THE FOUR IMPORTANT ASPECTS OF OUR LIVES

The Four Important Parts of Our Lives a message for Rosh Hashanna by Rabbi David Bassous

Rosh Hashanna is a time for teshuva, repenting for our past misdeeds. A time for introspection into our character traits, our flaws and failings and most importantly trying to fix them, returning to and reconnecting to our spiritual roots to the Almighty and to Am Yisrael, our friends and relatives. The word I prefer to use is RECALIBRATION according to our compass The Torah. Recalibrating our lives for maximum physical and spiritual welfare.

The Talmud in Berachot 32b states that four human activities require strengthening with constant efforts to succeed: a) Torah study; b) Acts of Loving kindness; c) Prayer; d) Making a living. The Talmud is making a very important point that our lives should be balanced between achieving two goals: the spiritual and physical: Torah study and prayer on one side and Acts of kindness and Earning a Living on the other, these are the areas of our lives that we should focus on.

Torah study is the only way that we have today of listening to the voice of The Almighty's and hearing what he wants from us. There are no prophets to give us advice and direction in life only by studying the holy texts and trying to fathom the Almighty's will we be able to find direction in these confusing amoral times.

We are probably the luckiest generation of Jews in the past two millenia. We are witnessing the ingathering of the exiles to our holy land, predicted by the holy Torah over 3400 years ago, in front of our very eyes. Let us and our families be part of this dream come true either by making aliya or by helping those that want to.

Prayer is our vehicle to connect to The Almighty's (Hashem) to unburden ourselves from our troubles, to praise, thank and reach out to him. By attending minyan we are linking ourselves to our fellow Jes and to the Almighty at the same time.

Acts of Kindness are the interface between us and others: in the family with our parents; spouses; children; brothers and sisters and others. People will know and remember us by the kindnesses and smiles that we give them. Opening our hearts and our pockets to the less fortunate is a tremendous mitzvah of tzedakah.

Earning a living is as hard as crossing the Red Sea, just to find good honest trade and keep it in today’s economy is extremely stressful. A person should find a trade that gives them satisfaction and fulfillment and that makes use of the unique skills that the person has.

By focusing our energies on these four areas of our lives we will achieve success in our mission here in this world.