Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Speaker A: I began writing this message.
[00:00:11] Speaker B: And I.
[00:00:12] Speaker A: Thought to myself, can these people honestly.
[00:00:16] Speaker B: Handle another message about the mountain?
[00:00:22] Speaker A: Am I going to be tarred and feathered and run out of here if.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: I talk to you about more things related to a mountain?
[00:00:28] Speaker A: But you know what?
Probably, you know, we've been on the mountain for a while. You probably had your fill of mountain related messages. But listen, from Mount Moriah to Mount Sinai to Mount Carmel to Mount Zion to the Mount of Transfiguration, God did.
[00:00:46] Speaker B: Some pretty incredible things on mountains.
[00:00:51] Speaker A: And today, as we stand together on our final mountain of this season of.
[00:00:55] Speaker B: Messages, I know that we've done some work together.
[00:00:58] Speaker A: We've climbed, we've ascended through Rosh Hashanah.
[00:01:02] Speaker B: Through Yom Kippur, and now we're sitting.
[00:01:04] Speaker A: In these final days of the festival.
[00:01:06] Speaker B: Cycle and these days of Sukkot, embraced by the Sukkah, embraced by the beauty and the rest and the joy that comes after the holidays, its restoration, its recovery, its refreshing.
[00:01:21] Speaker A: And God is so gracious that it's not even just Sukkot. He gives us this other mysterious thing, this eighth day holiday, Shmini Atzeret. It's not Sukkot, but it's sort of Suk coat. But you know, it's really just God.
It's a transition from the Father saying to, you know what I've enjoyed?
[00:01:43] Speaker B: I've enjoyed being with you so much. Thank you for showing up. You got to go back into the real world now. But I'm going to take this last day and I'm going to walk down the mountain with you.
That's a cool thing, is a personal escort for the descent.
And you'll recall, you know, many weeks ago, we started with a magnifying glass.
And I told you it's not what you expect, it's what you inspect. And I asked you to look into your hearts and into your relationships and into every aspect of your life and see what God wanted to show you there.
And we talked about shards and we collected pieces. And some of those shards are very, very sharp because of past mistakes. Some of them are even sharper because of hurts that we've received at the hands of other people.
But we did it.
[00:02:43] Speaker A: We climbed.
[00:02:44] Speaker B: We reached the summit. Yom Kippur is a very heavy mountain moment.
And then Sukkot and Shmini Hazaret and Simchat Torah, these are beautiful and light mountaintop experiences. But with all that said, and knowing that the mountaintop is not forever, the question is, what will we carry down with us?
What are you going to take down with you. Because it's soon time to go down after all this.
[00:03:22] Speaker A: And I found the answer so beautifully.
[00:03:25] Speaker B: Stated that I had to share it with you in not a Bible verse and not a rabbinic source, but from.
[00:03:36] Speaker A: A French poet and mountaineer of all.
[00:03:40] Speaker B: Things who tied all things together. His name is Rene d'.
[00:03:46] Speaker A: Aumale.
[00:03:46] Speaker B: He's very weird. Don't even look him up. But.
[00:03:50] Speaker A: When I read this, it just.
[00:03:56] Speaker B: It just did it.
Regardless of Rene, I knew that whatever he wrote was from God for us right now.
And here's what he wrote.
What is above knows what is below.
But what is below does not know what is above.
One climbs, one sees, one descends, one no longer sees, but one has seen.
There is an art of conducting oneself in the lower regions by the memory of what one saw higher up.
When one can no longer see, one can still know.
Oh, man, I love that.
Gosh, I love that.
Just sit there with this idea of. There is an art of conducting oneself in the lower regions by the memory of what you saw when you were on high.
It's such a beautiful encapsulation of what we must take down from here.
What we must take from here to there.
Out there.
It's exactly what we've been doing on the mountain. I told you, right? I told you.
[00:05:31] Speaker A: You can beg someone, Someone desperately in need of being able to have mountain perspective. You can beg them, beg them. Come up here. See, it's better. It's better. You'll never be the same. You'll be changed forever. But until they make their own journey, they cannot see it.
That is to say, one cannot see from below.
