Transcript
Good morning, Boker Tov. Welcome back to Living with Emuna. I want to thank as always our very generous sponsors of the series for the year: Dr. Avi and Bella Morgen in memory of Rabbi Dr. Brian Galbut and in memory of Dr. Ellen Schanz. This morning's shiur in particular is sponsored by Simcha Zachary Schweiger for the refuah shlema of Jack Schweiger ben Margarita Schweiger, sheyihyeh a complete refuah shlema, and by Lisa Lentz, Lisa and George Lentz, in honor of the yahrtzeit of her father Morris Luffman, משה דוב בן ירוחם פישל, נשמה שתהא לו עליה. Thank you very much for your sponsorship and generosity. We are still in Be'yam Derechecha, Rav Itche Meir Morgenstern's, who by the way happens to be in America right now, very unusual, he came in for a simcha, a lot of videos and pictures going around, he's in Monsey of his time here in America. So Rav Itche Meir we've been learning this section on simcha, how to be besimcha, simcha as the metric, the barometer, the measure of how much emuna, how well our emuna is. A person who is overwhelmed, overcome with anxiety and worry, a person who's fearful and paralyzed and debilitated needs to first of all again, as we always say, if it is to the level of clinical needs help, there's nothing wrong, there's no shame or embarrassment. We're talking generally speaking a person who struggles with that needs to look in the mirror and say: How's my relationship with the Almighty? How's my relationship with Hashem? Am I including him in the equation? Do I see his role and responsibility? Do I recognize that I'm in his world? Do I surrender and submit to him and realize he's in charge? Or maybe the source of my anxiousness and worry, maybe the source of my fear or concern is because I've written him out of the equation, I've written him out of the story. I think it's really all about me or I think or subscribe to it's all about nature, what's happening around me. So simcha is this great barometer, we've spent many, many months going through it and we're arriving at a peculiar time to learn about simcha because this coming Sunday will be Shiva Asar B'Tammuz, we'll kick off the three weeks, soon after will be Rosh Chodesh Av and משנכנס אב ממעטין בשמחה. When the month of Av begins we turn down, we lower the level of simcha. We never extinguish it; simcha's like the pilot light, you're not alive if you don't have at least some spark of simcha, you can't extinguish it or turn it off all together, but nevertheless in the month of Av we limit it. So what is simcha, why would we sometimes raise it, why would we sometimes lower it? So we'll get to that. He's going to address that. But let's get back to where we were. We were talking about the micro moments of simcha. We were talking about taking advantage of a minute of joy, a good cup of coffee, a good sunset, a good conversation, a good laugh, a good smile, a good joke, a good Danish, a good whatever it is, that micro moment of simcha, something well organized, something that excites you, something that you smiled. So instead of returning back to your farbisener and miserable, complaining, negative, pessimistic attitude and filter and outlook, say: You know what, I'm going to build upon that. I'm going to package that, I'm going to capture that, I'm going to bottle that, and it's going to, I'm going to build upon it, I'm going to build upon it, I'm going to build upon it. It's going to compound, the micro moments of simcha, to use them as launching pads and launching boards, to use them to be able to rediscover that sense of joy, that sense of happiness within ourselves. לפעמים צריך להשתמש בחיצוניות כדי לפתוח את השמחה בלב. And sometimes we have to engage, sometimes we have to use external stimulants of simcha in order to return to that inner satisfaction. Not substances that are illegal or dangerous, talking about things in moderation, but we already know that you can use external experiences, rewarding ourselves with things that make us happy in a way which can at least pull back the layers of inhibition and unhappiness and allow ourselves to blossom with joy. We're on page kuf-samech-gimmel the left hand column. וכנודע שאחרי המעשים נמשכים הלבבות. And this is where we left off, this very, very important insight which really sources itself in the Sefer HaChinuch. Sefer HaChinuch which was written as a series of letters from someone, a man to his son, somewhat anonymous author from the late Middle Ages, and he wrote a letter to his son, they didn't have email then, he actually wrote letters to his son and what were the substance, the content of the letters? You know if you write letters to your kids in camp every day on the email system, what do you say every day? I'm yotzei with my wife, Liora reminds me I'm supposed to write my own. But you know you