Transcript
Okay, good morning, chodesh tov to all. I apologize for being a little bit delayed, an exercise in exactly the topic of our shiur and emuna, because my computer decided right before we began that it was the perfect time to download an update. And my computer is still updating, so I didn't have my computer available for this class and had to go and run and borrow one of my children's computers. So thank you for your patience and understanding as we are still figuring this out. I greatly appreciate it. Okay, I want to thank our generous sponsors. I'm all over the place this morning. First of all, a chodesh tov, a gut chodesh, and a gut chanukah, and a good day to everybody. Thank you to the Morgans for their generosity sponsoring in memory of Rabbi Doctor Brian Galbut, as well as in memory of Bella's mother, Ellen. Thank you so much for your generosity. Okay, we're continuing Living with Emuna. How can we live our lives each and every day and feel the presence of Hashem? How can we live our lives every day and not be filled with anxiety and worry and panic when our computers do decide to download updates and it says thirty-eight minutes remaining when there are four minutes to the emuna shiur and you have to scramble to go steal your child's computer? How can you say that's Hashem's plan? Hashem, if you want me to share your Torah, it'll work, and if not, it won't work, and so be it. So that's what we're exercising and trying to figure out each and every Wednesday when we meet and all the times in between, trying to live our lives and fill our lives as שויתי ה' לנגדי תמיד that there is a God, that Hashem loves us, and that Hashem has expectations of us, and that Hashem is with us. So we were up to the second chapter of Dveikus, Rabbi Itamar Morgenstern, the wonderful sefer Vayimdadu Orchacha, and he has been teaching us the methodology, the strategy, what are the qualities we need necessary in order to acquire a life of dveikus, of clinging to and attaching ourselves and sticking with God. And the first strategy he spoke about is the notion of emuna, living with emuna. And he ended this by saying that a person needs to be diligent in reviewing the sefarim, in exposing ourselves to the teachings and the lessons and the ideals of emuna. Emuna's not going to happen if you wake up in the morning, and no matter how committed you are, if you learn the daf yomi and you go to shul three times a day and you make brachos before and after you eat and you try to be careful not to gossip or slander and to treat people respectfully, no matter how careful you are with observing all of the Torah and mitzvos, but if a person, if a person is not going to allocate and dedicate time to thinking about these cosmic things: is there a God and what does He want from me, and do I feel His presence and am I in a relationship with Him, am I spending time communicating and confiding in Him? If a person's not going to allocate that time and to have that experience, they're not going to live that life. And so externally, you can go through all the motions. Externally, you can be doing all the right things, but it won't add up to a feeling of closeness, to an intimacy and an affection with the Almighty. It won't lead up to a feeling of knowing why I'm here and the difference I'm meant to make if a person doesn't spend that time. And he ends that first section with a footnote. He says בשביל להשיג דביקות אמת in order to acquire true dveikus, to cling and to attach ourselves צריך גם לקבל את דרך צדיק שמבוטל לגמרי לשם יתברך וכמו שהארכנו לדבר במאמר אמונת חכמים. He says in order to really acquire this, you need to attach yourself to a tzaddik. Now, this is a particularly chasidishe doctrine or approach, the doctrine of the tzaddik. Part of the novelty or the introduction or what chasidus placed greater emphasis, I should say, maybe not introduced, was the idea of taking upon ourselves a rebbe, a tzaddik. In other words, for the Nefesh HaChaim and for the more litvishe approach that Torah is primary and central, it's really about our study of Torah, or learning of Torah, Torah informs and Torah inspires. And that's not to suggest for chasidus Torah doesn't play a similar or the same role, but it means that chasidim said you can't do it alone. You need a support system and a support network, but more than that, the first step or the prerequisite, even an earlier than a first step, the prerequisite to living a life of emuna is to believe that you could live a life of emuna, is to believe that you're capable of having emuna, you're capable of feeling the presence of the Almighty in your life. Some of us sometimes despair, we give up hope, we don't believe that it's going to happen. We say, I've tried, I've tried to talk to Hashem, I've tried to feel His love, but it feels like He shares with me and showers me with anything but love. I try to, it doesn't go anywhere. I don't feel it, I don't feel Him, I don't know if He feels me, it just doesn't go. So I don't know if I believe it. I'm not sure. I'm sure there's a God, I'm sure there's an omnipotent Creator, I'm sure there's a source of all, but I just don't know and I just don't feel it. So says Rabbi Itamar, the prerequisite to living a