Transcript
Good morning Boker Tov, welcome back to Living with Emuna. First of all, I can't believe that you are here. I didn't want to... hey, welcome back, Carolyn. I didn't want to cancel with the Bris Baruch Hashem for a good reason, a Simcha, which is always a great reason, so we adjusted the time and you're actually here. That's amazing. Shkoach, thank you. Our Emuna series is sponsored generously by Dr. Zvi and Bella Morgan in memory of Rabbi Dr. Brian Galbut, in memory of Bella's mother, Dr. Ellen Shanzer. We remain deeply indebted to the Morgans and grateful to them this morning. Shiur is sponsored by Michelle and Marnie Weingarten in honor of their parents, Dr. Alexander and Merrill Weingarten. So Mazel Tov and Yashar Koach. Kibbud Av Va'eim, what a beautiful tribute. And anonymously in honor of BRS and the chizuk it provides people near and far. So thank you to anonymous. So anonymous, I have no idea who they are. That's how anonymous they genuinely are. So okay, welcome back, it's great to be together Living with Emuna. Hopefully we're putting into practice everything we've learned from living besimcha, smiling, the contagiousness of smiling, the fact that it can be infectious and we can change everything with a smile, with a smile. And the notion that we've been learning about, that we can find God not only in the high and happy moments, not only when all is going smoothly and well, but also when we struggle, also when we stumble, also when we feel far away, also when there's distance, also when we feel down and out. What in the words of our Rabbis, are Kedem Ve'achor or front and back, or Ratzo Veshov, or Katnus and Gadlus, whether we feel small, whether we feel big, whether we're running towards or whether we're recoiling away. We can find Hashem. We've discussed a lot at length, why did Hashem design the world in such a way that there are highs and lows? That's simply a result of reality in which we live. And that we can find Hashem not only in the highs, sometimes we can even find Him more when we are in the low. When we feel down and out, when we so desperately need Him and rely on Him, when we're looking for Him, sometimes we can find Hashem even more in that in that place, in that place. So we're on page kuf samech gimmel, העבודה בקטנות היא תפילה. So now Rav Itche Meyer is going to transition to turn to how, how is it? Sometimes you're not feeling it. Sometimes you're not singing, learning, dancing, hopping, skipping, living with Emuna, Bitachon, Dveikus. It's not revealing himself everywhere you turn, it's the opposite. Say where are you? And how are you letting this happen? And why don't I feel you? And why am I going through motions, but it doesn't feel like you're there? So in those moments and at those times, how do we connect to Him? How do we connect to Him? So before we turn back to Rav Itche Meyer, I'll tell you a teaching by Rav Nachman, the great Rav Nachman. Rav Nachman, who was the paradigm of being besimcha, מצוה גדולה להיות בשמחה תמיד, to always be happy, to always be on a high, to always find Hashem not only in the highs but the lows. Pasuk says in Bamidbar, U'truas Melech Bo. We're going to say that in our Rosh Hashana davening. U'truas Melech Bo. The simple meaning is that the trumpet blast, the trua of the King Melech Bo is with him. Right, we're seeing now the opposite or I guess we're seeing the coronation of a new King, l'havdil, l'havdil, l'havdil. We're seeing the pomp and circumstance and the ceremony and the ritual and the significance which is only a good thing for the Jewish people. My mother pointed out to me the other day, in a world which is so cynical about ceremony and ritual and has no room for mesora, for tradition, this is one big jolt to the world, ironically who are looking so admirably and as if it's like reality show, they're watching all the ritual and the ceremony and that's our lives. That's Yiddishkeit. We don't wait for a Queen to die. Every single day, we are with the King in an audience with the King and we have the ability to live that mesora, that tradition, that ritual, that ceremony that's so that's so rich and so meaningful and is so the foundation of our lives. So the Pasuk says Truas Melech Bo, the trua, the shofar blast of the Melech of the King Bo is with him. The word truas, says in Sichos Haran, Rav Nachman, the word truas, trumpet blast, can also mean to break. Tiro'em is a rod of iron. The Pasuk in Tehillim, in Perek Bais in Tehillim, break them tiro'em with a rod of iron. So the word trua could mean a shofar blast, but the word trua could also mean to break. So what is Truas Melech Bo? When we break all the lies, when we break through all the darkness, Melech Bo, you could find God. Sometimes it's in the brokenness, we spoke about last week, there's nothing as whole as a broken heart. When you feel whole, you're broken, and when you feel broken, you can you can be whole. So Truas Melech Bo, when you break truas, Melech Bo. When you feel broken, sometimes when you so rely on him and rely on him, when we're looking for him, sometimes