fill in what's going on, what happened in your day. What did the Sefer HaChinuch? He said: This is this week's parsha, let me tell you all the mitzvos in that week's parsha. Let me enumerate and count and identify the mitzvah in that parsha, mishorshei hamitzva, here is the root and the deeper meaning of the mitzvah, here are some of the technical laws of the mitzvah. So Sefer HaChinuch has a principle, Sefer HaChinuch has a theme. He writes in several places in his Chinuch... He writes אחרי הפעולות נמשכים הלבבות that after the actions follow the hearts. We have it all backwards. We think that we wait to feel and then we act. We wait to feel, we wait to have a drive or an appetite, we wait to have a feeling, and then we act. If I love you, then I'll treat you with love. If I'm happy, then I'll smile. If I'm hungry, then I'll eat. If I have a drive for intimacy, then I'll act. But it's a mistake, says the Sefer HaChinuch. The human psyche is actually designed the opposite. When we start to act, if we act, then we're drawn to that. That develops the appetite, that elicits and that brings out the drive and the desire. There's a Yiddish expression which I won't say in the Yiddish, mostly because I don't know it, but there's a Yiddish expression that with the eating comes the appetite. With the eating comes the appetite. I'm sure none of you can identify with this, but I'm, you know, by the seventh, eighth day of Pesach, you've taken a neder, you've sworn up and down, you'll never eat again, you're done, you're finished. Just a bite because it's Yom Tov, so a Kiddush and one bite. That's all I'll have, that's all I need, I'll never want to eat again, I'm so full, I'm about to burst, I'm about to explode, I'm about to die. I never need to eat again the rest of my life. So you make Kiddush and you take a bite, and what happens after that first bite? What did you discover? I have some room. Turns out I have an appetite. Turns out I am interested. And what's true in the area of eating is true for all the senses and all the pleasure experiences, that even when we think we're not interested, that with the eating comes the appetite. When we begin, we find. So the Sefer HaChinuch writes this about mitzvos. Don't wait to be inspired then I'll do the mitzvah. Do the mitzvah and you'll find it inspiring. It will draw and promote a sense of inspiration, a sense of inspiration. And the same is true, we've spoken about this already several times. The same is true when it comes to joy and happiness. Don't wait to be happy then you smile. Start smiling. Again, we've explained this anatomically, physiologically, when you engage the micro-muscles of the face that are connected and wired to the brain, it releases endorphins and adrenaline and you find yourself the smile creates the happiness, not the happiness creates the smile. אחרי המעשים נמשכים הלבבות. So sometimes you have to do the little things, give yourself the little pleasures, the small joys in life so that now you are predisposed to smiling and feeling happy. Do the things that bring the happiness and then when you're happy you say, ha, taki I'm happy. There's Hashem, He's running the world, everything's going to be okay, it's going to work out, everything's going to be for a reason, we're going to make sense of this, there will be a tomorrow, we'll find our way through it. Whatever happens is what's meant to be. אחרי המעשים נמשכים הלבבות. ואם יחייך וישיר בניגון פה, if you smile or you sing, o bishmias nigunim or you put music on, veyirkod, and if you dance, וידבר דבורי אמונה ושמחה, and if you speak language, if you speak messages, if you learn a vocabulary of emuna. So you'll say, what am I talking about emuna? I don't know if I believe, I don't really feel connected, I'm down, I'm out, I'm feeling hopeless and helpless, I'm going to start talking emuna? Baruch Hashem, im yirtzeh Hashem, with God's help, Hashem, thank God. The answer is yeah. he'emanti ki adaber. Dovid Hamelech said, and the ba'alei mussar, the Rebbes explain, he'emanti, you know why we build emuna? he'emanti ki adaber. When I speak a language of emuna, a vocabulary of emuna, then, then I feel emuna. In other words, the more I talk about Him, the more I'll see Him, the more I'll feel Him, the more I'll sense Him, the more I'll submit to Him, the more I'll be grateful to Him, the more I'll be grateful to Him. You don't see this in any area more than love, than love. It's not our topic for today, but in the area of love, when it comes to love, people feel if I love then I'll show love. But it's the opposite. Love is not an adjective, love is a verb. Act with love, do loving things and you'll feel, you'll fall in love with the recipient, the beneficiary of your love. Ahava, the root of the word ahava, love, is hav, in Aramaic it