Transcript
Good morning boker tov, welcome back to Living with Emuna. So excited to be together, and very excited to finally after much discussion to be able to have our Caffeinate with Kavana shehakol nihiyah bidvaro Beerot Emuna shiur available at the end of shiur this morning. Ten dollars cash, check, or Venmo. Just stay at the end of shiur, you have to be in person. They will be available. Those who are watching online or listening online, we have this great coffee mug, Caffeinate with Kavana shehakol nihiyah bidvaro. Great way to start your day every day. Buy one if you're going to use one. Ten dollars a piece, they're available right at the end of shiur. If you're listening or watching online, we're still figuring out how we will send you, how you could purchase. If you buy one we're also going to throw in a Behind the Bima car magnet. So Behind the Bima car magnet and a Caffeinate with Kavana coffee mug. What a day to start the day. Aren't you glad that you came in person today and that you are here? The Emuna shiur. The Emuna shiur is generously sponsored for the year by Dr. Zavi and Bella Morgan in memory of Rabbi Dr. Brian Galbut zichrono livracha, in memory of Bella's mother Dr. Ellen Shanzell aleha hashalom whose yahrzeit is on the tenth of Adar. We observe both Adars, so it's coming up again. We're deeply grateful to the Morgans for their sponsorship. This morning's shiur is also sponsored by Brew Pool and family for the refuah sheleimah. Where's Brew? Thank you Brew. For the refuah sheleimah of her father חנוך בנימין בן שרה should have a complete, speedy, and painless refuah sheleimah. I want to thank Ilana Landau. Where's Ilana? Thank you for designing this cup. If you have any graphic design needs, Ilana Landau. Ilana, how can they be in touch with you? Look at this unbelievable stuff. How can they be in touch with you for their graphic design needs? Ilana Landau at gmail dot com. Ilana Landau, that's easy. AlanaLandau@gmail.com. Ilana with an I. Ilana with an I. If you're listening, watching anywhere in the world, Ilana Landau, Ilana with an I, Landau at gmail dot com. Everybody jump on board. Okay let's dive back into Living with Emuna. How did the homework go? Great. Yes. Now that you all said it was great, I want to ask you what the homework was. Let's see if you remember. Smile. Good, you remember. And it went well. Turn the page. I have a friend who was very impressed. She was turning the page literally in a book that my niece wrote about a year ago. Amazing. And she's never touched that book. And I did it once with you and now I want to be on board. Start that book and turn the page. Amazing. Right. Amazing. Later in the day she wrote to me, I read five chapters. Wow, that's great. Amazing. Psychological help. Amazing. So now that we've finally got the cup done, and by the way by next week we'll have our disposable version of this cup done. I like drinking out of disposable cups, I don't know why, but the disposable version will be available next week. Next is our notebook. Ilana's hard at work to turn the page. It's our notebook that every morning you wake up and turn the page. And that will remind us as we spoke about last week in the Emuna shiur that Rav Itche Meir, רב יצחק מאיר מורגנשטרן reminded us בכל רגע ורגע השם יתברך פותח פתח חדש להתחבר עמו every day Hashem opens a new opening. עכשיו נפתח דף חדש. It's the name of our notebook. Daf chadash. Every day it's a new page. Every day's a new page. Turn the page. The hurt from yesterday, the disappointment from yesterday, the failure from yesterday. To a degree the success and the triumph and the happiness of yesterday you can't rely and depend on today. It is a new day you gotta turn the page. A willingness to turn the page. When do you turn the page, when do you not yet turn the page because you don't want to allow yourself to be stepped on or stepped all over? You have to stand up for yourself. That is a complicated topic we alluded to that still deserves to be spoken about. But the general principle is a willingness to learn to turn the page. So we're going to make notebooks where you could take your notes on the day and every morning you wake up and part of your ritual as you caffeinate with kavana, you turn the page and you start again and it's a brand new day להגיד בבקר חסדך ואמונתך בלילות. Wake up in the morning bright sunshine, optimistic, hopeful. It's a brand new day. It's a brand new day. A new belief in humanity. A new belief in relationship and conversation with Hashem. Many people, a new belief in yourself. So many have given up on themselves. They stopped believing in themselves. They just don't believe they're worthy, they're capable, they'll break through. So turn the page. Turn the page with the three realms we live in. Bein adam lachaveiro, believe in people. Bein adam lamakom. Turn the page with Hashem. And bein adam le'atzmo. We turn the page with ourselves, we give ourselves another chance, we start again, we turn the page. Okay, before we dive back into Be'omdechah, we've been talking about simcha, smiling. That was your other homework. Turn