Transcript
Okay, good morning Boker tov. Welcome back to our Living with Emuna, so grateful that you are here and I'm happy we decided to have shiur even if at a different hour. Next week for those in person and watching live, we are back to 8:45 a.m., same place both offline and online, but back to 8:45. I want to thank our generous sponsors for the Living with Emuna shiur series for the year, Drs. Avi and Bella Morgan, who very appropriately sponsored in memory of Rabbi Dr. Brian Galbut, Baruch Tzvi, whose grandson was just named in the other room, Baruch Tzvi. So it's a really very special special morning to have a shiur in his memory as there is a new Baruch Tzvi Galbut walking around and if he is a fraction of who his grandfather was, he will transform the world and better everyone who knows him. So we give him a big bracha, he should be zoche to grow up to Torah, chuppah, and ma'asim tovim. They also sponsored in memory of Bella's mother, Dr. Ellen Shanzer, who was a personification of emuna, and we're of course deeply grateful to them. Okay, we are continuing what we began last week, this new sefer with the teachings of Rav Shlomo Wolbe called Ha'aros, different teachings of his. You have in front of you the source sheets. You see there's an advantage; not only do you get a hot cup of Dunkin' Donuts coffee and a bottle of water with a brand—what's it say? BRS? Keeping you spiritually hydrated. Nice. And a granola bar. But you also get the source sheets in front of you. So we made it through os gimmel last week. We pick up with daled. And what we began with last week, Rav Wolbe was telling us someone, an educator, had written him a letter. And the educator wanted to know, how do I solve this issue that when the teacher walks out of the room, the children stop davening? The children are only davening out of a sense of fear when they're being supervised, and as soon as the mora, the rebbe, the teacher walks out of the room, the kids close the siddur, they close their mouths, they stop davening. And Rav Wolbe's answer, which is so powerful not only vis-a-vis children, but also very very powerful in terms of introspection and self-awareness with ourselves, is that the issue is not the davening. The davening is a symptom. The issue is not the words. Of course, we need to work on understanding them, comprehending them, translating them, but the issue is not the davening. The issue is the person on the other end of the line. Nobody's going to talk into a telephone if they don't believe anyone's on the other end. Nobody. You remember when you used to talk on a telephone? Today you prefer to text, you do everything we can. Now we have voice notes. Voice notes are one of the great inventions. Basically, how can I get what I want across to you without actually having to talk to you? I could just record a voice note. But we used to talk on the telephone. So when we spoke on the telephone, when we heard either breathing or preferably someone speaking on the other end, we knew that we were not banging our head against a wall, we weren't wasting our time. There was someone listening to what we had to say. But imagine that we picked up the telephone and we heard nothing. You just had to have confidence and faith there's someone there on the other end. They won't respond, they won't acknowledge, they won't grunt, they won't breathe, they won't make a sound. Nobody answered the phone and said "Hold on, I'm putting you on speaker, I'm here and they can hear you." Nothing. Imagine you pick up a phone and dial and you're told to just speak. How many days in a row could you do that? How many times a day could you do that without believing there's anyone on the other end? So we're telling children, pick up a telephone called the siddur and speak. By the way, do it in a language that you don't understand and do it for a length of time which you don't sit to concentrate for anything that doesn't involve a keyboard and a screen, and do it three times a day and do it every day. And is it a wonder, is it a shock that not only do children struggle, but we struggle? We struggle. So Rav Wolbe's point was that the problem with davening is not the siddur or the words of the comprehension. The problem with davening is, do we really believe there's someone on the other end? Is there someone who's listening? Are we in a relationship? Can we confide and unburden ourselves? Can we, can we let Hashem in and make ourselves vulnerable in ways maybe we don't with anyone else on the planet? Can we humble ourselves to ask for help? Can we express our gratitude? Do we really believe there's someone on the other end? Rav Moshe Weinberger, who baruch Hashem we just locked in a date January, will be coming to Boca for another incredible evening with music and big farbrengen and a big hilula tish. So he tells the story often, we've repeated it in his name, I think he said he once got it from one of his daughters from a Reader's Digest, in case you wonder where rabbis get their material. Is Reader's Digest still put out? Does that still come out? Yes. So that was before the