we can find Hashem even more in that in that place, in that place. and need him and depend on him and wonder where he is, that's where he comes in, that's where the light can shine through, that's when you can find him. עבודה מעשית העולם הזה. So what comes out of this, Reb Shmaya? Nu, it's Elul. Elul. Every year I have at least a few conversations with myself, sometimes even with others, that say, you know, it's Elul, I'm supposed to be feeling it. Elul! Everybody has this image of yeshivas and gedolim, they scream the word Elul and the walls shake and everybody's moved and inspired and the davening is better, the learning is better, the chesed is more patient, more loving, more kind, more caring, more generous. What happens if you say, uh-oh, we're more than halfway through Elul? What happens when you're on the cusp of Rosh Hashanah you say, I'm still not feeling it. Going through the motions, I show up, put the check next to the davening, next to the selichos. I'm going, I'm doing it, going through those motions but I'm not feeling it. I'm not feeling it. I'm not tapped in, I'm not plugged in, I'm not inspired, I'm not feeling it. So what do you do? מברר חלק המעשי בדרך של מסירות נפש כפי שנתבאר במאמר הקודם. So one component is mesiras nefesh, that a Jew has to give, sacrifice, compromise. We love what we give to. We love what we work on. We love what we've extended ourselves into as an extension of ourselves, that which we're moseir nefesh for. Rav Dessler has Kuntres HaChesed. Now's not the time to elaborate, but in his Kuntres HaChesed, Rav Dessler famously talks about love is not the result of getting, love is the result of giving. It's very counter-intuitive. I think if you give me and give me and give me, boy am I going to love you. Give me tickets, buy me food, give me gifts, give me accolades, and I'm going to love you for all that you give me. And if I have to give you, I'm not going to love you, I had to give up my resources, my time, my money, my hard-earned, I'm not going to love you, I'll do it for whatever reason I feel obligated to but I'll love you less. But it turns out, says Rav Dessler, that counter-intuitively love doesn't come from getting, love comes from giving. And what's his evidence? What's his evidence? Who loves whom more? Do parents love children more or do children love parents more? So every child, every teenager goes to seminary, goes to yeshiva, they learn Rav Dessler's Michtav Me'Eliyahu, Kuntres HaChesed and they say, ah, it's not true, so biased, today you'd have to, Rav Dessler would be canceled for suggesting that parents love children more than children love. Although children feel you're discriminating, it's not true, I love my parents, how dare you say that, you don't know me, I love my parents more than they love me. I'm going to write a book and go on TV and make a million dollars, this is abuse that you suggest I don't love my parents. It's a whole new world. But the truth is, then what happens? Those children please God one day become parents. And then they say, you know what? It's true. A parent loves a child more than a child. That's not an indictment of a child, that's not a criticism of a child. It is simply a reality that a child can't love a parent the way a parent loves a child. You know why? Because the parent gives, and love is from giving not getting. So that child starts life, certainly starts life, by just getting. Getting everything. A newborn baby contributes and gives nothing but heartache and pain and sleepless nights and having a body that needs to recover and money. A baby wakes up and cries and eats and needs to be changed, costs money. And then it just gets worse when they become a teenager. And then it just gets worse when they're older than that. So they just take, take, take, take, take. Occasionally they give. Maybe they give you something nice, a birthday and anniversary, maybe they offer to help, maybe they cook something for Yom Tov, maybe, maybe. Occasionally they give. They give a lot of nachas, but they take. They really take, take, take. So why do parents love children more than children love parents? Because as it turns out, says Rav Dessler, that love is not the result of getting, the love is the result of giving. He tells in that Kuntres HaChesed, he tells a story that he knows a couple that were separated during the war. And the baby, the young child, went with the father not the mother. And after the war, the mother could never recover and catch up with the relationship and the love that the father had with that child that she was deprived of. Why? He loved the child more? No. But in those formative years where the child was so vulnerable and fragile and there was such a security risk to their very existence and that father forged this bond as he escaped through those years and just gave, gave, gave, gave, gave, the mother couldn't catch up with that giving to feel that love. Normally, arguably, again this is a big generalization, but normally a mother loves a child even more than a father. Not in principle, not on paper