Transcript
Good morning and Boker Tov and welcome back to Living with Emuna, our weekly support group to remind ourselves what is most important, what matters the most, upon whom we rely and with whom we have and are blessed to have this incredible relationship the Ribbono Shel Olam, the Almighty, the gift of a life of emuna bitachon, how it calms and brings tranquility and gives us courage and faith, how it relieves us from anger and from envy, all the brachas, all of the good that comes out of it. I want to thank our generous sponsors for the Emuna shiur for the year. Is that it? There it is. Dr. Avi and Bella Morgen in memory of Rabbi Dr. Brian Galbut, in memory of Bella's mother Dr. Ellen Schanzer. Thank you so much for your generosity, truly, truly appreciated. If you'd like to sponsor a particular episode of Living with Emuna or any of our other classes, please email Leah@brsonline, Leah@brsonline.org. Also this morning's emuna class is sponsored by Ellen Fischel in commemoration of the 13th yahrtzeit of פסח זאב בן יצחק דוב הלוי on the 12th of Adar. Thank you Ellen Fischel, greatly appreciate your generosity. I want to thank all those who participated and contributed to our global campaign who have joined our BRS global community. We've got great exciting things in store, the privileges of being a member of the global community for a dollar. Just by giving back, just by showing appreciation, just by participating, you are a member of that global community and we've got great things in store. And even though we met our goal, it's not too late to give at brsonline.org/global, brsonline.org/global. Okay, we are continuing Rav Itche Meir Morgenstern in his amazing sefer B'Yam Darkecha, in which he has been teaching us about dveykus. How do we cling and attach ourselves, how do we glue ourselves to Hashem? How do we feel His presence every day in our life? Never panic, never be anxious, never be worried, but how do we feel His presence in our life each and every day? How do we feel elevated, how do we feel enriched? So sikum, this is a summary of what we've seen so far and it appears Rav Itche Meir provides it himself in the sefer. And he writes, בפרק זה נתבארו דרכי קנין הדביקות. In this chapter we've spoken about and we have examined the different path towards acquiring how to live with God, dveykus. Don't get anxious, don't get worried, but remain optimistic. And what are they? Sheheim emuna number one, faith. The recognition there is someone and something much greater than ourselves. We are not the be-all and end-all, we are not the beginning and the end, we cannot take credit. There is a Creator and He is in charge, there is a Melech Malchei Hamlachim, there is a King and He pulls the strings. That our life is not filled with randomness and chance and happenstance, but our life is by design. Hisbonenus v'hargasha. We have to be contemplative and we have to allow ourselves to feel and how important these qualities are in our time in particular in which there is so much noise, so many distractions, in which there is so much going on around us. Our life is constantly filled not with momentum but motion sickness, filled with noise. How can we stop? And how can we breathe? And how can we experience and just be? Dveykus baTorah u-v'tefillah. How do we use the religious activities we're doing already? But how do we engage those religious activities with an awareness and a mindfulness of Hashem? So we're not just blindly putting on tefillin, lighting candles, saying the words of davening and giving that tzedakah or doing that mitzvah, but we're actually taking a moment to pause, to tap into the deeper meaning of the energy, to allowing ourselves to become transformed by the mitzvah. V'esakut hashemos and Rav Itche Meir spoke to us about the power of thinking about names, concentrating on names, seeing the names before us. וכן נתבארו דרכי השמירה על הדביקות וההתמדה בה. And we also talked about consistency and constancy. It happens to be this week's parsha. This week's parsha reminds us how important it is to find consistency. We have the Korban Tamid, the daily sacrifice and the daily offering. And the time that the daily offering was nullified and canceled we fast, 17th of Tammuz commemorates when we lost that notion of the consistency that we had. We feel that in our time. We don't have this year, earlier this year, the shul was denied to us. And so the daily davening and some of the gifts of our daily life, we lost that opportunity because shul was closed down. We couldn't have the daily davening, we couldn't have the Kaddish and Kedusha, we didn't and still don't have many of the things that we were used to. The Cal Ripken Jr. record of consistency and constancy was broken and that's painful, it's painful. שקביעות זמן קבוע לדיבור עם השם יתברך. You have to set aside time and establish time to talk to God. Talk to Him, not as if He's