Transcript
Okay, good morning, Boker Tov, welcome back to Living with Emuna. Please help yourself to some coffee and some refreshments. Everyone is invited and encouraged to stay afterwards to continue to shmooze and to continue to welcome new members who've moved in. We have some new faces and we're so grateful that you've chosen to live in our community on your way to living in Israel. So it's great to have you and please stay and shmooze afterwards. I want to thank our generous sponsors, the Emuna series for the year, Doctors Avi and Bella Morgan in memory of Rabbi Dr. Byron Gaby, zichrono livracha, and in memory of Bella's mother, Ellen Chanzer. Thank you so much for that generous sponsorship. This morning's shiur is also sponsored by Russ and Hadas Summers, l'ilui nishmat אחיינית נופר בת אורית וירון שמעון ביום השנה פטירתה on the first yahrtzeit of her passing, neshama shetehei aleya. And also finally this morning is co-sponsored by Sylvia Brody, and we're going to throw in by Rabbi Josh Brody, in loving memory as usual of his mother making him look good, in loving memory of Asher Yosef Brody's 19th yahrtzeit, beloved husband, father, and grandfather. He was a special man I was privileged to have known him and his neshama shetehei aleya as well. Thank you all for that generous sponsorship. Also a reminder before we dive back into the Emuna, we all need our healthy dose of Emuna, our jolt of Emuna. If you would like to receive a newsletter in your inbox every week that has the shiurim, the article, and a write-up of the parsha shiur, notes from the parsha shiur, so that you have a dvar Torah for your table, then take out your phone right now, turn it to vibrate first of all, but second of all, if you text the following number, text the letters REG, REG to 22828, text the letters REG to 22828 and you could sign up for our newsletter to have everything you need in your inbox. Okay, we are continuing to learn together this wonderful new sefer called He'aros. It is a collection of the thoughts and insights of Rav Shlomo Wolbe, the great Mashgiach of Yerushalayim, and he's been walking us through the notion of Emuna and the notion of bitachon. The challenge that so many have in davening, that's how he began this essay. He began with the question he received from an educator in Israel who said when the Rebbe walks out of the room, when the Mora walks out for a moment, like my teacher in high school used to trade stocks in the payphone next to our classroom, I told you about, so when the Rebbe walks out, everybody stops davening. In other words, they're only davening because they're scared, they're only davening because they're afraid, they're only davening because they're worried they're going to get in trouble. How do we get them to daven even when the Rebbe, the Mora, even when the parent steps out? Even when the parent is not there, how do we make sure our children continue and keep and still daven? And Rav Wolbe's answer, which is so profound and so important, which is true for children and it's true for adults, is that the challenge of davening is not davening. The challenge is not the siddur, that the Hebrew is inaccessible or that the ideas are lofty or that we don't really understand what they mean. All of that is a challenge, don't get me wrong. If I handed you a book in Chinese and said say this every day out loud phonetically, you can't read the Chinese, but say it every day out loud, you'd say how many days can I do this? One day? One week? But three times a day for the rest of my life I'm going to read a Chinese phonebook without understanding one word in it? So yeah, if we don't understand one word of the siddur, how can we expect to get anything out of it? But much more fundamental is if we don't believe that we're in the presence of God. If we don't believe that we're having an audience with the Almighty, if we don't believe that we're having a conversation with the King of Kings, then of course you can't daven. It doesn't even begin, don't bother opening the siddur. It's simply talking to a wall. That's the other analogy. Imagine I said to you three times a day for the rest of your life I want you to walk up to the wall, face the wall, and talk to the wall. Okay, one day you did it, you'd say fine, I want to make you happy. Two days, by the third day they'd put you in an insane asylum. To walk up to a wall and talk to a wall, you'd be out of your mind. But meanwhile, one of the most authentic and beautiful and inspiring davenings that I ever eavesdropped on, that I ever overheard by accident, was someone talking to a wall. The wall happened to have been the Kotel, and I was standing next to an older, I think, Teimani, Yemenite man. And I didn't mean to, but he was speaking pretty loudly in his conversation to God, and I've never in my life experienced such an authentic conversation. He was filling God in on everyone in his family, and my daughter this, and then my son is having this issue. Oh, but thank you Hashem, the thing I spoke to you about last week, it ended up working out and