internet. Once you have Google, Reader's Digest you don't need, but before Google, that was a rabbi's, you know, go-to, the Reader's Digest. So there's the story, I've told it a million times, you'll excuse me if you've heard it, about the great poetry contest and all these brilliant poets and people who read poetry dramatically enter the contest. And the big day arrives and at the last minute a man comes and he says "I want to enter." It's too late, but they pity him so they let him in. And what will you be reading? And he says "Psalm 23, Tehillim Chof-Gimmel." Someone else already in the contest is reading it, but you know what, they pity him, he's an older man, there's no chance he's going to win. Fine, you can, you can participate. And each of them stand up there and on the podium and in front of the microphone and dramatically recite the poem of their choice moving the audience and trying to appeal to the judges for victory. And finally the last entry this older man comes in and he begins Psalm 23, Mizmor David. The Lord is my shepherd I shall not lack and he very beautifully and powerfully and personally recites Tehillim Chaf Gimmel, Psalm 23. The judges convene, they confer and they come back and of course who was the winner? This older man. And all the other contestants can't understand it. They had practiced, they had rehearsed. Some of it was original poetry. Someone else read the exact same paragraph. They read Tehillim Chaf Gimmel, Psalm 23. So they came to the man they said how did you pull that off? I don't understand. And his answer, listen to this because this is the core of it all and this is what Rav Volbe is saying. The man turned to him and he said, you read a poem about a shepherd. I know the shepherd. I have a relationship with the shepherd. I feel the shepherd in my life every day. I'm one of his sheep. When you read a poem about a shepherd, you're reading about an abstract, conceptual, distant, you're reading a theoretical poem about a theoretical shepherd. When I read it, I'm a sheep reading a poem about my shepherd. And that's the issue, that's at the core, is the emuna and the bitachon. The davening will flow, the behavior, the berachos, the life, but we don't spend enough time. Our educational system, with no criticism to anyone who's in it or running it, they're doing an extraordinary job, but the whole system doesn't allow for the room to discuss and to emphasize these things. And we also have another cyclical problem, which is that our educators, myself included, didn't grow up learning and hearing it, so we're not necessarily in the position to communicate it, or feel inadequate or unworthy or incapable in doing it. But every conversation, every Chumash class should be a lesson of emuna. What from this story, how does it connect us to Hashem? Every story of Tanach, where was Hashem in that story? How is He in our life? Every daf of Gemara, this is Hashem's world, why does He envision that that should be the halacha? When my ox gores your ox and this is the liability because that's Hashem's blueprint for His world and for creation. Every single class at every single school should end with, and this is the lesson for our relationship with Hashem, to reinforce and to come back and to instill. And our teachers are doing a wonderful job, they're doing the best that they can. This isn't the system as it stands now. We have to complement it in our own homes, to talk about in every way we can and every experience we have how grateful, how blessed. Point out, isn't it amazing we got that parking spot? Isn't it amazing the flight left on time and landed early and there was no traffic and I made it to the end of the bris? I can't believe it all happened, I just came back early this morning. I can't believe it all happened, what a miracle. To pause and to say thank you and to do it in front of our children so they know and they see. And that's what we said. David HaMelech thought of a great idea. David HaMelech said we need to revamp the educational system. So he created a curriculum. Curriculum is made up of a hundred parts a day, a hundred pieces of homework a day. Now I'm not a fan, I wasn't then and I'm not now, of homework. I'd do a lot of learning in school and play after school. But David HaMelech sends us home with a hundred pieces of homework a day. Those hundred pieces of homework are called מאה ברכות בכל יום. In his time he did it to stop a pandemic. There was a plague, it was wiping out the Jewish people and he said, you know what? Maybe the lesson should come through loud and clear. Maybe we are distanced from one another because we've been distanced from Hashem. Maybe we have to be quarantining or separating or living under the cloud of concern of what will be and what won't be. And I just saw a headline from Eretz Yisrael today that the I don't know who a sar or guru or who anyone is anymore because we don't know what that even means anymore, but whoever the expert in Israel said, the Delta variant is over in Israel, there should be a six-month reprieve until the next variant. So like enjoy the next six