Transcript
Good morning, Boker Tov to everyone. Welcome back to our weekly Living with Emuna, so generously sponsored by our friends Dr. Avi and Bella Morgan in memory of Rabbi Dr. Brian Galbut and in memory of Bella's mother, Dr. Ellen Schanzer. Thank you for your generosity and your sponsorship. This morning's Emuna shiur, this particular episode is also sponsored by Carol Walden in commemoration of the yahrtzeit for her beloved brother, Robert Bresner, on the 14th of Shevat. Thank you so much for your generosity; neshamos should have an aliya of all those for whom our shiur this morning is sponsored. Okay, we are back together to practice and to work out our Emuna muscles, to stretch and to grow in our knowledge and awareness and confidence in the presence of Hashem every moment in our lives, to lean on him, to turn to him, to look to him, to feel his presence, and to be able to love him, to rely on him, to depend on him, to be grateful to him, to acknowledge him, to ask of him, and to be able to generally feel and know that he's there always and forever. Two days ago, Yocheved and I were in an elevator and the elevator got stuck. It simply stopped, one of Yocheved's worst nightmares, before we reached the desired floor. Pressed the alarm in the elevator and no one got back to us. So we called the place that we were in and they said, "Yeah, we know you're stuck, we're working on getting you out." And so in that minute, or in those moments—it was more than a minute, unfortunately—where one can panic, you could alternatively take those deep breaths and realize: this is the plan, this is where we're meant to be. When do we get to spend time alone? When are we locked in a secluded area without children and without congregants and without responsibilities and without obligations? So you could either be miserable and panic, or you could lean in and take advantage and say, "Fantastic, some alone time. What do you want to talk about? Let's enjoy each other's company." And that's what we tried to do by flexing the Emuna muscle and by remembering this is where Hashem wants us, this is where we're meant to be, this is what's meant to be happening, and therefore to be able to enjoy each and every moment, all an extension of our efforts in our dveykus shiur, in our Emuna shiur, in learning to live with Emuna together. Okay, we are learning the sefer B'yam Derech-cha, רב יצחק מאיר מורגנשטרן, his fantastic and beautiful insights into how we can acquire darchei kinyan hadveykus, how we can acquire this character trait of clinging to God, of gluing, of attaching ourselves to him, of feeling his presence in our life by working on Emuna. First of all, by thinking about his existence, the origins of the universe, his sovereignty, his providence, his dominion in this world. Number two is bononus, by being contemplative, by carving out space to think, to be, to exist, to feel, to be able to feel love and awe and connection. Torah and tfila, to remember that religious activities are platforms for religious connections. They're not meant to be get caught up in the minutia, they're not platforms for obsessive-compulsive disorder, they're platforms for rather for connecting to Hashem, and therefore to use them and utilize them when we're doing Torah and mitzvos, when we're davening to really open our hearts and to stir our neshamos to arouse our souls to be able to feel. And then the fifth character trait, the fifth attribute Rav Itche Meyer said was using names, using the names of Hashem, the shemos hakadoshim, the names of Hashem. Hashem has many names, and when a person meditates, when a person reflects, when a person pictures in their own mind—the power of picturing, the power of envisioning—you can trace the letters that comprise Hashem's name, or you can see his whole name flashing as if a neon sign, and one feels connected through Hashem by utilizing the power of a name. And we said it's a little bit out there, and for me personally I don't feel competent to really be able to connect and to be able to convey it to you, but he talks about the different names of Hashem and how to use those names to think about and to meditate on those names in a way that can connect us. So I mentioned in last week or two weeks ago, I mentioned in the Emuna shiur, the idea of the power of names, that we relate to Hashem not in his essence—we are unable to know his essence. He's infinite, he's omnipotent, he's perfect. We're incapable of comprehending his essence. The closest we come is his name, which is the description of him, the way we relate to him, the way that he expresses himself in this world, and that's why we call it a kiddush Hashem, we sanctify God's name, or God forbid a chillul Hashem, which is the desecration of God's name. We can connect to and relate to specifically his name. And we spoke about the power of names, of using someone's name. I gave you homework, and the homework was to use someone's name in your life. A loved one, a family member, a friend, or a stranger at the supermarket, someone holding the door. Ask for their name and use their name, and you'll see that when you create a connection, when you use a name, you create a connection, an intimacy, a closeness, just by utilizing, articulating, just by enunciating someone's name. And the same is true with Hashem. When we use his name, when we see his name coming up on our call. or ID. When we look around in life we say Hashem is calling. He's calling me in the elevator right now, he's calling me in whatever I'm going through right now, he's calling me in the magnificent sunset. We were on the West Coast