the page and smile. Smile before you walk into home, smile before the kids come in the car for carpool, smile before you greet whoever is coming home to you, smile before every meeting, smile before every exchange. When you smile the whole world smiles with you. So did you find that the world smiles with you? Yes. Did it change things? Amazing. Amazing, fantastic. Send me your stories, I love to share them. So one insight before we dive back into Bi'am D'rachecha. I saw this actually online this morning from my friend Rabbi Moshe Tzvi Weinberg, he quotes the following. We say in davening and Ashrei, קרוב ה' לכל קוראיו לכל אשר יקראוהו באמת. Hashem is close to all who call out to Him, all who call out to Him in truth. So normally we say to ourselves, normally what this means, you can go back to Sidur snippet, we're up to three hundred and fifty something, but I don't know, somewhere much earlier when we did Ashrei, קרוב ה' לכל קוראיו. Hashem is close to all who call out to Him. However, it has to be לכל אשר יקראוהו באמת. You have to call Him authentically, genuinely. It shouldn't be fake or counterfeit or fraudulent. It shouldn't be superficial or surface. You have to call out to Him for real, talk to Him, not like He's your best friend, He is your best friend. Not like He's right in front of you, He is right in front of you. Talk to Him b'emes. Talk to Him sincerely, talk to Him genuinely, talk to Him in earnest. Have a real conversation with Him. Have a real conversation with Him. Fill Him in, tell Him what's going on, be grateful, protest and object, tell Him everything. That's how we normally understand it. But Moshe Tzvi quoted such a beautiful insight, I don't know if it's his own or from elsewhere. He said קרוב ה' לכל קוראיו. Hashem is close to all who call out to Him. L'chol asher yikra'uhu, so we say l'chol asher yikra'uhu? Really, anyone who calls out? Even me? But I'm a nothing. I'm unworthy. I'm incapable. I failed Him so many times. I made so many promises I haven't fulfilled. I feel so distant. I've fallen so far from Him. Even me? לכל אשר יקראוהו באמת? B'emes, yeah, even you, even you. קרוב ה' לכל קוראיו, Hashem is close to all who call out to Him. L'chol asher yikra'uhu? It's really anybody, even me? B'emes. Yeah, even you, even you. L'chol asher yikra'uhu. Isn't that beautiful? I just saw that online this morning, I said, oh, it's beautiful. It's perfect for the emunah shiur. And that is the turning the page, b'emes, turn the page, even you. It's a new day, it's a new start. But you don't have to wait for the next day. I'll tell you a little secret. You could turn the page in the middle of the day. You could turn the page at twelve o'clock at night, the end of your day. Whenever you're ready to turn the page, you could turn the page. And you could say, you know what, I don't have to be shackled and debilitated and paralyzed by what just happened or by carrying all the baggage or history of the past. I have to learn from it, I have to reconcile parts of it, I can't let people step all over me, I have to stand up for myself. But I also don't have to be defined by it. I can also create a new reality for who I am and how I see myself and how I want to interact with the people around me, and my relationship with Hashem above me, and my relationship with myself, and what I believe about myself and who I am and where I'm going. We're on page Kof Nun Bais. You have to tell me when I'm running out in the booklet and we have to make more. Kof Nun Bais, os gimmel. We're still good? Yeah? Okay, amazing. וכל זה בדברים שיודע בביאור. So we've been talking now about let's just catch up. All of us want to be happy, all of us want to be joyful, all of us want to smile across our face. That's the secret to life, the secret to longevity, countless studies show. You want emotional, spiritual, physical health? Be happy, smile, simchas hachayim, simchas hachayim. We'll be speaking about it this Shabbos. This Shabbos we have our women's kiddush and shiur following davening. It's Parshas Zachor, time to come back to shul, Parshas Zachor. But a women's kiddush and mini shiur. So a kiddush designed specially for women. I don't know what that means, like not fleishig. Like a vegetarian cholent? Yeah, I don't know exactly what that means. A lot of crudite, is that what they call it, crudite? I don't know exactly what it means, crudite and fruit and yogurt and I don't know what. But woman's kiddush and short shiur. And the topic of our shiur is "Stay Calm and Carry On: Overcoming the Hysteria of Amalek". Amalek, the voice of Amalek is the voice of hysteria, of panic, of anxiety. And part of the defeat of Amalek in the story of Purim is how to stay calm and carry on. So that is our topic, that is our topic for Shabbos morning following the nine fifteen minyan, approximately eleven oh five. That's our topic, women's kiddush and we are totally biased and discriminatory in this shul. We are totally not egalitarian. We have a tremendous bias towards women. In the history of the shul, I don't know that we've ever had a men's kiddush and