your best friend, He is your best friend. What's going on in life? What do you need help with? What are you protesting? What are you grateful for? U'l'hisakut hahisbonenus. וכן להשתדל לזכור את השם יתברך. And a person has to make the effort to remember Hashem, to remember Hashem. We get so distracted with all of our to-do list and everything our obligations and our responsibilities and all we're drawn to our pleasure and to our want that we confuse with our needs. *Hashem* is always there, and we cling to him. In that moment of panic, in that moment of anxiousness, in that moment of fear, in the moment of what will be, we remember I have nothing to worry about because it's all by design, it's all the way it's meant to be. *Bemeshech hayom* throughout the day, *lefi kocho umadregaso* according to the level that we're on and what we can do. וזה בעיקר על ידי שמות ושיחה עמו יתברך. We have to habituate ourselves, we have to develop a pattern to talk to God regularly, to look like a nutcase when we're driving in the car and we're talking to ourselves, but we're never by ourselves or talking to ourselves, we're always talking to him. We're talking to him about whatever activity we're engaged in, about whatever project we're embarking on, about whatever decision we have to make, we're constantly and regularly talking to him. והתמדת התורה מתוך דבקות and that our learning and our *mitzvos*, he's there. They're not absent him, they're not simply going through the motions, but rather we're mindful, we're mindful. This was to transition for one moment and to pivot to *Purim* which is this week for a moment. So this was *Haman* understood, this was our kryptonite. *Haman* tells *Achashverosh*: ישנו עם אחד מפוזר ומפורד בין העמים. There is a nation, they are scattered, they are fragmented among the other nations. And the simple understanding of the *Megilla* is *yeshno am echad*, there is a nation, they're *mefuzar umeforad*, they're spread out all over. So they're not, they're not empowered by a sense of unity, they're not unified, they don't have their own homeland, but rather they are spread out, they are spread out all over, they are spread out all over. Sorry, I just lost my camera and I don't know why. See, *Hashem* did not want me to be seen in that moment. But I think we're back. I think we are back. Hold on, sorry for the interruption for the brief moment. Okay, you don't need to see me that close up. So *Haman* says to *Achashverosh*, they're spread all over. So they don't have the power of unity, they don't have the power of a country of a nation, they're living among other host nations, מפוזר ומפורד בין עמים. Now, let's go strike, they're vulnerable, they're fragile, we could take them down. Now. But the *Gemara*, the *Gemara* quotes *Megilla Rava* who says no, *yeshno*, don't read it *yeshno* but *yoshnu*, there is a nation they're asleep. *Mefuzar umeforad* and I would suggest reading it *mefuzar umeforad* means they are scatterbrained, they are not thinking clearly. *Mefuzar umeforad* means to be scattered, to be divided *bein ha'amim*, they're living among the nations, and they're feeling the influence of the nations, and the influence of the nations is causing them to be *mefuzar umeforad*. They are divided, they are fragmented, they are scattered. They don't know how to concentrate, they don't know how to be focused, they don't know how to be mindful, but they're constantly distracted, and they're constantly chasing the next pleasure, and they're constantly chasing the next on-demand moment of what they want, but they've lost their sense of priority what's important. *Yoshnu am echad*, they're fast asleep at the wheel, they're sleepwalking through life, *yoshnu* they're fast asleep, they're *mefuzar umeforad*. Because they're so scattered, because they never carve time for *hisbonenus*, they never think, and they're never contemplative, and they're never focused, therefore, they're so easily distracted. And now's the time. When a person is easily distracted, when a person is divided in their energy, their resources, their thoughts, they're very vulnerable. We're vulnerable physically. We know that people are physically compromised when you don't get enough sleep and you're watching too much of this and you're worried too much about the other thing and you're trying to balance and concentrate and juggle a million things from a million directions, how balanced and how well could you be in terms of physically? And equally true emotionally and equally true spiritually. And so a person who's *mefuzar*, a person who is scattered all over, can't succeed. Indeed *Rabbeinu Bachya* quotes, I think it's *Rabbeinu Bachya* in *Chovos Halevavos* quotes that he knew a great person who used to say a daily prayer, a *yehi ratzon*. May it be your will God to save me, you should be *matzil me*, you should save me *mi-pizur hanefesh*. It was a