of Florida, saw magnificent sunset, the shkiya, Hakadosh Baruch Hu, the Eibeshter visible even through the sunset. So one of our listeners and I love it when you're in touch with me, thank you so much for sharing your emuna stories and your other stories with me. It helps me and enriches me and all of our other listeners. So someone sent me the following: As a regular listener to your emuna shiurim, I want to tell you the following story that happened last week. Recently recovered from corona and got a green passport, wanted to jump on a plane from Israel to another country to see parents who were living there after having been stuck in an apartment for almost a year. However, when he reached Switzerland, the border police told me that the information I had received by phone was incorrect and as a passport holder from whatever country, I can no longer enter after whatever issues, so they'd have to send me back on the next flight the next morning. Walking me across the airport to my detention room, I got into a conversation with the officer. Having heard your shiur last week on the importance of names, I asked him his name. He then opened up and told me about his long shifts and how he likes mountain biking during his time off. I confided in him my parents are elderly and infirm, they needed me to go care for them, and because I used his name and we created this connection, he said that if I got a letter from the doctor he'd be able to help. Half hour later after speaking to my parents, their doctor emailed a suitable letter. I was able to spend time with my wonderful parents for three days as originally had been planned. An addendum to the story is that the guard, the officer, also gave me tokens for the cafe at the departure lounge to spend on dinner. With nothing else kosher, I noticed three Swiss chocolates my kids had asked for were the only products on half price and ended up with a full box of chocolates for them courtesy of the border police, all because I had used his name and created and felt that connection. So the power of using names. It's not always going to end up with being able to control a situation to be the outcome that we hope or that we desire. It won't always end up with free dinner or free chocolates. However, there's an enormous power in using a name and Rav Itamar suggests that we utilize the power of names as in the name of Hashem in order to connect, in order to connect and create a closeness and an intimacy and a casual relationship. Picture and draw and imagine his name, clear your mind, just think, just be, just experience, find the God in you, the deep breath, the neshama, the neshima, and connect with Hashem in that way. Okay, we're going to skip the rest of the section on names, mostly because as I told you I don't really feel confident to teach it or share it or communicate it or learn it with you. Goes through the Sefiros and the Merkava and very, very lofty and Kabbalistic concepts, im yirtzeh Hashem one day we'll be able to return and understand them more fully, but I want to go back to and continue with what we can connect to. So number five, להשקיע זמן בקשר עם השם יתברך, to make time, to make time for God. הנה הדביקות עבודה גדולה היא, connecting and clinging and attaching ourselves to God is an enormous undertaking. It is a difficult, difficult job. וצריך לגשת אליה ברצון וחשק, and if you're going to achieve it, you have to have a drive. If you're going to achieve it, you have to feel connected, you have to set a goal, you have to yearn for it. ובזה מקבל כוחות נפש להצליח להעמיק ולהבין כראוי, and only when you have that drive, only when you really want it will you be able to achieve it. If it's lip service, if you don't really want it, but you want to want it, in theory, somewhere in the recesses of your mind, somewhere you once heard a talk, a conversation about dveikus attaching to God, and you said, one day that'd be kind of cool, one day I'd love to experience that, one day I'd love to merit the benefits of it, but you want to want it. You're not yet there. You read a biography or you met someone, there's someone you admire who lives that life, and you want to want that life, though you don't want it yet. You're never going to get there. We have to move things from the column of want to want into the column of actually wanting. Ratzon and cheshek. Ratzon means our yearning, our desire, what we want. And the ratzon, the Kabbalists say, the word ratzon has the same letters as the word tzinor. Tzinor means a pipeline, a conduit. The ratzon creates the tzinor. We carve the pipeline, we create the flow of an energy, we create the flow of a reality based on our ratzon. You can overcompensate, you can make up a lot for what you lack in competency or what you lack in skill or what you lack in strength can be made up for enormously with ratzon. With ratzon. The word ratzon, which means desire or yearning or want, has the same root as the word ratz, to run, because when you want something, it's as if you're running to go get it. Whereas if there's something that you have no ratzon for, you're supposed to do it, it's part of the repertoire of being a good Jew, a good person, you don't really want it, you want to want it, but you don't really want it. You're doing it because you have to do it, it's the expectations of others to do it, you're conforming. you're conforming to your fear or your concern or what you think is pressure from God to do it. So then you're not running to do it. You're slowly walking, procrastinating, schlepping, lazily getting there and you're turning it into chametz. You're turning it into