shiur, ever. But we've had several women's kiddush and shiur, so we are totally biased and discriminatory. I'm waiting for the men to revolt and rebel against me. Kiddush Club. Okay, we've never had anything authorized by the shul that has been men's kiddush and shiur. Okay. וכל זה בדברים שיודע בביאור. So we talked, we want to be happy, we want to be b'simcha. That's the secret to longevity, the secret to life, menucha's hanefesh, happiness. Ah, but the secret to feeling happy is feeling whole. And none of us feel whole, we're all incomplete. And we're incomplete simply by virtue of being alive, by being awake, by having to confront the day, by the fear of the unknown. unknown. What could yet happen today that we don't know? Who knows what will be and what will happen? So how can I feel whole and complete? To which the answer is, the only way to feel whole to attach ourselves to the source of wholeness, to the only being that is whole, namely the Eibershter, the Ribono shel Olam, Hashem, God, whatever you want to call him. To our Father in Heaven. We are whole when we attach ourselves to he who is whole, and that completes us. Hashem, you complete me. Oh, we're not going to make anything with that on it. That's already been taken. But Ilana, don't get any ideas, but Hashem, you complete me. You complete me. I'm broken, but you complete me. As the Kotzker says, nothing is as whole as a broken heart. So how do we feel that way? What brings us down? What makes us sad? When we feel that we're a failure, when we feel we've made mistakes, when we feel that we act compulsively in a way that is inconsistent with our values. And again, secular research and literature says that when a person acts out in a way that's inconsistent with the stated values they claim to have, they get depressed. Act out can mean anything. It can mean going in debt because you spend money you don't have, it means looking at images and acting on them that you shouldn't, it means consuming substances, engaging in behaviors. But those very behaviors, substances, or materials that people think by engaging will bring them happiness actually does the opposite. There's a momentary fleeting happiness and then there's a depression. I'll give an example I think we can all relate to, most of us can relate to, that is a simple, sort of benign example, only it's not, and it's in the area of food. Right? So we say I don't want to eat late at night, and then there's the bag of Cape Cod potato chips that someone who claims to love us buys for us nonetheless. We won't mention who they are. Maybe we forced them to and yelled at them that they didn't and then they do, but they don't really love us because they did. So the Cape Cod potato chips, they're supposed to know not to listen to us. This is all hypothetical, I'm talking about my neighbor. So, it's 11 o'clock at night, there's a bag of Cape Cod potato chips, you're hungry, it's been a long night, you finally have a momentary rest, and you've eaten the entire bag. You were just going to have one, but they're so good, so you ate the whole bag. So while you were eating it, they're delicious. The crunch, the texture, the fry, the salt, it's all the combination, that's how they got you. It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. While you ate it, it was unbelievable, it was exactly what you needed, it hit the spot. And the second you're done, you hate yourself. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I use the words, this hypothetical person says, says I hate myself. Why did I do that? I promised I would never do that. It's late at night, I have a stomach full of Cape Cod potato chips, I'm about to lie horizontally for a few hours, nothing good will come from that. I won't feel good about this decision not only in the morning, I don't feel good about it right now, and I hate myself. But I don't understand, you just enjoyed it, they were delicious, the crunch, the salt, the texture, why do you hate yourself? The answer is because when we behave in a way inconsistent with what we claim and say we want to be, we fall depressed. That's the human psyche, it's the way we were designed, that's Rav Itchamayer's writing. So the way to overcome that is to forgive ourselves, is to turn the page, is to find the simcha nonetheless and say we may have failed, we may have lost the battle, but the war's not over. And we turn a page. So I got to the bottom of the bag, so I'm going to create new boundaries. No more potato chips, a lock combination on the cabinet, whatever I need to do. But I'm going to create new boundaries, new protocols. I may have failed, but I'm going to turn the page and I'm going to forgive myself. I'm going to learn from it, I'm going to grow from it, but I'm going to turn the page on it. And I have emuna, Hashem, I have faith in you. You're with me when I ate the potato chips. I said the beracha before, why didn't you stop me? I said the beracha after, but אמנם לפעמים היצר הרע מתלבש באצטלא של חשבון הנפש ובאמת זה סתם בלבולים ואז צריך לדעת לא להתייחס אליו כלל. Sometimes the yetzer hara acts noble. This is the