I'm sure you had a part in it, so I want to thank you for that. But look, this week, this thing is going on and I could really use your help, and let me tell you about my mother, her health is failing and it's so painful for me. And I'm standing there, I didn't say one word, I wasn't davening at all. I could tell you everything about the Teimani man's life right now, and I felt extraordinarily guilty and invasive that I was listening to the conversation he was having. But if anyone would look, if the atheist or agnostic would look and they would say, here is a man talking to a wall. Somebody get the straightjacket, somebody get, you know, back in the truck, we're going to take him away, we're putting him in the insane asylum. Here is an old man. And he's lost it. It's official. It's absolutely official, he's lost it. He is standing and talking to a wall. But we know he's not talking to a wall. He's not just touching the wall, the wall's touching him, the wall's talking to him, is what that wall represents and it's any wall that we stand in front of, the wall of the shul or the wall of our home or the wall of the Kotel or the wall, please God, we will merit the wall of the Beis HaMikdash. It's not the wall that we're talking to, it's Hashem. He's everywhere, like Uncle Moishy taught us. He's here, there, and everywhere. So wherever you are, you take those three steps forward, now you're in front of Hashem. It's one of the beautiful parts about davening. You know, in Israel especially, but you could see it on parts of the thruway and the parkway in New Jersey up to the mountains, but cars pulled over on the side of the road and someone's davening. Wherever you are and whatever's happening, on an airplane, on the side of a highway, in our living room, and certainly at shul. Wherever you are, you take those three steps forward and you are transported to another place. You're no longer geographically the coordinates where you were standing. By taking three steps forward, you transport yourself, you know, like Star Trek, like beam me up, you are beamed up from wherever you are. It's an amazing power that we have. If you take three steps forward, you're no longer where you were. There's a force field around you, there's no kids fighting in the next room, there's no one calling your name, there's no talking behind you, there's no to-do list, there's no chaos, there's no pressure, there's no anxiety. You take those three steps forward and you're back in the Garden of Eden. You take those three steps forward and you are zoomed up and you're beamed to a safe and a secure and a happy place, a place where you're in front of Hashem. You're now in His Oval Office. You're now in His inner chamber. You're now in whatever is that place that you picture in your mind that feels like I'm in front of the person who could be the solution to any problem I have. I'm in front of the person who has the power to change anything I need changed. I'm in front of the person to whom I have to express the deepest debt of gratitude. I'm in front of the person who saved my life. He saves my life over and over every day that I wake up and open my eyes, He has saved my life over and over and over again. So the idea that Rav Wolbe is trying to communicate to us and through us for our children, for our families, is that the problem doesn't begin when you get to shul and you open the siddur. You open the siddur and you're like, I don't connect to this, it doesn't do anything for me, I'm not interested. I met recently with the head of ArtScroll, happened to be in town in Florida, a very special, wonderful man, Rabbi Slotowitz, and I happened to meet with him this past week and he told me that the genre of, we talked all about ArtScroll, it was fascinating, I'll try to get him on Behind the Bima to learn about the evolution, the contributions of ArtScroll, what ArtScroll's done for Torah learning, it's really, really extraordinary. And so I was asking him, you know, what they're working on and he said the number one thing that they have requests for, that there's a dearth of, is siddur, is davening, is tefillah. So first of all, I told him I happen to know a guy who gives a decent Siddur Snippets every day and maybe that could one day be turned into something, but we spoke about the fact that the problem is not once you get to the siddur. If you open up the siddur and you say, I don't connect to this, I don't relate to this, I'm out of here, it's too late almost. The problem is even before you get in the room. Do you know before whom you're standing? Are you in the presence of Hashem? Have you ever had a conversation not from the siddur? I often like to say, if you never talk to God when the siddur is closed, you certainly can't talk to God when the siddur is open. If you never ever feel I'm in the presence, I can thank Him, I can ask for Him, I can protest with anger at Him, but if I never talk to God when the siddur is closed, how in the world are you going to talk to God when the siddur is open? It's much harder. The words are a barrier. The