prayer for mindfulness each and every day. Let me not conclude this day, let me not find myself at the end of the day having lived a mindless day, having not achieved all that I wanted, having been divided and distracted, and having my agenda and to-do list being organized by others. Don't let someone else organize your to-do list. As the essentialism Greg McKeown writes, if you don't prioritize your life, someone else will. For too many of us, our inbox is our to-do list. And therefore the end of the day comes and we didn't achieve what we wanted or hoped or said we would. Why? Because we let others prioritize our life. We let our inbox become our to-do list. We got distracted and started surfing or watching or doing things that we never could have or should have or should not have been the best use of our time. And then we find ourselves at the end of the day. And so Rabbeinu Bachya quotes Chovot Halevavot quotes that he knew a great person who used to offer a daily prayer: Save me mi-pizur hanefesh. Save me from being fragmented and divided, save me from being distracted, enable and empower, bless me with mindfulness, with consciousness and conscientiousness, let me go through my day and remain focused on what I want to do and who I'm meant to be, let me arrive at the end of the day proud of what I achieved and how I lived that day and how the next will become and be even better. And that's the language, that's the lashon of the Chovot Halevavot: Save me mi-pizur hanefesh. So perhaps what Haman was saying is there's mifuzar umiforad. Perhaps what Haman was saying is they're living bein ha'amim. They're not focused as one people, one nation. They're not mindful of who they're meant to be, of their charge, their mission, their mandate, what they're meant to accomplish. They're mefuzar, they're scatterbrained, they're sleepwalking, not yeshno am echad, yoshno am echad, sleepwalking through life. How many people arrive at the end of the day and they don't even remember what filled their day? They get to the end of davening and close the siddur, they don't remember saying one word. They get to the end of the daf, they don't even remember any part of experiencing that daf or that shiur. They finish that conversation, that dinner with the family, and no part of it embedded itself, no part of it remains. We are sleepwalking, yoshnu am echad. Haman saw that and he knew it was the moment and the time to strike. We were the most fragile, we were the most vulnerable. And what was the antidote? What was the answer? לך כנוס כל היהודים. Go and gather all the Jews. Go and remember what matters and what is important. Go and be focused, go and be prioritized, go and become mindful. So what does this have to do with living with emunah? Because emunah requires mindfulness. You can't see or feel or touch or hear or smell God. He is invisible. And so it takes a mindful and conscious decision to invite him and involve him in your life. And it will never happen if you are fragmented and divided, distracted and unfocused. A person has to be mindful in order to achieve deveikus. You have to be mindful to cling to God. Because if you allow yourself to be mindless, if you neglect and forget to be mindful, you will never see, feel, or remember that there is a God. So it requires a mindfulness. It requires a mindfulness when I wake up in the morning: Thank you Hashem. Thank you Hashem. I'm alive, I'm awake, I can see, I can hear, I have a roof over my head and food to eat and a car and a job, where I don't have to go to because it's probably out of my own house, but I have a job to thank you Hashem. Thank you. I'm about to eat: Thank you Hashem. I came out of the bathroom: Thank you Hashem. Every aspect, every part of my life. I'm about to prepare a shiur, I'm about to prepare a kugel, I'm about to prepare a closing argument, I'm about to prepare to scrub into an operation, I'm about to prepare to negotiate a deal, I'm about to prepare for parent-teacher conferences, I'm about to prepare for a challenge with my spouse, with my child, I have to be mindful to invite God into the conversation and to inspire me with His divine wisdom, divine inspiration to succeed. If I don't live a life of mindfulness I can never live a life of emunah. And that's what happened to the people of Shushan, they had forgotten God. They were doing all the mitzvos, they were going through all the motions, but they were doing it sleepwalking. They attended the feast of Achashverosh where he served mi-keilim shonim on the very utensils of our holy Beis HaMikdash. They responded in the affirmative and they went to a party, where the theme of the party was not the 60s, 70s, or 80s, the theme of the party was the end of the Jewish people. They went to a party that celebrated their own demise and that's how asleep they were, that they didn't even notice. That's how asleep they were. And the