The seeing must be personal. The journey must be yours. And what have we seen? I hope we've seen ourselves as we truly are in the work with God. Not just broken parts, but potential.
Incredible. God given potential. To see ourselves as the garden of God planted seeds. We've worked on correcting errors, yes. But maybe more importantly, we've glimpsed who we need to become.
Not what's broken, but what the potential ahead looks like. The potential down there. You remember this? I showed you this on Yom Kippur.
[00:06:47] Speaker B: Remember this?
[00:06:48] Speaker A: At the end of Yom Kippur.
The blood stained white linen tunic of the high priest. Not for real, but what he did at Yom Kippur and what he did when it was done, he folded it.
[00:07:05] Speaker B: Up and he left it there.
The completed work. And I asked you, why would we ever. Why would we ever put that back on again?
We don't need to and the answer becomes clearer now. We won't.
We will take the memory of what it means and the power of examination and what we discovered about ourselves when we took it off.
[00:07:39] Speaker A: One descends, one sees no longer, but one has seen.
That's what I wanted most for you.
[00:07:51] Speaker B: Up here on the mountain.
To climb, to search, to ask God to reveal, to deal, to heal, to.
[00:08:00] Speaker A: Take off what must be removed, including.
[00:08:02] Speaker B: The masks we wear.
And now to be driven by this beautiful idea that there is an art of conducting oneself down here by the memory of what we saw.
[00:08:18] Speaker A: When one can no longer see, one can still know. And you must commit to know.
[00:08:24] Speaker B: You must commit to that, to take.
[00:08:26] Speaker A: Your work, your vision with you down the mountain. You know, it's very important because in some of those biblical mountain moments which I just shared with you, when they came down, it wasn't so good or easy. Moses came down to a golden calf. Elijah came down to running terrified into the wilderness and feeling that he was the only one.
The mountain provides clarity and revelation.
[00:08:56] Speaker B: But truthfully, the real work and the.
[00:08:58] Speaker A: Testing, of course, happens down in the valleys.
That doesn't have to be bad. Not every valley has to be the valley of the shadow of death.
Mountains are generally for moments.
[00:09:14] Speaker B: Then we need to be prepared for the work down here.
What we take with us, that's the descent we're headed toward.
[00:09:22] Speaker A: Yes, Sukkot is still going on. We have plenty of celebration in Hoshana Rad Bah.
[00:09:27] Speaker B: And Derek's crazy enough to stay up.
[00:09:29] Speaker A: All night with some of you. And that's going to be incredible.
We have Simchat Torah, incredible time of rejoicing. But what would all this mountain climbing talk be if I didn't take the time to prepare you for the upcoming departure and descent and the time we've had with God from Elul to Simchat Torah that's coming. It's a gift.
[00:09:53] Speaker B: It's a gift from him, but it's.
[00:09:56] Speaker A: The gift that keeps on giving in the valley.
[00:10:03] Speaker B: But let me be direct with you.
[00:10:05] Speaker A: Because I care about you too much.
[00:10:07] Speaker B: To let this moment pass without making this very clear.
[00:10:11] Speaker A: Do not put that back on.
Do not pick up a mask and.
[00:10:19] Speaker B: Put it back on.
[00:10:24] Speaker A: Do not choose comfort over commitment.
[00:10:29] Speaker B: The greatest mistake we can make now is to allow our mountain moment to become just another fleeting religious memory.
The greatest mistake.
[00:10:42] Speaker A: I'm aware of human nature.
[00:10:44] Speaker B: I understand how emotions work. I'm very dramatic and emotional myself.
[00:10:51] Speaker A: When we're riding the heights and everything feels good and we're inspired and unconquerable, and we say, I'm going to do it.
I can do it. I can do anything, change anything, become anything. But we've climbed enough mountains in our lives, I'm certain, to know what so easily comes next. You go down.
You go down the mountain and the valley fog rolls in and the daily grind resumes.
And it becomes just a memory. All the revelations, the commitments, the promises that we made to ourselves, to God, to others, either verbally or in our own minds, that we would be better, they are fogged away.
[00:11:39] Speaker B: They feel like, I don't even, what was that?
[00:11:44] Speaker A: That's why Domal's words are so beautifully and so critical.
[00:11:51] Speaker B: It's an art because it requires practice.
