Transcript
Good morning and Boker Tov, welcome back to Living with Emuna, including special guest Tamar Goldberg, apparently an alternative to school, Living with Emuna. I'm surprised the more responsible parent is allowing it, but it's okay. The Emuna series is generously sponsored by Doctors Avi and Bella Morgan in memory of Rabbi Dr. Brian Galbut, Zichrono Livracha, and in memory of Bella's mother, Dr. Ellen Schanzer, Alav Hashalom, and we're very, very grateful to them. We are very excited this morning to share with you, we have previously shared our permanent mug, caffeinate with kavana, we now have our disposable cups, I'm going to spill this all over myself, let's see, they can see it online those who are watching, disposable caffeinate with kavana. We made these cups and again big thank you to Alana Landau for this logo, caffeinate with kavana, shehakol nihiye bidvaro. The idea we're supposed to make a hundred brachot a day, a hundred bid for connection, a hundred check-ins with God, a hundred times a day we reorient and recalibrate and remind ourselves what matters, to whom we report, that we are not alone, and Rav Wolbe we learned said, a hundred is the obligation, start by having kavana with ten, to which we said, start by having kavana with one, the first one of the morning. This is actually my first cup of coffee so far today, it's been a busy morning. ברוך אתה ה' אלוהינו מלך העולם שהכל נהיה בדברו. So our handy-dandy cups remind you to caffeinate with kavana, when you're waking up your body, wake up your soul, caffeinate with kavana, shehakol nihiye bidvaro, that everything comes from Hashem. Want to thank our generous sponsor of the disposable cups for the refuah shleima of חיים עוזר בן לאה, should have a complete refuah shleima. Big thank you to Andrea Zucker who as well co-sponsored these cups in honor of Kara Friedman and her sidekick Ben, the well-deserved upcoming honorees at the BRS dinner for all they do for this community. We'll get her when she comes back in. So big thank you, you have to come live in person if you want to get the free disposable cups and use them. The coffee tastes so much better, doesn't it, out of this cup? What? Come to the dinner, we're giving these cups out at the dinner? Oh, come to, yeah, of course, come in honor of Ben and Kara, BRS dinner. So thank you very much, but caffeinate with kavana, come in person, you can buy the permanent cup, you can use the disposable cup is on us. Big expression of gratitude, last night we didn't only hit, we surpassed our goal for the global campaign. Nobody's happier than I am, trust me, and all of you who can finally stop hearing about the global campaign. Just so you know, the bank account's not closed, you are still welcome to give, however you will no longer be hearing about it from us for this year, we've hit our goal and we're very grateful to all those who enable and support us to share our Torah and our teaching. Before we dive back into B'am Darkecha, Rav Itamar Meyer, before we get into Simcha and smiling, I want to share with you another amazing Emuna story. And I love the emails, if you're listening, if you're watching, if you're live in person, keep them coming, they give me personally enormous chizuk and I know when I share them they give others as well. So this email really had an impact on me. Somebody writes to me the following. I don't remember how I find your shiurim, blah blah blah blah blah. My wife and I every Tuesday morning gear up with my Chumash, sometimes I make myself a coffee and grab a granola bar just to fit in. For some reason between life, family, and work, I wasn't able to join the live shiur yesterday. I got this email a couple weeks ago. So someone writes that they normally listen live on Tuesday mornings to the parsha shiur, they grab their coffee and granola bar and they listen live, but they weren't able to yesterday, they write, I knew I had a good amount of driving to do, I figured I'd listen in the car. Last night as I was driving a Daf Yomi Siyum on Seder Moed, you opened up about a challenging painful personal experience you and your wife went through. The beginning of Parshas Vayikra, I told the story about the stillbirth that we had many years ago in between our second and third children. There was a reason for it, I told the story Vayikar, Vayikra, the difference between something being a coincidence or feeling that it is God calling out to you and that one finds comfort in feeling that it's not random or chance, you're not just subject to some data point or nature, it's not Vayikar, it's not random, but it's Vayikra, God is calling out to us in all that happens to us. So I used that story to illustrate that idea that even in that time, even in that time, there was no explanation that was offered. The chromosomal analysis and all the anatomy analysis, there was no explanation about why it had happened, which in some ways makes things worse, but someone comforted us by saying it should make things better because you realize על פי דרך טבע through the natural order there's no way to understand what happened, so clearly it was meant from above. That doesn't mean it's not painful, it doesn't mean you don't grieve or cry or mourn, doesn't mean you're not fearful of what will be in the future, which Hashem has thank God blessed us so many times over, but it means that it's much more meaningful and you have much more fortitude to confront whatever. Whatever you're going through when you feel that it wasn't random or chance, but it's by design. So I shared all that in the parsha shiur. So he writes, yesterday morning at about 11 a.m., my wife and I received the news from her doctor that unfortunately she had miscarried. Baruch Hashem