answer, the antidote, part of Purim is wake up! Wake up! Stop being mindless and start being mindful. And I'll tell you an amazing insight of Rav Druck, here is a bonus Rav Druck, not just for the BRS Global community, we're going to start having bonus content for the BRS and BRS Global community so you better join now for as little as a dollar, brsonline.org/global, there will be bonus content for the BRS, of course our primary community, and the BRS Global community, but here's a little bonus Rav Druck for you. Rav Druck is who we've been learning a lot in the Parsha class on Tuesday mornings, Rav Druck, an ish tamid, רב ישראל מאיר דרוק, a great Rosh Yeshiva in Yerushalayim today. And he says the following: ויהי בימי אחשורוש הוא אחשורוש, and even if you're listening to this after Purim, this is a well-worthwhile message to listen to and to heed. It says that אחשורוש המלך מהדו ועד כוש, Achashverosh was the king, he ruled from Hodu to Kush, and in case you didn't know, how many provinces does that include, how many voting districts does that include? שבע ועשרים ומאה מדינה, 127. The Midrash Bereishis Rabbah tells us the following: רבי עקיבא היה יושב ודורש. Rabbi Akiva used to sit and he used to teach. Vehatzibbur misnamnem. I feel so much better when you read this message, when you read this Midrash. What happened? The great Rabbi Akiva, one of the greatest scholars, one of the greatest comeback stories, one of the great stories... of optimism and hope, one of the greatest teachers in our entire history, would begin to give his derasha, his lecture and what happened? hatzibbur misnamnem, the people started to fall asleep, the people started to fall asleep. I think I told you the story that people fall asleep from me all the time. I always joke I have the same job as an anesthesiologist. And if a person can't fall asleep at night, now you don't even have to call me, you could just go to YUTorah Rabbi Ephraim Goldberg or YouTube, just press play, better than melatonin, knock you out, it would put you right to sleep. I was once giving a shiur back when we were able to learn together. It was a Shabbos afternoon, a short Shabbos, so it's tough when you come from lunch, your belly's filled with cholent, maybe you had a l'chayim, your eyes are closing and you sit down to hear a shiur. And there was a young guy, wasn't an old person, a young guy sitting in the front row, this was a real wake up call, this humbled me in the moment. He fell so fast asleep, he fell so fast asleep, happened again the camera, he fell so fast asleep that his eyes didn't just close. He fell so fast asleep that in fact he fell off his chair. He rolled off his chair onto the ground and only when he hit the ground, only when he hit the ground did the impact wake him up and he tried to very nonchalantly get back in his chair and sit as if nothing had happened and I had to look in another direction because if I had made eye contact or looked there it would be impossible to continue my shiur without bursting out into laughter. So that was a great moment, a humbling moment, a moment of humility that such an anesthesiologist so successful was I that not only did his eyelids droop, not only did he fall asleep, not only did he snore, he fell off his chair onto the ground. Wow, that goes to the record books, that is a Hall of Fame rabbinic derasha putting him to sleep. So it's very reassuring to know that the great Rebbi Akiva, it's not just me, I'm not the only boring one, the great Rebbi Akiva was giving his derasha hatzibbur misnamnem, the people fell asleep. bikesh l'oreran Rebbi Akiva wanted to wake them up. So what did he do? So some of us when we were kids, do you know, the teacher threw the eraser at our head, that's how he woke us up, but today the teacher would go to jail or be featured on some blog, so they can't do that. So what did Rebbi Akiva do? amar, that was a true story, amar מה ראתה אסתר שתמלוך על מאה ועשרים ושבע מדינה? How did Rabbi Akiva wake them up? He said, why did Esther merit that she when she became queen she was part of the royal family and therefore she too ruled over 127 provinces? אלא תבוא אסתר שהייתה בת בתה של שרה שחייתה ק"כ"ז שנה ותמלוך על ק"כ"ז מדינות. Says the Midrash something fascinating. Esther is the descendant of whom? Esther is the descendant of Sarah Imenu, our great matriarch Sarah. How many years did Sarah live? Sarah lived 127 years, Sarah lived 127 years, Esther ruled 127 provinces. Wow, they woke up, let's continue with the lesson. Rav Druck wonders as I'm sure all of you are right now, is that the way you get a room full of people sleeping to wake up? Don't try that at home. The room is passing out, it's hot, their belly's filled with cholent, they're falling asleep, their eyelids are drooping, you say I know how to wake them up, let me tell them a vort about how Esther descends from Sarah, Sarah lived 127 years and therefore