loves more, but meaning, the mother's the one who woke up in the middle of the night. Let's be honest. The mother's the one who carried the baby for nine months. There's no debate about that. The mother's the one who gave, gave, gave more, the husband can't catch up. But Rav Dessler writes that in that circumstance it was the wife who couldn't catch up. Love comes from giving, not from getting. That's how he explains, and again, I wish we had time now but we don't have time now to delve into the entire piece, when the Torah says there are three people who come home, stay home from war. If you planted a vineyard and you didn't reap it, you didn't drink its wine. If you built a house and you didn't get to live in it. And if you got married and you didn't finish the first year with your wife. All three we feel bad for, don't go to war, maybe you'll be killed and you won't get to enjoy what you worked on, so you're exempt from war. Now you don't have to be a feminist to be bothered: woman, bottle of wine, renovated house. One of these is not like the other. Is that what we're saying, is that a woman we're lowering to these inanimate objects? Bottle of wine, renovated house, and a wife. All three are unrealized dreams, so you get to stay home. That's it, we've relegated a woman to a bottle of wine, to a renovated house? So what Rav Dessler says is, we're not suggesting, God forbid, a woman is, a wife is like an inanimate object. What do all three have in common? The tzad hashaveh, the common denominator of all three is person gave of themselves, they sacrificed, they worked, they dreamt, they built, they toiled, they gave, and then they don't get to get the satisfaction, the satisfaction. So even an inanimate object, one can, one can love. I once I taught Rav Dessler's Kuntres HaChesed many years ago. There was a series done many, many years ago. I'd be canceled now for this, I'd be put in cherem, but somebody in the shul who knew media put together clips from certain TV or movies and we showed a Jewish or Torah approach to it. So there was a film, Castaway, about a person who was a shipwreck and he was by himself, and one of the packages that came up on shore was a volleyball. A basketball? A basketball? A volleyball? I think it was a volleyball. I think it was a volleyball from the company Wilson. And in the there was no one to talk to, he was stranded by himself, and over the course of time he had thrown the ball and his hand was bloody and it made a picture of a face and it said Wilson. He gave it a name, he called it Wilson, he would talk to Wilson all day. When he was escaping on the raft, Wilson went overboard and he cried hysterically and was in pain like he had lost a child or a loved one. And you say, what's going on? Shipwrecked, he must have sunstroke, he must have gone insane, he loved a volleyball? So I said, no, that's Rav Dessler. He loved a volleyball because he cared for and nurtured and protected and gave of himself to this inanimate object called a volleyball. My beloved Saul Kahn, should be well, my beloved Saul Kahn after that took a basketball and he wrote Wilson and he painted on it, and I still have it in my office. This goes back 15 years? How many years? My beloved friend, you should just be well and healthy and comfortable and strong. So he gave me that gift as a result, Wilson. That's Rav Dessler. You could love an inanimate object. When I study Kuntres HaChesed I always tell the story, when I was a child, my father planted, I don't know what motivated because we were not that kind of family, but he planted a tomato vine in our backyard. And I remember on Sundays because we didn't see my father much of the week, he like many of your husbands, many of our fathers worked very hard, but on Sundays he would nurture that tomato vine. I remember as it grew, I remember vividly that we tied it to a pole as it climbed and I remember watering it and I remember first they were green and I remember then they were red and I remember the first tomato we plucked. It's actually this week's parsha, the mitzvah of Bikkurim, which didn't apply in Teaneck, New Jersey, there was no mitzvah of Bikkurim to the tomato, but I remember the first tomato he plucked and I remember it was brought to the Shabbos table and I remember that's where he was going to slice into it and that's where we ate it. And I remember my father, who now can't say Good Shabbos without crying but then I had not seen an enormous amount of emotion, I remember he addressed the tomato maybe with more affection than he had any of us. I remember finding it peculiar. Tomato, the love, the affection, the attention for this tomato. Tomato. But then I learned Kuntres HaChesed and I understood: the Sundays, the watering, and the nurturing and the protecting and the and the tying it to the to the pole. When you give to something you love it. Why is that? So says Rav Dessler, you know why? When you give, you've taken everyone loves themselves. Some people love themselves too little, nebach people have too little self-esteem, self-worth, and