we're blessed with four beautiful children, have a tremendous gratitude and thanks towards Hakadosh Baruch Hu, but yesterday was a tough day. All I needed was that chizuk insight and message that connected with you some 20 years ago, when it's unexplainable it's clearly by design in the way of Hashem. It was meant to be. What chizuk. Sometimes all you need in life is just a little, in parentheses, parsha perspective. Had I heard that live at 9:30 a.m. yesterday, I don't think it would have made such an impact on me. You never know where your words land, they can help or uplift another person. Thank you for enhancing blah blah blah. So it's an amazing story because he normally listens on Tuesdays, for whatever reason he didn't, he waited to listen, and then he only listened randomly after he received his own difficult news, and I happened to speak about exactly what he was going through and the chizuk that we found, which was chizuk for him. And I don't share any of that for you to talk to you about our story or my insight, but the hashgacha pratis for him. Imagine when he turned it on that day, really, really amazing, really amazing. You know someone else had told me, did I tell this story, this was already a couple years ago in the emuna shiur? There's a woman in Lakewood who listens and she went into labor and on her way to the hospital she was trying to distract herself, so she put on Living with Emuna. It's a new playing in labor rooms everywhere. Living with Emuna. Just kidding. Anyway, so she put it on in the car and punked, whatever random episode of Living with Emuna she happened to put on on the way to the hospital, I was talking all about labor and we go through pains, but it's because Hashem at the end has something, and it just happened to be the random episode of Living with Emuna she put on on her way in labor to the hospital I was talking all about. Again, I take no credit for it. It's all 100% Him. He is programming, organizing, He is the great DJ in the sky and He's figuring it all out. It is really incredible. Okay, back inside. Simcha, Living with Emuna, living with Rav Itche Meir, b'yam derechecha. So again, I keep reviewing every week we build upon what we've done until now. Why do people feel unhappy? We feel unhappy when we feel incomplete, something's missing in our life. Maybe the brand new model Tesla or the latest iPhone. Maybe for some people they're missing their health and their wellness. Maybe for others they're missing a relationship they crave. Maybe for others they're missing companionship or children or grandchildren, but people are unhappy when something is missing, when we feel incomplete. Can you ever feel complete in this world, in this life? Never. Never, because every day that we wake up there's another reason to feel incomplete until there's peace in Ukraine, until there's peace in Israel. Nebach, four innocent people murdered in cold blood yesterday, such beautiful images and beautiful people and it seems these tragedies keep happening to the cream of the crop and the best of who we have, unexplainable and so devastating each and every time. So every day that you wake up what will be that day with us, something else krechtz and hurts and aches and you know getting to be that age. So every, every day that you wake up there's another doctor's appointment, there's another the kid didn't get ready for carpool, didn't brush their teeth, you're waiting, you're losing your mind, can't run out of energy to fight with them and beg them, every day you're incomplete. So how could you ever be b'simcha? How is one ever b'simcha? If the prerequisite to being b'simcha is feeling whole and you can never feel whole in this life and in this time, so then how can you ever be b'simcha? And Rav Itche Meir's answer is, we can attach ourselves to the source of wholeness. And the source of wholeness is Hashem. Hashem is whole, Hashem is complete, Hashem is perfect, Hashem is infinite, Hashem is omnipotent, Hashem is every other big word I could use to impress you. Hashem is all of that and more. He is whole. So when we attach ourselves to Him we are not incomplete, that is our source of simcha. In other words, emuna and simcha go hand in hand. If you feel like you are navigating your way through life on your own, by yourself, for your own, then you'll never be happy because there's always so much to worry about. Is there not? There's so much to be anxious over every day. Our children, our parents, our siblings, our parnassa, our health, our life. You live life waiting for the other shoe to drop. You live life waiting for the other shoe to drop. I read recently a statistic, I don't want everyone here to get very upset, but a statistic that one out of three people are going to get cancer. So you just do the math of how many people there are in your family, your immediate family. You just do the math about the concentric circles of your family and you say it's not if, it's when. So every day you wake up and you say I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Who will it be? You hope in a bizarre way let it not be people I love, if it has to be anyone let it be me. You have these insane thoughts and then you just want to pull the covers back over and not get out of bed. For what? Just to figure out which day it will be and who it will be, the one out of three people in your family. Did I just ruin your day or what? Yeah. If that's the way you live your life, then you don't get out of bed, you pull the covers over your head. But if you say, you know what, maybe that's a statistic, but ein mazal l'Yisrael, the Jewish people, we live above statistics, we live above data. And we believe on a higher plane. And you know what? Whatever