lack of understanding, comprehension is a barrier. Sometimes being in shul is a barrier. People talking around us, I don't like the chazzan, I don't like the rabbi, it's too cold, it's too hot, for this group it's too cold, I don't like, there's always a barrier, there's problems in shul. So if I never talk to God when the siddur is closed, I don't talk to Him in my car, and I don't talk to Him in my kitchen, and I don't talk to Him when I'm going for a walk, and I never talk to Him, I never talk to Him, I'm never in conversation with God, then how can I ever talk to Him once the siddur is open? Every bar and bat mitzvah young person that I meet with, I give the same spiel for the last 20 plus years, it's time probably to update it, but it includes the fact that I encourage them, I say now that you are of age, now that Hashem sees you as a mature, budding adult, the way that He knows you believe in Him is if you talk to Him. So they'll always say, oh yeah, I daven in shul, in camp, in school, we daven, they give out a siddur and I daven, I love that. I say, no, no, no, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about you have a soccer game tomorrow, I'm talking about you have a test tomorrow, I'm talking about you're struggling in your homework, I'm talking about you're fighting with your siblings, I'm talking about you had a issue with your friends. Do you talk to God? Do you tell Him, I need Your help, I want to win the soccer game, help me, help the teacher only ask the questions on the things that I studied. And when you get back the grade, do you ever stop when you get back the grade and say, thank You? This good grade is Your answering my tefillah from yesterday. We talked about that last week. We're always in the asking for mode, but do we ever stop and say thank You for when God said yes? We always ask and we always call Him out when it feels like He said no, but do we ever stop and say thank You for when He said yes? But do we ever stop and say yes? Thank you. Thank you for the yes of yesterday. So, no young person, no bar/bat mitzvah or adolescent or teenager or adult will connect to God through the siddur if they don't connect with God outside the siddur. If we don't talk to Him when we put the kugel in the oven, if we don't talk to Him on the way into the boardroom, the operating room, the courtroom, if we don't talk to Him on the drive, if we don't ever talk to Him like the Teimanim at the Kotel. Let me tell you what's going on in my life. Thank you for yesterday, first of all, this that and the other worked out, speech went well, the technology held up, thank you this thing happened, thank you, you know, that person said yes to that major donation, thank you Hashem, I asked you for guidance, I asked you for help, thank you. Thank you first of all for yesterday. Now let's talk about today. Every morning when I, I shouldn't say that, not every morning. On many mornings I try to in my davening think about: what do I have on tap today? What do I need His help for? What do I thank Him for for yesterday and what's on tap for today? Is the program, is the class, there's the big meeting, there's the experience, there's the parent-teacher conference, there's the whatever. What's on tap today I want His help for? What's on tap? By the way, God, you're coming to parent-teacher conferences. Instead of me, I don't usually go, but you're coming to parent-teacher conferences. He belongs in the room. He's one of the parents. Gemara says in Kiddushin that every child has three parents: a mother, a father, and God. So whatever we're going to hear in that room, God, you're, you gotta take responsibility too. You gotta, you gotta lose some sleep too. You've gotta help. You are the biggest one positioned to be able to help for the parent-teacher conference in that room, in that room too. So if we never talk to Hashem on the drive to parent-teacher conference, we don't talk to Hashem when we're trying to cut that deal or work on what we're working on, it'll never happen in the siddur. The same is true in davening, the most important part of davening are not the words we say. The reason we have the words we say is if our rabbis didn't institute that you have to daven and here's the text, and we only davened when we felt like it, how often would we really daven? So they put it in place to obligate us, to create some consistency, to build some momentum and some traction. But that's not the most authentic davening. That's not the most authentic davening, the most authentic davening are the words that I add in between. Shma koleinu, atah chonen, Hashem I'm working on a class, please give me some great ideas. Hashiveinu, Hashem I made my mistakes, please help me come back, help me purify my soul. Hashem Refaeinu, here's a list of people I know who are sick, I need you to intervene please, their pain is my pain, I'm in pain because they're not well. And the list goes on, Hashiva shofteinu, Hashem there are injustices, there are agunos who need to be set free, there are people who are, there are injustices