nebach, that is an enormous challenge. We're starting this Motzei Shabbos we'll be showing it and streaming it here together with Moshe Yachnes who's my co-host, starting a new monthly podcast called Out of the Shadows about mental health. Very excited about it because I think it's really, really important. And this week, the opening episode is Dr. Pelcovitz, Dr. Blumenthal, Rachel Tuchman, and Eliyahu Lis. four superstar mental health professionals on the state of mental health in the Orthodox community. It's really really important conversations and each episode will focus on these real issues: anxiety, depression, ADD, OCD, mental health and shidduchim. I'm excited for that episode. All kinds of, all kinds of episodes. These are real issues. And there are people who suffer from low self-esteem, they don't love themselves enough. Pasuk says v'ahavta l'reiacha kamocha. Love your neighbor as yourself. Several Chassidisher Rebbes say, you know what is at the core of the mitzvah to love your neighbor as yourself? First you have to, you have to, you have to love yourself. You can't love your neighbor as yourself if you don't love yourself. Now there's a whole world of people who love themselves a little too much. That's a whole other illness of the people who love themselves too much: arrogance, ego, self-love. There's a lot of people who love themselves too much. That's its own issue. That creates its own challenges. But there's also a world of people who love themselves too little. Who lack self-esteem and self-worth, who are constantly putting themselves down, thinking they're unworthy, thinking they're inferior, thinking they're invisible, thinking they're inadequate, projecting onto others what they assume they're thinking or sitting in judgment of them. This entire world of people suffering from that. It's among the saddest things when you're with someone who is amazing but just beats themselves up and doesn't see their worth and doesn't believe they deserve a better future. It's tragic. It's mamash mamash tragic. So v'ahavta l'reiacha but first kamocha. Love your neighbor but first you have to love yourself. And you have to find that right niche. Don't love yourself too much, it's like the three bears. Don't love yourself too much, don't love yourself too little, love yourself just right. You have to love yourself just right. Right? When you love yourself too much, Jocheved's reminding me, come sit. When you love yourself too much then you have to remember hineni afar v'efer. That's the Reb Simcha Bunim that said in the name of everybody, a Jew has to carry a note in each pocket, a little tsetel, a little petek in each pocket. In one pocket it says I'm worm food, I'm dirt, I'm earth, I'm the dust of the earth, I'm a gornisht, I'm a nothing. I came from the ground and one day I'll be worm food, I'm a gornisht. And the other pocket you have to say bishvili nivra ha'olam. God created the whole world just for me. And the kunts is to know when you feel on top of the world and it's all about you, remember you're going to be worm food. And when you feel what am I and who am I and I'm so unworthy and nobody thinks anything good of me, then you remember bishvili nivra the whole world was created just for me. You have to know when and which one. You have to know which one. So you have to love yourself just right. Don't love yourself too much and don't love yourself too little. But the reality is that we were designed to love ourselves. It's important. You know what happens when you don't love yourself? You know what happens when you don't love yourself? You are in danger, in grave danger. There are people, young people who struggle with addiction or who struggle with behavior that is self-destructive and self-sabotaging because they don't love themselves. They give themselves inappropriately to others in such a way that is so harmful and damaging to them. So for self-preservation we need to love ourselves. Protect ourselves, love ourselves. That's natural. That's the way we're designed. So we love ourselves when we take a piece of ourselves and we plant it in someone else or something else. We love it. So love comes from giving. So when we have a child that literally was conceived and gestation and birth and nurturing and nourishing and loving and protecting and raising, we give and give and give and give. That's a love that nobody can understand. That's a love that it's incomparable, that love of a parent to a child because it's the ultimate in giving. When you love a spouse, I say under almost every chuppah that the Jewish formula is that love doesn't come from getting. That's why there's an enormous divorce rate. And the divorce rate is only down the last few years because fewer people are bothering to get married. That's the only reason. But why is there such dysfunction in marriage today in America and around the world? Because two parties enter a relationship thinking what am I going to get? What do I get out of this? What are my entitlements? What are my privileges? What comes with this membership to marriage? What