will be will be and we'll confront and deal with it then. And even if we are bound by the same statistics and data and rules, why worry about it? It won't make it go away. Even eating kale won't make it go away. I'm still pretty sure I wouldn't eat the kale. No. It won't make it go away. That'll take away the simcha of your life. But it won't make it go away, all it will rob you of is your mental happiness and your being present in that moment. So every day that you wake up there are reasons to be anxious unless you say Hashem, I'm letting go, I'm letting God, you're the driver, I'm the passenger, I'm along for the ride. I can't wait to see where you take me today. Let's see what exciting adventure are you taking me on today? Will it be a pipe in the wall, will it be a crack in the windshield? Thank God relatively minor things in life. What is the adventure you're going to take us on today? Because I know wherever we go you'll be right by my side and you'll be driving the car. I know you're not abandoning me, I know you're not bailing on me, I know you're not jumping out. So when a person attaches themselves, we're just talking Mesillas Yesharim about dveikus, attaching yourself to God, so that you are the passenger on His ride and you're with Him wherever He goes, now you have what it takes to confront whatever comes your way. It doesn't mean it'll be easy. And it doesn't mean it'll be pleasant. It doesn't mean it won't be painful. It doesn't mean that you want it. It means that we have Him by our side and we are ready and we are ready. So we went from the Rebbe of Shmayra told us that any voice in our own head that tries to sabotage our happiness and success is the voice of the yetzer hara. So the voice that says you're a failure, you're inferior, you're incompetent, you're incapable, you'll never be more, you can never grow, you'll never be better, you'll never lose that weight, you'll never have those friends, be that popular person, you'll never break through and have that parnassah, you'll never, you'll never, you'll never, such a voice is not a voice of growth, such a voice is not a voice of positivity, such a voice is a voice of the yetzer hara. Get rid of it. שבזה המחשבה מעוררת אותו on the bottom left paragraph on page kuf nun gimmel, page 153 bottom left paragraph. שבזה המחשבה מעוררת אותו. If that thought arouses you, awakens you, לשים לב יותר ולהתעלות. So if that thought inspires you. If you say, you know what, I've hit a rock bottom with my health and wealth, I'm not going to get back anymore lab reports with high cholesterol and a high A1C and high blood pressure, I'm sick and tired of getting on the scale and seeing the number climb and climb and climb. I'm done. I'm done. So the voice that says I'm sick and tired of not fitting in my clothing, I'm sick and tired of that lab report and the lecture from my doctor, I'm sick and tired of that scale, then you know what, and it's going to make you change. You finally hit that place where you're not going on a diet you're changing your lifestyle, אזי זה טוב מאוד, that's great. That's great, it's a positive. It's a positive. אבל אם על ידי זה היצר הרע מנסה להפיל את האדם לעצבות, but if you're going to get off the scale and you're going to say I'm just a fat pig, I'm just the ugly duckling, I'm just going to always be that person, I'm miserable, I hate myself, I have no control, I look this way, I am that way, that's not a positive voice, get rid of that voice, silence that voice, extinguish that voice. Any voice that brings sadness and brings you down and makes you depressed is a voice of the yetzer hara. So yes, we are a religion and we are a people who embrace introspection and self-reflection and self-awareness, those are all human qualities, uniquely human qualities. Animals have no self-awareness, animals do not talk about I think I've gained weight, what do I look like, will anyone like me, do I fit in, animals do not. Human beings uniquely do. We have that self... so self-awareness is great, self-awareness is wonderful, but self-awareness should not make you feel bad or down about yourself, self-awareness should inspire and motivate to uplift and enrich yourself. ידע שזה לא רצון השם יתברך. Very powerful words. זה לא רצון השם יתברך. That's not what Hashem wants, He does not want a group of sad, miserable, resentful, angry, depressed, despondent negative people walking around. He doesn't want that. He wants us to be happy. You know why? He's Avinu shebashamayim. He's our Father. Let me ask you, as a parent, do you want your children walking around miserable, farbisseneh, complaining, negative, or do you want to come home and find them happy? Hi Abba, how was your day? With a big smile and a positive demeanor and a positive spirit. Hashem wants us to be happy. Now just like with our children, we want them to be happy, so it doesn't mean we say you never have to go to school again, you can buy whatever you want, here's an unlimited credit card because all we want is your happiness, so do and buy and take and get whatever you want. We want them to be happy, but we don't want them to be happy at the expense of their own success. We want them to find happiness within a life of... value and meaning and purpose and the same is true with Hashem. He wants us to be happy, עבדו את השם בשמחה. I don't think you can see it on the camera, but עבדו את השם בשמחה. That is the motto and the mission not just of our community, of all of our people. Hashem says: here's the framework, here the boundaries, here the expectations. You gotta go to school, you have to do well in school, you gotta shower, you gotta brush your teeth, you gotta help out at home, all these things are going to turn you into a mentch