life with emuna is to believe that we can and that we will live a life of emuna. So how can you instill and cultivate, how can you acquire that belief that we're capable of a life in emuna? So he suggests one way is attaching yourself to a... Spend time with them and it's contagious. The emuna, that life of faith, that life of courage, that life of resiliency, will be contagious. You will acquire it, you will absorb it. We've shared this several times and I'll share it again because just in the context of what we're learning right now, it really comes out. I was once speaking with somebody who's in the recovery program and one of the 12 steps in recovery, and what is recovery? Recovery is letting go, letting God, is submitting to a higher power, it's saying that there are things beyond my control and therefore I have to reach out for help, help from people in a support network and help from the creator, help from the one who's really in charge. So when one gets to that step, the step of submitting to a higher power, there are many people who struggle at that step. If you've led a secular life or even if you've led a religious life but you feel God has not been there in your spiral downward in a life of addiction, many people struggle when they get to that step, the step of submitting to a higher power. So what do you do? That's it? Can't go on? Program's over for you? You've hit the glass ceiling? So someone who's been successfully for a long time part of the recovery program and community told me something fascinating. He said that when you mentor somebody, when you are a sponsor for someone, when someone new joins the program and they get stuck there at submitting to a higher power, you know what you say to them? You say find somebody else who has a higher power and submit to their higher power. It means find someone else in the program who you admire, who you look up to, who looks like they're successful, who is willing to be your mentor, your sponsor, and they have a higher power, they live with a consciousness and a mindfulness that there's a God and he has a plan, ride their coattails, grab onto them, submit to their higher power. And I would say similarly when it comes to emuna. And I say this all the time particularly, I think that was my computer in the background finally having reached its update, Baruch Hashem, thank you Hashem, whatever your timing is this morning. I say the same for as long as we can have the gift of having access to Holocaust survivors. Holocaust survivors who went through the worst atrocities in the history of humanity, who went through that which is unimaginable to us, who went through horrific loss and horrific pain and horrific oppression and persecution. And many or most of whom maintained faith and maintained faith in people and the world and who rebuilt themselves with positivity and it's on their shoulders that we sit. And you can connect to, when one is in the program of emuna and says, well, I just don't know, I've reached out and I've looked for him and I haven't felt he's there, I've struggled to connect, I just don't know I'm capable, I don't know it's possible, I don't know if anybody does. Attach yourself to the tzadik, says Reb Itche Meyer, whether it's a rebbe or whether it's a tzadik and you see the way they have mindful living. You see that God is b'cheshbon, that God is in the room and part of every conversation and part of every calculation, and for that righteous man or woman Hashem is an active, not figment of imagination but an active presence in their life. So attach yourself to such a person, connect and live with such a person. And for me at the highest of those levels is the Holocaust survivor, is the person who went through what they went through. I saw a magnificent picture recently of a survivor lighting Chanukah candles and the image of their touching their candles to their chanukiah with the numbers on their arm showing and the contrast of what the numbers on the arm represent in history and what lighting the menorah represents about our destiny and hope and faith and illuminating and dispelling the darkness. And if a survivor with numbers on their arm can use that arm to reach out to light that menorah and bring greater light into this world, to in the candles of that menorah see the or haganuz, the hidden light, the light of Moshiach, the light of redemption, the light of possibility, the light that illuminates and lets us see from one end of the world to the other, then certainly we can. So he says part of that strategy is to attach yourself. Now it could mean attach yourself to a living tzadik, a living righteous man or woman, but it could also mean attach yourself to a biography. I've said this several times that among the most transformational, transformative, inspiring activities are reading biographies of really special people. First of all you see in these biographies that these people were not necessarily born this way, they worked hard to become who they became, they had to progress, they had to work on themselves, they had to work on themselves. They weren't born this way. We follow the opinion of Beis Hillel and we begin with one candle the first night and we build our way up to eight