do I get? When you come with an attitude what do I get out of it, don't bother. But if you come and you say what can I give? Ahava, love, comes from the word hav which means to give. Ahava is the same gematria as echad which means one. I don't come to get, I come to give. I come to give and when two parties are giving to one another you have a couple madly in love. Now you have to know when to give and when to get. The yin and the yang. How to balance that out on different issues and different questions that come up. But love is the result of giving, not getting. And it's true not only that you love your children because you give to them and you love your spouse because you give to them and you love the tomato... because you gave it life and nurtured it till it came to your Shabbos table, and you love Wilson because you spent quality time and talked to and invested in a relationship and confided in it. You could love inanimate and animate objects and people and experiences because the more you give, the more you love. That's Kuntres HaChesed. So a lot more, but that's Kuntres HaChesed for now. Why am I telling you all that? It's fascinating and it's great, but I'm telling you all that because Rav Itche Meir is saying is one of the ways to renew a relationship with Hashem paradoxically, counterintuitively is give to him. You sit back and we wait, why aren't I getting anything from him? Why aren't I getting anything out of this? Where is he? Why isn't he showering love and affection and warmth? Why isn't he answering yes to my questions? Why isn't he coming through? Where is he? Why aren't I getting? And Rav Itche Meir says you know how you could turn it around? Start giving. How do you give to God? How do you give to God? You don't give to God with money, resources, you do by taking care of his other children. Let me put it to you differently. Hashem is infinite, he's omnipotent, he's perfect. He doesn't need us. How do you give to someone who's already perfect? What Hashem does is to do what? Emulate. Oh, one of the ways you can give also this week's parsha, והלכת בדרכיו אחרי ה׳ אלקיכם תלכו. One of the ways that we give to God, what's the finest form of flattery? Imitation. You want to flatter God, imitate him. Be like him. Embrace his values. Follow them, live them. That's one way you give to God. How else? Again, he's infinite. You know sometimes it's hard to give a gift to somebody who has everything. But they don't have everything. Often the people who look like they have everything need the gift the most and the gift isn't material or physical. But God actually has everything. He is everything. He's the source of everything. So what gift can you give him? Praise? Praise, but he doesn't need it. He gets nothing out of it. He barely tolerates it. But still, it's good to give it to him. What else? Give to others? Oh, so you could give to his other children. You want to give a gift to me, there's perhaps no greater gift than showing love to my children. You know, it's amazing. I just walked to shul the other day with someone who's going to be in Israel for Succos and says, 'Rabbi, who do you have in Israel right now?' I said, 'Oh, one of my daughters married there.' She said, 'Great, give me her number, I want to invite her for a meal on Succos.' I love you right now. It's amazing. So sweet, it's so kind. You're thinking about my child. You just generously offered to host my... that's I love, I'm in love with you right now because you're so amazing to my child. So Hashem has billions of children. Billions of children. Jewish and non-Jewish. He didn't intermarry, but he has Jewish and non-Jewish children. Tzelem Elokim in all. We're all from God. And when we're good to his children, Hashem says, 'Oh, I love you. Good. Good. You're good to your children, you're good to me.' So that's another way you love God, be good to his children. Yeah. Give of yourself? So the answer is Rav Dessler. You want to show God that you love him, give to him. And how do you give to him? Mesiras nefesh. I don't feel like going to shul, but I'm going anyway. I don't feel like doing the mitzvah, I'm doing it anyway. I'm going to live with some yiras shamayim in this moment. I want to look at the wrong thing, I want to indulge that yetzer hara. I want to indulge that temptation, that instinct, but I'm not going to and it's and it's costing me. It's costing. I don't feel like giving that 10% tzedaka, but I'm doing it anyway and it hurts. The more you give to the point that it hurts. To give when it doesn't hurt is almost not giving. Right? So, sweetheart, I love you so much, I want to give to you that we're going to go out for a big steak tonight and a great bottle of wine, maybe a cigar afterwards. I want to give to you. Is that, you know? If I really want to give to her, I say we're going to go out tonight for some milchigs. Now it hurts. It's mesiras nefesh. It's mamash mesiras nefesh. It's almost sacrificing one's life. It's mamash mesiras nefesh to go out for milchigs, לא עלינו רחמנא לצלן. So if you really want to communicate