means to give. Love is not from receiving, from getting, love comes from giving. When we give, when we plant, when we put a piece of ourselves, when we invest in someone or something, we fall in love with it. We don't love and therefore we give, we give and therefore we love. אחרי המעשים נמשכים הלבבות. After the actions follow the heart, follow the heart. Rav Dessler writes this famously in his essay on love, his definition of love, Kuntres HaChesed. Rav Dessler there writes, he knew a couple... were separated during the war and the child went with the father not the mother. And when they were reunited after the war, the mother struggled to be able to ever recover the level of love the father had for the child. Why? Because in those formative years of staying up all night and changing diapers and feedings and running and fleeing and protecting and davening and crying and being scared, all of that giving and giving and giving and doing and doing and doing creates a bond and a love which you can't artificially recreate, you can't recreate without it. So naturally a mother has that more instinctively, sometimes has the greater responsibility, has literally carried that child and therefore for nine months of misery and discomfort and pain and some things that will never be recovered or repaired or forgotten, so all of that is giving, nine months of giving and giving and giving creates a love. And that's why Rav Dessler there writes that who loves whom more? Do parents love children more or children love parents more? So every child when you pose that question they enter into this big debate. No, we love you just as much and what are you talking about, I love you more, I love you more. My kids when I put them to bed at night, good night, I love you more, I love you more, I love you most, you have that little back and forth. But Rav Dessler writes that we know that parents love children more than children could ever love parents. Why? Because particularly in those early formative years parents are bless you, bless you, parents are only givers and children are just takers. Child's a baby, all they do is take. Feed me, diaper me, pay for me, protect me, buy for me, all they do is take. By children I mean up to about thirty, thirty-five. I don't know, I'll let you know when I find out. By children, whatever age of children, children are just takers and parents are just givers. So you'd think children love parents more. All you did is receive, you got and you got and you got and you received and you received and you received, so surely they love parents more. But they don't, says Rav Dessler. Anyone will tell you, parents love children more than children could ever love parents. Maybe they come close towards the end of life when the roles are reversed. When all of a sudden children, I mean this metaphorically, are now concerned with changing parents and taking care of parents and are sometimes paying for parents and nurturing and loving and protecting and getting up in the middle of the night for parents. When the role reversed, children can first begin to maybe feel the love the parent had for them. I've told my children you think you know how much I love you, you know when you'll first discover how much I love you? When you become a mother. When you have your child then you'll first begin to begin to understand how Mommy and I feel about you. Parents love children more because they give. So it's a verb, it's not an adjective. Loving is what you do, it's not how you feel. This is a big lesson for shalom bayis also. People are very caught up in the feeling of love and feeling of love and romance and love and reading too many novels and watching too many movies. Start loving. Start loving and you'll feel love. I'm not oversimplifying, there's communication and there's time and there's compromise and there are all kinds of really really important components of shalom bayis. But the core component is that love is a verb, love is an action, love is what we do, love is not how you feel, which is why God can command us to love. ואהבת את ה' אלהיך all the meforshim are bothered, how could God say love me? How do you command love on demand? Everything's on demand today. Love on demand. You meet someone, you, I need you to love me, I demand that you love me, demand that you love, you can't demand or command love. So some commentators explain Hashem's not saying love as an emotion, He's saying practice love, show love, do love, act with love. Love is a verb, love is a verb. So this is the, this is a theme throughout all of human psyche is who we are, human psychology, but also Torah and Mitzvos. אחרי הפעולות נמשכים הלבבות. That after the actions follow the feelings. We have it backwards, we wait for the feeling and then we'll act. No, start acting and you'll