Transcript
Good morning Boker Tov. Welcome back to Living with Emuna, our global campaign is in full swing, which means we need your help. If you're a BRS member you're doing your part. If you're not a BRS member and you listen and learn and read and watch and enjoy, then please take a moment and contribute, enable us to continue to teach and to spread Torah and our messages. We really need your help. So open a new tab, if you're watching online right now, open a new tab on your browser. Go to brsonline.org/global. brsonline.org/global. If you're sitting here and you're not a BRS member, take out your phone. We'll wait. Open your phone, brsonline.org/global and do your part to help us. We really, really appreciate it. We need everybody's help, so please join our global campaign. The Emuna series is generously sponsored by Dr. Zavi and Bella Morgan in memory of Rabbi Dr. Brian Galbut, Zichrono Livracha, and in memory of Bella’s mother, Dr. Ellen Schanz, Aleha HaShalom, whose Yahrtzeit is on the tenth of Adar. We're going to head into Adar Beis. Today's Shiur is sponsored by Carol Wald in memory of מרים בת אליהו הלוי. Is Carol here? She's in Israel! Enjoy Israel! In memory of מרים בת אליהו הלוי, whose Neshama should have an Aliyah. So again, thank you all for being here, thank you for coming on this Emuna journey together, for reminding ourselves, and I hope everyone did their homework. Do you remember what your homework was? Was your homework eaten by the dog? Your homework was to smile. So has everyone been smiling? And is your home different? Is the energy different? Are your children different? Is your husband different? Is everyone around you and everything different? More wrinkles. Oh boy. I cannot take responsibility for that. You can blame me for a lot of things, but your wrinkles I don't think are among them. So we spoke last time all about Simcha being a choice. Simcha, joy, happiness is a decision. It's not an emotion. And the science that you're not happy and then you smile, when you smile, then you're happy. And the energy that we put to the universe is what comes back to us. And when we walk in a room negative, Farbisene, and a miserable complaining, then people pull back from us, they don't want to be around us, there's a tension and a negativity between us. Nobody wants that negative energy. And when we make the concerted effort to smile, then good things happen, because people want to be around positive people. People want to be around smiles. So someone sent me an email, I'm not going to tell you who it is because I don't have her permission, but she writes the following. Since the end of the Emuna class today was about smiling, I thought I'd share this with you. I was at a Shabbos meal in New York City when I was single and I wasn't in the best mood. I guess the dating was getting to me. Anyone out there dating, singles, listen to this. This is for you. I was single, I wasn't in the best mood, the dating was getting to me. A bunch of single guys were there at the meal, and the lady of the home told my Rabbetzin I needed to smile more if I'm looking for a Shidduch. I guess a person who's tired, they're exhausted, they're emotionally spent, you know, not to minimize, to be single, to be dating, to be hopeful, it's a roller coaster. Your hopes are raised and then they're dashed, and then you're excited and then it doesn't come through, and then you're waiting and nobody calls, and then somebody sets you up and it didn't happen. It's a lot of ups and downs, and it can show on your face. A person could be tired, a person could be sad. So this hostess told the Rabbetzin L’to’eles, for the good, for the benefit of the person. It wasn't Stam Lashon Hara. You know, the person you sent me sat at my meal miserable, Farbisene. No, she said it for the benefit, tell them to smile more. So listen to this. Simchas Torah, I walked out of Shul, the Upper West Side of New York City, and I started to smile going down the stairs with hundreds of singles around me. And my husband saw me smiling and he came over to me because I was smiling. That's why he struck up a conversation, and now they're happily married with a beautiful family and wonderful children. So she writes me this email to say that dating got to her and she was down and out, and the hostess told her Rabbetzin who told her, smile more. So she came out of Shul when there were a lot of singles and they, she might have still felt down and out, maybe her mood hadn't changed whatsoever. She was still down and out and still sad, but she made a concerted effort, a determined effort. There's singles around, I'm going to smile. I'm at the Seforim sale, I'm going to smile. I'm at the Kiddush, I'm going to smile. If I'm around, I'm at the wedding and you know, there's boys on the other side, I'm going to smile. And when you smile, good things happen. When you smile, the whole world smiles with you. So send me an email next week if you got engaged this week because you