months, plan your trip now, and then we'll have to go through this all over again and who knows for how long and how many years. So David HaMelech lived through this. Spanish Flu was seven years. I remember when this pandemic first began and I read that the Spanish Flu was seven years, I laughed, I think out loud, and said, but it's 2021, what do we need seven hours? Maybe seven days, seven days, we'll figure this out. Maybe at most till they can invent seven months. But now it's not so funny anymore. Spanish Flu was seven years. In any case, David HaMelech's reaction to what was happening was not just simply to get lost in the data and the debate about the policies, because unfortunately and tragically that's what's consuming our conversations and what's not part of most conversations, certainly not at a national level, is the religious component of it. What are messages, what are lessons we can learn? And I'm not a believer in correlating when bad things happen it's because this is what we do wrong. I don't believe in that. Not only do I not believe in that and not only do I not believe it's true, I believe you are infringing on Hashem's territory. Last week we read about the people who tried to build a tower up to the heavens. They wanted to compete with Hashem in His space in shamayim. Well, when you try to decide why things happen in this world, why bad things happen to good people, you're playing God. God is the only one who knows that. There are incredibly, extraordinary, wonderful people who suffer really, really terribly, and to suggest that any of us mere finite, mortal human beings know why that is, is not only insulting to the people, but I think it's insulting and it's an affront to Hashem. So I'm not suggesting we try to directly correlate, what I am suggesting is that we convene to say but what are we going to learn from it? What are we going to change because of it? What are we going to do about it? How we'd be different because of it? How we'd be different because of it? So Dovid HaMelech set a hundred pieces of homework called מאה ברכות בכל יום. A hundred times a day make a bracha. So before Dovid HaMelech, there weren't these hundred brachos a day. Or there wasn't an obligation or a responsibility to count these hundred brachos a day. By the way, there is an app, my friend Jimmy Saka sent me after last week's Emunah shiur, a link, there is an app online to count your hundred brachos a day already. So Max Spector, who please God we should dance at his wedding, you don't need the paper clips and the index cards, there is an app online. So a hundred brachos every single day, a hundred check-ins every single day, a hundred times that we are busy with the Gemara and the Navi and the Chumash, that we're busy with buying things and accumulating things and living and making a living, a hundred times during the day we interrupt to stop and say we need an anchor, we need to be rooted, we need to be mindful, we need to remember that we're not here alone, we're not navigating this world on our own, we're not responsible for it on our own, but we defer, we turn to, we surrender and we submit to Hashem. That brings us up to Dalet. מאה ברכות בכל יום היא עבודה רבה מאוד, says Rav Wolbe, a hundred brachos a day is not easy. Now, it's easier than it sounds because again, nineteen, nineteen, and nineteen, if you daven Shacharis, Mincha, and Maariv every day, you are well on your way, fifty-six brachos right there. So you're more than halfway there just by davening. And a couple cups of coffee, couple visits to the place the coffee sends you, you make enough brachos during the day, a hundred brachos you reach. כשרוצים להגיד אותם בהתבוננות ולאו כמי כסובל דא, אך אפילו אם אומרים עשר ברכות בהתבוננות אין לשער כמה ברכה ממשיך אדם על עצמו ועל העולם על ידן. הרי המברך יתברך. This comes from עלי שור חלק ב. So Rav Wolbe says, a hundred brachos is daunting. A hundred brachos is intimidating. A hundred brachos may not even seem really realistic. So I'll tell you what, ten brachos a day. Ten, ten Asher Yatzar, Shehakol, a benching, an Al HaMichya, a Borei Nefashos. Choose ten brachos a day. South Florida in the summer you could throw a few in for lightning and for thunder every single day, multiple times a day, you make your Meah Brachos. Choose ten times during the day that my first cup of coffee in the morning. Let's all collectively, our Living with Emunah Chabura here, let's all take upon ourselves that our first cup of coffee in the morning, first cup of coffee in the morning, which I've not had yet, for the record. I was on the 6 a.m. flight and I can never, ever accept coffee on the airplane. You can Google it yourself when you find out where that water is coming from, and the article that I read, the proof that they had was, when you see the flight attendants, and they're the ones on the plane who have access to all the coffee of the plane, and they always walk on the plane with their Starbucks or Dunkin' Donuts, you'll never see them drink a cup of coffee on the plane, and neither should you. Don't drink a cup of coffee on the plane. So I have