2026.09.11 – Chief Rabbi Dr Warren Goldstein – Rosh Hashanah: The Torah’s Guide To Self-Reflection & Growth

0:005 a.m. 101.9 megahertz of life. So Rocheshana, we were talking and have been talking all morning. It's a time to consider what to leave behind in 5, 7, 8, 6 time to decide what to take through. Do some introspection. It's quite a difficult balance. And it's one that most of us balance is not something that most of us or many of us are good at. And I wanted to chat to Robert, Dr. Warren, Goldstein, Chief, Rebaufs, South Africa, to get a view of the message, how do we balance all of these things? Be self-critical, reflect, but not beat ourselves up in a way that is harmful and dangerous. Robert, Dr. Warren, Goldstein, a very good morning. Thank you for joining us. I hope you are well. Morning, Howard. Lovely to speak to you and to your listeners on such an important day, the last day of the year.

1:02It really is, Hayet. It's got that feeling of huge anticipation and you can feel it in the air. Yeah, absolutely. And the truth is that in many ways Rocheshana's a gift from Hashem, because you were just talking about these mixed emotions and the sense of the trepidation of the day. But the safer a Khenoksa is an amazing thing. He says, if we didn't have this, we wouldn't have a moment to actually look at our lives and stop. And in that sense, it's an act of Hashem's love. God is saying, I love you because I'm giving you a day, two days to stop and have a look and reflect and see how we can improve. And without it, life would just sort of slide along. The idea of a deadline, of a goal to focus on, really focuses the mind and provides us with that opportunity.

2:08So it really is an opportunity. And I think, you know, people can start to think already now today, like, how am I going to use this opportunity over the next two days? Because it really is. And especially, you know, something we couldn't have related to a few decades ago, the intrusion of our cell phones and technology. Here, it just literally all is going to stop for two days. And we have this, this gift of peace to and the ability just to really consider. Well, yeah, I think the difference between Russia and your Kippur is this. On your Kippur, we get into the details of our lives and work out the sense of what have we done right and wrong, looking at the misters, the things that we've done well. The things that we've made mistakes where we've done wrong where we've sinned and going through all of that and like, Tinery, we've got the confessions on your Kippur. It's very detailed. What the commentaries explain about Russia, Shona is that it's big picture repentance.

3:11It's two kinds of like the one is getting into the detail. Russia, Shona is not going back to the big picture and saying before I can discuss the details of my life, let me make sure the big picture is in order. Well, and even before the basics, like the big picture saying, like, where am I? And that starts with my relationship with Hashem and my understanding and acceptance of his presence in my life and where I should be headed in the general direction. What are my priorities? Am I prioritizing the right things? Is the Torah and its misters at the center of my life? Is Hashem at the center of my life? Am I aware of that? And it's not coming back to the big picture. It's like, you know, with actually the son of Adam and Eve, according to the midrush actually took place on Russia, Shona. The first son in history took place and the first judgment and then God actually says to Adam and Eve, where are you?

4:16It's interesting because you refer to that a few minutes ago and I'm thinking, oh, that sounds very much about the Adam story and that's exactly what it does refer to. Yes, it's exactly where are you? Like where are you in life? And where are your priorities? Because kind of where your values are, then from there's going to flow the action. So is it a value Hashem, his Torah, his misters, is Shabbat's a value, is family a value, is Saddaka a value? Are these things valuable and important to you? And then from there can flow out everything else that you need to go to. Yes, I actually really love this because otherwise it becomes very overwhelming when you start, when you go into the minutia first, because then you're almost done aware to start. But if you start with the big picture, where am I? What are my priorities? What's working? What's, you know, how am I living the life? I'm meant to living, be living and how am I not? That gives you a foundation on which to start looking at the other things later on.

5:23Yeah, and I think something, you know, people could think about is this normally on Roswashono we have, we have the Shofar as there to help us along that because the Shofar is like a call that says, the Ramba actually says, the Shofar is all about saying, you know, kind of wake up, it's a spiritual wake up call. You say take, you know, take a moment to reflect and it's a critical instrument and a key part of Roswashono, but tomorrow there's going to be no Shofar. And that's huge. Now, why is there no Shofar and here's something which I think could lead to something practical that people could think about. There's no Shofar because it's Shabbos, but technically you could blow the Shofar on Shabbos, but the rabbis, the time of the Sunhedrin, instituted a decree which said that you don't, you don't blow Shofar and Roswashono because it could lead to the desecration of Shabbos because if a person didn't have a Shofar and they didn't know how to blow it, they would end up carrying the Shofar through an area that you know,

6:32not a carry on Shabbos. You could be in an area without an a-roof and you end up carrying. So here this is how seriously we take Shabbos, that the whole Jewish world doesn't blow Shofar on Roswashono, even though it's one of the mitzvahs in the Torah, because it could lead one person somewhere to break Shabbos. Amazing. Wow. Which means it's astounding. It's astounding. In other words, there is a tremendous power of the lesson of silence that there's no Shofar because the message that it is announcing is that Shabbos is the center of everything and Shabbos is more precious than anything. And my suggestion would be this, like if this year starts on a Shabbos, Roswashono starts on a Shabbos. Day one of the year 5, 7, 8, 7 is Shabbos. Then I think this should be the year of Shabbos for our community.