were smiling. Love to be able to share that story. But you know, we talked about it, and that was the homework and it continues to be our homework every day and every week. And the reason it continues to be our homework is because it's hard. It's so easy to forget. It's so easy to forget. Before you go into the house, smile. Before the kids come in the car carpool, smile. When you get home from, smile. When you're putting them to bed, smile. Doing homework, smile. It's hard. There's a lot of reasons to not smile. reasons to frown. You watch the news, you read the news, you hear the news. Not only the news that's 6,000 miles away or far away the other side of the world, but the news in our own community and the news of people that we care and it's hard, it's hard to smile. And there are moments that you cry, there's nothing wrong with that too. Again, it fluctuates. If you smile all the time it's not real either. But yet you have to smile to put an energy into the room. A concerted effort. So put a little post-it note on your steering wheel for carpool, put a little post-it note on the fridge for breakfast, put a little post-it note for bedtime, put a little post-it note before you walk in the house. Smile. Smile, the whole world smiles with you. This sense of simcha that we've been learning about, which comes from emunah. So you say, well how do I smile? It's fake. People see right through it. What's the point of a fake smile? So again, the science shows that your fake smile will make you happy. That's what the science... I know you're smarter than the science, right? We're smarter than the research. What's the point of a smile that's fake and I don't feel it, people see through it, doesn't even accomplish anything? I got it, all the cynics and skeptics. I got it. But the science says you're wrong. Science says you don't have to feel it. It works in the opposite order. Smile and then you'll start to feel it. Smile and you'll feel it. Smile, everybody right now. Put a smile on your face. Ready? Right now, there we go. Some of you just worked muscles that haven't been worked in a long time. Some of you forgot, we have to give a little tutorial afterwards how to smile. Some people made a career, a life, out of not smiling. They think that I have to be that person who never smiles. It's not a simple thing, I want to get into our learning, but I'll just say this. There are people who don't want to smile because they legitimately have challenging situations and they feel: what does it say about me if I'm happy? How could I be happy when my child, my spouse, my parent, my sibling, my life? How could I smile? My neighbor, my friend. How could I smile? Does smiling mean that I don't care? Does smiling mean that I'm callous? Does smile mean I've forgotten? We have a Kaddish club that meets once a month, the people in their year of mourning, there are people who come for many years after. And it's a... I wouldn't call it a support group because the whole reason it works is because we don't call it a support group. So it's a non-support group support group. But we basically get together and we learn something about mourning and grieving and life. And then people open up and they share and they're in a comfort zone, a safe space of other people who are going through a similar circumstance. And often the conversation comes back to: person who loses a loved one, and I'm not talking about their 118-year-old grandmother died and it's so sad but it's not tragic. I mean people go through tragic circumstances and lose a loved one. And they feel I can't smile, I can't laugh, I can't have fun because how could I move on? What does it say about the person who's no longer here if I was able to laugh or smile or move on or have a moment? But that's part of the process. The beauty of our system says there's shiva, there's shloshim, there's the year, there's then the yahrzeit, there's yizkor. We don't forget. There's a yizkor and there's a yahrzeit and we don't forget. We mark our calendar. And in some ways people's calendars revolve around remembering. We don't forget. We don't forget. But by marking our calendar and designating time to remember, we also give ourselves permission to live life, to smile, to laugh, to enjoy, without guilt, without shame, and without hesitation. And I think the same is true in life. No matter what we're going through, and again we can't tell people how to feel. There's a famous article from a great therapist that I once... I've shared several times about comfort in and dump out, wherever you are on the concentric circles of the problems in other people's lives. You can't tell people how to behave. But even the people going through the hardest of times need to sometimes smile. You sit in a shiva and they tell a funny story about their loved one and they burst into laughter and it's cathartic. So what, they're not grieving? No, that's the form of grieving is to laugh, is to live life, is to remember through a