not yet had my cup. But that first cup of coffee, I don't know what Nathan says, Nathan brings the it never gets cleaned out. Yeah, there's no way, don't touch that coffee. Yeah, we've got an ace pilot here. So Andrea says, don't touch the coffee on the plane. So I haven't had mine yet. But maybe we could take upon ourselves, I know not everybody drinks coffee, kol hakavod to you, God bless you if you make it through the day, unbelievable. But those who do, the first cup of coffee, and if you don't drink coffee, your first cup of water, orange juice, grapefruit juice, whatever protein shake, whatever does it for you when you start your day. Your first drink of the day, let's all accept upon ourselves that that Shehakol we are going to be mindful. Now by the way, you don't have to put it in Google or calendar or Outlook, we're not talking about a fifteen-minute or a ten-minute or a one-minute commitment. We're talking about three seconds. How much of a commitment are we talking about? The hardest part is just remembering to do it. That's going to be the hardest part. We should make up mugs that have a reminder so that the first cup of coffee in the morning will be a mug that has a reminder don't forget to concentrate for the Shehakol on this cup of coffee. Remind me to make up those mugs. With the Behind the Bima and BRS logos on them. Anyone would like to sponsor those mugs, a sponsorship's available, we'll put your logo on it too. So let's accept upon ourselves, forget a hundred brachos a day, we have to make the hundred brachos, but let's just accept upon ourselves that first bracha. The first Shehakol we're going to make. Shehakol that everything niyeh bidvaro, it's all from you Hashem. Not only what we're enjoying, the ambiance of it, as we spoke about last year, the coffee bean grew in a field, and somebody harvested it, and someone packaged it, and somebody shipped it, and somebody ground it, and somebody made it into whatever snobbery that you like it, the Nespresso or the Keurig. or the Starbucks Vi, I think it's called, or whatever form that you take it. So, but that Shehakol, that Shehakol goes on all of that. All those people and all that effort and all that miracle of it being there and the clearly emotional relationship we have with it. So we can't do a hundred brachos a day, maybe not even ten brachos a day. Let's one bracha a day really be present. Baruch, breicha, everything flows from you. Atah, you, Hashem. Hashem is haya hoveh v'yiheye, he was, he is and he will be. Elokeinu, not just the God of the universe, but Elokeinu, my God. Hashem, you're in my life, I feel your presence. I woke up this morning, I feel your love. Elokeinu, melech, you are the king, ha'olam, of the whole world. Ha'olam and ha'elam, that which is hidden. You are the king of the world I see and the world which is hidden underneath that world. Shehakol, that everything nihiyeh, it came to be bidvaro with your word. Everything in the world is because you will it. It all exists only because you will it. So to actually concentrate, think about and be mindful for that is a moment of time. המברך וממליך את הבורא ומתבונן כי קדשי שמים הוא אוכל. And a person who blesses God and who coronates God and recognizes, God, you're the king of kings. The fact that I didn't spill this cup on myself, the fact that it worked out and I made the cup and the machine didn't break down, the fact that it has that impact on me, everything about this incredible cup of coffee, when I think about it, you are the, I'm coronating you. God, you are the king of kings. כי קדשי שמים הוא אוכל. So now what I've done when I make that bracha, that first Shehakol in the morning, I've turned the mundane cup of coffee, in whatever state of my eyelids being open or closed, whatever state of dress I'm in or yet not having gotten dressed that day, whatever, where I am, whatever that first cup of coffee, but I've turned that cup of coffee from a secular, profane, mundane cup of coffee into kodshei shamayim. It's like a holy korban. I'm in the Beis Hamikdash with a sacrifice. I took a cup of coffee and I made it the holiest thing there is because I just chose to be mindful in the moment. I drank it with intention. I was present. ובתוך כדי התבוננות זו הוא טועם מאכלו. And it's with that contemplativeness, it's with that thoughtfulness, it's with that presence that I'm sipping that cup of coffee. So the cup of coffee, first of all, I'm not mindlessly drinking it while I'm flipping through the paper, taking in the news, or having a conversation, oblivious to the blessing of the cup of coffee. I'm present for the blessing of it. I'm not consumed by it because there are other things that we have to do during the day, but I also am aware of the bracha of the gift of it and I've transformed it from a base, animal, human experience into a godly, holy, and spiritual experience. הוא טועם ממש את טובו יתברך בהנאתו. When you drink the cup of coffee, you're not just drinking coffee. You know what you are imbibing? You're drinking a piece of God. You're drinking a piece of God. We spoke about this earlier in Elul