Welcome to another vaad (Torah gathering) from Rav Wolbe on the High Holiday season as we get ready for Rosh Hashanah. One of the things Rav Wolbe talks about is the importance during the month of Elul of preparing our daily or bi-daily Kabbalat Ol Malchut Shamayim. Every day of the year, we accept upon ourselves the yoke of God's kingdom and Keriat Shema. And we are going on the Rosh Hashanah prayers to accept God's yoke, not just for that day but for the entire year. We do that during our Musaf prayers of Rosh Hashanah, where we pray and accept upon ourselves God's yoke in that prayer.
Now, what does it mean to accept the yoke of God's kingdom? Rav Wolbe explains, based on Shulchan Aruch, that when you say the word Echad, you have to elongate that word and have in mind that God is the king over the seven heavens, His throne as well, and the four corners of the earth. So God is not just the king over that; furthermore, as Rav Yisrael Salanter says, you can make God the king over everything but yourself. You also have to subjugate your limbs, senses, thoughts, and organs. You have to subjugate your eyes, ears, mouth, heart, hands, and feet. To the point of Mesirut Nefesh, you're willing to give up your life, with all your heart and all your soul. You have to be willing to give up your soul for God. And so much so that when you say Hashem Echad, that Hashem is the only one and the only important one. “I'll give up my life for the cause.” You're supposed to imagine that you are being taken to be burnt at the stake, Al Kiddush Hashem (for the sanctification of Hashem's name). And you're going there with happiness; you're rejoicing.
Now, Rav Wolbe says, “Let's be real. Let's be real.” And I heard this from him talking about himself: he noticed in himself that when he was a young man in yeshiva, he accepted upon himself Keriat Shema, like it says here. Then, a few hours later, he's learning in the morning, during the first seder (study session), and he starts to talk to his chavruta (study partner) about something that wasn't related to their learning. What's going on? Well, it's hard to just sit straight for four hours and delve into something. But hold on. You were just willing to give up your life for the cause, and you can't control yourself from talking. The answer is that you weren't really being very honest with yourself.
How does that work? He doesn't say this, but I'm going to add the famous joke, story, mashal of the man who was being signed into the Communist Party at the Pledge of Allegiance to the Party. They asked him, “What do you do if you have two houses?” He says, “One for me and one for Mother Russia.” “And what do you do if you have two cars?” “One for me, one for Mother Russia.” He keeps going, same answer. Finally, they say, “What do you do if you have two chickens?” He doesn't answer. “What do you do if you have two chickens?” He doesn't answer. “Why aren't you answering?” He says, “Because I have two chickens.” Which means, yeah, theoretically, I'll do everything, but not lema'aseh (practical). And similarly, with our Keriat Shema, yeah, I'll die at the stake because there is no stake here. But when it comes to giving up something that I actually have and controlling myself, that's a different story.
So if we want to be honest with ourselves, says Rav Wolbe, we have to tweak our Kabbalat Ol Malchut Shamayim. Instead of saying, “Hey, I'm ready to die for the cause,” what should I be thinking? “I am ready now to learn for the next, let's say, four hours without interrupting.” Then you're saying, “Hmm, I can't really do that. Three hours? No, two, no, one. A half an hour—okay, that's my serious commitment to what I'm going to do. And I'm going to stick to that.” Everybody at their level has to find the thing that they're going to do and stick to it. And he says that's a big difference from the original theoretical story. And he says, “A little bit of truth is better than a large fantasy.”
When we say Shema, there's a big ayin (Hebrew letter) by Shema and a big dalet (Hebrew letter) by echad, which spells Eid. We're testifying. It's a testimony. And the rule is, if a testimony is partially false, the whole testimony is null and void. And so too with our testimony: better to have a little bit of true commitment than a larger one that's not true. And that's our little point over here: to be real about accepting God's yoke. What can I really do? What can't I do? What do I want to do? What am I going to commit myself to do? And that's relevant for Rosh Hashanah also, because, as our rabbis tell us, you need to have a kabbalah, some commitment going forward. And again, the commitment has to be real. And that is our little story today.