moment of laughter. So simcha, the fact that we have the capacity to feel simcha, the fact that we have the ability and we make the decision to be happy and to smile should never make us feel guilty and it doesn't suggest or imply that we've forgotten people close to us who we love or their challenge or their circumstance. We designate time to daven, to cry, to be there, to care, but we also give ourselves permission to live because otherwise what is life? So you have to smile. You have to smile and if you have to set reminders on your phone, set reminders on your phone once an hour. We have apps that tell you to breathe, there should be apps that tell you to smile. I'm sure there are, so I'm late to the game. But there should be apps and reminders and alerts and things that buzz on your wrist and in your pocket and wherever else that tell you smile. And whatever you're doing, I mean if you're at a funeral and the thing goes off maybe it's not the right time, but I'm saying assuming it's the right circumstance, smile. Somebody's pouring their heart out to you and crying, the thing buzzes, don't start smiling. But assuming it's the right moment, you have to smile. You have to smile. Smile's our energy, smile's our life, smile's how we plug in. When our battery is depleted and you need to revive and come back, smile, happiness, joy is the way we plug in. We're on page Kuf Nun Aleph, Rav Itche Meir. Yitzchak Meyer Morgenstern of Itche Meyer Morganstern. And he’s talking about hafratza l’simcha. First of all we talked about the formula for joy and happiness, the joy for happy living is to feel whole. The reason we fail to feel happy is we feel incomplete. We feel incomplete or broken something’s missing in our lives. How we feel happy is by attaching ourselves to the source of wholeness. Who is the source of completion and wholeness? Only the Almighty, only the Ribbono Shel Olam, the Eibershter, Hashem in heaven. He is whole, he is complete. When we attach ourselves to the complete one, we feel complete and then we can feel happy even when things are unwhole, even when things are missing. So we’re struggling, we’re suffering, we’re worried, we’re filled with anxiety, we don’t know what will be, we calm ourselves by taking deep breaths, we remember we attach ourselves to Hashem we say Hashem, I submit and I surrender to you. You are in charge. You’re in control. My flight was cancelled, it was delayed, I don’t know what’ll be, will I be stuck? I’m panicked, I’m frantic, I’m running, I’m rushing. Take a deep breath and I let go and I let God. Hashem, you’re in control, you’re in charge. I’m waiting for a diagnosis, a lab report, a doctor’s phone call. I know I’ll have to take care of something. What will be when the time comes? Hashem, I’m letting go. There’s nothing more for me to do so there’s no reason to be anxious or panicked. I submit and I surrender. Something’s missing in my life. What’s missing in all of our lives? You know what’s missing? The confidence to know what will be. None of us can ever know what will be. None of us know what will be by the end of this shiur. What message will come in, what will happen in our lives? We’ll walk out that door God forbid we don’t know what’s waiting or what will come or what will occur. None of us can live with confidence and surety about what will be in our lives. So something is missing, namely, prophecy. What’s missing is confidence. What’s missing is a crystal ball. We’re all incomplete in the sense that we don’t know what will be. So how do you get out of bed in the morning? How do you operate? How do you live? How do you know? What if I don’t get there okay? What if something happens to my child? What if the deal doesn’t go through? What if I get diagnosed? What if? What if the drasha doesn’t work out? What if I have to run to use the restroom in the middle of speaking? What if? What? What if? What if? What if? All kinds of panics and fears and anxieties that people have. So you could live life with that fear and that panic or you could let go and let God. Say Hashem, I can’t control. I’ve done everything I can do to set up to live the best life I can live. And there’s nothing left for me to do so what’s the point? It never ever ever ever ever made anything better. Worry, anxiety, fear, never made anything better. If it motivates you to do more, to be ready, then great. But when you’ve done all that you can and there are things out of your control and now you’re just filled with worry and fear, it has never made the flight come more on time. It has never made the lab report come back better. It has never made the people, children, spouse, the person that you’re negotiating a deal with act the way you want. It’s never made anything better, only worse. All we do is sacrifice our emotional, physical, spiritual health in the process. So let go and let God, surrender and submit. Hashem, I’m going to be be’simcha. You know why? You are whole. While I don’t know what will