when we did our forty-five-minute class on the Jewish approach to eating, the hashkafa of eating food and many mekoros that we saw there, many, many beautiful insights and sources, but they talked about, we studied Rav Itche Meyer has a whole chapter in that sefer Bechol Derachecha on eating. And he says, you know, we know that human beings need to eat to live. You shouldn't live to eat. We need to eat in order to live. People who have, don't eat, have an eating disorder. That's considered a disorder. It's dysfunctional. It's unhealthy. We sabotage our own health. We need to eat in order to be able to, in order to be able to live. Which means that within food is the life source. Within food is that which gives us life. Without it we would die. With it we live. So in it is life. In it is life. Which means that when we eat it or we eat the proper food in the proper time in the proper quantities, then we are engaging Hashem. It's where Hashem can be found. Hashem is the source of all life and if food is what gives us life, then Hashem is expressing or manifesting himself in food. He's manifesting himself in that food. So when we pause and we make that bracha mindfully, again, we're talking millisecond, maybe less than a second to make a Shehakol, okay, three seconds if you really have kavanah, you're making contact with the divine. You're turning it from a cup of coffee into a holy sacrifice, a holy object. ענין שהאדם בדעתו ובחושיו כל כך מושרש באלוקות. We are both with our intention, with our mind, but also bechushav, we're also with our senses. That cup of coffee, I know I'm very much romanticizing a cup of coffee right now, which tells you how badly I need a cup of coffee, but also, but also because it's true about that cup of coffee and it's true about the foods that we eat. Again, in moderation, the right amounts, the right time and the right so on and so forth. But we are engaging not only our mind when we mindfully introduce it with a bracha, when we're present in what we're doing and eating, but bechushav, we are engaging our senses. It's a sensory experience. A good cup of coffee has an aroma. You're taking in that aroma. It's worth a bracha just on the aroma of a good cup of coffee. And it has a taste. You're taking in that taste. I'm talking about a proper cup of coffee, which is a hot cup of coffee, I get insulted every time, what do they call them, barista? What do they call them? Barista, the barista asked me when I said I'll take a, first of all I refuse to use those other names, I say I'll take a medium coffee please, she says hot or cold? He says hot or cold, I said coffee, it's hot, stam coffee's hot. An iced coffee is a milkshake. So anyway, a hot cup of coffee. So it's not only engaging your mind and it's a mindful experience, but your senses. Your sense of smell, and your sense of taste, and your sense of touch, you're holding that hot cup, you're not holding it too hot, it'll burn you, but you want to feel a little bit of the warmth to come through. There's a whole experience, and in that experience is the Ribbono Shel Olam, it's contact with the divine, it is a holy experience, עד שבכל דבר ובכל מקרה בעולם הוא רואה יד השם. So if you start your day by finding Hashem in the cup of coffee, you know what's going to happen? You're going to find Him everywhere in that day. He'll even be in the carpool line, He's going to be at the red light, He's going to be at work, in the gym, at the supermarket, He's going to be in those conversations, in those relationships, He's going to guide and navigate the difficult dilemmas and decisions that need to be made. You're going to find Hashem everywhere if you find Him when you begin your day. הוא אשר אמר הקדוש ברוך הוא למשה רבינו בכל ביתי נאמן הוא בכל ביתי נאמן הוא. The great testimony that Hashem gave of Moshe Rabbeinu, the greatest endorsement of all time. Hashem says about Moshe Rabbeinu, Hashem says about Moshe that bechol beisi in all of my house, ne'eman, he's ne'eman. This is the source that we wish a chassan and kallah they should build a bayis ne'eman. Doesn't use that expression anywhere in Tanach. Where do we get that expression to build a bayis ne'eman? We should be the progeny, we should be the offspring, the spiritual offspring of Moshe Rabbeinu, who was bechol beisi ne'eman. He was trustworthy in all of Hashem's house. What does that mean? Like he didn't mess with the kashrus? He didn't steal the silverware? He didn't steal the Wi-Fi connection code? What does it mean that Moshe Rabbeinu was trustworthy bechol beisi? So the word ne'eman, the meforshim explain means he was reliable, he came through, he wasn't depended on the mood he was in, bechol beisi ne'eman meant he was reliable, you could trust him, you can lean on him. Umva'er HaRashbam קבוע ומיוסד כל שעה ביום. The Rashbam is Rabbi Shmuel ben Meir. Shmuel ben Meir is the grandson of Rashi. The Rashbam is the grandson of Rashi. So the Rashbam in his commentary on Torah bechol beisi ne'eman writes קבוע ומיוסד כל שעה ביום. You know what makes Moshe Rabbeinu ne'eman? He lives with order and with purpose. Every hour of