Education
Be the Breeze: The Power of One Soul on Rosh Hashanah
In this thought-provoking episode, Rabbi Yisraubranath explores the profound impact of individual actions during Rosh Hashanah, emphasizing how one person's kindness can change the course of anot...
Be the Breeze: The Power of One Soul on Rosh Hashanah
Education •
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Interactive Transcript
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Hi, Rabbi Yisraubranath here. Just a quick invite before we dive in. In a few days, I'm launching a new course that's really close to my heart.
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It's called the forgiveness lab. It's not theory, it's real. It's practical steps to finally let go of this stuff weighing you down.
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So if you've been holding on to a grudge or you just want to feel a little lighter, this is the time of year to do the work.
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The sole work of letting go and starting fresh. That's why I created the forgiveness lab. It's a space to explore forgiveness in a real practical way.
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And I'd be honored for you to walk this path with me. The way the course is going to work is there's going to be pre-recorded lectures that you'll be able to listen to or watch in your own time.
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There'll be a workbook that you can journal and work through the processes by yourself. And then once a week, we're going to come together. It's going to be a small group.
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And we're going to discuss and really explore forgiveness in a way that I've done myself and I'm so excited to share with you.
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So just go to the loverabbi.com, THELOVERABBI.com, the loverabbi.com, slash events. Click on the forgiveness lab. You can also look at the other events there.
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And sign up and someone will be in touch with you and we'll take it from there. I can't wait for you to join us. And now on to today's episode.
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Hi everyone. I am preparing my high holiday sermons. And so I figured instead of doing it alone, I would do it with you. And for those of you who'll be joining us, this Rosh Hashana was a beautiful actually our largest Rosh Hashana ever.
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And you'll hear it in the synagogue. Obviously, this is me preparing it. It won't be the same as what you'll hear in the synagogue.
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But it will give you the opportunity to review it and to share it. And also for those of you who weren't able to join us in person, it gives you the ability to hear it.
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Not long ago, a member of our community approached me and he looked troubled.
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Said rabbi, look at the world. Eight billion people so much suffering so much darkness. And me, I'm just one person. What can I possibly do?
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With everything that's going on in the world, I feel invisible. I feel powerless. And if we're being honest, I think there's enough pain in the world to make that question feel legitimate, even persuasive.
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I felt it myself, especially this year, and I suspect that listening to this, you may be nodding your head in agreement.
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That feeling that nothing we do matters is based on a misunderstanding, I think, of how change really happens.
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If you study history closely, a pattern emerges. The biggest shifts don't start with the masses. They begin at the edges, with one person, with one moment, with one idea that refuses to go away until suddenly it's everywhere.
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I think of Isaac Newton. He was sitting in a quiet English garden when he saw an apple fall from a tree.
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He didn't drift sideways, it didn't float upward, it fell straight down. And he wondered, why did the apple fall straight down?
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What force was pulling it to the ground? And that one question gave birth to gravity. And it reshaped physics, it reshaped space, time, and our understanding of the universe, one fruit, one thought, a new world.
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Or think of James Wat, just a boy standing in his grandmother's kitchen, watching a kettle boil, nothing dramatic, just watching the kettle boil, just steam lifting the lid of the kettle.
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And he wondered, what if that steam could do more than make tea? What if that steam can power machines? And that question became the steam engine.
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The steam engine became the industrial revolution and the world moved forward. History turns on small hinges, history turns on quiet moments, barely noticed at the time.
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But sometimes it isn't about gravity or steam. Sometimes it's about dignity, about the human soul, think of Rosa Parks, a single woman, weary from a day's work.
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She refused to give a receipt on a segregated bus. And suppose you had told her the night before, Rosa, the world is too broken, the forces of racism are too vast.
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You are the only one person, just you, one tired seamstress, you're the only one that can change that cannot change anything.
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You, you cannot change anything. And suppose she had believed you.