candles on the eighth night. And Beis Hillel explains his opinion as mosif v'holeich, we add on and we go on, mosif we add on v'holeich and we go on. And that's the opinion of Beis Hillel. Beis Shammai starts with eight and goes to one. Beis Shammai says you gotta consolidate and you gotta reduce, in cooking... I am told, you can make something called a reduction. A reduction is when you boil off, I think, and again correct me if, don't even correct me, I don't want to hear if I'm wrong. But a reduction is you boil off the excess liquid, the excess soup, and you've created a reduction which is a very potent form of what you wanted, filled with flavor. So in cooking you have something called a reduction, and in life you have something called consolidating to that which is essential versus non-essential in life. And so too in life Beis Shammai say you go from eight and then we go to one. Why? We're consolidating. We're trying to create a reduction which will be more potent and a more powerful force in our life. Beis Hillel disagree and we follow Beis Hillel. The first night we light one candle and then mosif v'holech, we add on and we go until we get to eight candles because that's a lesson for our lives. We are mosif v'holech, we're always adding on and we're going. So when you read a biography of a great person and you realize they were mosif v'holech, they weren't born number eight, they were born number one, or even if they were born number five or six, they had to work on themselves to become the number eight that they, to become the number eight, thank you Melanie, that's a reduction, to become the number eight that they were. So read biographies, read biographies. And I'll even go so far and be so bold as to tell you, don't only read biographies of Jewish heroes, of righteous Jewish men and women. There are biographies, all the Abe Lincoln biographies about how many times he failed before he succeeded. All the biographies of people who had to overcome obstacles and hardship in order to be able to endure with resiliency and resolve, and that becomes contagious. When we read that, we see possibility for the very reason Rabbi Itamar Meyers is describing. Because the biggest challenge to living this life is a failure to believe that we can live this life. Is when we concede and surrender before we ever start. So when you read the biography of people who maybe were in similar circumstances, or even if they were in others, but they found the inner strength. When you read the biographies of righteous Jewish men and women who inspire us, the capability, the possibility, the capacity, it is possible. Then we can attach ourselves. So whether we submit to our own higher power or we attach ourselves to someone else's higher power, you know the story of the Bluzhover Rebbe jumping over the canyon and the person says, I was holding on to you. We can hold on to the people who have incredible faith and ride their coat-tails. כי על ידי שנסמוך אצל הצדיקים שכל חייהם דבקים בהשם יתברך ויודעים בשלמותם שאין עוד מלבדו ומבטלים כל מציאות אליו יתברך. When you attach yourself to a person who has attached themselves to Hashem, you're part of that chain, you're part of that, you're part of that current, you're part of that current. You know, a couple of years ago we did a staff outing. The rabbis went, once a year we go and we try to do something fun together to not only be working hard but play hard together. So we mix it up different years and we do different things. And one year we went to an escape room. And there were some great minds in that escape room on our team, we have some really smart people. So we had a lot of fun, not only getting out of the room but competing who could find the clues to get us out of the room. And we were at the last stage, the final stage to get out of the room. Not only to get out within the time that they give, but you know, rabbis can be slightly competitive, we wanted to kill that time, we wanted to get out really early. And there was one last thing to open that door and we couldn't figure it out. And one of the rabbis figured it out, that there was the key on the one end and on the other end of the room there was something, and the people in the room had to hold hands in order to create an electric current between the two which would open the door for us. I forget what the clues were to be able to be able to do that. We had to be able to hold hands. We had to, today you couldn't do that, Corona, so I guess you're stuck in that room forever due to COVID, which is a perfect quarantine. But in those days you could still touch people, you could still hold hands. So we had to hold hands which created the electric current which enabled us to be able to open the door. So if you attach yourself to a righteous person who attaches themselves to God, you are tapping into that electric current called emuna. You are connecting through them to a life of dveikus, to a life of clinging to God. There is that possibility, there is that capability, the capacity, it is possible. Then we can attach ourselves. And so that's the effort that we need to make. Of course, the more direct route is to connect and attach to ourselves to God directly. We shouldn't need to