in this world, God we need your help. The Shmoneh Esrei is a template, it's a template. But it's just a template. You know, there are all kinds of templates for invitations, there's a template for a resume, there's a template for an email, there's a template for a flyer. But imagine if we had a program and we just hung up the template. It's just blank, it's gibberish, it's promoting a make-believe program in a church from 400 years ago, it's a template. If you hang up the template, it's there to get you started, but now you've got to add your own language. So the siddur's a template, it's there to get us started, but now you've got to add your own language. It's not a fake resume template, make it your own, acquire it, it's yours, make it your own. So that's what davening is supposed to be, that's where Rav Wolbe has been taking us through here in these in these ideas. And we last left off where the world is filled with pleasure and possibility, like a cup of coffee. ברוך אתה ה' אלקינו מלך העולם שהכל נהיה בדברו. Amen. I think we found a slogan to put on our coffee cups finally. Gotta still fine-tune it, but I want to put on the cup: Count your blessings, make this blessing count. Something like that. And we talked about producing disposable coffee cups with the slogan that would help us, our first blessing of the day. Cup of coffee, cup of coffee for me is an IV drip. It's a life force. A cup of coffee is like, it's like your phone is on 1% and you find an outlet or the person with the charger and you want to give them the Nobel Peace Prize, you're ready to like transfer over your whole bank account like you saved my life, my life. So that cup of coffee is like the charger, like I'm on 1%, it's not supposed to happen after a night's sleep, but you're on 1%, cup of coffee is the, oh you've got a plug, you've got a battery? Unbelievable. So that deserves a bracha and that starts our day off with brachas, 100 times a day we talked about. Rav Wolbe encouraged us: pay attention for 10 of them. I say start with one of them. That first bracha of the day. Count your blessings by making this first blessing count. And that'll get the day started the right way. So we're gonna make our, we're gonna make our, we have to fine-tune it, we need a logo, you know, all those things, we're gonna make these coffee cups. Okay. So we're up to os yud, we're on page peh hei 85, letter yud, paragraph 10. And Rav Wolbe says the following: Hagemara omeres, the Talmud says כל העונה אמן בכל כחו. Your amen was emphatic. It was a good amen, it was a strong amen. Why are we supposed to answer amen with all of our energy? The Talmud says in Masechet Shabbos that when you answer amen, you don't whisper an amen. Whenever I walk by one of the members of my family mumbled a blessing before they ate, I say you just deprived me of an amen. Say it out loud! You just connected God to whatever you're eating, you just brought Him into our home, you just opened up the shades and allowed a little bit more light, let me in, let me be part of it, say it out loud, let me say amen. People are shy, they're embarrassed, they're ashamed, cover their mouth, they mumble at work, in Starbucks. I said that was the only redeeming part of masks. You could make brachos all day long, nobody knew what you were doing, and Asher Yatzar, you could stand in the hall make an Asher Yatzar for 20 minutes, no one knew what you were doing. So if you answer amen b'kocho, כל העונה אמן בכל כוחו, you hear someone make a bracha, you say amen, a big amen. So the gates of Gan Eden are opened for you. What is amen? אמר רבי חנינא קל מלך נאמן. The word amen, give me an Amen. Sometimes you wish we need to incorporate a little bit of that energy. Give me an, give me an Amen. So an amen. So Rabbi Chanina says amen, alef, mem, nun is Kel Melech Ne'eman. The God, the King, who is reliable, who's trustworthy. Peirush Rashi, כך מעיד הברוא שהוא קל מלך נאמן, that a person who says amen is saying I affirm, I believe. I believe. He's reliable, he's dependable, he comes through, I'm sticking with him, I'm attaching myself to him, I'm connecting with him, he's got my back. Amen. You didn't know that all of that was in a little amen. Someone says shehakol on coffee, you hear the chazzan repeat the shemoneh esrei, someone says an Asher Yatzar in your vicinity and you say amen, you just said amen, you're giving an Amen. You didn't realize you were saying amen, Amen, amen. Yeah, what he said. Yeah, what she said. Yeah, ditto, I'm with her, what she said, 100 percent God, shehakol that everything in the universe, that the whole world and its ambiance and its energy and its blessing, shehakol that everything, nihyeh bidvaro, you created it, it's all you, it's all you, that there's no coincidence, there's no chance, nothing that's random, amen, it's all from you. The power of an amen, what is the power of an amen? It opens the gates of the Garden of Eden. We were kicked out, we were expelled, we were chucked, we were don't come back, but if you answer amen, you get to give a peek, the gates are