[00:11:57] Speaker A: It requires intention.
[00:12:00] Speaker B: It requires discipline.
[00:12:02] Speaker A: The memory alone is not enough.
[00:12:05] Speaker B: We must actively, actively conduct ourselves by it.
[00:12:09] Speaker A: And I also know very well, I've said it many times through the course of our series here, you know, 30 days or 40 days or 50 days, it's a wonderful amount of time. It's a great start to making meaningful change in your life.
[00:12:26] Speaker B: But it's not enough.
[00:12:28] Speaker A: You got to get started and you got to keep going.
[00:12:34] Speaker B: I once faced.
[00:12:35] Speaker A: Well, have faced, but currently facing a difficult task. It's something that I know I need to do. It's a big project I'm working on. And of course, one morning. I know this will be shocking to you, shocking.
But it was about time to leave for work, and I was complaining to Kelly.
It was the one time ever that I did this and I was complaining about it, and I said, how am I gonna do that? I'm so busy. I have all these other commitments. It's gonna be hard. What if it doesn't work? I don't really even wanna do it, I don't think. But how am I gonna find time?
And she just gave me the look.
[00:13:22] Speaker B: That she gives me.
[00:13:25] Speaker A: Which is full of love, with a little bit of.
[00:13:28] Speaker B: Frustration and patience behind it, because it's necessary.
And she said, damion, just do it.
Just get started.
Just commit.
Commit one year, Commit one year of your life to this thing.
And I guarantee you, she said, on the other side of a year, you will look back and you will be so much further along.
[00:14:07] Speaker A: And you will.
[00:14:08] Speaker B: Not even remember why you didn't get started.
I took it to heart.
I got started and I'm doing this thing and I'm approaching the end of it, and it hasn't even been a year, because sometimes you just got to get started and then you got to keep going and you got to keep going. She was right, and she's right for all of us. So I'm bringing this same wisdom to you today, courtesy of the Rebbetzin, which is to say, you know, one of.
[00:14:53] Speaker A: My main points for this holiday, I don't know, it just. It dropped on me early on in my preparation before the month of Elul, which was bring less work this year on bringing less into the next high Holidays.
Lighten your load, shake some baggage, help everybody do that so that the next high Holidays, they're going to show up even higher up.
One thing you lay down, one thing that you pick up to be the person that you need to be. And here's the thing. If right now, as we head down the mountain, if you will make that commitment with me and dedicate the next year between now and the next high holidays to even one thing that you know needs to be done, whatever it is you're bringing down, commit yourself to it in the big scheme of life, honestly, God willing, a year is not really that long.
The older I get, the faster they go.
A year is not that long. So we commit to intentionally developing it. To develop yourself, to journal, to read, to actively work, to pursue building those parts that need to be strengthened, refined, improved.
And for my mask wearers who are.
[00:16:26] Speaker B: Listening to this.
[00:16:31] Speaker A: For you, it might mean taking off the mask and facing.
[00:16:35] Speaker B: A hellaciously difficult time in a relationship or a situation.
[00:16:42] Speaker A: And I ask you again, if you.
[00:16:45] Speaker B: Don'T do it, what is going to change a year?
You can survive it.
You can do it.
And on a year from now, with intention, when we reconvene at the month of Elul, we'll be lighter.
We can be better.
We commit to the hard work in the valley.
So here's the thing.
There will be, There will be all kinds of difficulties that you are going to face down the mountain.
I'm telling you the truth. This is life. I learned this from somebody I love very, very much. His name was Yeshua. And he said this. Life has difficulties.
That's what he said.
It's the truth.
[00:17:54] Speaker A: And there are people, you know, even when you can no longer see the beauty and the peace of the mountain because of trials and bills and difficulty, you take what you saw with you.
[00:18:08] Speaker B: And you try to claim it.
[00:18:10] Speaker A: You can still know there are many, many people in this room and more online who faced incredibly difficult things and are walking further and faster and lighter because of it.
You say, well, what did I actually see up there? I mean, I don't even. He makes a big deal about this. Like.
[00:18:31] Speaker B: What Was it?