leaven, you're undermining it. Whereas if you develop a ratzon, a yearning, a want, a desire, a drive, the ratzon, that yearning alone is like ratz, it gets you there so quickly. So have you ever seen people who have a major, major yearning to achieve something? In health and wellness, in learning and spirituality, in the type of transformation of a person they want to be? When you express the ratzon, when you just express that yearning, that desire, it makes you ratz, you're running, running, running, and you get there much, much faster. You can achieve it in a much more expedited fashion and on a much faster schedule than you ever anticipated if you lacked the ratzon, if you lacked the drive and the desire. I mentioned earlier this morning in our Mesillas Yesharim shiur, I had a long drive last night and I was listening to a podcast of Tim Ferriss, he interviewed—I forgot the name, I apologize—an individual who runs the website and the app and the podcast and the blog called Zen Master, I think it's called. And this individual, who was broke, he had no money, he had to break open his children's piggy bank to be able to afford some cereal and milk to buy them dinner. So it was an individual who tried to quit smoking seven times and he failed. This was an individual who was clinically obese and whose health was compromised and he transformed his entire life that in twelve months he ran a marathon and he got himself out of debt and he was able to turn his entire life around. And he ended up blogging about what it was that did it and it turned him into a big success and garnered him a huge following and today he's a very prominent prominent leader in this field. And he was being interviewed about it and he talked about what was the difference between the first seven times he tried to quit smoking that failed and the eighth time that worked. What was the difference between the first many times he tried to get his health under control or his financial spending under control and when he finally was able to break through? And one of the elements he spoke about—not in this way, not in the Torah way that we're framing it—but was the notion of ratzon. When you have the drive, the desire, did he really want it or did he want to want it? Did he make it a promise and a pledge to himself, which he had violated countless times, or did he make a promise and pledge to his wife and children, which he felt obligated to fulfill? What were the other things that he put in place, understanding the triggers that undermined his success versus identifying what were going to be the support systems that would propel him forward? When you have the ratzon, you're ratz. When you have the drive, the desire, the yearning, it makes you run and you're able to get there much faster. You're able to achieve things in a much quicker speed and measure them on a calendar in ways that even defy explanation. So says Rav Itche Mayer, do you have the ratzon and the cheshek? Is there the yearning and the desire to live with deveikus? Is it something one wants to want to do or do we really want to do it? Do we want to live with deveikus? Do we want to live with that sense of clinging to God? And if we do, then what are we willing to do about it? Because בזה מקבל כוחות נפש. If you want to achieve and receive the strength and you want to receive the determination and the tenacity and the resiliency, if you want to be able to get the elements working on your behalf in order to help you achieve it, then you need to take the first step which is desire. Ve-siman la-kach, and if you want to know what's the sign, what's the symbol, what's the metric, says Rav Itche Mayer, how can you measure whether you really want this or not? שהאדם באמת רוצה דביקות, how do you know if you really want to cling to God? How do you know if you really want to develop that relationship with God? How do you know if you really want to live with emunah? If you want him in your life? Are you just listening in on Wednesday mornings? Do you just subscribe to WhatsApp, Emunah and email lists and read Emunah books, or do you really want it? What's the siman? What's the metric or measure? How do you know? Says Rav Itche Mayer, כמה זמן הוא קובע לזה. The answer is how much time are you dedicating and devoting to doing it? כמה זמן הוא משקיע לדבר עם השם יתברך להתבונן במציאותו ולהחיש הדביקות בו בהרגשה ובייחודים. How much time do you designate and do you spend with God? How much time do you talk to him? Do you confide in him? Do you unburden? Do you thank him? Do you protest, do you object? Do you talk to him? How much time are you contemplative? Do you think about him and his world? How often are you thinking about him when you're not with him? How much effort and how much emotion are you willing to invest in feeling connected to him and with him? Essentially, Rav Itche Mayer is saying there's no difference in the relationship with God and our relationship with other people around us. The health and wellness of the relationship, a spouse, parents, children, colleagues, friends, the health of that relationship is determined or reflected by how often we think Out of sight, out of mind? You never even think about them? Do you forget you're a parent? Do you forget you're a married person? Do you forget you're a child who has parents? Is it out of sight, out of mind? You've dropped them, you've forgotten about them? Or even when you're not with them, nevertheless the relationship continues to inform and animate and inspire who you are. Wherever you go and whatever you're doing, oh yeah, I have parents and I'm concerned about them. Oh