get the feeling. The day the baby comes out, maybe different from the mother who carried the baby for nine months, but for the father, this little wrinkled non-responsive taker, it's hard to love them yet. You love them in theory, you love them with anticipation for love. So you're not taking care of them because you love them, you're taking care of them and all of that taking care yields love. אחרי הפעולות נמשכים הלבבות. Love is a primary primary example, but it's true for all of the feelings and here Reb Shmaya's saying it's true for happiness, it's true for happiness. Do things, little things, little rewards, little moments, micromoments of simcha, do the little things that make you happy and joyful and then you will feel the joy and when you feel the joy now you're capable of understanding it in a profound, in a deep, in a more meaningful way. but all of a sudden you're on the dance floor. I don't know if you have this experience. And because of the music and because of your dancing, you get very emotional. You feel very connected. It opens you up. And all of a sudden you can get very very emotional. You can get emotional in a in a very visible way. Because you didn't think you were feeling, you didn't think you were in the mood, you didn't think you were happy, you didn't think you had energy. And next thing you know, you put on the music and the and you're on the dance floor. And all of a sudden what you're discovering, what you're discovering. So it doesn't have to wait for a simcha for a wedding, for a Bar Mitzva. It could be true in your home. Until Sunday. But it could be true, put on the music. Put on the playlist. Put on the playlist. The atmosphere in the home, we spoke about the atmosphere when you arrive at the shul, at the school, at the yeshiva, the atmosphere. The atmosphere. We just redid our mikvah, it's magnificent. Our new men's mikvah, our new women's mikvah, they are magnificent. And one of the things that we introduced, that we're inspired by others, we learned from others, is music in the preparation room. Music. I'm not a frequenter of spas, but my understanding is you don't go to the spa and it's silent. There's music. There's an atmosphere, there's an ambiance. It creates a certain aura. And so music, put on music, use music. Use music. And use movement, and use singing, and use smiling. Don't use shopping, that's a very expensive one. Playlists are free. But don't use וידבר דבורי אמונה ושמחה and speak the language, speak the vocabulary. Speak that you're happy. Talk with happiness. Talk with happiness. You know, we live in a time in our world, somehow people think it's a social commodity when you say, how are you? Eh, busy, crazy busy, you know, whatever. Why not just say fantastic? I'm fantastic. Even if you're not. Again, it usually the person asking doesn't really care, so it doesn't really matter what you answer. It's just a social courtesy. They're not really sitting down, tell me how you're really doing. Tell me how's your neshama. Tell me what you're going through. Tell me I want to listen. Usually you're like passing by, you're walking, you ran into each other. How are you? Well you're going to really be... so I'm fantastic. I'm doing great. And the more you say that, the more you'll be. We're doing great. I'm alive, I'm well. The head count in my home is the same as it was yesterday. I have a roof over my head. I have my faculties. Fantastic. I'm light years ahead of so many others. Zeh yigrom l'hisorerus, this will awaken us, this will arouse simcha pnimis. So the external exhibiting the simcha awakens and opens up and enables and blossoms the inner simcha. וכמו שמצינו באלישע שהיה בצער על הרשע שהיה עמו ואמר קחו לי מנגן והיה כנגן המנגן ותהי עליו רוח אלקים. Pasuk describes about Elisha, that Elisha who was in pain because he was accompanied in his entourage with a rasha. He was exposed to wickedness and evil, and it was bringing him down, it was negative, and it was making him hopeless and helpless. And if you're disconnected from simcha, if you have no joy and joy for life and simchas hachayim, then you're not really alive. So what did he do? Kchu li menagein. Get me a musician. Get me an instrument. Get me a speaker. Get me a playlist. Put on some music. I gotta break out of this funk. Put on some music. כי על ידי כח הניגון הצליח אלישע ליכנס לשמחה through the power of music and movement and smile u'l'hashraas hashchina. אין השכינה שורה אלא מתוך שמחה. Do you want to be around a negative person? I'm drawn to positivity. I love positive energy and positive people. It's contagious. It's electric. Everyone's drawn to it. Hashem's the same way. The Shechina himself. He doesn't want to be around your negativity and pessimism and misery. He wants to be around positivity. אין השכינה שורה אלא מתוך שמחה, לא