Rosh Hashanah is an opportunity not to just better ourselves and our life, it’s an opportunity for complete and true transformation. Even when we look at ourselves, we think, “I will make myself a little bit better.” What we should be thinking, what we should be saying to ourselves, is, “I cannot believe the place that I’m at. I can’t believe the person that I am, falling to the Desire to Receive for the Self-Alone, to my ego. I must completely change.”

I’m not looking to Rosh Hashanah to make myself a little or a lot better. In many stories in the Zohar and the Talmud, people who did not start their lives as great people came through a situation that awakened them not only to the need to better themselves, but also to the need to completely change who they are, to the way they look at themselves and interact with people.

Unfortunately, one of the negative qualities we have as human beings is the ability to settle. We find ourselves in this situation and we get used to it. We might say I want this or that to be better. There is the example of clearing the chairs on the Titanic. The boat is sinking, but maybe I can make the chairs look nicer.

Unfortunately, almost always, when we look at ourselves in our spiritual transformation, we accept, 85%, 90%, 95% of where we are at. We say this 5% is how can I make it better. The reality is we should not accept the other 95%. We accept ourselves because that is how we have known ourselves. We have a tremendous potential, but we accept the lack of it because that’s where we find ourselves now.

In the section in Zohar Chadash, in Noach (Verse 80 - Reading and translating), Rabbi Yochanan begins with a verse from Job. That a person who’s negative does not see the way out. He does not find the way out. This parable can be compared to a group of thieves and robbers who lived in the mountains, and when anybody would come through the paths in the mountains, they would rob them.

The king heard about this group of thieves and sent his solders to capture them. They grabbed the thieves and put them in jail. Amongst the thieves there were some who were smart. We know they realized how terrible their actions were. They said if we hang in jail, we will not be let out because we appreciate how terrible our actions were. If we wait for judgment, there is no hope. They started digging a tunnel and ran away.

There was one person among them, an idiot. He sees the tunnel, and he says, I’m not going to go, I’m not going to run away.

The next day the king comes and he sees they ran away. And he saw they had dug the hole. The whole group had run away and there is one guy sitting in the corner in the room. The king turns to the guy and says, “Idiot, your friends ran away through this hole. What can I do? But you saw the hole and did not want to run away. Your punishment will be worse and eventually you will be hung on a tree.”

The Zohar explains who the robbers are compared to a person who goes on the dark paths. Who is the smarter person who has gone on the wrong path? We realize the terrible darkness we have created and ask, How do we find a way to get out of the judgment? But we will try to open up a pathway of correction, and we will ask for mercy, and we will be able to run away from the judgment. This is what the smart people do. What do the stupid ones do? They see the pathway open to them, that others have prepared, but they don’t want to run out.

The Creator says to the stupid ones, your brethren ran away, they opened up the pathway toward transformation, toward change. What can I do? But you, you saw the pathway opened but you did not want to go through it, to run away and hide. And you, you will never be able to see the pathway toward transformation. And the end will only be darkness.

The Zohar goes on to talk about the ark of Noach.

When I read the story, one of the things that always bothered me, if you are the king and there is a group of people you put in jail, some run away and one stays, the most logical thing would be to get upset at those who ran way. The one who stayed seems to want to do the right thing. The opposite occurs in this story. The king is more upset at the one who didn’t run away.

Why did this guy hang out? It wasn’t because he was afraid of the king. He was fine. The jail was nice. What’s the big deal? He had no appreciation for the darkness, the negativity that he had done. And he had no appreciation for the situation he was in. He was fine to settle with his newfound situation because he did not appreciate the darkness that he had created.

This Shabbat is the Shabbat on which we can truly transform. But only if we appreciate where we are at, like the Zohar here is making very clear. I hope and assume many of us are doing our work, seeing our year and what we have to change and cleanse. I think too often for most of us, when we look the totality of our lives, and we say there is 80 or 90 percent that’s good, we’ll settle for changing the rest. We are not startled, shocked by our situation. We have accepted it and then clean up only a little bit around the edges.

It’s like going to the dentist. When you have a cavity, you can’t just clean the edges. You have to go to the end of the problem and take it out.If we really want to have this coming year not simply be a little bit better, we have to be shocked on this Shabbat. We have to look at ourselves, at our lives, at where we are at, and not accept any of it.

The only reason we accept any of it is because, as the Torah and the Prophets say, on our heart and on our soul there is a covering. The heart of rock that blinds us. We have allowed it to make ourselves into who we are, what we do, and what we allow ourselves to be.

On this Shabbat it would be unfortunate if we only got some Light, some awakening. That is why all the Shabbats of the year come together on this Shabbat. If we truly desire, we have the ability to completely transform. But the only way is if we become startled at where we find ourselves on this last Shabbat before Rosh Hashanah.

We have to say, “I am no longer accepting of who I am, of the things I allow myself to do, or the lack of the positive things I can do.” The true potential, the person we are meant to be, is so far from who we are. It’s not because we want to become depressed, but because we have a tremendous gift on this Shabbat. But we can only partake of this gift if we become shocked.

If we do, and if we desire that in this coming year we are not going to be just a little bit better, but we know we want to completely transform, to become the person we were put in this world to be, the revelation of the Light, for this year, we can completely transform.

It’s this gift, like the king and the man in the castle. The pathway is there. It was created for us by many great souls before us. The only question is if we are going to be like the idiot and say I’m comfortable here. But if we do not want to be who we are and where we are, we will run on that pathway. That is the gift available for us this Shabbat. And all of us can partake of it.