most pernicious, the most dangerous form of the yetzer hara is not when the yetzer hara comes and says I'm the little devil on your shoulder and I'm devilishly going to get you to do dangerous and bad and immoral and unethical things. Not the little yetzer hara that says we know we shouldn't be eating this, we're going to eat it, we shouldn't say this lashon hara, we're going to say it, we shouldn't look at this, we're going to look at it. Not the yetzer hara that knows that what it's doing is wrong. The most dangerous yetzer hara is the one that dresses up and presents itself as the noble yetzer tov. So the yetzer hara says, you know, it's time to take inventory, let's do a cheshbon ha-nefesh of your life. Let's evaluate who you are and all the mistakes you've made. Let's only remember and hold on to all the failures, all the shortcomings. Let's remember how fallible you are, how pathetic and lowly, incapable, incompetent, unworthy you are. And the yetzer hara says why are we doing that? Because to grow you have to do cheshbon ha-nefesh, you have to do cheshbon ha-nefesh. It's a sefer Cheshbon Hanefesh that Benjamin Franklin plagiarized and wrote an English book based on the sefer Cheshbon Hanefesh. It's fascinating, you could Google it and look it up. Cheshbon hanefesh is generally a very positive thing. It's to take inventory of our lives, to evaluate who we are and who we want to be and to make resolutions to get there. It's generally a very positive thing. But when it's the Yetzer Hara trying to get you to do a cheshbon hanefesh when you're down and out, when you're negative, when you're not believing in yourself and just then the Yetzer Hara kicks in and says now's the perfect time for a cheshbon hanefesh. Don't listen. לפעמים אדם עושה דברים וחושב שהם בסדר. Sometimes we do things we think they're okay ופתאום היצר מתחיל לומר לו אתה לא בסדר למה עשית כך וכך and then the yeitzer kicks in and says who are you and what are you? Why'd you do that? It's not okay. וידוע שיש שיטה שזה אסור זה דבר לא ראוי. Don't you know that you're capable of more and better? Don't you know there are opinions that this is not okay? יש כאן ספק אולי נכשלת. Don't you know that there's a doubt here? Maybe you made a mistake, maybe you didn't follow the law, maybe you didn't follow the rule. נראה שטעית וגרמת. Made a mistake and look at what you caused and you destroyed the cosmos and the universe and the negative energy you brought into the world because maybe it was a milchig fork in the fleishig dishwasher, maybe you forgot to make a bracha, maybe the thing you thought was okay to repeat was in fact lashon hara, maybe we have all kinds of negative voices that creep and crawl into our head ובכאלו טענות וספקות הוא מנסה להפיל את האדם להיות עצוב. That's the yetzer trying to knock you down and knock you over and bring you down and make you sad and make you stop believing in yourself. So the great Rav Itche Meir Morgenstern, I would have said that's the yetzer hara, that's yetzer tov. Halevai people would think I gotta live more cautiously and mindfully. Halevai someone would be conscious and conscientious of their behavior and worry maybe they're making mistakes. I would have thought that's the yetzer hatov. But it's not. That's a dangerous psychological disorder. There's actually a name for it now, it's called scrupulosity. There's a name for it, you can look it up in psychology where people essentially express OCD or anxiety tendencies through a religious filter and therefore feel good about it or at least don't feel the negative stigma of it. So in other words, the person who has an hour long shmoneh esrei but not because they're having great kavana, because they have OCD, obsessive-compulsive disorder and they keep repeating the words thinking they didn't get it right. There are people who are OCD when it comes to kashrus or mikvah or other areas of halacha or law. There's a fine line between being scrupulous and vigilant and virtuous and meritorious that we should admire and crossing the line of mental health where a person is using religion as a platform for other negative behaviors. So there's actually a diagnosis of it today called scrupulosity and there's treatment for it. My good friend, my good buddy Rabbi Dr. Jonathan, formerly Tani Schwarz, is a sort of expert in the New Jersey area on this very topic, he's written about it and treats for it. So Rav Itche Meir is saying whether you have a diagnosis level scrupulosity or it doesn't rise to the level of diagnosis but simply we have that negative voice in our head that is always convincing us that we're getting it wrong. You're getting it wrong, you made a mistake, it's not good enough, you're not being strict enough. That negative voice makes us sad, it brings us down, it makes us hopeless and helpless. צריך לדעת שהחשבון הנפש שמקורו טהור. You need to know that taking inventory, being aware of your life, being mindful of who you are, setting goals for who you want to be, all that's wonderful and it's great and it's important and we don't do enough of it. רק חשבון שאינו מביא לעצבות. You have to sit