מתוך עצבות ועצלות. Hashem, Hashem doesn't hang around sadness and laziness. Hashem wants to be drawn to, he hangs around, his presence is felt palpably with those who are besimcha, with those who have drive and energy and enthusiasm and ambition and excitement and excitement. So we have to be driven. We have to be driven. Don't wait. Don't wait for the feeling and act, act and it will inspire and incite and bring out that feeling, that feeling. It's not, happiness is not an emotion. If you take anything from the last six months of happiness, it's that happiness is not an emotion. It's a decision. In fact the Baal Shem Tov, Baal Shem Tov said that's why the letters of the word besimcha are the same letters of the word machshava. Because happiness is what you think, it's what you concentrate, it's what you focus. Machshava and Besimcha, same letters. Said the Baal Shem Tov, happiness starts in your head, not your heart. Happiness starts in your head, not your wallet. Happiness starts in your head, not your hands, happiness starts in your head, not any physical sense. It's the decision, it's the attitude, it's the focus. Will I look at what I have or what's missing? Will I look at what's going right or only focus on what's going wrong? Will I allow myself, will I give myself permission or license? Do I make the decision to do the verb, to do the happy things that will yield the happy feeling? כמו בכל עניני העבודה, we're on page kuf samech gimmel at the bottom. כמו בכל עניני העבודה, and just like when it comes to all other aspects of avoda, every aspect of spiritual growth because that's really our mission is to be involved in spiritual growth, to be growing people, to not be fixed and stagnant, to not feel we've arrived and that we're stuck. Emotionally so many people are. They're as immature as they were when they were 15 or 20 years old. Haven't grown, haven't opened up, haven't matured, haven't flourished. But that's so tragic, it's so tragic to live the same year over and over again and call it a life. To look the same, daven the same, act the same, feel the same. Have to grow, grow as people, grow in our emotional development, grow in our intellectual cognitive development, grow in who we are. Avoda, to be growing. Rav Hirsch, I just told you a Baal Shem Tov now I'll tell you a Rav Hirsch. Rav Hirsch who was very focused on language, sefarim all about language and grammar. So, the letter samech, I'm sorry, sin. The simcha. The letter sin is interchangeable with a tzadi. So Rav Hirsch says if you interchange, certain letters that we have are interchangeable. So a sin, simcha, is interchangeable with tzadi. So the word simcha really is the word tzmicha. Tzmicha means le'tzmo'ach, as tzemach Dovid. What is tzmicha? To blossom, to sprout, to grow. Simcha is growth, is growth. You feel besimcha when you grow, when you have a growth spurt, you feel your besimcha, you feel your besimcha. And when you are besimcha, you're open to growing. You don't grow when you're negative and down and out and miserable. That's not what stimulates growth. What stimulates growth is that you're besimcha, that you're besimcha. Tzmicha, simcha, they go together. So back to Rav Itzamar. ובכל עניני העבודה עיקר הצלחה היא על ידי בקשה ותפילה. With all issues of avoda, the ikar hatzlacha, the source of success is bakasha utfila. You have to daven. וצריך לבקש על זה הרבה. You have to ask a lot for it. There's nothing in life that we get without asking Hashem for help. It doesn't come for free. ברוך אתה ה' אלהינו מלך העולם שהכל נהיה בדברו. Amen. Beautiful Cup's caffeinate with kavana and our notebooks are almost done. They're actually being produced right now and finally we're going to launch our little online that you can buy our cups and our notebooks. We're not promoting a brand or making money, we're promoting emuna. We're promoting growth, promoting simcha. If you have other ideas of other other pieces of merch as they call it, young people, that we can provide that will inspire, let me know. וצריך לבקש על זה הרבה. So there's nothing, Hashem designed a world that you have to ask in order to get. You have to daven hard. You could work hard, you also created a world where we have to work hard, where we have to show initiative, take initiative, but we also have to ask. וצריך לבקש על זה הרבה. זכני אבי להיות שמח תמיד באמת כי בשמחה תלויה העבודה כולה. So here Rav Itzamar alludes to something which sounds absurd. It sounds somewhat ridiculous. It sounds ridiculous. Hashem, I daven to you that you let me feel happiness, make me happy. Daven for happiness? You want to know an even more absurd tfila? But an appropriate one? We're going to get to it soon in Siddur Snippets. I daven Hashem, I'm davening to you, help me daven. I'm struggling with my davening, so Hashem I'm