go through someone else. However, sometimes you have to take an indirect route and then we can והוא מתקשר עליהם בעבותות האהבה יכול לזכות שתשרה גם עליו השגה אמיתית הזאת. When you become a link in the chain, when you become a link in the electric current, then you're part of that electrical system and you connect to the source and you can get the jolt of emuna from Hashem, a feeling attached and feeling connected to him. So all of that was number one. You want to be able to live a life of dveikus, you want to live a life where you attach yourself to Hashem, so when your computer doesn't start and you're about to teach, you don't panic, but instead you take a deep breath and you turn to him and you say whatever your plan is, we'll figure this out. If you want to be able to get to that level, then it starts with emuna. You can't attach yourself to someone or something you don't believe exists. So the first step is to believe and to know and to live with his existence and then once a person has achieved that or is on their way to achieving that, *mosif veholech* is growing in achieving that, then they can attach themselves to the thing, the person, the being they know exists. Number one. Number two. ובנוסף צריך לעורר לבו להרגיש אהבה ויראה. It’s not enough to know that God exists. That's *emuna*, that's step one. There's a being, there's a source, He created the world, He's involved intimately in every detail of our lives. That's number one. But He doesn't exist in abstract. He doesn't exist academically. He doesn't exist in theory. He doesn't exist for other people. But I have a relationship with Him. He knows and He has expectations of me, and He loves me, and He understands me, and I can confide and trust in Him, and I can love Him, and I can have awe and fear of Him. So בנוסף צריך לעורר לבו, a person has to awaken, arouse their heart, *lehargish ahava veyira*. You have to be able to enter into a relationship. Some people struggle with relationships with people, those that they can see and feel and touch and hear. Imagine how hard it will be for them to have a relationship with an invisible being, with the Almighty being who is everywhere. We have to have the capacity for relationships. To trust and to be trusted, to confide, to spend time, to communicate, to emote, to love, to feel. וכשיהיה לו אהבה ויראה יכול להגיע לדבקות היוצא מהם. And when you have that capacity, when you're able to feel love, when you're able to recoil with a sense of awe and admiration, with affection, then you'll be able to attach yourself. הדרך לזכות לאהבה ויראה היא. So what's the path? How do we get to the point of being able to love and to fear? *Yira* translates literally to fear. And of course *yira* literally means fear. But *yira* means something so much more. If you've studied with me you know this is one of my pet peeves. That *yira* means awe. To be in awe. Not awesome like you're some teenager or hippie from the sixties. It's awesome, dude. It's awesome, man. Because we've totally minimized that word. We've diluted that word. The word awesome no longer means anything. The song is awesome, the food is awesome, everything is awesome. But really the word awesome means to be filled with awe. It's awesome, it's worthy of awe. You know what's worthy of awe? Magnificent sunrise or sunset, the birth of a child, the miracle of life. That's awesome. That is awesome. So when one's filled with love or awe of God when we're exposed to, when we're able to feel awe. We are the opposite. If the hippies thought everything was awesome, we have the opposite plague, where the generation today thinks nothing is awesome. We look at everything and we say, eh. Eh, I'm not impressed. That artwork, that sculpture, I could print that in my 3D printer. That whatever, eh, I could do that. I could create that. I could recreate that. Eh, nothing impresses me. That's a new word. I didn't grow up with the word eh. I wonder if it's yet made the Webster's Dictionary. Eh. Everything is eh. Nothing impresses us. Nothing impresses us. Somehow we think it takes away from us, our ego. If that impresses me, then it means that really I'm inferior, I'm small, I'm looking up and I'm being impressed by that thing which is worthy of having awe of. But if I say eh, if nothing impresses me, it's because I'm really on top of the mountain. It's because everything is inferior to me. I'm really on top. So everything is one big fat eh. We've lost that ability for awe. We have to be able to feel awe, to return and recover to a sense of awe. That there are things that are worthy of being in awe of. There are people who have behaviors, there are people who have minds, there are people who have achievements. There's this world that we look at and that we live in that's worthy of being in awe of. Not to say eh, but to say wow. Wow, that is worthy of being in awe of. So do you live your life wanting to feel *Hashem's* love? *Ahava*. The wows, the moments of He did that for me. That worked out. I was worried it wasn't going to, and in the last minute there was a solution or a coincidence or it was aligned, the way everything came together. I feel His love. And at other moments that you say wow, I am filled with awe. That is awesome. That