opened a little bit. Rav Wolbe in a moment's going to explain what that means. We studied this previously. This I told you is a collection of Rav Wolbe's teachings, we studied this in the primary source when Rav Wolbe said it in one of our other many, many moons ago, we're up to 200 and some emunah shiurim, so we studied it a long time ago. But I'll tell you, I'll tell you a great emunah story. I went to a bris, our own Talia Bornstein had a baby boy, Baruch Hashem, and the bris was on Monday, and I walked into the bris and the Mohel Rabbi Selmar's there. And Rabbi Selmar, big Simcha, if you know Rabbi Selmar, he says, oh, I have to tell you something. I said what is it? He says you're not going to believe this hashgacha pratis story. You won't believe this story. His daughter was in labor and she was driving to the hospital and she was very agitated, in a lot of pain, I'm told it can be painful, labor, not as bad as gout, but it can be painful. So she was in labor, in pain, and she said to her husband, I want to distract myself by listening to a shiur. Let's put on one of Goldberg's shiurim, we'll put on Living with Emunah. And she randomly picked a shiur out of the 200 and it happened to have been a shiur, I don't even remember this, that we were talking about labor pains and being in labor and enduring the pain because of what it's worth at the end and the giving birth. And on the way to the hospital, the class that she happened to turn on happened to be about enduring that pain because it's worth it when the when the arrival comes, what you give birth, the birth pangs are worth the birth what you've given birth to. And it was just a coincidence, right? Just random, right? Of course not. Hashem is the greatest DJ in the sky. Hashem orchestrates all the playlists. You think that that was a coincidence that song came on the radio? You think that that same song came on Yocheved's amazing Apple Jewish music playlist just when you needed to hear that or be moved by that melody? You think that that shiur when you randomly picked one it was random? It's all from Him, it's all from above. So give Him an amen. Give Him the amen as He makes the bracha. When God makes the bracha and when things work out and things come together. Tell you another great emunah story. I have a few for today, I'll have to save some for next week. But I have another one. I got an email from somebody in Lakewood. I was on a podcast that comes out of Lakewood a couple weeks ago and on the podcast I told the story and in the story I mentioned a vort, a dvar Torah from my uncle alav hashalom Rabbi Eli Lazar who my uncle was a very special person he died. Fine, I'll tell it to you quickly, only because you're insisting. But I'll tell it to you very quickly, but we have to, we have to actually come back to this. Remind me where we were as we take our detour. Remind me how to get back to the highway. So, he said the following: we say at a bris, זה הקטן גדול יהיה. May this little child, may this little pitskela become gadol, may they become great. So the simple understanding is: right now they fit in the palm of my hand, right now I'm holding them on a pillow on my lap, may they become big, tall, strong, and great, may they become great. Rabbi Soloveitchik had another insight. The sun is called the Maor Hagadol, the sun is the great light, in the Torah, in creation, go back to Genesis, and the moon is the Maor Hakaton, it's the small light. Why do they get that name? Rashi there says: gadol, Maor Hagadol, the sun is the great light, greatness is when you're the source of light. The moon is called the small light because the moon only reflects the light of the sun. So something small is just reflecting another, whereas something great is the source themselves. So the sun is the great light, it's the source of light; the moon is the small light, it's just a reflection of light. Rabbi Soloveitchik said that's what we mean when we say Ze hakaton, this little reflection, right now they're a child, they're mimicking, they're imitating, they're just a reflection of their parents, their teachers, their friends, gadol yihiyeh, may they become a source of great light themselves. That's his interpretation. But my uncle, alav hashalom, said Ze hakaton, may this little one gadol mimenu yihiyeh, mimeni yeheyeh. May this one who's smaller than me right now—I know more Torah, I'm smarter, I've lived life experience, I know more SAT words, I've lived, I'm smarter—may this little katon who right now knows nothing, experienced nothing, is nothing, gadol mimeni. That for a Jewish parent, the greatest hope and aspiration is that they surpass me. Too many people, this is what I said on this podcast, but I'll repeat it now, too many people, unfortunately, tragically, they want their children to exceed them in academics. Be smarter: I just went to whatever school, you go to the Ivy League; I finished at this level, you get extra degrees; I make this much, make more money; be more accomplished, have more fame, have more followers, more friends. And then when it