the day is established, is כמהו ביתדותיו יסד במקום נאמן. You know, to be trustworthy and reliable is that something is built to code, it's built with order, it's built in a way that will last, it's trustworthy. Our generation tragically appreciates that right now. I don't know about you, but I don't know that we get into tall buildings the way that we used to ever again after Surfside. You get into that elevator, you get into that tall building, and you're putting a lot of faith into the engineers and the architects and the inspectors and the hope that everything is ne'eman. I hope that this elevator, I hope this building, I hope that it's all ne'eman. I just sent some of you into a panic, I'm sorry. Just go into, never think about that, never mind, enjoy the elevators and the tall buildings and I didn't say that. So the Rashbam says what does it mean that Moshe Rabbeinu is bechol beisi ne'eman? That just like the parts of the house are reliable, the foundation is strong, it's reliable, it's dependable, it's to code, so too that was Moshe Rabbeinu. יסוד תקוע חזק אינו ממהר ליפול. If you have a peg which is firmly rooted then it's not going to fall down. זוהי האמונה שהתורה מכוונת אליה שאדם תקוע בדעתו בבורא יתברך. So we should be founded. The anchor that holds us in place should be our relationship with Hashem. So the world around us is distracting, the world around us is anxiety ridden, the world around us is confusing, the world around us is high pressured, and it's difficult to navigate our way through this world. The wind is blowing us in so many different directions. How do you steer the ship when the wind is trying to knock us off course in so many different ways? The values that are coming through through pop culture and through what was supposedly once high culture, regular culture, the definitions that we once took for granted about this world and the people in it and the relationships that we have. The world is upside down, how do we navigate it? We need an anchor. We need an anchor. We need something that no matter what we're encounter and engage, no matter what we watched or read, no matter what conversation we had, that every day we come back to it and it anchors us. It anchors us, it holds us steady, bechol beisi ne'eman. Moshe was that anchor, he was ne'eman, and that is the mission of emunah and bitachon. The hundred brachos we say a day, the davening that we do a day, the conversations that we have with God every day, not in the siddur, not the American Greetings card, but what we scribble. what we underline, what we fill in in between, we spoke about last week. Those are the anchor. Whatever's happening in our world, we come back and that anchors us, and it reminds us, I don't have to panic. I'm not in charge, I'm not in control, I just do the best I can and after that it's up to Him. After that it's up to Him. If He meant me to make this flight, if He meant me to make this business deal, if He meant me to get this thing, then I would have. Last night I was at a wedding in Lakewood and a Chasidishe Yid came over to introduce himself to me. Very interesting guy, he's a sofer in Lakewood. So I asked him, he's been living there for 20 years, been doing it for 20 years, a wonderful person. And I said you have a lot of competition. I don't know if you know what's going on in Lakewood today, but it's exploded. It's unbelievable what's going on. So he said, yeah, I created the competition. I said, what does that mean? So he said that there were people coming out of the years of learning, years of kollel. Not everybody could be a rebbe, not everybody could do this, and he saw the growing need for safrus. He didn't feel he was capable of it, so he hired someone, sofer from Brooklyn who came to Lakewood to train a whole cadre of soferim. So he said, I trained my competition. I trained the people who would compete with me. So I told him, I said, that's unbelievable. That's an amazing fulfillment of the insight of the Chazon Ish that we learned together. When I say we, I don't know how many of you were here, because this goes back several years ago, early on in the Emuna shiur. So we learned the Chazon Ish has a sefer Emuna Bitachon, which is named based on one essay in it. I think it's four or five essays, which are not, most of them are not about Emuna Bitachon, but the main, the central essay is about Emuna Bitachon, so the sefer's known that way. It's now been translated into English. You can get the English of it. It's really worthwhile to study. And the Chazon Ish there says the following. He says, if you really have emuna and bitachon, not only do you never feel threatened by competition, you're willing to help the competition. Because you realize that the source of your parnassa is Hashem, and He has enough to go around. There's enough for everybody. He can make you a millionaire, you a millionaire, and you a millionaire, and you a billionaire, and you a millionaire, you a billionaire. There's enough. So he writes, he describes, he says, let's say you have a certain business, and a competitor moves across the street. Now in