[00:18:31] Speaker A: Listen, if you're someone who feels like you barely made it up the mountain, it's okay. Don't disqualify yourself. You might think you know nothing. Well, okay. This one little thing, and I slipped going up the mountain and my mind wandered all over the place.
It's okay. I'm telling you as your rabbi and your friend, that God receives the little bit you feel and he's able to take it and give you more and.
[00:18:57] Speaker B: Elevate that and help you.
[00:19:01] Speaker A: Small practices, small things done with love is much more powerful than a hundred.
[00:19:06] Speaker B: Promises you made and forgot.
[00:19:11] Speaker A: The sages taught that God wished, wanted Israel.
He wanted to grant Israel merit. So he gave all of these commandments, all of these. So many, as a matter of fact, so many that every person, every single person has the chance to find at least one that resonates with them.
And once they have that, they can fulfill that with love and devotion. And one mitzvah leads to another mitzvah.
It can be a spiritual gateway. But the same thing needs to apply to our descent. You remember when I talked about Rebbe Nachman and Rebbe Nachman's Nekuda Tovah?
One good point.
Find one good point and then find another one. And then find another one. That's active work. That takes persistence and commitment.
That's not some fleeting memory of a good emotional moment you had somewhere.
That's enough to start.
[00:20:12] Speaker B: That's your gateway.
[00:20:13] Speaker A: So listen, I'll share this very quick, personal thing, something that I know I needed to see on the mountain. As I told you so many times, for me, it wasn't in prayer, it wasn't in reading the books, it wasn't in preparing these messages. Well, it sort of was. It was the story that I heard on the Bridge Builders Forum podcast that Ryan did with Mendel Kalmanson when he was telling the story of the Rebbe, Rebbe Shneerson. And I'll share it, because not everyone probably listened to that podcast, but there was a guy who went to Crown Heights and he really wanted to speak with the Rebbe, but they said, it's impossible. His schedule is, there's no way.
And he said, is there any opportunity?
And they said, well, he leaves early in the morning. There's a five second walk from his front door to his car. You might be able to catch him there.
And so this guy went the next morning and he parked there. And he, when the Rebbe came out, politely went and asked him, excuse me, can I just.
[00:21:15] Speaker B: Can I just ask one thing?
[00:21:17] Speaker A: And the Rebbe stopped and didn't give him five seconds. They had a 10 minute conversation.
And it was so incredibly inspiring to the young man.
And then as the Rebbe got in his car and walked and drove off, two yeshiva students, school students who were part of the academy, came over. They were across the street. They came over and they scolded this young man. And they said, what is the matter with you?
Why would you disrespect him like that by taking his time when he's trying to get somewhere to do what he needs to do?
And the man was devastated. He felt absolutely terrible.
And so when he got his mind about him, he wrote a letter to the Rebbe. And the Rebbe, he apologized. He said, I'm so sorry to have.
[00:22:12] Speaker B: Disrespected you like that.
[00:22:14] Speaker A: And the Rebbe wrote him a letter.
[00:22:16] Speaker B: Which he was very, very, very well known for doing and writing life changing letters. And here's what he said.
[00:22:24] Speaker A: First of all, those two yeshiva students were standing over there during school hours. They should have.
[00:22:36] Speaker B: So pay them no mind.
[00:22:38] Speaker A: And for me, for the time that I gave you, he said, our souls.
[00:22:46] Speaker B: Are created for a purpose on this earth.
And that purpose may involve affecting only one life.
And then he said these words, and I don't know why, it just breaks me, but he said, perhaps you are the one.
And I needed to hear that.
And I'm taking it with me because I do live in a very busy.
[00:23:19] Speaker A: World and I have a lot of.
[00:23:21] Speaker B: Things all the time, and people and people and people. And it's so easy. It's so easy to say, oh, God.
[00:23:27] Speaker A: I can't do it.
I'm just maxed. God, please.
[00:23:36] Speaker B: Perhaps you are the one.
Perhaps you are the one.
That's something I saw on the mountain, and I'm bringing it with me. And if that's the only thing I bring.
So what's the one thing?
What's one thing you bring?
[00:24:10] Speaker A: Yerida le tzarech aliyah. You know what that means?
Every descent is for the sake of a future ascent.