and a good person and lead a meaningful life and within that find happiness. Hashem says here's 613 rules. By the way, I created you, I designed you, and I therefore know what brings you happiness, do these things and find happiness. He wants us to be happy. He wants us to be happy. Look at the footnote reish nun alef. Oimek hainyan, the depth of the issue is: ששומע אל היצר הרע בדברים כאלו, if we listen to that voice of self-sabotage, we listen to that voice that says you're nothing, you'll never be anything, you're just a pathetic failure, you're incapable, you're incompetent. If we listen to the yetzer hara, הוא מראה בזה שמחשיב את העבודה החיצונית יותר מן הפנימיות, הוא מחשיב את השלמת המעשה בחיצוניות יותר מרצון השם האמיתי. Hashem doesn't want the self-awareness and the introspection to result in sadness. And if it does, it means that we're not worshipping Hashem, we're worshipping ourselves. We're measuring ourselves against others. We're measuring ourselves against others. Our happiness should not be determined, our happiness should not be influenced by others. My happiness with my car should not depend on the car in the neighbor's driveway. My happiness with my relationship should not be relative to the relationships my neighbors have. My happiness with my health or my appearance or my size should not be relative to those around me. And when my happiness is dependent and conditional on where it stacks and where it rates among those around me, then I'm not following the will of Hashem. I'm just in this rat race and chase to compete and to indulge and to follow my own will. By the way, this week the new UN has some index, some scale of which are the happiest countries in the world. Israel went up two slots, finally broke into the top ten. Israel is the ninth happiest country in the world. By the way, ahead of the United States and England and France and every country you know. All the Scandinavian countries take up the top slots. You'll notice there's not a lot of inventions and innovation coming out of those countries. Not a lot of... they're not leading the effort to liberate the Ukrainian people, there's not... so they're happy because okay, whatever. But Israel, Israel. Do they? Yeah, Scandinavian. Do they? Okay, they're very happy and I guess you're either happy or killing yourself and somewhere in between. Israel is number, Israel is number nine. I'm going to write about it this week because it's startling. A tiny little country smaller than New Jersey in the middle and surrounded by 27 Arab countries who want to kill and destroy and eliminate, who have to deal with coming out of a mall and four people getting stabbed and a car ramming, who are surrounded by tens of thousands of rockets from the north and from the south, and Iran to the east who are threatening to build a nuclear device to exterminate them and they're walking around... Now by the way you would never know this if you actually went to Israel that they're the ninth happiest. If you actually had to negotiate with something or purchase something or pay your cab driver, you wouldn't necessarily know that it's the ninth happiest country. So you see that happiness is not entirely expressed outside, externally, but happiness is an internal measure. Satisfaction, happiness. I think there's an enormous correlation. When your life lays on the line, when you're fighting for your right to exist, when you are fighting for who you are and what you stand for, it's going to entirely recalibrate your priorities. What matters and what means something. And it turns out that living for meaning gives happiness. When you pursue happiness it eludes you. And when you are willing to stand up and fight and build a country for meaning and purpose and continue a legacy of a people and you find the meaning in that, that is the source of an enormous amount of happiness. So Rav Itche Meyer says if you're competing with people around you, if your happiness depends on getting more things and looking a little bit different and so on and so forth, you'll never be happy. You can never have it all. And no matter how much plastic surgery there is in Boca Raton, you can never turn back the clock as far as you want to. And stop trying, because embrace your age and be grateful and happy that you're alive and that you got out of bed. So if your happiness is dependent on what you see in the mirror or happiness is dependent on what you see in the driveway or your happiness is dependent on what you see in your portfolio, you'll never be happy because you could always have more. But if your happiness depends on what you have and you say I always have something, I always have something, הרי זה כמו מי שאינו רוצה לחלל שבת כדי להציל נפש מישראל הוא מראה בזה שאינו עובד את השם. Imagine someone says, someone's dying, there's a life-threatening issue on Shabbos and the law, the halacha is that פיקוח נפש דוחה שבת, saving a life supersedes observing Shabbos, but you decide you're firmer than God and you say Shabbos, the heilige Shabbos, you know how much teaching I do about Shabbos, we turn Friday into erev shabbos and שלוש סעודות רעוא דרעווין and מוצאי שבת מלווה מלכה, I love shabbos, how could I violate shabbos to save a life? So you say: you're not serving Hashem. You're not keeping shabbos. If you're now worshipping shabbos more than you're worshipping Hashem, who says save the life on shabbos, you're no longer worshipping Hashem. And the same is true here, that if you're living a life where you're sad and depressed and despondent, because introspection and self-awareness is not making you a better person and a bigger person, but making you a sadder person, then you're not serving Hashem. You're not serving Hashem. So turn the