down and have an evaluation which is not going to knock you down and bring you down but which is going to build you up and make you better. The goal is not to be depressed. The goal is not to feel miserable about ourselves. The goal is not to feel unworthy. The goal is to feel who we could be and what we're capable of. To strive for more. להיפך מביא להתחזקות וגורם לאדם להחליט מעכשיו את המציאות בתנופה חדשה. It's like parent-teacher conferences with ourselves. You know the goal of parent-teacher conference is not to go home and beat your kids up. You didn't do this and you did the other thing wrong and I heard you're disrupting class and you don't try hard enough and you're an underachiever and you're miserable. Okay, give me your devices and have a good night. That's not the goal of parent-teacher conference. By the way parenthetically the goal of parent-teacher conference is also not to beat the teacher up. We have a teacher crisis across the entire spectrum of the Jewish community and of the frum world. There is enormous crisis of we can't get teachers and rebbeim and mechanchim and mechanchos. I don't care which part of the frum world you're part of, there is a crisis. It was the theme of the Torah Umesorah conference this year, you can't get teachers. And maybe there's a lot of reasons, a lot of variables, salary a big part of it, but a big part of it also is instead of admiring the teachers and putting them on a pedestal and being grateful for their sacrifice, today we beat them up and we talk about them at our tables. table, and our kids are always right and the teacher's always wrong, so who in their right mind would want to go into that? Yocheved often says, when we were kids, children would sit there on parent teacher conference night. It is the only night of the year that you went to sleep early before your parents got home because you didn't want to hear what they had to say and the feedback and the consequences. Maybe it's just me and Yocheved, you were all perfect students and you stayed up and you couldn't wait to get the accolade, maybe not even Yocheved, but I was asleep early on parent teacher conference night. So it used to be that kids would sit there, they would shake in fear parent teacher conference night, now the teachers shake in fear. What are the parents going to yell at me about? What are they going to criticize me for? What did I do wrong? Why am I to blame for whatever is going wrong with their child? How do we get into that? Oh, because we have parent teacher conference night with ourselves, cheshbon hanefesh. So you don't come home from parent teacher conference night and beat your kid up: You're incapable, you're unworthy, you're an underachiever, you're a misfit, you're disruptive. But you come home and you say your teacher said you do X, Y, and Z wonderfully and you have A, B, and C potential, you know, but there are areas we could do better, there are areas that you could grow into more. You have such potential, let's realize it. How can we support you in becoming the best version of yourself? That's the conversation a parent has when they come home. Not you're a failure and a gurnisht and a nothing and you'll never amount to anything and you're hopeless and your teacher says you're terrible. What will a child grow to be if that's what they heard? The child has to hear you're amazingly capable and you have such potential and here are so many ways that you're already getting it right and here are ways that we can still yet get it right and get it better. Let's do this, you got this. We can be a better version of you. That's the conversation. So Rav Itche Meir says that's the conversation with ourselves too. When we have these cheshbon hanefesh moments, when we pause and consider and evaluate our lives, when we reflect on where we've been and where we're going, we should stop and say not you're miserable, unworthy, incapable, oysvorf, low-life, reject, failure of a nothing. We stop and we say, okay, what did we get right? What could we have pride in? What are we grateful for? But yet who can we still become? Where's our room for growth? What could we do better? How can we be a better version of ourselves? Ze klal gadol says Rav Itche Meir. It's a key, key principle: כל דבר וכל מחשבה בעבודת השם שגורמת לעצבות ויאוש ולחוסר חשק להמשיך מקורה ביצר הרע. Listen to that sentence, I'm going to say it again. Listen carefully, ladies, and those online, gentlemen, listen carefully. Klal gadol, it's a key, critical principle. כל דבר וכל מחשבה. Every concept, every topic, every thought in the avodas Hashem that causes sadness and yeush. Yeush. What's yeush? Yeush is despair, yeush is giving up. You know halacha is, yeush in halacha is: I have this bottle of water and I drop it outside, it fell out of my bag somewhere and someone discovers it. Are they allowed to keep it? The halacha would say this bottle of water, yes. There's no name, there's no label, there's no identifying mark. Maybe if it fell in his, in my parking space in the parking lot they can assume it came out of my car, but generally speaking if you find