yeah, I have children and I love them and think about them. Oh yeah, I'm married and devoted to the person whether I'm with them immediately right now or whether for whatever reason I'm not. Is it someone or something? Is that relationship one in which it defines me, whether I'm physically present or not, or out of sight, out of mind? I'm done and I drop it. How much time do we dedicate? Do we have a date night? Do we have a date hour? You know, in one of the biographies of the Lubavitcher Rebbe zatzal, it says something that I found incredibly powerful in there. It talked about the fact that every single day in the afternoon, the Lubavitcher Rebbe would have coffee with his Rebbetzin, with his wife, and he once commented that having that coffee with his wife, if he were to miss it, it would be tantamount for him like missing a day of putting on tefillin. Now you say, well, what's a big deal? A husband and wife should spend time together. We should be so overwhelmed because the Lubavitcher Rebbe wanted to spend a few minutes with his wife? That's not what overwhelmed me. The fact that he was an amazing and loving husband, the fact that he was chivalrous and took care of his wife, the fact that he did not neglect her even though he was responsible for so much of Klal Yisrael, that impresses me, but it doesn't overwhelm me. But we all know what wearing tefillin meant to the Lubavitcher Rebbe. We all know what tefillin was for him. We all know what tefillin represented for him, and yet he compared, if he missed an afternoon coffee, if he missed a midday check-in with his wife, it would be tantamount to him like missing putting on tefillin that day. That's what it meant. It meant that even while he was consumed by caring for Klal Yisrael, while the Lubavitcher Rebbe was handing out dollars to thousands of people, or answering thousands of pieces of correspondence, or taking thousands of phone calls, or meeting presidents and prime ministers, or launching campaigns to transform the world, whatever he was doing, what he needed, what energized him, what lifted him, was the time he was able to spend with his wife each afternoon. And even while he was doing all the other things, he was clearly thinking about her. It consumed him, it defined him, it's who he was. And the time he designated to speak to her, to confide in her, to consult with her, to lift her and to be lifted by her, clearly meant so much. And that is what Rav Itamar says. That's the siman, that's the sign or the symbol, that's the metric or the measure of how well we're doing with this quality, with this character trait of dveikus. Do we think about God all the time, even when we're not so to say with him, although he's with us wherever and whenever in life? But are we thinking about him? Is he on our mind? Are we looking forward to the next opportunity to be with him, to daven or to talk to him informally, or to sit and meditate and reflect on him, or to be occupied with a mitzvah or to be learning his Torah and reading his diary and connecting to him through that experience of not only talking to him, but listening him talk to us? Do we think about him when we're not with him? Does that relationship continue to define us? Or do you say, out of sight, out of mind? When I'm not in shul, I'm not in the beis medrash, when I'm not performing a mitzvah per se, then out of sight, out of mind? I'm not thinking about God at all or whatsoever. That is the siman. If you want a metric of how well you're doing, if you want to know, do you want to want to cling to God, or do you want to cling to him? Do you have the ratzon? Are you ratz, are you running with the desire? Then ask yourself how much time you're devoting to God. You don't really care about your health and wellness if you never make time to exercise. You don't really care about your marriage if you're never carving out time for date night, for conversations, to just be with your spouse. You don't really care about your relationship with your children if you neglect them and out of sight, out of mind, you don't think about them when you're not with them and you don't make time to spend with them. And the same is true with God. You want to want, maybe, to connect with God, but you don't really want to. You're not really living with him in a relationship with him if you don't make time for that relationship. It's a very simple and it's a very easy metric to measure, but it's a hard one to achieve because we get caught up in everything else in life. And we claim that we have no time for God. We have plenty of time. Open up your phone or open up your device and look at where it's measuring what you're doing on there. And check how much time you spent on social media, and check how much time you spent on your streaming apps, and check how much time you check news, which only was filled with bad and sad and challenging information for you. Check it all and realize, do you not have time or do you not want to make the time? Maybe we have plenty of time, we just don't want, we want to want instead of want. We have the time. But do we make the time for God? משל לאדם שפוגש את חברו רק פעם בשנה. An individual who runs into and meets his friend once a year, אזי לזה יקרא מעט ידידות. That's called an acquaintance, it's not called a friend. Somebody you see infrequently, you think about infrequently, you check in with infrequently, you communicate with infrequently is an acquaintance, not really a friend. ואם נפגש עמו פעם בחודש, but someone you get together with monthly, every Rosh Chodesh you have coffee, once a month you get lunch, אזי הוא נקרא