Master of the Good Name

After listening to an apropos Charlie Harary shiur (a few times) during the 9 Days, his overall message was constantly replaying: Moshiach coming is not based on our passivity. It is based on our activity.

And, the day after the tannis, I was listening to Matisyahu's Spark Seeker. It is a constant theme in his music, but it can always bear repeating. Like a chunk of the lyrics for "Bal Shem Tov": 

It's your life to live, I can't live it for you
It's your time to give, and I can't give it for you
It's your fear to lose, I can't lose it for you
Death or life, so choose, and I put both before you
So, find your word of truth, you've got to find your word of truth

Search heaven and the seven seas
Answer lies inside you
You know it won't come easy
You've got to find your own truth

The first words of the song, as you may notice, is "Rosh HaShana."

I had thought this concept was so original, until, as I was reading along with yesterday's parsha, Nitzavim:

(Devarim 30:11, from the Artscroll Stone Edition Tanach) For this commandment that I command you today — it is not hidden from you and it is not distant. It is not in heaven, [for you] to say, "Who can ascend to the heaven for us and take it for us, so that we can listen to it and perform it?" Nor is it across the sea, [for you] to say, "Who can cross to the other side of the sea for us and take it for us, so that we can listen to it and perform it?" Rather, the matter is very near you — in your mouth and your heart — to perform it. 

No wonder the song begins with "Rosh HaShana." 

The meforash clarifies (if clarifying is needed) that: Far from requiring superhuman efforts or supernatural revelations to be equal to God's expectations, that goal is very much within reach — if people but make a sincere effort to grasp it. 

I was then reminded of Avraham Fried's song, "Ki HaMitzvah," and went scrabbling over YouTube. I found the clearest version, funnily enough, on Grooveshark. (It didn't let me link directly to his song, but if you search for that same exact spelling as above it pops right up.)


I gotta be me . . . because it is all up to me. As Charlie Harary said, redemption won't come from making comparisons to what others are doing or should be doing or shouldn't be doing. It is me.

A git gebensht yur to all.