be, you do. While I can’t have confidence or a crystal ball in the future, you have. While I can’t control the universe, you can. So you know what? I attach myself to you. I’m incomplete. I’m unsure. But you are the epitome, you are the source of wholeness, of completion. So when I attach myself to you, I have the confidence and the comfort and the ability to smile. You can smile. Take a deep breath. Usually what comes before the smile is take a deep breath. It’s really hard to operate those micro muscles when they’re so tense. So when you’re all tensed up you can’t smile. And just this morning in my davening, I can’t tell you how many times I did a check in where I just tried to relax my shoulders. There’s a lot going on, a lot in my mind and a lot happening and a lot to do and a lot on the plate and I just felt like this davening’s not flowing, like I’m not here. I’m there. I’m in my to do list, I’m in my outlook calendar, I’m in my emails, I’m in my tasks, I’m in my sense of being overwhelmed by what has to happen today and every day. I’m not here. I’m meant to be here right now. And I felt that a lot lately and not only in my conversation with Hashem, but I could be sitting with my children or with Yocheved. She’s even protesting, she didn’t show up today because she’s upset I’m not, just joking. She had jury duty this morning. She is fulfilling her civic duty. She is a good citizen. But they already dismissed her, so she’s on her way back. So so you ever feel that? You feel I have so much going on, I’m not where I’m meant to be. I’m not here with my children, I’m not with my spouse, I’m not in this conversation with Hashem, which I’m supposed to be having right now. I’m not doing the thing I was meant to be doing right now. I’m elsewhere. I’m absent-present. So sometimes... 28 minutes I ramble and then we get to like two minutes of reading. So just let me ramble for two more minutes. So you got to do a personal check-in. And what's the personal check-in? Like how am I feeling? And I realize I was so wound—this is my davening—choking and your muscles and your shoulders are over your head. That's how tense you are. Then you just take a couple deep breaths. I'm not like a yoga like Buddhist whatever right now. I'm just—this is just normal. And not that that's not normal, there's nothing wrong with that. Sorry. But I'm saying I'm not like trying to compete with your yoga teacher right now. I'm just saying you can in the middle of davening just take a deep breath and just let go. And you'll watch your shoulders go down two feet. I'm not exaggerating. Your shoulders can—and only when you do that check-in do you realize how wound up you were. You could be so wound up you're about to snap. Your muscles are about to tear. Your emotional muscles are torn up and shriveled and shredded. So you have to do that check-in and just breathe. Okay. Right now, I gotta answer these emails. Right now, I'm davening, I'm here. Phone, goodbye. Right now, dinner with my family, I'll get to what I have to do and scramble and bluff my way through a talk on the Meru leaving and running to Shanghai. Okay fine. I'll get whatever. Right now I have to—and part—so what usually precedes at least in my experience, what precedes that smile is that deep breath. Because you can't smile when you're wound up. You can't smile when your shoulders are punching you in the face. You can't smile when your—just slow down that heart rate, just let go of those shoulders, take a deep breath. We've shared countless times. How do you say breath in Hebrew? Neshima. How do you say soul in Hebrew? Neshama. It's the same word. You restore your soul through the breaths you take. Hashem placed our soul in our body through a breath, the breath of life. ויפח באפיו נשמת חיים he breathed life into us and then we're breathing that life right out through the way that we live. And so the way that we restore that breath, that life, that soul is through breathing. So let's get a little hokey for a second. We already made you smile, half of you are never coming back here again. Already made you smile and now we're going to take a deep breath and then we'll get into the text. You ready? Just do that check-in. Just let your shoulders go. Just loosen those muscles. Just let—relax. Deep breath. I know there's a lot to do but there's nowhere else to be right now other than here in the—the only other place to be is on another tab donating to the global campaign. That's the only other place to be and if you don't I'll be wound up and stressed out. So if you want me to be able to unwind and de-stress, take a moment, take a deep breath and then go on breslovonline.org/global and do your part. Okay. Bechol rega varega. Back in Rebbe Nachman, thank you for letting me get that out of my system. I feel so much better now. בכל רגע ורגע השם יתברך פותח פתח להתחבר עמו in every moment and every time Hashem is opening the window. Every moment Hashem is offering an invitation. You know he went online, now