חבר, that's a closer friend. אבל מי שפוגש חברו בכל יום, the person who every day you check in with one another, every day you text, every day you call, every day you spend a few time, a few moments, לזה יקרא חבר אמיתי, that is a true, true friend. So the degree to which you spend time together, you devote time to be together, the degree to which you think about one another when you're not together, is the reflection and the measure of the closeness. V'chen b'inyaneinu and the same is true when it comes to our topic. כמה שיהודי דבוק בכל לבו להשם יתברך, the degree to which a person is clinging with all their heart to Hashem, בזמנים יותר קרובים כך הוא יקרא יותר אוהב אמיתי של השם יתברך. So the more the periods of life, the periods of life where we're spending more time with him, the closer we are with him. ובזה הוא מגלה עומקי לבו, and with that we reveal the depth of our heart. That's what reveals the depth of our heart. When you can't stop listening to the podcast, you can't stop listening to that music, can't stop reading those books, can't stop exercising, can't stop training for that marathon, you can't stop doing whatever that habit, that activity, when you get into tennis or golf or mahjong, when you get into whatever it is that's taking all of your time or whatever it is that's consuming, that reveals and reflects what you want, what you love, what you are pursuing. And therefore what reveals the depth of our heart and our yearning and our longing is how much time we spend with God. Do we put him in our calendar? Do we make time for him in our life? Do we set an alarm or reminder to spend time with him? Are we careful every single day and each night before we go to sleep to at least check in with him? You know if days or weeks go by and you haven't spoken to your children or your parents or your siblings or people who are supposedly your close friends, how close are you really? Every one of us can find a few moments a little bit of time. We have the gifts of technology of being able to send a text, a little voice note, a video note, a picture. We have the capacity to offer gestures to make bids for connection to do check-ins. And we have to do it with Hashem Yisbarach too. To check in with him, to talk to him. You have a two-minute walk, you have a three-minute drive, you have a four-minute activity, you're brushing your teeth, you're waiting for the Keurig coffee maker to finish putting out and producing your cup, there are those brief moments for the gesture, for the bid for connection, for the simple conversation, for the check-in. Because if we really want, not just want to want to connect to God, to live with God, to feel his presence, to cling to him, and therefore to be enriched, to be much healthier physically, emotionally, spiritually, psychologically, then we need to make that time. And if we never make that time and we claim we have no time, then we don't really want the relationship. Our ratzon and our cheshek, our desire and our drive are not really there. All of that's number five. Do we have the drive and the desire and you measure that by the amount of time that we make. Number six. Number six path. Number six derech, the way to acquire a relationship with God. הנה אחר שנפתחה לאדם הרגשת הדביקות, after we've opened up for ourselves the pathway, the journey, the opening into a life of clinging to God, צריך לדעת לשמור עליה ולחזק אותה. We have to know how to protect it. We have to know how to preserve it. We have to know how to strengthen it. We have to know how to put a boundary around it. There have to be boundaries around our relationships. It's the definition of intimacy. The more intimacy that you have, what is intimacy? It's something that's shared with only one person. The greatest intimacy one has, the biblical name for physical intimacy is lada'as. אדם ידע את חוה אשתו, Adam knew, biblically knew, his wife Chava. It means that when two people are physically intimate, it's something that's shared exclusively, uniquely, it's a level of vulnerability, a level of exposure, a level of knowledge one gains uniquely with one other person. And the degree to which you share it and you share it without connection and you share it without judgment is the degree to which you dilute and distort and compromise and corrupt the capacity to have a sense of intimacy. No intimacy. So a person who doesn't reserve their vulnerability and exposing themselves physically, literally for one other, but they walk around exposed and they're willing to expose themselves to others. The more casual one is about that interaction and that connection and that experience, the less they'll be able to feel intimacy with another. And the same is true in our reality with Hashem. If you want to be able to have an intimate connection, then are there things that you only tell him? Are there things that he knows anyway, are the deepest recesses of your heart, your hopes, your dreams, your fears, your aspirations, your concerns, your anxieties, that creates the emotional and the intimate connection. It makes you feel closer because you've unburdened and it goes nowhere. Hashem is the pinnacle, Hashem is the paradigm of confidence. It doesn't go anywhere. He doesn't sit in judgment. You don't have to worry or fear that he'll share it or violate or tell anyone else. וזה נעשה על ידי שישתדל שלא להסיח את דעתו מהשם יתברך. So the more intimate the connection, the more it needs boundaries. Person in their marriage, the highest level of yichud between two people in a healthy and a functional marriage. So that needs boundaries. It needs protection. You need to put a boundary and