halacha, we have something called hasagas gvul. Halacha has guidelines and guidance and parameters, what's considered fair competition, what's unfair competition. Both in terms of where you set up shop and in terms of the marketing that you do and the pricing structure that you offer, there are halachos that guide what is fair competition. But let's assume it fulfills the criteria for fair competition. So someone opens up shop, they hang their shingle across the street, the exact same business, the same store that you have. You can either try to drive them in the ground, you tell the distributors if you sell to him also, then I'm not buying to you anymore, and I'm going to drop my prices at the very beginning so he never gets any traction or gets started. You can have a ruthless competitiveness to be able to eliminate that competition because you're threatened by him. Chazon Ish says if you do that, I don't care how much you shuckle in shul. I don't care how many Tehillim you say, pitum haketores from a klaf, how many red strings are tied around your whole family and the tree in front of your house. I don't care about any of that. If you are ruthlessly competitive to drive a fellow Jew out of business, then you have no emuna and bitachon. You could say Baruch Hashem, im yirtzeh Hashem, chasdei Hashem as much as you want, you don't have any real faith. Because if you had real faith, you'd go across the street and you'd say, how can I help you? Do you need the number of the distributor? You need the number of my graphic designer? You need the number of how I market? Because I want you to succeed, I can succeed, we can both succeed. I wrote an article a couple years ago, in Brooklyn there was a fish store, a kosher fish store that I think had a fire, burnt to the ground, and a competitor around the corner said, come, open up shop in my shop, we'll both run a fish store within a fish store, we'll compete in the same store until your shop is back up and running again. He won an award by the councilman in Brooklyn for doing that. And I wrote an article, I quoted this Chazon Ish, and I said, it's unbelievable, that this is exactly the fulfillment of this. You can open your store within my store, because I'm not only not threatened by your store, I'm ready to help you with your store, because He has enough for all of us. It's really, if you're competing with me in a way that I no longer make what I used to make, it's not because you're competing with me. It's because He determined I wasn't supposed to make what I used to make. If He wanted me to make that and more, I would have. So the real test, the real metric, the real barometer of our emuna, where what you could call the emuna rubber meets the road is in real life. Who doesn't have emuna in the shul? Plenty of people. But who doesn't have emuna in the shul? In the shul, the siddur's open, you're davening, you're in front of the aron kodesh, you're hearing phenomenal drashos, hopefully from Rabbi Muskowitz and others. So you have emuna in the shul. But it's easy to shuckle and daven and the tallis over your head, and the lipstick marks all over our siddurim, we kiss the siddur at every point. Half of our siddurim after Aleinu on Shabbos morning have a lipstick mark right in the siddur. So in the shul, in the shul it's easy to do all that. But what happens when you leave the shul? What happens when the things aren't working out the way you want? Do we get distracted and confused and caught up in that thought that it's really all about us? other people and they could impact my life even if Hashem doesn't want, or do we have that anchor, that's how we got into this, that anchor that holds us steady, that anchor that brings us back to neutral to where we need to be, that reminds us who's in charge and who's in control and what it's really all about? So I said to the sofer last night, I said to him, "You trained your competition. That's the Chazon Ish. That's - you have such emunah bitachon. What an honor to meet you. Give me a bracha. Give me a bracha." We spoke yesterday ברכת הדיוט אל תהי קלה. Hashem said heyei bracha. He gave Avraham the ability to - He made every Jew a Rebbe. Every Jew's a Rebbe. Every one of us we're empowered by Hashem. Hashem used to have the exclusive rights in giving brachos, then He gave it to Avraham, heyei bracha, and through Avraham He gave it to every one of us. We can all give brachos. I said, "Give me a bracha." That's - it's an incredible story. What a great story. What a great story. What he said to me was - the reason he came over, since you asked - the reason he came over, he said, "It's nice to meet you. You and I share a same Rebbe." I said, "Okay, who's that?" A chassidishe Yid in Lakewood. So he said, "Rav Moshe Weinberger." He said, "You know, all day I sit and I write safrus, but I have shiurim playing in the background, and I discovered, I stumbled on Rav Moshe Weinberger and I listen to shiurim all day. He's unbelievable." And Baruch Hashem he will be coming here in January. Very excited that we're going to be having him for another incredible evening