they're evites instead of through the mail. Like the whole world today. So you know if you have to make a list of the top ten good things that came out of corona, I would say evites instead of wasted money on invitations has got to be like top three. No? Never made sense to me invitations. Having had to do them a couple times, Baruch Hashem a billion times over, the cost of every invitation and it is designed to go in the garbage. There's nothing that you—there's no keepsake to an invitation. You get it, you mark your calendar, and in one motion it comes from the mailbox into the garbage. And people spend all kinds of money on it. So this is one of the gifts of corona, evites, let's move it online, let's give each other permission to do that. So why are we talking about that? Invitation. Hashem—this is my therapy—Hashem—thank you—Hashem, Bechol rega varega, every moment Hashem is poseach pesach, he opens the door, he opens the window. Every moment Hashem says 'Nu, I'm here, come on in.' He's a therapist, he says 'Come on in.' A therapist you have to make an appointment, they may not have a slot for you, it could be expensive. When the clock strikes whatever amount of time they gave you, you're out of there like Vladimir. You're in the middle of a sentence—I'm sorry, the thing went off, 45 minutes are up, see you next week. But my heart is wide open, my chest is open, my heart is out here—45 minutes, I'm sorry, next appointment, time is up. Ribbono Shel Olam— Zero. Nothing. All it costs is your walking through that door. All it costs is your accepting that invitation. The only cost is your having that conversation. And he says talk to me, confide in me, yell at me, unload on me. I'm here, I'm here. ומאי היגיון להפסיד את הרגע הזה בגלל מה שהיה בעבר So you know what happens Hashem offers invitations all the time and he says I'm here. Lean on me, let me support you, let me listen to you. Let me express my care and concern for you. Let me be, let me be your punching bag. But we say nope, why? Because I'm stuck in the past. Stuck in the past or I'm worried about the future, so we forfeit the present. ולכן אין זה אלא עצת היצר ולכן צריך להחליט ולהרגיש שעכשיו נפתח דף חדש ויסולח מכל מה שהיה You know what life is all about? Life is all about turning the page. The secret to life, the message to life, you want a good life, a happy life, you want shalom bayit in your marriage, you want a great relationship with your children, you want to succeed in business, you want to be able to live with health and wellness physically. You know what it's all about? You ready for this? We learn and master the art of turning the page. Turning the page means yes yesterday's page is filled with hurt, maybe yesterday's page is filled with happiness. Maybe yesterday's page is filled with failure, maybe yesterday's page is filled with success. Yesterday's page could have so much written on it. But how many people get stuck on yesterday's page and they just carry that same page with them over and over and over again and they're on the same page, they can't turn the page. Can't turn the page. We all know people like that. We know people who 37 years ago we didn't answer a text and they still carry that around. Would you like to come for Shabbos lunch? Oh that would be nice, considering you didn't text me 37 years ago when I texted you and you didn't answer me, I'm glad at least now you invited me for Shabbos lunch and you're like seriously? Really? You know? So there are all those people that are living on yesterday's page. They have combined, they have a matrix, they have a spreadsheet, they know exactly what you said, what you did, where you seated them at the simcha next to the band. They know exactly you didn't respond to their response card, so they're not responding to your fancy expensive response card. There are people who walk around and they're on the same page. You know what happens when you try to keep so much on one page? You have to scribble and you write in the margins and there's no, there's no room. When you're trying to write everything on one page and you keep re-reading the same page, you know what you do when you re-read the same page? You re-read the same hurt and you re-experience the same pain. And you re-experience the same failure and you re-experience the same suffering because you just refuse to turn the page. You're on the exact same page. I once spoke on Rosh Hashanah Yom Kippur many years ago. You can find it I think in Aryeh b'Rom Digest online. But there is a very rare illness where people have an inability to forget. You know sometimes and certainly if we have people in our lives with dementia with Alzheimer's, forgetting is a curse. As we grow old, forgetting is a curse we have to contend with, we don't welcome it or we don't want it. But forgetting is also a blessing, it's an enormous blessing. There's a handful of people in the world like this, there's like 10 people in the whole world like this where you can say