is worthy of awe. And a healthy dose of *yira*, fear, is not bad either. יראת הרוממות ויראת העונש. *Yiras haonesh* is fear of punishment. You know because as much as God is our romantic loving partner, and we live the metaphor of husband and wife, longing and love and connection, but simultaneously He's also our father and He's also the king. And as a parent, and those who want and long to become parents should be blessed with having healthy children, but a parent knows that we love our children unconditionally, take a bullet for them, but we also have expectations and dreams and hopes for them. And we want our children to know that and to live with that. And we as the children of the Almighty live with that *yiras haonesh*, the notion that there is a reward and punishment. Last week or two weeks ago we did five conversions in one day. We had a little bit of a build up, so good day for the Jews, we brought five new Jews into the world. Wonderful people, great additions, big assets to the Jewish people. Five new Jews in the world. So one of the questions that we asked them in the *mikva*. The series of questions we ask that you have to answer yes or no is, do you believe in reward and punishment? You know, this is not just like you believe in gefilte fish and sufganiyot. It's not just believe in latkes and you... do you believe in reward and punishment? These are not 613 suggestions. It's not 613, if you feel like it, if you're up to it, if you agree with me, if you're in the mood, if you want to. These are 613 expectations Hashem has. Now he doesn't have them for himself, he doesn't need them or benefit from them. He has them for us, but they are what we call commandments. They are mitzvot. By the way, the root of that word tzivui is connection, is a connection. Hashem is drawing, he's making a connection with us through the mitzvot that he asks us to do. So we have a father in heaven, he has expectations of us and when we fail those expectations there are consequences. It's a reality of the world that we live in. There are consequences when you fail in school, and there are consequences when you fail at work, and there are consequences when you fail in life, and there are consequences when you fail God. Now we don't believe that he is a harsh God who's looking to hurt us or destroy us; he's loving, he's forgiving, he is eager for us to repair. But there are consequences. That's yirat ha'onesh, that's fear of punishment. We have to live and know, like the convert in the mikvah who's asked, we are asked every day, do you believe in reward and punishment? Do we believe and know that there are expectations from above? That's one form of yirah. But there's also yirat haromemut. Yirat haromemut means I'm so blown away, I'm so in awe. You know, have you ever met a great person you admire? I don't mean a celebrity who's an influencer. An influencer is another way of saying they don't actually contribute anything meaningful to the world, but somehow they've drawn a lot of attention, so when they say something it gets a lot of attention. I mean people worthy of awe: a Nobel Prize winner, somebody you know Shas backwards and forwards, a tzaddik, a talmid chacham, a ba'alat chesed, somebody who does chesed that she is the most selfless thing you've ever seen in your life. When you meet greatness and all of a sudden you don't, you panic, you don't have words, you have goosebumps, you're so nervous you don't know what to say, you're filled with a yirat haromemut. You are in the presence of greatness and when one is in the presence of greatness they recoil, they feel, they defer to the fact that they are in the presence of greatness. And if that's the case when it comes to a human being, the presence of greatness, then all the more so when you're in the presence of the Almighty, the creator, the greatest artist, whatever you admire, whether it's wisdom or art or athleticism, a mind, a heart, a soul, God is all that He is, the source of all that. And when a person can properly live with the awareness that we are in the presence of the Almighty, then, yirat haromemut, that sense of awe, the awe, the Grand Canyon, or or you go to Jackson Hole, or Wyoming, you go to wherever you go, Eretz Yisrael, you go to the Golan, the Galil, Dead Sea, magnificent sights, you sit and stare at Har Habayit, what was once there, lehavdil to these other examples, then a person feels yirat... wow, awe, awe for God. הדרך לזכות להתבונן ולחשוב במציאות השם יתברך וגדולתו. So here's the thing: how do you get there? So again, let's start. Our goal, what we've been studying is we want to get to a place of dveikus. We want to glue and attach ourselves to God. We want to know, don't panic, don't feel envy, don't feel anger, don't feel anxiety, but rather dveikus, if we attach and glue ourselves to Him, if we know He has our back, we could relax, then we could be happy with what we have, then we could know that there's always a plan. That's our goal. How do you get to dveikus? How do we get to that place of mindful living that God is always in the room, His hand is always on my shoulder, His expectations of me? How do I get there? First step was emunah. I have to believe He exists. If I don't believe He