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There would have been no Montgomery bus boycott, no spark to ignite the civil rights movement, no quiet revolution that began with one woman who refused to surrender her seat, who refused to surrender her dignity.
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History would have taken a different course. Millions would have remained longer in oppression. One act of moral courage reshaped a nation's conscience.
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Now, let me tell you about a lake. It sits high in the Rocky Mountains, still quiet, unremarkable at first glance. But if you watch carefully, you'll notice something unexpected.
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The water at that lake doesn't flow in just one direction. It divides. One stream travels east, joining the Mississippi, winding through the heartland, and eventually reaching the Gulf of Mexico.
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Sorry, I'm supposed to change that name. I don't know. And other flows west, cutting through valleys, cutting through canyons until it meets the Pacific Ocean. Same lake, same water, two opposite sides of the continent, thousands of miles apart.
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What makes the difference? Not a mountain, not a valley, not an earthquake, and why I love this so much is because what makes the difference is a breeze.
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That's right. A simple gust of wind. As the water reaches the divide, a tiny, almost invisible force, a passing wind nudges it one way or the other. That's all. A breeze and the journey is set. A wind, a breeze, that is life.
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Each day, we encounter people standing at their own divide, uncertain of their direction. And you, through your presence, through your words, through your kindness, are the breeze that shapes their journey.
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We tend to think that lives change in big, dramatic moments. But more often it's something small. It's a smile, a conversation in the hallway.
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A Shabbat dinner, a mitzvah that you didn't think anyone noticed. A comment, you don't even remember saying, and suddenly someone's life shifts. And their journey takes a turn because it had nothing to do with you.
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You were just the pipe, you were just the channel, you were just the flow, you were just the breeze, that they needed at that moment.
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And this idea, it's not modern, it's ancient, it's Jewish, it's Rosh Hashanah.
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The sages chose for Rosh Hashanah the Haftura from Shmul the Prophet, the Prophet Samuel. One of the greatest leaders are people ever had. A man who brought unity, who anointed kings, who helped shape the destiny of a nation.
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But the midrash asks a question, what did his parents do? This is what the midrash asks, what did his parents do to merit such a soul?
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And the answer doesn't begin with a miracle, it begins with a walk. That's right, Samuel, Shmul's father, Al-Khana, walked, he made a pilgrimage each year to the Tabernacle in Shiloh.
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Shiloh is a city north of Jerusalem, it's nestled in the hills, but unlike others, he didn't take the same route twice.
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It says,
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One year he walked to this road and the next year another, always a new path. Why? Because people had stopped going. People had stopped praying, they were tired, they were disconnected, they were numb.
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So Al-Khana changed his path to cross new villages to meet new people, to let them see him going and when they asked, where are you headed? He'd say, come, let's go experience something God lead together.
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That's all, no sermon, no confrontation, just a kind invitation, just a gentle breeze on the road to Shiloh.
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Every year, more people joined him and by the end, he was leading caravans. The journey became a movement, the midrash closes with this line.
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Because he inspired others to return to God, God gave him a son, who would return a nation to its soul.
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Al-Khana never knew who he touched, he didn't keep score, he just kept walking and from his footsteps came a prophet.
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I think right now in the world, we have a choice, we can listen to all the noise, we can live as many people are and rightfully so with despair.
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Or we can be Al-Khana, we can be the breeze. We don't have to be perfect, we don't have to be famous, we don't have to just walk, we have to just care.
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Because someone is always watching, someone is always listening and someone right now at this moment is standing at their divide and you have an opportunity.
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You can be the breeze that nudges them forward toward who they were meant to be, toward who they were meant to become, or you can just stand them as sidelines.
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And what's amazing is just by being you, you may never even know it, they may never even tell you, but just by being you, you can be the breeze.
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In the 1990s, there was a student at Oxford, he kept hearing voices, loud ones, criticizing Israel.
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He didn't know much about it, but he knew that he cared deeply about truth and justice, he wanted to understand and so one day, he turned to a fellow student and just asked,
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not so long ago, can you explain it to me?