comes to religious life, many people, they say: I don't want you to be less religious than me, I'd be very disappointed, but I definitely don't want you to be more religious than me, then I'd be devastated. I need you to be exactly where I am. I come to the nine o'clock minyan at 9:40; if you come at 9:45, you're a shaygetz, how could you care not as much as me? You got to come on time. But if you come at 9:30, now you've out-frummed me, now I'm threatened by that, it's devastating. So that's what my uncle was saying: זה הקטן גדול ממנו יהיה. For a Jewish parent, the biggest nachas in the world should be: be greater than I am. Be more virtuous, be more righteous, be more strict, be a better person, more charitable, more kind, volunteer, be better, be greater than me. That's our hope. Good. So that's what I said on this podcast whenever it was a few weeks ago. So this guy from Lakewood emails me, he's got a cafe, and he says he listened to the podcast, for whatever reason he tuned in, and the next day in walked my cousin who he hadn't seen in eight years. And my cousin moved, doesn't live in Lakewood, but was there for a reason I'll tell you in a moment. He hadn't seen him in eight years. Hadn't seen him in eight years. And he says to my cousin, who he hasn't seen in eight years: I just heard your cousin on a podcast and he quoted your father. So he said: quoted my father, what did he say? He said this vort, זה הקטן גדול ממנו יהיה, it's really our hope as they should be greater. My cousin says: you know why I'm here in Lakewood? He lives in, he lives in Norfolk, Virginia. Says: you know why I'm here? Because I just had a grandson and the bris is tomorrow morning and you just gave me my dvar Torah for the bris of my grandson. I'm going to quote my father at the bris of my grandson that I happened to randomly after eight years you didn't see me, who you happened to randomly listen to a podcast to hear a person you never met say something in my father's name. All just chance, right? What a coincidence, right? Of course not. Give me an amen. That's an amen. Wow, Hashem, you orchestrated that perfectly. The right timing, the podcast had to come in the right time, he had to have been drawn to listen to it, my cousin had to have walked in while he was there, he happened to have told him that vort, happened to be there's a bris, happened to, happen to, happen to. There's no happen to, it's all from Hashem. Sometimes we understand this, sometimes we see it, and many times we don't. So if you answer amen, okay, I'm back on the highway, I didn't even need any of you GPS Waze, I got back all by myself, didn't even need MapQuest, that's how good I was. So I got back on the highway. So the Rav Wolbe says, if you answer amen bechol kocho, answer amen to the actual blessings people say, the brachos, but answer amen to life. When something happens in life and I got that email, I said amen. I cut it and I pasted it to our family Hashgacha pratis group and I said amen. Hashgacha pratis story. Give me an amen. Amen. It's unbelievable. Hashem, you showed your hand. Most days you're invisible. Most days I'm trying to figure it out, I'm navigating on my own, but you showed your hand, you gave me the directions to see your to see you. That's an Amen. So when you answer amen b'kol kocho, oops, the gates of Gan Eden are opened. כמדומי שטמון כאן יסוד נפלא. Says Rav Wolbe, it seems to me that hidden here is a very deep and a very powerful message. כאשר מביטים על העולם מגן עדן אזי בכל מה שרואים מהעשב הכי קטן ועד השמים ממעל מכירים את מעשה השם ואת השראת השכינה שבו. What does it mean that when we answer amen, the gates of Gan Eden are opened and we get to peek inside? So says Rav Wolbe, it seems to him the following. What does life look like from the perspective of Gan Eden? What does it look like? From the perspective of Gan Eden, everything makes sense. Everything is coordinated. Everything is orchestrated, everything is curated. Hashem is in charge. Right, from the perspective of Gan Eden, you're looking out on the show from behind the stage. And you see, not just the puppets on the stage, but from behind you get to watch the puppeteer. And you see the strings. And now you know that there's somebody orchestrating the whole play. When you're in the audience, all you see is the play. And you sit there and you say, I wonder how it ends. I wonder what happens next. I wonder what's in the next act. I wish I could control it, I want to be part of it. I wonder, and I pray, and I'm anxious. When you're in the audience watching the play unfold. But what if you got to be backstage? And what if you got to see the puppeteer, the puppet masters, with the strings, who are making the whole thing happen? Then you'd say, I'm not anxious. I know there's an end, I know there's an act, I know there's a development, I know what's going to happen. So says Rav Wolbe, from Gan Eden, the Garden of Eden, when God first created Adam ve'Chava, man and woman, so they lived in a place in which God was revealed. In which you could see God everywhere and in