exists, I'll never attach myself to Him. What if I'm struggling to believe? Not believe. What if I'm struggling to know that He exists? Read biographies, attach ourselves to somebody who knows, grab on to someone else's higher power. Number two, התבוננות אהבה ויראה ודביקות. To be contemplative, meditative, reflective, to think about that there is a God and His role in our lives. להתבונן ולחשוב במציאות השם יתברך וגדולתו. So I would ask you, if we were together in person I would ask you this question: when is the last time that you allocated time? When is the last time that you stopped with no agenda? Not reading a book, not listening to a class, not in conversation with another person. You stopped and you sat and you thought just about God. You thought about Him. Thought about His presence in your life, thought about His existence, thought about that relationship and that connection, thought about where you've been together and where you want to go together. להתבונן ולחשוב במציאות השם יתברך וגדולתו and His greatness. When's the last time you reviewed your hashgacha pratit WhatsApp group? When's the last time that you read your journal where you talked about God did some outstanding thing for you or some small seemingly inconsequential coincidence but it really was nice to know He cared? וברוב אהבתו שאוהב אותנו and with all that love that He feels for us וכפי מה שאדם מתבונן באלוקות כך הוא זוכה להידבק. And when a person thinks about God he will merit to connect and to cling to him. And I'll tell you last night we were watching Hanukkah family activity in the Goldberg home but we were watching a highlights of each of my daughters' weddings. So when watching it I was filled with an overwhelming feeling of gratitude to Hashem, Baruch Hashem they found their spouse and beautiful simchas we were able to have and it was an overwhelming feeling of gratitude and really a feeling so beyond blessed. But there was another amazing feeling I had in watching both of those Vimeos or highlights whatever these things are called of what were for me at least magnificent weddings. And that was I was watching my wife in action making sure every detail was done and even in the highlights her concern for the happiness of my daughters and that everything would work out and I felt so connected I felt so appreciative. And she wasn't watching with us at the moment I just wrote her a text thank you for all your hard work thank you for everything that you did in order to create and produce those two magnificent events in order for making our children and me so happy. I'm not a hero I'm sure there are ten examples where I could be a much better husband I'm not telling it to you for accolades or pat on the back I'm giving it as a metaphor or example that when you stop and you reflect and you think about wow someone's done something so meaningful so significant for me. My life is so improved and enriched from them. Someone cares and someone through their love wanted things to be right. I feel connected you feel attached you feel appreciative you feel loved you feel a bond. And if that's what's true with people that when you think about you reread the card that you were given or you get some meaningful email or a gesture or a moment and you feel attached you feel connected to that person then the same is true lahavdil with the Almighty. If you allocate the time to read the card that Hashem sends us. What? I didn't get a card what card are you talking about what card does Hashem send? Hashem sends a card every day. Did you wake up? Are you breathing? Are you healthy? Do you have a roof over your head and a car to drive? Do you have people who you love and that love you? That he sends you a card. Do you have things that have worked out for you that you didn't think were going to work out? Things have come together in ways that you're so appreciative? Stop and think about it. Watch the Vimeo of life. Watch the Vimeo the highlight reel of your own life. Think about be misbonen be contemplative and reflective and meditate and think about the Almighty. And just like I felt wow I just have to pause and say thank you and send this text and of course I sent the text even though she was in the other room because that's how we do things today but you have to stop and send Hashem a text. Talk to Hashem, deveikus, I'm attaching myself. Thank you, thank you. וכפי שאדם מתבונן באלוקות כך הוא זוכה להידבק there is a direct ratio says Rav Yitzchak Meir there's a direct relationship. The more contemplative you are the more time you allocate to think and to feel then the more you will attach the more you will connect the more you will feel that bond the more that you will submit and surrender to him. והיינו להשקיע זמן ולשבת לבד ולאמץ המחשבה ולהעמיק ולהתבונן בגדולת השם יתברך שיעור זמן רצוף. This is the whole area that we call hisbodedus. Hisbodedus and hisbonenus. You have to spend some alone time. Put your phone on airplane mode you're allowed to do that even when you're on the ground put your phone on airplane mode and sit put on a timer and for three minutes each day just be just think just connect just absorb. Just be reflective. Our mind is filled with so much noise and so much activity and so much input and