protect it by having things you confide with your spouse that you don't with others. You know there's a tragedy taking place all around us of people who are not only practicing physical infidelity by physically being intimate with someone other than their spouse, but emotionally are unburdening, emotionally are confiding, emotionally are connecting with someone other than their spouse. Usually it's a reflection of something that's lacking or missing in their own marriage, which needs to be worked on, but the answer, the solution is not to find it outside, it's to have the courage and the conviction to find it and to solve it and to create it as much as possible within one's marriage. But it's a horrific violation to find the emotional intimacy and connection outside of the person that you promised and pledged to uniquely share it with, be it with a member of the opposite gender, even a member of the same gender, a good friend. Really that's the role and that should be the connection of a spouse. So that intimacy in order to thrive and to be the healthiest, it needs to be protected, it needs to be preserved, it needs boundaries and it needs mindfulness and it needs effort. Vezeh na'aseh and this is done sheyishtadel with effort שלא להסיח את דעתו. You can't ever stop thinking about the other. And that's true in marriage and it's true in our marriage and our loving relationship and connection with Hashem. שלא להסיח את דעתו, to never stop thinking about God, to never ever feel that he's not on top of me. The idea of men wearing a yarmulke, yarei malka, is the idea that there's something over me, there's something on top of me. Wherever I am and whatever I'm doing, he's with me. There is no vacation, there's no yeshiva week from God. There's no yeshiva week or vacation from marriage, there's no business trip in which you're no longer married, and there's no business trip or vacation or yeshiva week from God. כי כמו שאדם לא מסכים שחברו יהיה עמו לפעמים בידידות ולפעמים יעזבנה לנפשו והנוהג כך אינו נקרא אוהב אמיתי. Someone's not your true friend if they're sometimes they show up and other times they abandon you. And the same is true with God. You can't just show up on occasion and other times abandon. You have to be consistent. There has to be a sense of consistency and a sense of constancy. And that's very hard, very, very hard. But you know the question is what do you compare religious life to? The idea of davening and keeping kosher, the idea of setting aside time for learning, the idea of seeking righteousness and generosity in the way we treat others. Is that like exercise that you could take a break? You know when you train for a marathon you work out intensely and then you need your body to go into recovery so you take time off. Do you go into recovery and take time off? I'm going to go a week without davening. I'm going to go a week without being disciplined in keeping kosher. I'm going to go a week where I allow to gossip. No, we compare religious life not to exercise which you take time off from, you compare it to marriage. You compare it to parenting. You don't get entitled to say even when you go on a vacation, you're not entitled for a week to say I'm not a parent, I bear no responsibility. You're not entitled for a week to say I'm not married, I get to go on vacation or a business trip and do whatever I want, however with whomever I want. These are a part of our identity, our profile, it's who I am and there's no vacation, there's no break from it. There's no hesach hadaas, I can never stop thinking about it. I can never tear myself away from it. And so real relationships, they take consistency and they take constancy. They take vigilance and they take effort. They take yearning, they take desire. They take intimacy, they take boundaries. And our relationship with God is no different than all these others. Sadly, sadly, I think so many people struggle in the relationship with God not because they're excelling in all other areas but they're struggling to transfer it and relate it to the relationship with God. I think there are many, many people who are struggling to feel it even in any relationship, let alone the invisible one with God. But if we have healthier marriages and healthier parenting and healthier friendships and we understand these building blocks and fundamentals of all the relationships with our life, then we can take them and apply them to our relationship with Hashem. But when we lack them and we can't find them or achieve them even in our other areas of relationships in life, then all the more so we're going to struggle, it's going to be hard to do so in our relationship with Hashem. So we should be zoche, we should all merit to succeed and to find the happiness and the fulfillment and the joy and the pleasure in all these relationships and most of all the relationship with our creator, the relationship with the Melech Malchei Hamelachim, the king of kings, the one in charge, our relationship with the one with whom who gives us life and who will give us eternal life, to make that time and to carve out that connection and to move it from wanting to want. into wanting, to earn the ratzon and the cheshek, the yearning and the desire to be able to find Hashem in our lives and to live with emuna. Till next time, stay happy, stay healthy, stay holy. If you're enjoying us on YouTube, please subscribe to our channel to become updated on all the latest classes, shiurim, and programs. Join us tonight 9:00 PM as we go Behind the Bima with a very special guest we'll announce shortly. Until then, have a fantastic and phenomenal day.