to them 50 years ago you say a date and they'll tell you what they wore, what you wore, what the weather was outside and every detail of what happened in their life. I forgot the name of this condition, there's literally maybe 10 people in the whole world with it, they have an inability to forget. There was a 60 Minutes segment about them and not coincidentally they're all divorced or never married. Because how could you have a marriage where you can't forget and forgive and move on? Where all the pain is remembered, contained and compounded, it builds upon itself. So blessing is an enormous, forgetting is an enormous blessing. I think I spoke about it on a Yom Kippur. On the pasuk Lechteich acharay bamidbar. We say in our davening, we invoke the pasuk, I think it's Yirmiyahu. Hashem says, Hashem says כה אמר השם זכרתי לך חסד נעורייך Hashem has this incredible nostalgia. He says I remember, I remember when we went through the desert together, chessed neurayich. I remember your kindness, I remember how amazing it was, how much love there was, ahavat kelulotayich, לכתך אחרי במדבר בארץ לא זרועה You followed me into the desert and we had such love and bliss and happiness and joy and you read it, Hashem that's what you remember? You know what I remember? Complaining, miserable, farbissene, terrible, incorrigible Jewish people. And that's what you remember Hashem? It was a miserable trip from the second you took us into the desert. Are we almost there yet? And can we have some water? and meat's not good, and I and I see this terrible, and my seat doesn't go back, and the air conditioning's not set right. And Hashem's like, you remember, it was amazing, I loved it, it was fantastic, it was great. So what's the pshat? Why does Hashem say that? Hashem has the perfect memory. So the answer is, you know what Hashem chooses to employ? Selective memory. Hashem says, you know how this relationship's going to work? Only if I have selective memory. Because if I actually use my divine memory, you don't have a shot. If I remember everything, every moment, you're finished. The only way that you've got a chance is if I employ selective memory. And on the Yamim Noraim, we remind ourselves, you know, we gotta use a little bit more selective memory, a little bit more selective memory. Yeah, you hurt me 2700 years ago, but you know what? I'm choosing not to remember that. There are people who have a chronic problem of doing this, very special amazing people in this room who let people walk on them, hurt them, and they never stand up for themselves, they forget so quickly that it's actually the opposite problem. It's the opposite problem. There are people who are so quick to forget, so easy to forget, who turn the page so quickly that they allow themselves to be hurt. That's also a danger. It's also a problem. It's also a problem. So you have to turn the page at the right pace. You have to know how and when to turn the page, when someone earns turning the page and when they deserve for you to still be on that page because they haven't earned it yet. So this is a complicated subject and I don't mean to minimize it or dilute it by just trying to cover it quickly. But that's what Rav Itamar here is saying. This is the yetzer hara. yetzer hara says: get stuck, get stuck. You've got your spreadsheet and that's all that's open in front of you. All the people and the things and the hurt and the emails and the texts and what they've said, what they've done, our children, our spouse, our coworker, our neighbor, guy next to me in shul, the woman who sits near me in, and that's right in front of me, that one page, I can't turn the page. So I just remember, God, that you I felt you were once not there and now I can't ever talk to you again. So the secret to life, the secret to success, if you take nothing else out from today, it's not me, it's Rav Itamar is daf chadash. A new page, a blank slate. Every morning we wake up and there's a new page. There's a new page. You know, there are people who walk around with notebooks all day. Some of you have them. I don't know how you find anything in the way wherever, every meeting, every conversation, every shiur. I don't, there is a value to the exercise of writing, it helps you remember better, but within the notebook I don't know how you find things and how many notebooks and where they are and how you know and indexes you create. But a beauty of having a notebook in life is you could wake up every morning and the very first exercise, Modeh Ani, Neggel Vasser, a few brachas, Hashem, thank you I'm alive, my faculties work, I'm so grateful. And now I take my notebook and here's how I start my day: turn the page. Turn the page. It's a new day. להגיד בבקר חסדך ואמונתך בלילות we started in siddur snippets, emes ve-yatziv. After shema we say emes ve-yatziv in the morning, emes ve-emunah at night. Because lehagid baboker chasdecha, Hashem we see your chesed in the morning: the light, the clarity, the beauty, the