page. כל זה לא רק במחשבות על העבר. All of this is not only referring to thoughts about the past. אלא גם בהנהגת האדם לכתחילה. We're not only talking about how we review and think about the past. Maybe I didn't do well on a test yesterday. Maybe I didn't have a conversation I'm proud of yesterday. Maybe I ate a lot of shalach manos very late last night because the entire community ganged up against us and placed kryptonite all over our home. Maybe. Somebody brought us a bag of Cape Cod potato chips and taped to it a big sign that said, stay strong, don't touch. That was the shalach manos. Big bag of Cape Cod potato chips with taped to it a sign, stay strong, don't touch. And so far I've been eating the other bags and not that bag. So far, so good. So maybe yesterday you had a bad moment. You had a bad reaction. You lost your cool. You yelled at your children, at your spouse, at your co-worker. Maybe you looked in the mirror and yelled at yourself. And now you're beating yourself up and you're sad and negative and down, and now you're going to get into this vicious cycle that you can't break out of. That's not what Hashem wants. Remember, we're working on our notebooks. Ilana's here this morning. We're working on our notebooks, right? The turn the page, every day's a new day, the turn the page image, daf chadash, every day's a new day. Wake up with a smile. How could you wake up with a smile? Do you know what's in your stomach from the shalach manos at midnight? The answer is because it's a new day. My stomach doesn't know yet it's a new day, but it's a new day. It's a new day, it's a daf chadash. בדבר שעל פי הלכה הוא מותר על פי שיטות מוסכמות אלא שחשב אולי צריך להחמיר כשיטות אחרות וכדומה אולי יש כאן איזה בעיה במקרה כזה ובא לו מזה עצבות ידע שזה לא רצון השם יתברך. If you're perseverating and if you are paralyzed by the thought, maybe I'm not doing it right, maybe I need to do it better, maybe I need to embrace more, and it's beating you up and it's knocking you down and it's holding you back, that's not the will of Hashem. If it's making you sad, that's not the will of Hashem. אמנם בהלכה גמורה אין הדבר כן השם יתברך גילה לנו את רצונו בתורתו ולכן רק על ידי שמירת הלכה אדם מגלה את השם יתברך בעולם ורק על ידו הוא מתקרב אליו באמת. Hashem gave us a blueprint for life. He gave us the formula for living. And when we follow it, it should bring us happiness and meaning and purpose and joy. And when we ignore it and when we neglect it and when we're looking to discover on our own how to live, then we're in trouble. It's a counterfeit life, it's an inauthentic life. Then we're pursuing a happiness which is elusive and which eludes us. וכל דבר שנוגד את ההלכה אזי ברור שהוא לא רצון השם וברור שלא יקבל מעשייתו הקרבת השם. If you're violating halacha, you're not getting close to Hashem with it. And sadness is a violation of halacha. Being sad, being down, being out of it. ולא יתכן לומר שיעבור איסור כדי להיות עצוב כי זה כלל גדול שבעולם אין שום מצב שרצון השם יהיה שיהודי יעבור על הלכה. So now Rav Itchamayer puts in, it's a very important disclaimer. So let's say you'll say, well, if there's such an emphasis on happiness, עבדו את השם בשמחה, if it's so important to Him that I'm happy, I'm only happy with cheeseburgers. I'm only happy at the beach on shabbos. I'm only happy with things that are not what He wants from me. That's not real happiness. That's not real happiness. It can't be. You can't find your happiness and satisfaction, genuine, authentic, spiritual, metaphysical, existential simcha does not come from neglecting or negating or violating what your ikar neshama, the shoresh of the neshama really craves and really wants. It can't. It can't. ממילא נראה לו שבשביל לשמוח הוא צריך לעבור על הלכה if you see or you feel that in order to be happy you have to violate Hashem's will, או בשביל דבקות הוא צריך לעבור על הלכה ידע באופן מוחלט שודאי זה טעות. It's a mistake. You think it's what you want. You think it's what you crave. You think it's what's going to make you happy. But it's not. And my dear friends, you see this all over the world today. People who are engaging and employing all kinds of substances because they think it's what's going to make them happy. They're indulging in substances to escape and to numb themselves, thinking this will be the source and the answer to my happiness. If only I can have, we interviewed, we interviewed two courageous young men. You could find it on our YouTube channel. now this goes back already a year and a half maybe now who went through recovery. Two young Yeshiva grads who went through recovery. One was married at the time, one was single. And they were courageous, without blacking themselves out or their names, who allowed us to interview them about the experience. What got them hooked: alcohol and drugs, the experience of recovery, and so on and so forth. And I'll never forget one of them described, he said he never felt like he fit in growing up, he was missing something. Again, we're talking about the lack of Simcha is I'm missing something. He was just uncomfortable in his own skin all the time. He never felt at home, comfortable, accepted, like he belonged. Ever, among friends, within his family, at school. And once at a friend, the parents weren't home, the liquor cabinet was unlocked, the friend said, what was he 8, 9 years old, whatever age he was when he first started, I don't remember the age, I could be off, and they tried a little bit. And he said he had never felt that that relief. Imagine you're walking around with a throbbing headache and you finally get relief. For the person who's mentally in anguish, there is a throbbing pain that gets no relief. It's there in the background all the time, forever. It's unbearable. It's