Esther ruled 127 medinos. I know, I'll tell them that vort and then oh, they woke up. What is the connection between Sarah and Esther? Just a cute association of the number 127? That's what does it? That makes no sense. So listen to this insight of Rav Druck along the lines of what we were just saying about mindlessness and mindfulness and about the avodah, the effort, the work of Purim, that Haman saw yoshnu, we were fast asleep, and the antidote, the answer, Mordechai went to Esther and he said wake up, you wake up, you need to wake up, מי יודע לעת כזאת הגעת למלכות? Maybe this is why you became queen. You need to wake up and then you need to wake up the people because we've got to stop sleepwalking through life, we're vulnerable, we're mefuzar u-miforad, pizer hanefesh, we're scattered and fragmented everywhere. So how did Rebbi Akiva wake up his talmidim with this gevaldik einfall, with this incredible insight that Sarah lived 127 years and that's why Esther ruled 127 medinos? Says Rav Druck the following. You know what Rebbi Akiva was telling them? Why are we told in the Torah in fact in Chayei Sarah that Sarah lived 100 years and 20 years and seven years? It would have been much more efficient to tell us she lived 127 years. So why is it communicated in the Torah, why is it captured 100 years, 20 years, and seven years? And everybody knows, when she was 100 she was like 20, when 20 she was like seven. But we also know, listen to Rav Druck, listen to Rav Druck, מה אסתר מלכה על ק"כ"ז מדינות היה בזכות מעשה הטוב משל שרה אמנו. What does it mean that Esther merited that To rule 127 provinces because of the merit of Sarah. נמצא אם כן שבזכות כל שנת חיי מחייה ששרה זכתה בה בתה אסתר למלוך על מדינה שלמה. ובזכות כל חודש מחודשי שרה זכתה אסתר למלוך על כמה עיירות במדינה. ובזכות כל יום על כמה שכונות. ובזכות כל שעה כמה רחובות וכן על זה הסדר. It means if you really apply the insight, what comes out is in the merit of Sarah's 127 years, Esther ruled over 127 provinces, 127 cities, 127 streets, buildings. שמעשים טובים של דקה אחת מביאים תוצאות עצומות לדורות. The message about Sarah Imeinu was that she was not mindless, she was mindful. She never squandered or wasted a moment. Her 127 years, Rashi quotes Chazal there in beginning Chayei Sarah tells us, were complete, that they were shaleim, they were whole. Sarah did not waste time. Sarah was present in every moment, every speech, every thought, every experience, every interaction. And that's what the Midrash is telling us, and that's how Rabbi Akiva was waking up his students. He said, you see how the result of Sarah being mindful every moment of her life, you see the merit of being mindful, of not sleepwalking, of not being a creature of habit and routine, the merit of being mindful is that you have a great-great-granddaughter who rules 127 medinos, and therefore wake up, my dear talmidim. Wake up, students! It wasn't he told them a great story, it wasn't he told them a great joke, he didn't throw an eraser at their head or slam down the desk where they had fallen asleep. How did he wake them up? It means that not necessarily they were sleeping physically. What it means is that they were sleepwalking through life, and he woke them up through sleepwalking through life by telling them, my dear talmidim, my dear students and disciples, you cannot afford, none of us can afford to sleepwalk through life. We're missing out on the greatest moments and the greatest experiences, we're missing out on embedding the greatest memories because we're sleepwalking through life. And we're going to wake up, the hours are going to bleed into days which will bleed into weeks which will bleed into months which will bleed into years, and we'll wake up, chas v'shalom, later in life and we won't even remember those years. Please God, tonight on Behind the Bima, yesterday, there's a couple here in Boca Raton, both are over 100 years old, and yesterday, kein ayin hara, they celebrated their 80th wedding anniversary. That's right, you heard me, 80th wedding anniversary. 80th wedding anniversary. 80th wedding anniversary. A person's going to get to 100 years old, be married 80 years, but because we were mindless as we were living it, not remember anything, not fully draw out the totality of the experience of it all? To be mindful. And says Rav Druck, that is the message. Why did Esther rule 127 provinces? Because she was the great-granddaughter of Sarah. Just a cute connection that Sarah lived 127 years? No. Sarah was mindful all those years. She was shaleim, she was whole, she was complete, she was present, she was conscious. She made the moment, most of every moment of those 127 years. And you need to know what that can yield. You need to know the merits that brings, you need to know the results that creates. Being mindful and present in all that we do. המן ישנו עם אחד that we were fast asleep. So my dear Emunah friends, brothers