of music and inspiration and Torah. We're looking forward to that. So that is a fulfillment. So all throughout the day, whether it's what we perceive as competition or people who hurt us or don't fall in line the way we want or the traffic or the missed flight or the business deal that fell through, we have what we're meant to have. And if we don't have it, it wasn't meant for us. And what we need to do in order to remember that is have a very strong and powerful anchor that while the wind is blowing us around all through the day, we come back to that anchor. The anchor could be Tehillim. The anchor could be our davening. The anchor could be the emunah learning group or the many emunah resources that are out there. There are beautiful - what's that English book? I don't think it's called - is it called Living with Emunah? It's up to like volume 3 or 4. You could - it has an entry for every day. Read it every day. You need an anchor that comes back and that reminds us. We need to tie not a red ribbon, not a red string around our wrist; we need to tie a string around our finger to remember oh yeah, there's a Hashem. By the way, that's what Dovid HaMelech had in mind. It's just when you forget it. So you're in the middle of a fight with someone and you think they're the one who hurt you or they're the one who stole the business from you and then you have to make a Shehakol on your water or Diet Peach Snapple or your coffee and you make that bracha Shehakol - oh that's - you know what? Never mind. I forgot He's in charge. I could still be disappointed in the way you behaved, I could still be upset that I think that you wronged me, but in terms of my parnassah, it comes from Him. Never mind. Forget it. Forget it. That 100 brachos a day are the 100 reminders, the 100 strings around our finger that remind us. המתרגל קצת שלא לזרוק ברכה מפיו. So says Rav Wolbe. We'll end with this today. Time flies when you're having emunah. Hamisrageil k'tzas. So a person who habituates themselves even a little bit. Not 100 times a day, not even 10 times a day. That opening bracha. I'm testing you all next week. We're coming back 8:45 next week and I'm gonna ask you how you did on the opening bracha. What's next week? No, next week we're on. Next week we're back on 8:45. So I'm testing you all, how did you do on that opening bracha of the day? Whatever your drink of choice - I may judge you if I learn some of your drinks of choice - but whatever your drink of choice, that opening bracha, that Shehakol, just intense mindfulness for that opening bracha. I suspect if you experience that opening bracha you're likely to want to make more brachos during the day like it. So just the opening bracha of the day, the opening pitch of the day will set our day on the right path. So hamisrageil k'tzas, says Rav Wolbe, if we can habituate ourselves a little bit המתרגל קצת שלא לזרוק ברכה מפיו, to not just dismiss or throw out a bracha from our mouth. יתרגל בכך שבכל הנאה עולה יש גם טעם רוחני שטועם בה. We're trying to find Hashem, we're trying to taste Hashem, we're trying to imbibe Hashem, we're trying to make contact with the Divine. So when the - when there's a little wind on our cheek, that's Hashem, that's Hashem petting the side of our cheek. And when we take in a beautiful - a beautiful smell, that's Hashem who has distributed that beautiful fragrance in the world. And when we hear the rustling of the trees, that's Hashem who's playing His playlist for us. And when we encounter the natural world, we'll find Hashem in everything and every part of our life and our world if we just get our day started that right way, hamisrageil k'tzas with the brachos that we make. It transforms the act of eating from food into being kodshei Hashem. These are holy, holy, sacred, consecrated things. It's not a mundane or profane act. It is a very holy, holy act. So enjoy your cup of coffee. After the Living with Emunah, everyone's invited, stay, socialize, meet. There are several new people who've just moved in. I'm going to embarrass you. If you just moved in over the last year, raise your hand right now. Good. If you did not raise your hand right now, don't leave. Go over to someone who did raise their hand right now, introduce yourself and welcome them. In fact, we're studying the sefer of Rav Wolbe. Rav Wolbe's grandson just moved to our community, Itzi Wolbe, and his wife Esti Wolbe. Is doing a event on Sunday night you can sign up for. Talia, raise your hand, our new director of member engagement, and we're doing an amazing event. If you'd like to sign up and register to find out more you can speak to her right after the shiur, which is basically now, and there's gonna be raffles, she's doing a chopped competition, she has cooking influencer Cooking with Tantrums, she is a well-known chef, and so that's on Sunday night. Sign up for that. 8:00 Sunday night. But first tonight, tonight, we're going behind the bimah. Tonight with Avram Fried, the great singer Avram Fried. You don't want to miss behind the bimah tonight at 9:00. So until next time, stay happy, stay healthy, and stay holy.