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And that Jewish student did calmly, thoughtfully, no shouting, no slogans.
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And he says that conversation changed something.
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The student who asked that question is now a best-selling author, a journalist, and one of the clearest voices defending Israel and the Jewish people, his name is Douglas Murray.
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He does not know who that Jewish student was, and that student may have no idea what he said in motion, but it mattered, and it mattered more than either of them could have imagined.
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Let me conclude with a final story.
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The year was 1944.
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The end of the war.
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Much of Jewish life in Europe had already been extinguished.
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Hungry remained.
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One last flickering refuge.
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Then Ichman arrived.
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Hundreds of thousands of Jews were deported to Auschwitz.
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The trains didn't stop.
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The world remained silent.
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And in that darkness, one man stepped forward.
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Ruhl Wallenberg.
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He was 32 years old.
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A junior Swedish diplomat.
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No army.
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No power.
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No fame.
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But he had moral clarity.
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And he acted.
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He issued tens of thousands of forged Swedish passports, documents that placed the bearer under Swedish protection.
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And stopped the Nazis from sending them to Auschwitz.
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He rented buildings, covered them in Swedish flags, and he called them embassies, and inside thousands of lives were saved.
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He showed up at the train station and pulled Jews off to Portation lines.
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He arrived with stacks of forged papers.
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Shouting names and demanded their release.
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And even when guards raised rifles, he stood his ground.
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He bribed.
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He bluffed.
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He risked his life every single day.
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And because he did.
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More than 50,000 Jewish men, women and children lived.
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No single individual.
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Save more lives during the Holocaust in Wallenberg.
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He understood.
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You cannot chase all the darkness out of the world at once.
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But you can light your single candle.
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You can bring light.
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And hope to one soul at a time.
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And today over 300,000 people, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, great-great-grandchildren, are alive because of Wallenberg.
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And because he refused to look away.
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And that's how the world really changes.
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Not with hurricanes.
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Not with headlines.
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Not with all the noise.
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But with a falling apple.
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With a boiling kettle.
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With a woman who wouldn't stand.
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With a man who faced an empire of evil while the world looked away.
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And a father who took a different road.
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So others would find their way.
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And Rosh Hashanah.
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One of the most important.
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The biblical commandment of Rosh Hashanah.
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Is to sound the shofar.
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The primal cry.
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And there are many reasons why we sound the shofar.
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On Rosh Hashanah.
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But one of the oldest and perhaps the most urgent today.
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Is that an ancient Israel the shofar was a call to battle.
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When danger approached, it was the shofar that broke the silence.
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It summoned the people from their fields, from their fears, from the comfort of their routines.
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And said, the moment is now.
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The fight is yours.
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It stands with courage.
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And through the battlefield.
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They stood.
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And maybe the battlefield has changed today.
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But the battle hasn't ended.
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Today there is a fight between good and evil.
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Between light and darkness.
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Between doing something.
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And walking away.
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And the shofar still calls.
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It reminds us that every soul counts.
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That every midst of matters.
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And that history turns on the choices of ordinary people.
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Who decide not to walk away.
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So when you hear the shofar this year.
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And when you hear this, probably you already have heard the shofar this year.
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So I want you to reflect on that.
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And listen closely.
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Because the shofar is calling your name.
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And this year.
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May you be the breeze that shifts the future.
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Even if no one else sees you coming.
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My blessing to you.
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Is that may be this year be sweet.
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May it be beautifully sweet.
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Beautifully sweet.
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Because you're the breeze.
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Because you're the one who makes it sweet.
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You don't wait for something to happen.
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You make it happen.
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That's our power.
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And no one can take that away from us.
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Not any of the noise.
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Not anything that's going on.
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No one can take that power away from us.
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And Hashem should see that.
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We're making that choice over and over and over again.
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And bless us with a year of life.
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A year of goodness.
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A year of healing.
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A year of beauty for ourselves.
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For our families.
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For those we loved.
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And for the entire world.
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Shannatova.