7:36Absolutely. Well, it's a pretty clear message about to Shabbos starting the year. It's amazing. And I think people, you know, in shul, if you're looking for practical things to think about, think about everyone should think about what they can do more for Shabbos this year. Think about what you are doing and how you can lift your Shabbos, add things to it, make, you know, too, there's so much to do and so many beautiful dimensions to it. And there's so much to keep of Shabbos that it's now really the opportunity to really think about it. So of the many things everyone's thinking about over this Roswashono, think about what are you going to do for Shabbos this year and what will you add to your Shabbos not just once each week, you know. It comes each week and it can be a very important part of it, which is also something we can talk about when the time comes. Definitely will as we get, yeah, as we head towards that, but this is such a great way to concretize steps that we can take and we can all take them whether we are already Shabbat observant, there's always ways to uplift uplift that there's so many, many ways in which we could enhance it.

8:57I just want to consider it just for a moment. There's always a lot of discussions about the year that was the Jewish community, anti-Semitism, Israel, the, it's been a complicated year. In many, many ways, South African, the South African community, thank God blessed in so many ways, but it doesn't remove the complexity and the challenges that we all face as Jews living in the diaspora. So, I'm going to ask you one for Jews living in Israel, how do we, how do we take all of that with us into Rosha Shana and consider and look at the year ahead? It's a great question and a thought to ponder. I think there are many aspects to it, but there's a thing that we say in the Marxist world where, to me, I think maybe gives us a bit of a clarity in all of that.

10:02One of the things we say, Hayam Harat-Olam, today the world was created. We say that in the Marxist world. That expression, today the world is created according to our tradition, what was created today was not the whole world, but just the first human being. And, and, and it relates to the missions on hedron that says that God created Adam and Eve, even though when he created the world he created an unmasked with all the different species, but the human being created one man, one woman to say that that a single human life is, is worth an entire world. And so, in a certain sense, we think about this macro world and there's a lot going on and and a lot of those events that affect the macro world, both nationally, internationally, Israel, you know, obviously now with the UK sanctions on Israel, all of these concerning things, that, that, that big world is a world that, that concerns us, but actually the world that we live in each day is our own macro world of our own lives.

11:08And, and we need to what, what, what Gossarshan is about saying is that, okay, look, that big world, you know, can we change the direction of that big world? That's, that not everybody can do that, but everybody is in control of their own immediate world. And that world is as precious to Hashem as anything and, and we need to think of ourselves as the center of the world. Think about, Gossarshan is the anniversary of the creation of Adam and Eve. That's, that's really what it is. And think about an entire globe with only two human beings on it and then think, and we are, we are, we are, we are, we are, I love those. Because then, and in Hashem's eyes, we're, we're as important as an entire world. And therefore, let's give our lives that, that attention. Yeah. And, and almost not, not be distracted by the, by, by all the noise. And there is so much noise. Yeah. But, and it's, it's sort of holding both. A lot of what, of what Torah teaches us is to hold both.

12:15So if you have a look at the Rosh Hashan of Davenin, you'll see there is a fair portion of it devoted to praying for, for the whole world. We pray that the whole world should recognize Hashem's presence and the morality of, of his values and his presence in this world and, and, and the sanctity of, of who he is and, and, and our role and mission within that. So that, that we pray for that, we, we focus also globally, but also personally. And, and in a sense, what the Torah teaches us to do is to hold two things which feel contradictory and opposites, but actually we hold them both together. So we hold the importance of the, the, the international destiny of, of humanity. And at the same time, without using focus on the fact that our lives are, are our focus and, and, and, and vitally important and precious to Hashem. And that may sound like a contradiction, is that one life that's important to all of humanity, but we hold both. And so our prayers go for both and we, we, but we don't use focus on the fact that when it says that the world is created, that means our life, our life is an entire world.

13:25And what we do with Shabbos or giving charity or honoring our parents or connection to God or our prayers and all of these things, that is a world of importance. As well as the global politics, where we pray, you know, for, for the recognition of Hashem's presence and his morality and, and pray actually for, for redemption itself. Absolutely. Amazing. I do need to leave it there. I want to thank you for all you do for the community for, for, for the community in South Africa for people around the world. We are very, very grateful to you for that and wish you a successful Shannatova, a, that was a rabbi, Dr. Warren Goldstein, Chief Rabbi of South Africa.