who had built the wall, they built these booths. They lived in the booths. And listen, for from the days of Joshua, the son of Nun, the people of Israel had not done that. You think that was a Sukkot to remember?
[00:13:50] They did that for seven days. And then that section concludes. And then they had the eighth day. There was a solemn assembly according to the rule. We just did all that right?
[00:14:02] At the same time, they did it. All those things we celebrated. And then chapter nine comes along. And what do you think they did next? After Shmini at Serotonin and all this incredible revival and all this awareness and awakening, chapter nine comes. What do you think they did?
[00:14:24] Well, they went.
[00:14:26] It was over, right? Okay, cool. That was fun. Thanks for the party, God. Awesome. See you next year.
[00:14:35] No, that's not what they did.
[00:14:38] That's not what they did at all. And here's why. Nehemiah and the people of Israel had just come off a period of tremendous spiritual high after this return from exile. They. They celebrated the holidays, they feasted during Sukkot, they read the Torah aloud, they committed themselves to God's commandments. But they realized something impossibly, deeply critical about something. All the spiritual highs and celebrations and all the words and all the intentions and all the hope.
[00:15:14] It means nothing without action.
[00:15:21] It wasn't just about the powerful experiences, some service, some fun. Now they actually had to get to work. They had to start doing things.
[00:15:32] And so you can't just hope that things are going to work out. You plan, you envision, you expect, you implement, you take action. And so here's what happened. You ready? In Nehemiah 9. Now. Now, on the 24th day of this month, the people of Israel were assembled with fasting and in sackcloth and with earth on their heads. And the Israelites separated themselves from all foreigners. They stood, they confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers.
[00:16:01] They got to work. Here's what happened. They had a wish.
[00:16:06] They had a wish. They had a desire. Nehemiah birthed it. That they could come back, that they could rebuild the land that God would once again inhabit the temple. They had an outcome in mind from that one that they had seen previously where the Shekhinah dwells There the covenants are reestablished, the people are with God, and he shows up. That's what they could see and they could envision and had already experienced obstacles that were trying to prevent that from happening, from external and internal.
[00:16:43] So they had to have a plan, and they put a plan together in order to be able to counteract these difficulties and see all that come to pass. That's what they did.
[00:16:57] And what day did they do this on?
[00:17:02] Today?
[00:17:06] Hayom Today. This is the biblical precedent of the 7th month, 24th day. On the 24th day then, for the rest of the book of Nehemiah, after they had set this, made these plans, put this in action, the whole rest of the book is just basically a story, a blueprint of what they did to succeed.
[00:17:32] That's what it is. How after celebrating the holidays, it's just a course on taking action.
[00:17:39] They read the Torah. They made a formal written covenant to follow God's laws. The leaders, the Levites, the priests, they sealed the covenant. Action steps were taken to repopulate Jerusalem. People dedicated themselves to the rebuilt walls of Jerusalem with ceremony and much more. You can read it all in Nehemiah, and it's tons of names. Specific people who did specific things because they knew they needed to take action. So what did they do?
[00:18:12] They whooped it.
[00:18:16] Say it with me. One. Just whoop. One, two, three. Whoop. That's what they did.
[00:18:28] Wish, outcome, obstacle, plan. They whooped it.
[00:18:38] Wish. And I don't mean like when you wish upon a star, talking about something real, something you want, something that needs to happen, something that changes your life, the lives of others. They had that wish. It was what I just described, that they would have a temple, a home in Jerusalem, an outcome. I told you what the outcome was. They needed that. They had obstacles. They're named Tobiah and Sarnessar or something. I can't remember the guy's name. Specific people who were in their way. And so they made these plans. They whooped this thing.
[00:19:24] Ezra and Nehemiah. The people knew hope is not enough.
[00:19:29] Change requires action. So I started with a question to ask you. Who's all in? Who's fully leveraged? Who's taking action? Who's got the bull by the horns? Who's got the pedal to the metal?
[00:19:42] If you're hoping it's going to happen, it ain't going to happen.
[00:19:46] And you will not go forward, you will go backward. That's just the way it is.
[00:19:51] That's not Isaac Newton's law. But it might have, should have been.
[00:19:57] They whooped it. And here's the deal for today. 24th of Tishrei. You need to whoop it too.
[00:20:04] You do. It's our turn. With a precedent like that, on this very day in history, why wouldn't you. Why wouldn't you take it today? Do it right. We have just completed the holidays. Many of us have these wishes, perhaps to deepen our relationship with God, improve our families, overcome personal challenges. Israel had to take action. So do we. Whatever it is, remember it is what it is. Right? But not if you don't take action. It won't be anything but what it is.
[00:20:36] Now, the whoop concept, you are actually not going to find that by name in Nehemiah.
[00:20:47] It's a real thing. It's a scientific theory proposed by a psychologist named Gavrielle Oettingen. She's smart and she has done years, decades of study on this idea of whoop. That's the name of it. That's what she calls it.
[00:21:06] So it's a little more modern than Nehemiah, but they were still whooping it. When you look at what they did, listen while wishing for something, even envisioning something, oh, wow, wouldn't that be great? Wouldn't it? Oh, I'd love to. I wish I. No, that. Never that. Actually, people have this fake sense of like, complacency when they do those things. Because all it is, is one day.
[00:21:39] One day I'll have, or I'll be, or I'll get one day and it'll be great. It'll be so wonderful. What makes wut powerful is the second part. The obstacles and the plan.
[00:21:56] That's what you actually. And that's what the science shows. You have to know what holds you back. You have to know the things that have previously caused you difficulty.