this in a public space you could keep it. Why? What's the halachic mechanism that allows you to keep it? Yeush. Yeush. The other person gave up, they have therefore relinquished ownership. When I keep it, why aren't I stealing it from someone? This is someone else's bottle of water. Aren't I, I'm getting thirsty, ברוך אתה ה' אלוהינו מלך העולם שהכל נהיה בדברו. Amen. Hydrate with kavanah. Hydrate. My water bottles, hydrate with kavanah, caffeinate with kavanah, hydrate with kavanah, energize with kavanah. We're going to come out with a whole, this is going to be great. Alana, you and I are going to get rich. We're not going to get rich. Every dollar, ten dollars a cup at the end of shiur, every dollar goes to the shul. Every dollar goes to the shul. Alana graciously donated her time and I don't get one penny. Every dollar goes to the shul. alanalandau@gmail.com with an i. She's, she's been amazing for me and for the shul and she's fantastic at what she does, so you'll be helping yourself. So anything yeush. So what's yeush? So you find this, why aren't you stealing? It belongs to someone. Why are you allowed to keep it? What's the answer? It doesn't belong to anyone. Ah, but what do you mean? It's someone's bottle of water. The answer is no, they had yeush. Halachically, yeush means they relinquished ownership, it no longer belongs to them. They relinquished ownership, they no longer own it, they gave up ownership. So now I can take it. Hefker. It's ownerless, I can acquire. That's why you're allowed to keep a lost object. Halachically you have to return a lost object. We don't say finders keepers, losers weepers, that is not a Jewish concept. We believe in hashavas aveidah. There is a mitzvah of hashavas aveidah. You have to return a lost object, hashavas aveidah. So why, why then can I keep some things? The answer is when it's something that I won't be able to identify the owner and return it, in those circumstances I can assume they give up ownership and I can keep it. That's yeiush. That's yeiush. So there's a beautiful song we sang it here when Rav Weinberger was here. Rabbeinu sha'ag that Rav Nachman of Breslov screamed out, אין שום יאוש בעולם כלל. There's no yeiush in this world. I would sing it for you but I don't want to hurt your eardrums. Rabbeinu sha'ag ein shum yeiush, ein shum yeiush, אין שום יאוש בעולם כלל. There is no despair in this world. There's no giving up hope. There's no owning our dest- there's no stopping to own our destiny in this world. This notion of yeiush. So says Itchamayer, if there's a thought, if there's a pattern of thought, if there's a topic which causes you to become sad and despondent and have despair, which gives you yeiush, which makes you give up, makes you become hopeless and helpless, it takes away your cheshek, it takes away your drive, it puts it extinguishes your fire, the makor for that thought, the makor for that conversation is the yeitzer hara. The source of that thought is the yeitzer hara. Get rid of it. Overcome it, purge it, drive it out. It's never a positive thought. It's never a positive thought. If you're thinking and your conversation and you are consumed with thoughts that make you sad and negative and down and depressed and despair and hopeless and helpless, that is always only the yeitzer hara speaking. כי מטוב נולד טוב from good is born good, u'meira nolad ra, negative energy creates negative reality, and positive energy creates a positive reality. Nobody promoted this more than Lubavitcher Rebbe zichrono tzaddik livracha. The Rebbe and his positivity bias, I think there's a book Positivity Bias about the Rebbe's attitude and approach of positivity. I've shared it with you many times. The Rebbe said in the very language that we use, he was asked to give an endorsement to a hospital, a new hospital in Israel, he said on one condition it's not a Beit Cholim, it's not a building for sick people, it's a Beit Refuah. If it's a building for sick people, while you're lying there you feel I'm sick, I'm in a building for sick people. But if it's a building for healing and health, then you feel I'm getting better, I'm in a building for getting better. So much so that the Rebbe didn't use the words deadline. You gotta get your article, we're going to print on the weekly, there's a deadline. He said deadline has the word dead. We call it a due date. A due date, something's about to be born. So we have to get the project in because something's about to be born, it's a due date, not a deadline. I'll give you a hundred other examples, not my own, that the Rebbe insisted when he spoke to people and among his shluchim, who when you meet, and I'm not romanticizing, I know it's not perfect, but for the most part whom you meet are just filled with positive energy and light and love and hope and positivity. Did you see the picture of all of the companies that are no longer in Russia? And there's like a thousand logos and it said the one that's still in Russia and it was a picture of Chabad. Right, it's amazing. Correctly, all these companies have left Russia and the only one that says