davening that you help me daven. We all say that every day three times a day. You know when we say that every day three times a day, I'm davening to you help me daven? That's how we start the Amidah. ה' שפתי תפתח ופי יגיד תהלתך. Hashem I hope this goes well. It will go well if you help me make it go well. So before I daven, I just want to daven that you help me daven. That's what we say every day. It's a little appetizer, a little what do they call that, preview? A little preview to the Siddur Snippets we're about to start the Amidah. Very excited. So tell everybody you know they should sign up, join us six minutes a day to a meaningful davening, six meaningful minutes a day to a meaningful Amidah. So we say it all the time, Hashem I'm davening that you help me daven. You want to know something even more absurd than that? When we're struggling with emunah and we're struggling to feel His presence, to know He's there, to live with confidence that He's in our life. Hashem I'm davening, I'm asking for your help to believe in you. What? You only daven to the one you believe in. So I'm struggling to believe, so I'm going to daven to help me believe in you? Makes no sense. Except it does if Hashem's your father. It does if davening is the key to open the doors to any blessing, to any flow, to any bricha, any bracha, any hashpa, any shefa that we want in our life. So that was what Reb Itche Meir here reminds us that even if we're doing everything we can, right? We're doing all the micro little, we've got the playlist and we're dancing and we're drinking the coffee and we're shopping a little bit, we're eating our favorite food, assuming it's healthy for us and in moderation. We're doing well. We're doing all the little things that should make us happy, but I'm not feeling happy. Why aren't I happy? I sit and I look and I focus. My b'simcha, my machshava is on, I'm smiling, I'm engaging the micro muscles, and I'm still not feeling happy. Why? Why am I so anxious? Why am I so unhappy? So maybe there's one last thing that's missing. Do you ask Hashem? Do you turn to Him? Do you surrender to Him? Do you tell Him even with everything else I'm doing right, it won't work unless you give the go-ahead? I can't turn the key unless you unlock the door. It won't work. It won't work. So I'm asking, I'm davening b'simcha, I'm asking for simcha, I'm asking for your help. Avi zakeni Avi, my father, let me merit להיות שמח תמיד באמת. Let me in truth, authentically, feel real joy. Tefilla. We've davened that for our children, grandchildren, friends, people we know who are suffering, struggling, depressed. We daven that they feel happiness and joy. Can't daven it for ourselves? Can't ask it for ourselves? We can't ask Him? כי בשמחה תלויה עבודה כולה. Because everything depends on simcha. Everything depends on it. Simchas hachayim, that state of mind, that frame of mind, that attitude, that approach to life, that perspective. Everything else that we want will depend on it. Every relationship that we cherish, I mean, again, it doesn't take rocket science to realize which will produce better, more well-balanced children? When they grow up in a home in an atmosphere where there was simcha or when there was anxiousness and misery and anger and complaints and negativity and pessimism? Which will produce healthier children? With all the worry and fear and all the money we spend and all the investment in our children, what do they experience in carpool? What do they experience on Erev Shabbos? Is it anger and yelling and frustration? What do they experience at bedtime? What do they experience when they're being stubborn and not listening? What do they experience not when things are going right, what do they see when things are going wrong? When you're running late to the airport, the flight's delayed, you're stuck at the red light, or the pipe bursts in the wall? What do they see? With all the money and all the investment and all the energy and all the time, but how we react and the level of simcha in our homes, the simcha in our homes, that's what it's all about. I won't say who, but recently Boruch Hashem we had the great zechus to make a wedding. So a dear friend of mine who tested positive a couple weeks before, before the wedding. So I knew that he was positive, he recovered, thank God he had a very mild case, and I'm tempted to tell you who it is because he deserves the credit, but I don't have his permission. So a few days before the wedding, I checked in with him and I just said, I assume you can't make it, I know that you were sick a few weeks ago, that you tested positive and I want you to know it's okay, it's no problem, I'm just checking in. So he writes back, I just tested positive for being b'simcha for this wedding, I wouldn't miss it for the world, I'll