[00:24:19] Speaker B: It's one of my favorite Hasidic dictums. I say it all the time.
[00:24:23] Speaker A: I have a handmade Townsley piece of art in my office that says, every.
[00:24:30] Speaker B: Descent is for the sake of a future ascent.
It's a maxim for life. But here's a new little twist. Since we're talking about dissent here, since.
[00:24:40] Speaker A: We'Re talking about going down, usually we use that phrase when we're going through hard times, right? To remind ourselves this difficulty down here, it's for my Good. And ascent will surely follow it. But here's another way. This descent we're about to make, to leave the mountain, to leave the Sukkah, to return to daily life, this descent is also for the sake of a future ascent.
We're going down to continue the work. We're going down into the mix to be in the world, doing life, repairing, healing, building, fostering, and all of that. All of that work which we descend to do will make for a better ascent next year and the following year and the following year.
[00:25:36] Speaker B: And so this descent is most definitely for the sake of a future.
And speaking of ascent, in conclusion, I.
[00:25:47] Speaker A: Return once again to Rabbi Sacks.
[00:25:50] Speaker B: May his memory be for a blessing.
[00:25:57] Speaker A: To his comment on the Jewish calendar. And the spiral staircase. We're concluding a festival cycle on Wednesday. It's one more time around the staircase. You return to the same place every year, but you are not at the same height.
You are ascending.
[00:26:19] Speaker B: It's a staircase that goes as long as you live.
[00:26:26] Speaker A: You imagine there's no end to the.
[00:26:29] Speaker B: Height with which you can climb with God.
[00:26:34] Speaker A: Imagine the spiral staircase rising in the air. You begin at the bottom. You can barely see past immediate surroundings, maybe just the courtyard and the trees. But with each rotation, each step, the spiral, your perspective expands. Now you're seeing over the treetops. Now you're at the foothills of mountains. Higher still, the whole valley spreads before you. Mountains appear on the horizon that you never even knew existed. And you're climbing, and you're climbing, and you're climbing, and you're seeing, you're ascending. You're growing with God, and it's beautiful.
We are about to begin the Torah again. The same words will be read, they will be chanted, they will be studied. They will not be the same to.
[00:27:22] Speaker B: You if you have ascended at all.
The descent of the year is for the sake of the ascent of the next. And you carry what you saw into your practice and your relationships and your work. And that carrying, my friends, will change you when the next Tishrei arrives. Remember this. Remember this. There is an art to conducting yourself down here by the memory of what you saw up there.
Friend, be grateful for the fact that God has given you an opportunity to participate in this at all.
[00:28:03] Speaker A: Do you know how many people in.
[00:28:05] Speaker B: The world will never have the opportunity to be in a festival cycle of God's holy feasts? How many people will never know the blessing of the introspection of the high holy days and the joy of the sukkah and the joy of the descent.
[00:28:23] Speaker A: And the ascent they'll never know.
[00:28:26] Speaker B: And God has invited you in to that.
That is to be celebrated.
You have not missed it. You have been here. You have been part of something special.
[00:28:43] Speaker A: No matter if you can't consciously say, wow, I've been radically changed.
Your soul has been fed.
You have climbed and you have seen.
[00:28:56] Speaker B: And I pray that as we descend, we'll remember what we've seen.
[00:29:01] Speaker A: I pray that this year, this full year, that you're committing yourself to the.
[00:29:09] Speaker B: Next, you will be one of incredible growth. And when the next year comes and we approach these, we won't be starting from the same level. We'll be starting from wherever this work has brought us.
[00:29:22] Speaker A: One climbs, one sees, one descends.
[00:29:25] Speaker B: But one has seen.
Don't forget, take it with you.
And there is an art, a beautiful, sacred art of how you will conduct yourself out there by the memory of what you had up there. And may God help you master that art.
May God be with you. May your descent prepare you for an even more glorious ascent.
Chag Sameach, my friends, I will see you at the bottom of the mountain.
Shabbat Shalom.
[00:30:09] Speaker C: I'm Darren with Shalom Makin. If you enjoyed this teaching, I want to ask you to take the next step. Start by making sure you subscribe to our channel. Next. Make sure you hit the like button on this video so that others know it's worth their time to watch.
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