something like the only one still operating in Russia, Chabad. It's unbelievable, unbelievable. So the positivity bias of the Rebbe, it's a due date, not a deadline. It's a building for healing, not a building for sick people. And so many other examples, the very language that we use creates reality. Where did he get this from? It's not just the Rebbe, here it's Rav Itchamayer. מטוב נולד טוב, meira nolad ra. Use positive words and there'll be positive results. Have a positive energy, you'll bring a positive consequence to the world. Have a positive demeanor and a positive bias and you'll create a positive reality. And the opposite's also true. You know there are people who walk into a room and their negative face kills the energy in the room before they open their mouth. They don't have to say a word. They walk in the room and they murder all the positive energy in the room. They're corpses of positive energy lying everywhere. They're murderers. They have murdered the positive energy. You want to say to them, stop, walk out, put a smile, walk back in. Techiyat hameitim, we need CPR in here right away. Right away, stop, walk out, come back, try it again. Because when you sit at the dinner table or you walk into the home or you go into that conference room for that meeting and you just negative, it's not going to work, everything's miserable, I'm so tired and everything's down and I can't take it and the world's falling apart. You need a spiritual defibrillator. Everybody sitting there is just like you just killed me. I actually thought the world's a great place and I was excited and happy and optimistic and positive but I guess I guess I was wrong. I guess I should be miserable with you. Misery loves company. So when you're miserable and negative and farbisseneh you create That reality. We know that, by the way, miserable people walk around and the people react and respond to them miserably, which just makes them more miserable and blaming the other person for their misery. And the positive people create positive realities about them. טראכט גוט און זיין גוט, the *Rebbe* said, think good, it will be good. Our energy that we put into the universe creates the reality. Where'd the *Rebbe* get that from? Where'd *Reb Itche Meir* get it from? What's the word for speech? *ledaber*. *dibur* is speech. What's the word for a thing? *davar*. This cup is a thing, I don't know if you heard, we produced the cup, caffeinate with Kaffa. What's the word *davar*? Why is it the same word? *dalet bais raish*. *davar* and *dibur*, same word. Why? Because you create a thing with your speech. We create a *davar* with our *dibur*. We create reality with our speech, with our attitude. Positivity breeds positive results and negativity creates a negative reality. אם המחשבה הזו נולדה מיאוש ועצבות. So if that thought you're having right now, if that thought pattern that you're perseverating and marinating in, people marinate in a sous-vide of negativity. Impressed, sous-vide? Impressed? Isn't it like 24 hours, like long sous-vide, isn't it? So they sit and stew in their sous-vide of negativity until they're entirely flavored with negativity. And they create negative reality. They walk in a room, the people around them, business, relationships, spiritually, religiously, we control our destiny. Happiness is a decision, it's not an emotion. Act positively, have a positive energy, use positive language, you'll bring about a positive result. Try it. Before you disagree and tell me why it won't work and it never worked and never will work, try it. Try it. Next week we'll take a poll. אם המחשבה הזו נולדה מיאוש ועצבות. So if you're having those thoughts, if you're having thoughts, says *Reb Itche Meir*, if you're having thoughts, I'm unworthy, I'm incapable, I'm incompetent, it'll never be better, this is just my reality, I have no *mazel*, this is the way it's meant to be, then you're going to bring about that reality. But we don't believe that. Says and sings the holy *Reb Nachman*, אין שום יאוש בעולם כלל. There cannot be *yeush*. You know the *Gemara* talks about there's two types of *yeush*: *yeush mida'as* and *yeush shelo mida'as*. A conscious despair and a subconscious despair, which has halachic consequences when you can keep a lost object. Do we believe the person explicitly gave up hope or implicitly gave up hope? And the *Gemara* uses a phrase that *yeush shelo mida'as*, which is an implicit despair. But we say, *yeush shelo mida'as*. If you've given up, if you have *yeush*, it's *shelo mida'as*. It's because you're not thinking clearly. Because if you're thinking clearly, there's always hope, there's always belief, there's always turning the page, there's always a fresh start, there's always a new beginning, there's always a reason to be positive, there's always a positivity bias. Be biased towards being positive. Look for the positive. Again, I want to get, I want to do two more sentences, but I wish there were more time. You see this in relationships. All the research shows, again Dr. John Gottman, five compliments for every criticism. Positivity bias. The