be there. Right, it was a great, it actually put a smile on my face. You know, people like to write back LOL or whatever, it actually made me smile. He wrote back just tested positive for excitement for coming to this wedding, I wouldn't miss it for the world. Just tested positive. Just tested positive. Rabbi Gibber, my dear friend Rabbi Gibber, just tested positive for being b'simcha. He's got a great simchas hachayim. So we've got to test positive for being b'simcha. We've got to test ourselves. Do we test positive for being b'simcha? If our home were tested for simcha, right, you got a carbon monoxide detector and a smoke detector and a this detector and a that detector, what about the simcha detector? What would it detect in our home? What would it detect in our carpool? What would it detect at bedtime and dinnertime and bathtime and homework time? What would it detect in travel time? What would it detect? The Engage the micro muscles and put on the music and move our feet, and the Baal Shem Tov besimcha machshava, it begins in our head, and the Sefer HaChinuch אחרי הפעולות נמשכים הלבבות, we have to do the external things which will yield and bring the feeling, but at the end of the day you gotta daven. Ask Hashem every day let me feel besimcha. Even when I do all the right things, let me feel besimcha, let me feel besimcha, let me be happiness, happy, let me be joyful. Let me be joyful. ענין הצער על החורבן. We'll just do the first paragraph and pick up with this next week because next week im yirtzeh Hashem we'll be in Yerushalayim on Sunday having a barbecue in the Beis HaMikdash, no fast, no three weeks. But if we're not, if we're not, next Wednesday when we're back, this section couldn't be more perfect. Hashem is amazing, no? The timing, hashgacha pratis. We've been learning this for how many months and we're up to ענין הצער על החורבן. How do you reconcile the pain for the churban Beis HaMikdash with all of this about being besimcha? And when are we up to it? The first Wednesday of the three weeks. There you go. There's no chance, there's no coincidences, there's nothing random in life, there's nothing random in this world. Yesh lishol, so we'll start. הלעומת החורבן יש להתאבל על בית המקדש. Enough Rav Itche Meir! What's with all the talk about simcha and joy and simchas hachayim? This is the foundation of life, this is the number one shidduch question you should ask when researching, do they have a simchas hachayim? This is the most important, this is the most important detector you have to have in your home. Enough! Let's get real, there's a churban! Let's get real, there's no Beis HaMikdash! And what's the consequence of that? There's rising antisemitism, there's rising anti-Israel, there are enemies, there's hate, there are pogroms and persecution and oppression and attempted extermination. There's no Beis HaMikdash, there's no geulah, we're still in a harsh exile. איך נשמח כאשר בית קדשנו חרב? How am I supposed to be happy and besimcha? Okay great, you could go back to Eretz Yisrael and you don't have to take a test before or when you land, Baruch Hashem. But guess what, when you show up at the Kotel, you look up, you know what's still there? A big gold dome, not a Beis HaMikdash. It's not there. There's still people throwing rocks down and pointing missiles at. So how am I supposed to be besimcha? What happened to being mitzaer al hachurban? What happened to waking up in the middle of the night, Tikkun Chatzos, crying for the churban Beis HaMikdash? We're about to enter the three weeks and the nine days and Tisha B'Av. How do you reconcile besimcha with that? Im yirtzeh Hashem we'll pick up with it next week. But in this way you don't have to be machmir. In the ten minutes of meaning we just spoke Mesillas Yesharim also, there are no coincidences. We're up to the nineteenth perek and what was the Ramchal talking about today? Ahavas Yisrael. Hashem only loves you if you love His children, Ahavas Yisrael. So I said, you know, you don't have to wait till Sunday to start practicing Ahavas Yisrael. For Ahavas Yisrael you could be machmir and have four weeks, not three weeks. But for toning down the simcha, you don't have to be machmir and start now. It's the opposite, I'll tell you. Don't be machmir and not be besimcha now. Wait till Sunday. You don't have to wait for the three weeks to turn it down. Right now play that music, play that funky music, right now play that music and move your feet and dance and engage those micro muscles and smile and feel that inner simcha and place your machshava besimcha and feel simcha and tzmicha and blossom and grow and create an environment where you can become the best and better version of yourself tonight, Behind the Bima, 9:00 PM. Until next time, stay happy, stay healthy, and stay holy.