unbearable. And then all of a sudden you discover something: drug, alcohol, a behavior, where all of a sudden you're numb. There's a little relief. But it wears off and it comes back. So what do you need to do? More. And you need to intensify, and you need to do more often. And that's what happened. And the second guy said the same story, and many people in recovery will tell you the same story. And look around our world at athletes and celebrities, look around at the wealthiest top one percent in the country, and you'll see so many people who think it's all supposed to bring them happiness, and when it doesn't, they turn to substances and behaviors to numb themselves from the lack of happiness that they thought they were meant to discover. And you can now get involved in alcohol, drugs, gambling, promiscuity, you can get involved in shopping, people: workaholics. There are people who exercise to numb themselves. Now some of these are even more dangerous than others, because the workaholic we all admire, "Wow, they have such a work ethic, they work so hard, they work 22 hours a day, they're never home, look how hard they work." It's an addiction, they're numbing themselves from having to avoid facing whatever's the source of the unhappiness in life. The unhappiness in life. So we can mistakenly think that the very substance, the very behavior that's going to bring us happiness, it's fleeting, it's fake, it's counterfeit, it's not real, and it won't make us happy. And the same is true, says Rav Itche Meir, spiritually. We think the cheeseburger or the driving on Shabbos, again there's no judgment here, everyone's at different levels and whatever path of growth, and Judaism's not all or nothing. I'm not trying to describe: you're either doing everything or you're not a real Jew and you're unhappy. That's not what we're saying. Everyone's on a path, whatever level you're on, whatever area of growth you're up to. It's not an all or nothing, I want to be very clear in saying that. But the point that we're making is: Hashem created us. To be a religious person, a person of faith, is to believe that Hashem didn't just create this world, but He shared with us His formula, His prescription, His blueprint for this world. He knows what is a source of happiness, meaning, and purpose, and He knows what's not. He knows what's a distraction to it. So if we think that we're going to chase the distraction and that's going to make us happy, at the expense and the cost of not doing the formula, we are mistaken. We are mistaken. רק אם על פי הלכה זה מותר יש פוסקים שסוברים כך באופן כללי טוב להשתדל להחמיר ולחפש עוד כמה שיותר שיטות. Rav Itche Meir says it's good to be strict and it's good to be stringent and it's good to be scrupulous and vigilant in observing Halacha. כי צריך לרצות לצאת הלכה you want to fulfill the Halacha Be'ofen hachi tov in the best manner possible, as the Mesillas Yesharim writes in Darchei Chasidus, which is what we happen to be up to. מכל מקום אם זה מביא אותו לעצבות ובלבול אין לו להחמיר. Did you hear what he said? This is already, by the way, part one of the pre-Pesach workshop this Sunday. Pre-Pesach workshop Sunday morning 10 AM, join us live and in person, or you can join us, it'll be streaming. But this is part one. You hear what Rav Itche Meir, Rav Itche Meir is a hardcore Chasidisher Yid in the heart of Yerushalayim, in a very hardcore what the media would call Chareidi, right-wing Orthodox neighborhood, and did you hear what he just said? If you are following a Chumra, if you're following a stringency, and it's causing you to be sad, don't do it. Stop doing it. That's what Rav Itche Meir writes. Let me read that again. מכל מקום אם זה מביא אותו לעצבות ובלבול אין לו להחמיר. There is a core Halacha, there is the core law, there is what is expected of you, and if you're going above and beyond, if you're following a stringency and a strictness because you're keeping up or the pressure is on you or you want your kids to get a Shidduch or whatever other reason, and it's making you sad. sad and negative and depressed and resentful to Yiddishkeit, drop it. Stop it. And stop blaming Judaism for it. This is my pep talk every year I begin the Pesach workshop. The truth is I could just press play on last year's workshop. Every year I essentially say the same thing. We just have to find out about salmon at Costco this year. That's basically every year you've got to figure out what the questions for that year. But this is the opening statement I make: Do not confuse spring cleaning with cleaning for Pesach. You want to find out how to clean your whole house, I don't care if you live in a mansion, how to clean your entire house in three to four hours, come this Sunday morning 10:00 AM. Halacha will enable you to clean your entire house in three to four hours. By the way, that's twice as long as it should take. I just get beaten up by my wife and mother if I say two hours. So, three to four hours. If you want to figure out how to clean your whole house in three to four hours, Halacha. If it's taking you more than that, you're doing spring cleaning, you're not following Halacha. If you're on a ladder or you're on your hands and knees or you've moved a heavy appliance, you're doing spring cleaning, you're not following Halacha. So don't blame Judaism and don't blame God and don't blame Halacha and don't blame the rabbis when you show up to the Seder as a shmatta, exhausted and wasted and aged and angry and resentful. Don't blame Judaism and the rabbis and God. That's spring cleaning, that's not the Halacha. So this is an incredibly important principle. So this is how he's distinguishing. I can't violate Halacha to find simcha. You can't violate or neglect or abandon