criticism will be heard much better in the context of five compliments for every criticism. In marriage, with employees and coworkers, with our children, in life, you have to have a positivity bias. Gottman talks about a negativity bias and a positivity bias. You know what that is? There are people who wake up in the morning and everything is wrong before the day even started. They're angry at their spouse before their spouse even opened their eyes. They could do no right. They look at the world with a negativity bias. And then there are people who have a positivity bias, most often when we're newlyweds or courtship or we're engaged, that's when we have the positivity bias. You know, so even the total fault and flaws and warts and pimples of the other person, aren't they adorable idiosyncrasies? Aren't they the cutest? It's a positivity bias we have. They could do no wrong whatsoever. And then we get married for a little while and there's a negativity bias. They could do no right. Everything they do is wrong. Everything they do is wrong. From the way they say good morning until the way they say good night and everything in between. So that's what marriage therapists, counselors, experts say, do you have a negativity bias or a positivity bias? What's the paradigm? What's the bias? What are the glasses you're wearing? There are people who look at the world through glasses where everything is amazing. They see what's amazing. This *shiur* is dedicated in memory of my dear friend Rabbi Dr. Brian Gabbit, who saw the world through the glasses of everything is amazing. He lay on his deathbed looking up at IVs and tubes and machines and in the last moments... that he could speak, which unfortunately there was a long time before he passed away that he couldn't, he was still just using the words, isn't Hashem amazing? Isn't everything amazing? Isn't my family amazing? You could wear positivity glasses on your deathbed and you could have everything in the world, health and money, and you look through these negativity glasses and everything's miserable. You could be on your deathbed and everything's amazing, and you could have every blessing that anyone could want and everything is terrible. It's just which glasses do you want to wear? Which glasses are you putting on in the morning? Now you'll say, well it's not my fault, this is the way my mother was, this is my DNA, these are my genetics. If I had a different spouse, they bring me down every day. I wish they wouldn't make me, I wish I lived with someone who made me. We could come up with a billion reasons why it's not our fault. But we put on our glasses. Nobody else puts them on for us. We put on those contact lenses. There are people who can even have Lasik surgery to change their vision entirely, but we put on those glasses. It's up to us. וממילא כאשר אדם מרגיש עצבות ודכאון מכך שנראה לו שעשה מעשה שלא כרצון השם הוא יכול להיות בטוח שאין לו מה להיות עצוב. That means that even when we make a mistake we can learn from it, we can grow from it, we could and should feel a little bit of healthy shame from it, but we shouldn't feel sad from it. Sadness is just a trait, sadness is a quality, sadness is a feeling that never breeds anything good. I'm not talking about you lose a loved one you shouldn't feel sad, aveilus grieving, there are reasons to feel sad. If you lost a billion dollars, you should feel sad. There's a bracha, Dayan HaEmes, we make brachos, there are reasons to feel sad. You pause and you feel sad. Again, apply the five by five rule, if it won't matter in five years, don't let it matter for more than five minutes. There are things that will matter in five years, you lose a loved one, you lose your fortune, they'll matter in five years and it will matter for more than five minutes and it's okay to be sad. There are times that we're sad, there are times that we grieve. So I'm not saying never be sad. But the sadness because we bring ourselves down, we have negative thoughts, we are racked by guilt and shame, that sadness never ever breeds anything good. It's a yetzer hara. It's a yetzer hara. Don't indulge it, don't listen to it, don't feed it, don't be brought down. The pathway to growth, to breakthrough is joy, is happiness, is menuchas hanefesh which we'll speak more about im yirtzeh Hashem this Shabbos with what's it called, vegetables and fruit, crudité and fruit, and Kiddush at the women's Kiddush and mini shiur. Stay calm and carry on defeating the hysteria of Amalek this Shabbos morning. Tonight we go behind the bima with Yocheved Goldberg and all of the rabbis and rebbetzins and staff of BRS. This is our marathon edition, our global edition. If you've not yet contributed to the global campaign, if you're a member of BRS, you're doing your part. But if you're not a member of BRS and you enjoy our shiurim and our classes and our writing, please do your part. brsonline.org/global, brsonline.org/global. Right now, caffeinate with kavana cups, only ten dollars, cash, check, Venmo should be available until next time, and you get your magnet. Stay happy, stay healthy, and stay holy.