and sisters, stop sleepwalking through life, I'm speaking to myself, not just you. Wake up! Wake up to see and feel Hashem. Megillas Esther, wake up to be megaleh the nistar. Let's reveal God's hiddenness, let's find Him in every aspect, let's turn to Him and talk to Him, let's lean on Him, let's love Him and feel His love for us. Stop sleepwalking through davening, stop sleepwalking through mitzvos, stop sleepwalking through Judaism, stop sleepwalking through your marriage, your parenting, or your career, but wake up. Wake up and take your life back and live your best life yet. We move over to Perek Gimmel, back in Rav Itche Meir, Be'omcha Derachecha. Perek Gimmel, Chapter 3. הנה עצם הדבקות היא הרגשת השייכות והחיבור להשם יתברך. So what is dveikus? Dveikus is glue, devek. Dveikus is clinging and attaching ourselves to the Almighty, dveikus is clinging and attaching ourselves to the Ribbono Shel Olam, to God. אולם יש בזה שני מינים. There are two ways that one can feel dveikus, two ways. There is the intellectual knowledge, the intellectual leap, the intellectual mindfulness, the intellectual effort to be aware of God in our lives and to attach ourselves to him. And then there's the experiential, and then there's not just to know there's a God, and there's not just to decide to connect with him, there's the feeling, there's the personal transformation, there's the visceral experience. Knowledge that I'm living with God. האחת דבקות שלאו במורגש שמכיר בהכרה בהירה בשכלו ובפנימיות הלב במציאות השם יתברך והוא עימו. The first is not bemurgash, the first is not with the feeling that there is a God, the first is not with the feeling that there is a God, but it is simply I know in my head and my heart that there is a God, and I connect and I attach myself to Him. She'imo, that He's with me and I'm with Him. So I think about it. Wednesday mornings I listen and I get the WhatsApp group and I subscribe to 14 other Emunah opportunities, there's a million Baruch Hashem all over the place. And so it's in my heart and it's in my head, and when I panic or when I'm in those moments I feel anger or envy, I stop and I say: I've got to live with Emunah, I've got to attach myself to God right now, I'm not going to panic, I'm not going to fear, but I'm going to remember everything's by design, everything's for a reason. Hashem's with me and I'm with Him, He loves me and I love Him. That's the first type. אבל לא מרגיש את זה בהרגשה חיה בלב. Yeah, it's in your heart, emotionally you know it, you feel it. It's in your head, strategically, intellectually you know it, but it doesn't resonate and it doesn't permeate throughout all of your being and all your bones. Vehasheniya, but there's a second type of dveikus, there's a second type of attaching ourselves and clinging and feeling we're in the presence of God. And that is bemurgash, dveikus bemurgash, dveikus clinging to God where my whole being reverberates with a sense of: I am not living only in the here and now. I am not alone, I am not on my own, I am attached to someone. There's a Siamese twin, I am attached to someone. So there's the lo bemurgash, in my head and in my heart, and then there's the notion that I'm walking around as a Siamese twin attached to the Almighty. שמרגיש את אור הדבקות בהרגשה חמה ובוערת בלב that I feel the light of dveikus in my bones, in my kishkas, it's chama, it's warming me up, uvoret balev, it's burning in my heart, bikeli hargasha. I am a vessel. I feel it. I feel it in every part of my being. You ever see those people, they're listening to a shiur, they experience a moment, they had an amazing davening and the way they react and their arms and their being, they just entirely, entirely, it goes through them. ובדרך כלל כשאדם זוכה לזה and when a person merits this level, מתווסף לזה הרגשת תענוג בליבו. The joy is an incredible pleasure. It's a high in your heart. Reb Shlomo taught us that we can get high, Lord get me high. You can get high on God. You can get high on other things. You can get high on other things. You can get high on alcohol and high on drugs and high on narcotics and high on all kinds of gambling and high on all kinds of things. But they're counterfeit. They're fake, they're inauthentic, they're fraudulent. And how do you know? Because they're fleeting, they're not lasting. And the moment that high wears off, you crave it again. And it clouds your judgment about what you're willing to do in order to get it again. And it feels good in the moment but in the long haul it's not good for you. Several years ago, many years ago, I had meningitis here in Boca. I was in the hospital for eight days. And when I came home, I could not get rid of the headaches from the meningitis. And I was on a pain pump in the hospital where you can give yourself the narcotics. I used to set the alarm off because that's how much pain I was in, I just wanted to get the most dosage I could get. And when I went home, they sent me home with OxyContin and 50 milligrams and down to 40, 30, 20, 10 to wean myself off, as I desperately did not want to be dependent or reliant on it. But I will tell you, and I remember, and this now goes back—it was when my daughter Esty was born, and I remember because my wife was recovering from labor when I told her my head hurt so badly I need to go lie down and that did not go so well. But Esty is how old now? Esty is how old now? Where is Yocheved when I need her? Esty is 14 maybe? So 13? 