Living in turbulent times

At the invitation of the Women's League, Rebbetzin Sori Teitelbaum (right) gave the pre-Rosh Hashana shiur to the ladies this morning at Beit Knesset Hanassi. Having prefaced her shiur with two perakim of Tehillim, she went on to give us a thoughtful message to help us prepare for the upcoming Yamim Noraim.

Speaking about living in turbulent times of terror and increased antisemitism, the Rebbetzin explained how it affects our faith and religious practice. We live, she said, in a time when we need to recognize our flaws and remember that, as humans, we are not perfect and still need to strive to become better.

Rebbetzin Teitelbaum then cited parshat Bereishit, going day by day through the world’s creation in order to highlight the middot of Hashem that are reflected in two of his names, as the God of Justice and the God of Mercy. Enriching her points with anecdotes from Pinchas Wallerstein and others, she observed that on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur the 13 middot of Hashem are repeated on many occasions—a clear signal to us of how central the middot are to these awesome days.

The Rebbetzin’s main message was that we should learn that, as humans, we need to make allowances for our frailties. We must work on fixing ourselves and not others. We need to look into our own souls and to be the best person that we can be. Only we can do this because it is only ourselves, as individuals, who can stop ourselves from changing.

Thank you, Kathy Wallach, for providing this note—and thank you, Ann  Rosman, for your photos.

Further thanks to Rebbetzin Sori for letting us have this link to her inspiring words (leave time to enjoy it: it's just under 38 minutes long).