The Torah Commentary of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach - Devarim

You know what the nine days are all about? It's when the Ribbono shel Olam shows us what we look like, and what we could look like. It should give us strength to show us how we could be. Eileh hadevarim.

The Ishbitzer says (Beis Ya'akov Bereishis, Ulezos Hischila HaTorah) that Adam was driven out of paradise for this exact reason. We eat a hundred wrong apples a day. The sin of Adam was that he thought that after you make one mistake, you are out of the whole thing. The Torah begins with the word Bereishis, to let you know that the secret of life is to begin again. Not just once a day, but sometimes a thousand times a second.

Moshe Rabbeinu taught us that when you break the tablets you run right back to Mount Sinai and get another set of tablets Note: And you keep the fragments in the inner chamber as a reminder

According to the Ishbitzer, it's not that Mashiach was born on the same day after the destruction took place, it's that the destruction is mamesh the beginning of building the Beis Hamikdash, because this is how we learn how holy the Beis Hamikdash is

Why is the last prayer called Neila? Why be negative, why not call it psicha, that the gates are still open? Reb Hershele Riminover says that all Yom Kippur we are praying for the world, me, my wife, and my children. At the last minute of Yom Kippur I want to be a loner with G-d, just me alone with G-d. Neila doesn't mean that G-d is locking the gates in front of me, G-d is taking me into a private room, just me alone with G-d

You think Moshe Rabbeinu was asking G-d to go to the Holy Land because he knew that G-d doesn't want him to go, but he thought he could change G-d's mind? No. Moshe Rabbeinu was pouring out his heart before G-d, saying, "Ribbono shel Olam, I just want you to know how much I want to go into the Holy Land."

The Torah of Tisha b'Av is that the moment I really see the churban, the destruction, that is when Mashiach is coming. Until I realize I'm mamesh destroyed, Mashiach can't come.

As soon as the month of Elul begins, we always read Re'eh anochi, see what I am showing you; G-d gives every person back a vision of the way they are supposed to look.

There is a pasuk that yemale Hashem kol mishalosecha (Tehilim 20:6). Yemale Hashem, G-d should fulfill all your wishes. What it means is that all your wishes should be filled with G-d. G-d should fill your wishes Your wishes should not exclude G-d

If you are always afraid of another person's opinion about Yiddishkeit, about the world, it's because your own opinion isn't so deep

Parshas Shoftim is always at the beginning of the month of Elul. The first thing in becoming a better person is to stop judging others, and at the same time, to judge my own choices.

Sometimes you know something, and then you hear it in a new way, and it's something else. So when you go to the Holy Temple, leave everything outside. Lo sakim lecha matzeiva, don't make for yourself a monument. Even the holy things you know, keep those outside, because how do you know how G-d wants to reveal it to you now?

New light is shining down from heaven every second, but why don't we receive it? We are so busy looking at yesterday instead of seeing what G-d is giving us today

If I serve G-d on the street the same way I serve G-d in my house, it's off. This isn't where it's at right this minute

The first thing a person has to work on is to have big vessels. G-d is ready to give you everything, you better make some vessels for it. This is essentially what the whole month of Elul is all about, to make vessels for what G-d wants to give us.

Life is a combination of two things. One part is what I have to do, just like everyone else—there are certain rules we all must follow. But then, there is something that only I can do, something unique to me. That's what makes me special. Everybody has something so special that is so deep and this cannot be written down in words. Once a year, G-d reveals to us what we have to do, and this happens when we blow the shofar. When we hear this voice of G-d, everybody hears what this special thing is that he has to do, and it's not in words.

The Torah is a living Torah, it's a "When things go wrong" Torah. The Torah is not only telling you when things are right. The Torah is also there when things go wrong. What's the deepest secret of Yiddishkeit? A Yid has to know he is close to G-d when he is doing right and when he's doing wrong, because the Torah is already making plans for what you should do.

By Neila, I'm not speaking about the mistakes I made. I already fixed these things by Mincha. By Neila, I am mamesh taking G-d inside of me, to that place that is locked all year long, and I'm usually afraid to open.

Reb Leibele Eiger says the deepest depths. Why is it that when I bless children, I put my hands on them? Because it's so easy to use my hands of power against my kids. So I take my hands, put them on their little heads, saying, "I swear to you, all I want to do is to bring you back to life."