everything. In which there was no doubt, there was no uncertainty, there was no hiddenness. Everything made sense, everything was coordinated, everything was true. So says Rav Wolbe, that's what it means. כך היו צריכים בעצם להראות פני העולם כולו. Really we wish and we want to live in a world where that's the truth. Where I understand why that person's sick or why I didn't get that job or why the shidduch fell through or why the deal didn't happen or why I had to get stuck in traffic. I understand it. Because it's not random, it's not chance, there is a reason. And we want to and crave to live in a world where why I have to wait to have a baby or why I have to be single or why I have to struggle to put bread on the table. כאשר אדם עונה אמן בכל כוחו פותחים לו שערי גן עדן ומיד מכיר הוא במעשה השם. So when you answer amen, what you're saying is God, I'm living in that world. Even though I don't see it and can't understand it and can't explain it and can't put it into words, but I feel it. I feel your presence. And I feel comforted and I feel confident that it's all about you and nothing is random or chance. And so says Rav Wolbe, it makes sense that the reward for saying God, I'm living as if I'm watching from Gan Eden, is that he opens the gates a little bit to Gan Eden so you can give a peek. עולם שבו מכירים בחסדי השם ובחכמתו בכל נבראים עולם שכולו גילוי כבודו יתברך. That's the world that we want to live in. Everything is Baruch Hashem, im yirtzeh Hashem, chasdei Hashem. Want to live in a world where everything makes sense. You know who lived in that world? Many people, but Rebbetzin Machlis, aleha hashalom, if you read the book about her. Rebbetzin, you have to read that book if you... I am trying to get Rabbi Machlis to come on Behind the Bima. Tempted to read to you the text messages because you wouldn't believe them unless I held them up and showed them to you. Rabbi Machlis, who is a tzaddik, יבדל לחיים טובים ארוכים, should live a long and happy and a healthy life, like his wife of blessed memory, Rebbetzin Machlis, they're just not from this world. I wrote the article for this week, I put it up last night, I talked about being earth angels. Being angels here on earth. What does it mean to be an angel on earth? The dream Yaakov has of angels going up and down, what do they need a ladder? They can't be beamed up and down? What do they need a ladder for? The answer is angels are not these heavenly bodies who are apart from us. We are angels for one another, we're meant to be angels for one another. We are earth angels, we're angels here on earth. And Yaakov's dream was wake up and go be someone's angel. Be an angel. Don't rely on and don't wait for an angel, be someone's angel. And I told three great stories, including Henry Heimlich, who is the inventor of the Heimlich maneuver, who 42 years never performed the Heimlich maneuver till he was 96 years old in a nursing home and the 84-year-old next to him was choking. And finally the 96-year-old Henry Heimlich got to perform his own maneuver and saved her life. And she wrote him a beautiful note and called him her angel, how great she is grateful that God put him in the seat next to her. How grateful. First of all, 96 years old to get up and wrap your arms around someone and that's pretty impressive. That's pretty impressive. He invented it and he waited four decades to perform. So Rabbi and Rebbetzin Machlis, they're angels on earth, there's no other way to describe them. Rabbi Machlis, I tried to recruit to come on Behind the Bima and I described it: we have inspiring people, we want to bring the inspiration. And he writes back to me, and if you know Rabbi Machlis, he means this from the bottom of his heart, he says, "You must be confused, you said it's a podcast for inspiring people, I'm not sure why you're contacting me." I wrote to him Rabbi Machlis has a hundred people every Friday night in his home. His home is tiny, it's a fraction of the size of this room, and he has a hundred people every Friday night. He has people who live and sleep in the back of his car. His son-in-law, who is a friend of mine, Avrum Willig, once borrowed his father-in-law's car, and when he got in the car and started the car, someone from the back said, "Hey, what are you doing?" And he turned around, there was a family sleeping in the back of the car. The stories! When Rebbetzin Machlis was passing away in Sloan Kettering in New York and her treatment wasn't going well and someone came to visit her and they found her sleeping on a gurney in the hallway, not in the ER, but outside in the hallway of her room, and then looked in the room to see what was happening and found that there was a homeless person sleeping in her bed in the hospital and she was sleeping outside on a gurney in the hallway. These are just not people from this world, these are angels. By the way, when I tried to convince him that he's an inspiring person, he kept writing back to me, "Should I ever become such a person, I'll be sure to contact you and I promise I'll come on your podcast. My whole life I'm