so much output that there is so much static. We can't hear ourselves literally and it's so damaging and most damaging is it divides us from Hashem and so a person has to allocate time because if you say you're going to do it you're never going to do it. You have to do it you have to allocate time each and every day to think. To think. Could go for a walk without a phone you don't have to sit still while you're doing it. You could go for a walk and leave your phone at home you could put your phone on airplane mode and sit in the room you can whatever posture you want to take whatever position and whatever moment you want to do it. But deveikus is directly proportional to the amount of reflection and how contemplative we are about God. Are we in conversation with him? Do we think about him? Do we look for him? Do we spend the time with him? כמו שכתוב בשולחן ערוך as the Shulchan Aruch records in Orach Chaim siman aleph the very beginning of the code of Jewish law it begins כשיתבונן האדם שהמלך הגדול מלך מלכי המלכים השם יתברך. When a person thinks about reflects upon that the great king the king of kings אשר מלא כל הארץ כבודו who fills the entire world with his glory omeid alav stands over us vero'eh bema'asav and is observing and recording all that we do מיד יגיע אליו היראה immediately we will feel the sense of awe yiras ha'onesh wow I have to deliver to him he has expectations of me. of me. And also yiras haonesh, yiras haromemus. That sense of wow, he is awesome. He's awesome. What he does and what he's done in this world. It is awesome. There's an invisible virus that is put that is just suspended the entire globe. All of humanity, nobody's unaffected. And in the year 2020, when we think we've advanced and we think we've come so far, and we think we're in charge and we think we're in control, person has to stop and submit and surrender and realize we are paralyzed, we are quarantined, our life is on a hold, we are isolated. We only exist and we only find happiness because of the goodness and the graciousness of God. The year 2020 is the most humbling year, at least of my existence, that we are not in control and that we are not in charge and that we don't even know. But he's also given us the tools, he's awesome, because here we are before the end of the year and the vaccine is already being administered. He gave us the ability, the breakthroughs of science. We are living if this if this virus had hit in an earlier generation who didn't have the technology, the science, the medical know-how, the manufacturing and and distribution capability, millions would have died, millions. Who knows how many more losses we would have sustained? We are meriting to live in a generation and at a time that had the ability to operate at warp speed and to respond. We've still lost way too many, tragically, we've lost way too many. But think about how blessed we are in that regard. Do we stop and reflect, are we contemplative of, do we think, do we thank for the small things, like living in a time that we can discover an antidote, and please God merit to receive it soon and hopefully go back to some sense of normality? He's all around us and he's talking to us and the question is do we see him and do we submit to him? That's what Chanukah is all about. Hallel vehodaah, hod, the notion of hod is admission, is a concession. God, you're in charge. Yes, I have to take my initiative. Yes, I have to do my part, but afterwards it's all up to you. Do I think about that? Do I allocate time? So that's your homework for next week. Put on your schedule, your Google calendar, your Outlook calendar, whatever calendar you use, write it in your little yoman, whatever you do, but write down or put it in a reminder, set an alarm. Set an alarm once a day, three minutes. Just going to think about God. And next week when we come back together, how do you feel? How are you feeling after a week of setting in your calendar, of making time? What kind of a relationship do you have when you don't make time for that relationship? You don't have a relationship if you don't communicate and you don't have a relationship if you don't spend time. How can you have a relationship and attach yourself to God if you don't spend time and if you don't communicate? That is the homework for next week. It's the first code of Jewish law, שולחן ערוך סימן א. It's where it all begins. That a person kesheyisbonen, you have to think, you have to reflect, and then miyad yagiya, and then you will arrive at. You can't skip steps. You can't not allocate the time, you cannot not think in that direction, and still expect to feel connected and to attach ourselves to him. Til next time, stay happy, stay healthy, stay holy. A gutten chodesh, it's Rosh Chodesh, it's new beginnings, it's a fresh start. Today's the first day of the rest of your life. The perfect first day to spend those three minutes. Perfect first day. It's a new month, it's a new beginning, it's a fresh start, perfect day for those three minutes. So a gutten chodesh and a happy Chanukah. Nine o'clock tonight we go behind the bimah with Lori Palatnik, who is really a revolutionary leader, nine o'clock tonight, and we'll see you next week, everybody, have a fantastic day.