14? Anyway, so 14 years ago and yet I still remember that swallowing that OxyContin pill or getting the Dilaudid in the hospital from the pump, I remember this incredible feeling of a wave of warmth that came over. From this intense pain that went throughout your body to taking that narcotic and feeling that like warmth, this tingle, this calm, this sense that everything feels good and will be fine and this incredible sense of relief. I remember. And I understand why that becomes addictive. I understand why a person doesn't want to let go. I understand why that becomes an escape or a person wants to numb themselves. But it wears off. It's not a solution. A person has to get to the core of where the pain is coming from and solve the pain, not treat the symptom and numb to the symptom, because you'll never heal that way. Thank God I got off it very quickly. Acupuncture and yoga was the alternative, it got rid of those headaches, and I'm grateful until today. But I give it as an example why? Because that was the high through a pill. But what Rav Itcha Meir is describing and what we'll pick up with next week is that same sense of a high that I got from a pill, thank God I was never addicted, I'm not sharing in that context, I'm just telling you after recovering. Many of you have given birth, you come home from the hospital with a similar prescription for a narcotic, for OxyContin or for what's the other one that everybody gets? What's the other narcotic they sent you home with? Anyway, you know the feeling it gives. But what he's describing, Rav Itcha Meir, is if we practiced dveykus authentically at the highest level, then our whole body can get that same sense, the same experience, that that same calm, that same relief, that same warmth, that same tingle, that same knowledge that everything's going to be okay, that all my pain just went away, that right now I feel such a wave of calm and connection that it doesn't require a substance, all it requires is dveykus. I'm not suggesting that if you have a chronic pain that you don't deserve to take a chemical help to get rid of the pain. I'm not suggesting if only you had more emuna and bitachon you could feel the hargasha, you'd be bemurgash, you'd be able to relieve that pain. Some of us need medicines chas veshalom with no judgment, there are people who need the medicine. But if a person doesn't have chronic pain, they just have the ordinary everyday aches and pains of life, then no, Percocet, thank you Rita, then no, that even the everyday aches and pains of life you can have a level of dveykus behargasha that gives you that wave of calm, relief, confidence. It gives you the sense that everything will be okay, that right now the pain has gone away even for a little bit. So we'll pick up with that next week. How do we practice that dveykus? The dveykus in our head and our hearts what we've been talking about for the last several years. The dveykus in our head and our heart to know there's a God and in those moments we need him to remember and be mindful and attach ourselves to him. That's what we've been not only talking about but hopefully working on. But how do we get to that next level dveykus? How do we get to the level of dveykus that it goes throughout our being, we feel it throughout our body, it comes over us like a wave that you can see it resonate throughout and reverberate throughout our whole essence of who we are? That we will pick up with next week. We got a great Purim episode tonight of Behind the Bima, that amazing couple בעזרת השם בלי עין הרע and other, other surprises. So join us at 9:00 PM Behind the Bima on YouTube. I ask you to take a moment and to subscribe on YouTube. You see the subscribe button, subscribe on YouTube and you'll be notified in real time every time we go live with the next shiur, class, program, panel, conversation and the next opportunity to learn together. So if you've not yet joined the BRS Global community, it's not too late, brsonline.org/global, get the extra content and get some surprises we have in store for you for any amount. Just be part of our global content. If you did and you have, from the bottom of my heart, I thank you. Thank you for partnering, supporting, thank you for being a part of all that we're doing, for coming to learn together. Until next time, stay happy, stay healthy, and stay holy.