trying to be, if I ever become an inspiring person, I'll let you know." I can't get him on. This is not like go write a book now about me where I said those things kind of thing, like this is who he is, this is who he is, it's out of this world. So if you read that book, and I encourage you to read it, you'll see that her entire life, Rebbetzin Machlis, no matter what was going on in her life, whether it was the illness that took her life, whether it was a child who went off the derech, whether it was fertility issues, whatever was going on in her life with her children, she was always looking into Gan Eden. It's all Hashem, everything's for a reason, I'm so grateful, I'm so glad, I have such a happiness, such a joy for life. She said Amen to whatever Hashem sent her way. And if you're struggling with emuna, if you're struggling to believe and you're struggling to live that life, read that book. You know who said that? Not me. When Tal Ben-Shahar, who taught the most popular course in the history of Harvard, spoke here and gave a seminar on happiness, he said, "If you want to grow in your happiness, don't buy my books, don't read self-help books. Read biographies." Biographies! If you want to be inspired, you want to be transformed, read biographies, read biographies because we can see ourselves in those people, they become a precedent for the capacity to pivot and turn ourselves around. Read biographies, and for today's recommendation, I'm recommending Rebbetzin Machlis. By the way, they have the full biography and there's a children's version of the biography. It's great. Yocheved read it with Temima before Bat Mitzvah, she quoted it that it's one of the books that had a big impact on her. You gotta read biographies. I'm only invoking her first of all because she deserves it, but second of all because she was the living embodiment of what we're describing, of what we're talking about. We are capable of living here on earth where we have a peek into Gan Eden, where we're not living apart and separate. We can live behind the scenes where we see the puppeteer and the strings. We don't have to be in the audience where we're curious and anxious and wondering and doubtful. What will be? What's going to happen? How does it end? What if it doesn't work out? We don't have to be in the audience with fear and worry. We can be behind stage and seeing and reading the script. It's up to us in the way that we answer Amen, it takes us there. I can't believe I didn't even start yet. I didn't even start saying anything I wanted to share with you today. One day I'm going to become a good teacher and figure this out. One day, someday. Okay, I think we have to stop here, I think we've hit our quota. But please God, homework: make that first bracha homework. I have a group of people that I have a WhatsApp group that we push each other to try to grow and to hold each other accountable for commitments that we make. For this month, the commitment that we make that we're working on ourselves is to have kavana, to have mindfulness with that opening bracha of the day. The first Shehakol on the first cup of coffee of the day. So I'm all including you in that group right now. We're going to check in with each other. For next week, your homework: kavana. Maybe you're not going to make a hundred brachot a day, maybe you're not going to concentrate a hundred brachot a day, but have kavana the first bracha. That first cup of coffee. Don't rush into it while you're getting carpool, while you're getting them dressed, while you're still trying to put toothpicks to open up your eyes. Kavana. Take one moment: Shehakol nihyah bidvaro. I woke up, I'm alive. What a day! What a day! I had a meeting yesterday that I went for a walk around the lake with the person and we passed someone else, they probably think I belong in the loony bin. They nodded, they said hello and I said, "What a day!" I don't know what compelled me but in that moment, you know you have those Florida winter days where it's like a clear sky and a little cool but the warmth of the sun on your cheek and it just feels like everything's going to be okay. But what a day! What a day! Shehakol, you woke up that cup of coffee. Shehakol is an announcement. What a day! What a day! I'm alive. What a day! It's filled with hope and promise. This will be my day, the day, the breakthrough day. My mental health, my physical health, my spiritual health, my relationships, what I long for, what I want, professionally, personally, privately, this is it! What a day! Shehakol, if we can just get that first bracha of, that first bracha of the day. That's your homework. The first bracha of the day. That's it, to hold ourselves accountable and to grow from there. Tonight we go behind the bima with Jamie Geller. If you don't know Jamie Geller, she's an influencer, celebrity chef. Today she works for media, Chief Media Officer for Aish outreach. She's really, really special, and it's going to be a great conversation. Tonight behind the bima. Until next time, stay happy, stay healthy, stay holy.