possibility, the optimism, the hope. And ve-emunatcha baleilos, at night, when we live with the failed dreams, the stumble, the suffering, the hurt. So emunah, then we have to tap into the emunah. In the morning it's chesed, at night it's emunah. In the morning it's clear, at night we're in the cloak of darkness. So emes ve-yatziv in the morning, emes ve-emunah at night. But we wake up in the morning, our coffee cups are almost ready, I'm sorry, Hashem, I have to let go. Right. So the next batch, no, next we're going to do notebooks. Notebooks that say: turn a new page, start a new page. Notebooks, new page. Every day a new page. A new page for your spouse. You know, you wake up. So the night before you had it out with your spouse, whatever, usually it's not that important, but you had it out with your spouse. In a drasha recently I mentioned the five-five-by-five rule. It's not my rule. I don't even remember whose rule it is. But there's a five-by-five rule. I actually saw someone the other night who told me that it's changed his life, the five-by-five rule. Also because his wife reminds him all the time about the five-by-five rule and he's able to let things go. The five-by-five rule is: if it won't matter in five years, don't spend more than five minutes on it. Whatever you're upset about right now, if it won't matter in five years, don't spend more than five minutes. Give yourself the five minutes, because they're frustrating things, they're things that upset you. Don't pretend they're not upsetting you. They could upset you for five minutes, but if it won't matter in five years, you could change it. If it won't matter in five weeks, five days, then don't think about it for more than five minutes. So things that we get all bent out of shape, that person said, did, I can't believe the school, the shul's policy is that I can't. Will that matter in five years? Think about where your life will be in five years. Think about, please God, your family in five years. Think about what will be happening in five years and will you still be ho... Darn it, how do I go back to not talking? I forgot we're not talking. So that's one attitude towards marriage. That's what makes therapists a lot of money. Or you could wake up and say, you know what? There are issues we have to resolve. As Dr. John Gottman says, in every fight there was a conversation that needed to happen that didn't happen. So there are conversations that need to happen. We'll have that conversation, but you know what? New page. New page. Turning the page. Leave a notebook next to your bed. You don't have to write anything in it ever. Just turn the page. It's just the exercise, the mental image. I'm turning the page. You know what? Last night you said that thing, you did that thing, you didn't come to bed, you... I'm turning the page. I would want you to turn the page for me. I had a bad day, I want you to turn the page. Turning the page. Come to work, with the kids, with the... turn the page. It's a secret to life. Daf chadash, turn the page. And we want to turn the page today. So let's do one more sentence. ובדרך הזו להתחיל מחדש צריך להשתמש כל הזמן דהיינו בכל פעם שאדם מרגיש רפיון או ירידה יתחיל מחדש מרגע זה כמו שכתוב אני היום ילדתיך. Person has to think as it says, I was born today. Today's the first day of my life. I'm one day old. I'm one hour old. I'm one minute old. I'm as old as this new page I just turned. It's a new life, it's a new lease on life. It's a brand new start. It's a fresh beginning. It's a fresh beginning. We have this opportunity. Every day is a new day. And every Motzei Shabbos, להבדיל בין קודש לחול בין יום השביעי לששת ימי בראשית, we have the opportunity, it's a new week. It's going to be a new week. It starts with light. Smichas chaver, we're learning now about Havdalah. And we learn, Mishnah Berurah quotes there's a practice we started several years ago, I highly encourage it. To have two tea lights, two candles, and from the Havdalah candle you light two candles, and they burn Motzei Shabbos. And they sit on your dining room table, and from Havdalah you light the two candles, and then you go and you scurry and you have your Motzei Shabbos, you get your pizza, go to your Avos Ubanim, you have 17 events to attend to, we're about to change the clock, I love it, I can't wait, about to change the clock, you get your Motzei Shabbos back. So wherever you're going to scurry and go and do, and then you come home and you see the two lights that are still burning. And you say, you know what? There's a little light of Shabbos still going. I haven't yet gone to the rest of the week. Still a little light that's still going. That from the light of Shabbos, you experience Shabbos and Shabbos is its light, and then from the light of Shabbos you have the Havdalah candle, and from the Havdalah candle you light two lights, two tea lights. Costs you next to nothing. Two tea lights, what do tea lights cost? Next to nothing. You'd be surprised how long they