Halacha to find simcha. You have to keep Halacha. But if you're keeping Halacha in such a way that it's depleting you and robbing you of your simcha, then you're also not following Halacha. If the stringencies are so exacting, if you're accepting stringencies that are robbing you and depleting you of your simcha, then that's also not the will of Hashem. כי חומרות אינם כמו הלכה. Stringencies are not like the law. ולא חייב להיות שהם רצון השם. They're not always what Hashem wants. ממילא מרגיש עצבות ולחץ מהם. If you feel sadness or pressure from those stringencies, ומפסיד לו את הדביקות והשמחה, and now you're going to lose your ability to cling to Hashem, you don't feel His presence, you don't feel His love, you don't feel connected to Him as a result, רצון השם הוא שלא יחמיר. Hashem says don't be strict. Don't be stringent. Stop it. This is not what I asked. וכן הדבר לגבי מדרגות שונות בכלל ענייני עבודה כגון כמה ללמוד כמה לפרוש מהנאות היתר וכמה לחשוש מכל מיני עניינים. And the same is true in measuring every other area of our religious life. Religion is meant to bring joy and happiness and pleasure. And if it's making you sad, you're doing it wrong. If it's making you sad, you're doing it in the wrong ways. Reexamine and recalibrate and rethink the way you're doing it. There's not a mitzvah to walk around all serious and sad and strict and neurotic and fearful and angry and anxious and worried. That's not a mitzvah. That's not a yerei shamayim. The yerei shamayim is not the one who's second-guessing: did I make the bracha, did I daven with enough kavana, who's beating themselves up regularly, who's being so strict that they don't do anything. I have a cousin in Bnei Brak who I went to many years ago. I say that everybody has someone to the left of them and to the right of them, but this is the cousin there that they're the end on the right. There's nobody further to the right. They're the end of the line. They're wonderful people, I don't say that in a negative judgment. They've chosen a lifestyle for themselves which is very beautiful and in many ways admirable and is not expected of any of us and I don't feel at all bad that we don't keep it. But when we were first married we spent a Shabbos there and they make everything in-house. They don't trust or buy anything from oil to wine to anything outside of their own home. It's a level of stringency. They're also walking around joyful and happy and serving Hashem in that way with the choice they've made for themselves. So imagine we left that Shabbos and I said, Yocheved, this is the way. See how happy they are, you see how joyful they are, you see even though the poverty they're living in, the happiness that they have or seem to have, let's, I like that, let's do that. Let's be like that. From now on I'd like you to press the olives and the grapes, grind the flour. From now on, yeah, I'll be learning at the kollel, what do you mean, I won't have time. So, from now on. And if that lifestyle would make us miserable and depressed and resentful and angry, you think that's the ratzon Hashem? For the person who's volunteering to do it and they feel that's the ratzon Hashem for them, beautiful. And by the way, we shouldn't sit in judgment of them. But if we impose that upon ourselves and it robs and depletes us of our happiness, that's not what Hashem wants from us. That's not what Hashem wants from us. We did this fly-in a couple weeks ago, two dozen guys went into New York for 48 hours and we met across the spectrum of mamash Gedolei Yisrael. You know what every one of them had in common? Every single one of them had in common... certainly from *Reb Eitan Feiner* who we started with and *Reb Gedaliah Shorr* who's a very *shtark yid*, even that we ended with, they were joyful, they were happy, they were *besimcha*. *Yiddishkeit* wasn't making them miserable and so serious and so angry and so worried and so *machmir* and so neurotic. *Yiddishkeit* was making them happy because if *Hashem* is walking with you, what are you worried about? You have nothing to worry about. He's right by your side. He's going to help you and support you and lift you and hold you and cry with you and laugh with you. What are you worried about? They're walking with *Hashem*. There were a couple commonalities of every one of them. Not one of them took out their phone and was distracted or seemed like they had somewhere else to be or they were putting their attention somewhere else. Some of them carry the world on their shoulders, but they were all present in the conversation we were having with them. Also an extraordinary quality, they were fully present in the moment and in the experience. They were all also filled with joy. *Rav David Cohen*, a premier preeminent *posek* in America, in the world. *Rav David Cohen* was like he was, I feel bad saying this about a *gadol*, he was jolly. He was like jolly. It was unbelievable. That *simcha*, עבדו את ה' בשמחה. So if you're living a *Yiddishkeit* which makes you neurotic and resentful and angry and bitter and worried and anxious, that's not our *Yiddishkeit*. You're not serving our God, you're not living His *Torah*. Re-examine and reflect and figure out where it's going wrong. Figure out where it's going wrong because that's not what it's meant to bring out, that's not what it's meant to do. Making *brachos* and the opportunity to *daven* and being careful what goes in and out of our mouths and regulating our time, it's all meant to enrich and to uplift. That doesn't mean that when you have to pay the bill for the hand-made *shmura matzah* you're going to struggle to be *besimcha*. You know, there are moments when you're sitting on the floor on *Tisha B'Av*, when you're finishing the fast of *Yom Kippur*, there are moments that are not so *geshmak*. I'm not going to tell you that every moment of *Yiddishkeit* is easy and pleasant and pleasurable and you're singing and dancing your way through them. There are those moments, there are those moments. But on the whole and overall and even in those moments, you can prepare for *Pesach* in one of two ways. And I want to tell you, I haven't done a study, but I don't need to do a study. The attitude and the atmosphere in your home as you prepare for *Pesach*, I believe, will have an enormous impact on whether your children will be observant or not. That sounds like a radical statement. It sounds like an incredibly radical statement, but it's true. Is it a joy and a privilege and a pleasure? Are you taking out the *Pesach* items, your *bubby's* cutter to cut the *charoses* and you're so excited and you're so, or are you going, oh, I got to cut the *maror* and the *charoses* and the misery and the cleaning and I hate it and we're going to go into debt for the *matzah* and it's miserable and *Pesach* again, can't we, can't we cancel it this year, can't we take a year off? I loved Corona, we didn't have to have guests for it and all that. Is that what your kids hear? Because I'll tell you, if I'm a kid and I heard that, I'd say I am out of here like Vladimir. The second I get a chance to not have to keep *Pesach*, why would I want to? Because that's all I heard. But if you say come, *kinderlach*, come, it's *Pesach*. Come, we're going to divide the responsibilities, put on the *Pesach* mix, put on the music. We're going to sing and we're going to dance, we're going to grind the *maror*, we're going to chop the *charoses*, we're going to prepare the salt water. Don't buy the salt water in a store. I don't know, I honestly don't know if there's a greater sign of being pathetic. I really don't know if there's a lower form of humanity than buying salt water. I don't know. The fact that stores are selling, I don't blame the stores because there's obviously a market for them. There's a market for it. Salt water? Salt, water. I'm not a master chef. I don't think you have to be Julia Child to make salt water. Salt and water. Mix. It's not, it's really not hard. So again, all of this, this is such an important message about *simcha*, such an important message about *simcha*. Let's just finish one more paragraph and I know we're over time and we're done. שבכל זה הכלל הוא. Here is the principle of which *Reb Mayer* leaves us with: שצריך להתאמץ אבל רק כפי יכולתו ולא באופן שנכנס לעצבות וקושי נפשי. You have to be strong and dedicated and devoted and principled and passionate and pursue a vibrant *Yiddishkeit*, but in a way that makes you happy, not sad. And in our homes, it has to be lifted. It has to be lifted. It has to be lifted. I'll end with this story. At my brother-in-law's *Aufruf* goes back many years, not that many years if he's listening, he's not listening, but many years. So there was a friend of his, stop me if I told you the story, there was a friend of his, I had just come back from my second year in *Kerem B'Yavneh*. I was on fire, religious, *kanai*, whatever. And I was hanging out, one of his friends at his *Aufruf* loved that about me, I gravitated to the young brother-in-law who just came back on fire, and we were sharing. He said yeah, when we went to Israel for the year, which was a few years before I did. He said he's the flip out. He got really into it, he got really intense, he got really overnight. And he came back and he's a kitzoni personality. He's an extreme personality. Whatever you do, you do to the extreme and you're all in and extreme, extreme, extreme. And he got so extreme and intense that he just beat himself up all day over what he wasn't doing right, what he wasn't doing best, what he wasn't achieving, what he wasn't the best as. And he took upon himself like crazy, there are kabbalistic things, rolling in the snow naked to punish yourself, the cold, there are all kinds of crazy practices and you know what happened? He got to a point where he said I can't live like this. I'm in all or nothing. All I do is walk around with guilt and shame all the time. I'm beating myself I can't be better and do more, and I'm not doing it right, that I just can't do it at all. So here he was quoting divrei Torah and he really was obviously having a strong connection and emotional connection to a Yiddishkeit, but his version of a Yiddishkeit was so unhealthy that he couldn't even live the Yiddishkeit that he had this version of. And you fast forward, I recently had a conversation with somebody else who also has inspired me with how intense he was and now is doing nothing and said to me, Rabbi, just because you don't see me doing it anymore, you should know, I still love it, I just can't live it. I said what do you mean, if you love it, don't you want to live it? And he said I love it, but I don't know how to live it without feeling guilt and shame all the time. So from my own mental health I need to not live it. I love it but I can't live it at all. That's an unhealthy Yiddishkeit. That's not our Yiddishkeit. That's not our Torah, that's not our ratzon Hashem. That's not what we have to teach, that's not what we have to model, that's not how we have to aspire and what we should live for ourselves. It comes out with Pesach most acutely in the year, it's true for every holiday, and it's true for every halacha, and it's true for every law. Ours is a Yiddishkeit which is geshmak, which is beautiful, which is enriching, which is uplifting, which people want to run to and not run away from. We'll talk more about it im yirtzeh Hashem next week. Stay happy, stay healthy, stay holy. Have a great day.