[00:22:10] By acknowledging those things that stand in the way, we prepare ourselves mentally and emotionally that when they arrive, you overcome them. Because you have a plan in place. You're not just floating aimlessly through self help and self improvement. The whole testimony of Israel's challenges. Right after this experience in chapter nine, where they put dirt on their head and mourn and wail. In chapter nine there's a long list, read it. Of all the ways that Israel had previously failed and how good God was.
[00:22:48] So they recognize the failures and say, these are things that have caused us great distress in the past. We must be prepared for these things.
[00:23:00] It's science.
[00:23:02] Once those things are recognized, the plan is put in place to address them. You're not just relying on hope, you're moving forward with a realistic strategy.
[00:23:15] Nehemiah and Israel did something similar. Confronting obstacles external, internal. They made this concrete plan. In other words, here's whoop in plain terms. You ready? Here's what I want.
[00:23:27] Here's what I want. Here's how it would feel if I could get it or be it or do it or overcome it, whatever. Here's what could derail me, has and will again derail me.
[00:23:45] And here's what I could do to get past these obstacles when they arise. That's it. Plain, simple. In other words, if this happens, and it will, I will do this.
[00:24:05] And then you commit to doing that. You know, I read, I read a statistic. It's very, very sensitive, but I read a statistic. 74% of men, 74% of men are looking at things on their computer that they shouldn't be looking at.
[00:24:29] That's a lot of men. Men.
[00:24:34] I hope it doesn't apply in here, but if it does, listen, I'm not even talking about judgment and wanting you to feel judged. If it's a stat. Okay, fine, 24th of Tishrei.
[00:24:46] Got to whoop that thing.
[00:24:50] Got to.
[00:24:51] You have to recognize whatever the thing is, that's just an easy example because it's an epidemic of worldwide proportions. That particular thing, whatever the thing is, your temperature, your reactions to people, how you take things personally, whatever the thing is, that is something you identified. You have to know the triggers. You have to take the time to know these things. And then when you are aware of them and you know when they're going to happen, then you devise strategies to work around those things.
[00:25:31] You plan and you implement the plan and you ask God for help and you pray for the strength to follow the plan. And you expect difficulty. Listen, so many people in the world are not prepared for challenges. One, because they don't think challenges should happen to them. Maybe. Well, that's not fair.
[00:25:50] That's not life.
[00:25:52] Life is. What did your parents say all the time? Life is not fair. But it's not.
[00:25:59] People expect. I'm not going to have any challenges. Yes, you are. You're going to have challenges. And most people, many people, are not equipped for them or because they do not, because they do happen, inevitably, they're completely unprepared to deal with them. Or three, they're just difficult to deal with. So people just give in or they stay the same. You can't just do the wish outcome. You've got to do the. The operation part right. The op. The op. You got to implement the op.
[00:26:32] So I just thought of that. If we take W. If we do whoop and we take the OP part out, all we have left is W. O, right. And so when people are not willing to implement and recognize the challenges, all they have is. Whoa, whoa. Is me.
[00:27:00] Whoa.
[00:27:02] No, man, OP Put it in. Whoop.
[00:27:07] Say it with me.
[00:27:09] Okay, good. We're getting there. Weirdest message you ever heard in a religious environment. I like it. I'm proud of it. I'm proud to open it.
[00:27:19] Okay, this is it. Studies demonstrating. Listen to the benefits of having.
[00:27:26] It's sort of like I'm telling you, don't have too positive an attitude, right? Be realistic in the science showing that your long term commitment to things, your emotional regulation, your ability to not procrastinate, your health, your well being, all of it, you can help and strengthen by implementing a system and a track like this.
[00:27:53] And man, you got a biblical precedent.
[00:27:58] The book of Nehemiah told me to whoop it.
[00:28:02] Now, honey, what is that weird place you're going to on this day? I want to pause just for just this moment. Ask you reflect right now.
[00:28:17] One thing, some of you said. I got started on one thing. Just one thing. Just one thing. You probably don't even have to think about it. That heart. You know why? Because nobody knows you like you. And you know, and so one thing, write it down.
[00:28:44] Take a second to think about it. That's your starting point. We all have the desires to improve. We know how good it would be to move past something, achieve something real. Struggles, work, stress, relationship difficulties, health, spiritual dryness. I give you the example of Israel because we're in a synagogue and it works for the 24th of Tishrei. But this works outside of the Bible. It works in real life. It works out there on the streets. And that's part of what you need to become the person you said you wanted to be on the holidays. So think about anything that you wished for. You picture it, you envision the outcome and you make a plan to face what will stand in your way. You plan around it. Because you and I know that hope alone is not enough. You gotta be ready to fight it. Stay aware, expect setbacks, overcome them. And so my hope is, that's the whole reason I'm borrowing Dr. Ottingen's word and concept.
[00:29:48] I want it anchored.
[00:29:51] Ready? Here comes your anchor.
[00:29:53] Whoop.
[00:29:58] You felt it, right? You won't forget it. You felt it.
[00:30:06] Say it with me. One, two, three.
[00:30:10] That's it.
[00:30:12] That's it.
[00:30:14] Now don't just Let it be something that you laugh at.
[00:30:19] Do it. Whoop it. Do it for real. 24th of Tishrei. What a coinky dinky, huh?
[00:30:28] No, no coincidence. I stumbled across it and it just so happened that Shabbat is today. So this is the message for the other side of the mountain. Coming down the mountain of Sukkot on the celebration, getting into the valley, as Stephen Curtis said, and now doing the work. Can you do it? Of course you can. Do you want to? That's up to you. I don't know. I hope so.
[00:30:58] So Nehemiah, after all the work, the growth, the overcoming, he closed the book with these words, Remember me, O my God, for good.
[00:31:09] That's how he closes his book. Remember me, oh my God, for good. So may God remember all of us for good as we strive to be everything that he created us to be.
[00:31:23] Shabbat Shalom and let's stand together.
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