burn. Often we go out on Motzei Shabbos, we have things to do, and we go back and we come back, and those lights are still there. And they remind me as much of the week and I have to do and I have to go, no, the light of Shabbos is still burning. Still a little bit more light. There's still a little bit more light. So every morning we wake up, it's a fresh day, it's a new page. And every Motzei Shabbos, every Sunday it's a new week. And tonight is Rosh Chodesh. Thursday, Friday, Rosh Chodesh about to launch the second Adar. It's a new month. And then we have a new year. So the entire calendar, our lives, our time consciousness revolves around new beginnings and fresh starts and invitations to turn the page. Turn the page. Stop living and being stuck in the past. Stop holding on to the hurt. Stop living in the failure. Stop living with the anger and resentment. Stop stewing in the sadness and turn the page. Give yourself permission to turn the page. Allow yourself to let go and say that doesn't have to be me. That wound up nervous choleria. That person whose shoulders were taller than their head. That person who couldn't breathe. That doesn't have to be me. That was yesterday. That was the me of yesterday. I'm letting go. Turning the page. It's a blank slate. I get to define and draw who I am today. I get to create the image of who I am today. It's a new day, it's a new me. And you know what you start with? I'll close with this idea. That we're going to get notebooks and we're going to every day turn the page, and the first thing we're going to draw on the new page every day is a smile. Smile. Every day we're going to turn the page and draw a smile. And now you're ready to go. Now you can write 4,000 things you have to do. Now you can write down the people who said things you got to work out and reconcile. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. Adar, telling you the same vort, chazara a month later. Mishenichnas Adar, not when we enter the calendar month of Adar. Mishenichnas Adar when Adar enters us. What is Adar enters us? Adar, Aleph Dar. Aleph is Hashem, the one and only. Dar means to live. When Hashem lives in us and Hashem lives in our world, Aleph Dar, Mishenichnas Adar, when Adar enters us, marbin besimcha. When you live life on your own, you think you're in charge and you're in control, you think you're the blame, when you live with pride and arrogance, envy and anger, then you're filled with sadness. But Mishenichnas Adar, when Adar enters us, not we enter the month of Adar, when the month of Adar, when the attitude of Adar enters us, when we live with Aleph Dar, when we see Hashem everywhere, and we lean on Hashem, and we confide in Hashem, and we submit to Hashem, then marbin besimcha. And you have a hop and a skip down the street in life because you say I don't know what's going to happen today. I don't know what's in store, I don't know how I'm going to get through this or out of this or over this or under this. But all I know is Hashem's in charge, He's in control, He's got a plan, and everything He does is for my best, and I can't wait to find out what happens. Turn your life into like a movie that you can't wait to find out what happens. Now you're a character in the play, you're a character in the movie, so you've got to play your part, you've got to play your role, you've got to recite your script, but you don't know what's happening in the next scene. So instead of being filled with anxiety and worry, be filled with curiosity. I'm so curious how this plays out. I'm so curious what happens next. I'm so curious what He has in store. It's like someone who loves you blindfolds you and says I'm taking you away. Where? Just come with me. I'm so curious. Hashem, I'm so curious. I'm with You. Dveikus, I'm clinging to You. I'm with You. I'm so curious what You have in store, so I have a smile on my face as I wait to find out. Join us tonight for Behind the Bima. We'll be speaking to my friend Refael from the Ukraine. He runs the Tikva Odessa orphanage, he has hundreds and hundreds of orphans in a whole system and community that they took out five days ago on buses with private security and they're driving all over Ukraine trying to find safety, security. We'll be getting an update from him from the Ukraine and speaking to Rabbi Eli Stefansky, who went from giving a daf to eight people in Chicago, four people in Chicago for eight years, and today gives a Daf Yomi, how many people you think listen a day? 10,000. What is he doing that gets 10,000 people to listen? Tune in tonight. But only after you go on the global website. So if you want to put a smile on my face and enable me to turn the page, if you're a BRS member I'm not talking to you, you do your part, but if you're not a BRS member, please, brsonline.org/global. Instead of telling me how much you enjoy the Emunah Shiur, show me how much you enjoy the Emunah Shiur. brsonline.org/global. Stay happy, stay healthy, stay holy, and keep smiling.