love, you don't do it by doing something that's good for you, right? I love you so much, I bought myself a new, a new golf set. That's my gift to you. That's not the real is moser nefesh. This is not the way I wanted to do it, but I'm doing it your way. This hurts. It takes more work, more time, more money, more effort, more toil, more sacrifice, but I'm doing it. So when do you show that to Hashem? When it all feels good and delicious and amazing and fantastic and goosebumps. and exciting and geshmaak and on fire. So I didn't really give to God because I got something out of that. That was amazing. That was amazing. This past Friday night we had a tish at shul, it was for men. We would love to do Friday night women's tish, women can sit and sing and whatever. I'm just not sure you'd show up. So if you would, we would organize it. Yechaveh would love to host it. So there's nothing discriminatory about it. Just understandably by Friday night many women may not want to go out to sing together and share divrei Torah and stories. But we had a tish this past Friday night which was an achdus tish. What time is it? Which was an achdus tish. And it was beautiful. It was TTB Yeshiva, it's been here for many years, the New Yeshiva of South Florida, the Community Kollel, the Katz Yeshiva High School, all together. United by Torah, voices literally harmonizing one another in song, standing and holding arms locked together in dance. It was geshmaak, it was amazing, it was amazing. By the way, the biggest ruach came from the youngest group, which were the Katz Yeshiva High School boys. They were on fire, they were the singing the loudest, they stayed the longest, and because of the custodians I had to kick them out. They came back from NCSY Kollel this core group, and they are on fire, they're on fire. Now, there were two types of people in that room. I hope by the time everybody left, everyone was equally on fire and had an incredible experience. But there were people who wanted to be there, who couldn't wait to be there, who counted down to be there, and there are people who said, Goldberg will be annoyed at me if I don't show up, I've got to be there. I'm connected to this yeshiva or that institution, I teach, I'm a rebbe, I'm a parent, I gotta show up. I'm passing out my soup, I want to go to sleep, I'm dying, but I'll be moseir nefesh, I'll go. I hope by the end everybody was happy they came, but to be honest there are two types of people who go to almost every event. So for the ones who are on fire, these kids who wouldn't leave, were they moseir nefesh to be there? The evidence they weren't moseir nefesh to come is that they wouldn't leave. They had to be kicked out. Custodians cleaned up around them and when that last table and chairs, they were the difference of the custodians going home, it was midnight, I was the bad guy who said, boys I love you, go sit on the curb and sing till netz, but we're out, it's over. The evidence it wasn't hard for them to come is that they didn't want to leave. Others had to be moseir nefesh. They gave up on their sleep, they were exhausted, they walked maybe a far distance, if you don't live in Boca right now, weather's not so comfortable. I met with a new British couple, lovely, amazing, wonderful people. I was talking to them how it's going, you've arrived, so sorry about the, as if I'm responsible, I'm a professional apologizer in life, that's the rabbinate, so I also apologize among other things for the weather. So when the new people move in, I say, in a month or two you're going to really appreciate why you moved here. So they used a great word to describe the weather here in Boca, I never heard it described this way, so British. They said the weather is downright hostile. It was a great word, it's true. The weather is obnoxious, it's hostile. So there were people who were moseir nefesh to come and they had to fight the hostility of the weather to be here. So who, who gave more and is more connected and is more love in that relationship with Hashem? If you wanted to come and you wouldn't leave, you got a lot out of it, don't get me wrong, but you didn't have to give to be there, it wasn't a sacrifice. But when you sacrifice, when you're moseir nefesh, so this is the first suggestion that the Bitchover Rebbe is getting, when you're in a period of katnus, ironically, counterintuitively, paradoxically, there's a greater opportunity to be moseir nefesh and therefore a greater opportunity to show love and to feel a closer love. When everything feels great and is amazing and you're in love, the love is not as profound, is not as dynamic, the love is not as real as when you're having to sacrifice for it, which results in a real deeper, more meaningful form of love. I'm not sure I'm being clear. When you're on fire and everything's amazing, when you're in a tekufah of gadlus, mochin de-gadlus, everything's geshmaak, because life is geshmaak. When you're in a place of mochin de-katnus, when you're in a place of down and out and despair and distance, and yet, still, nevertheless, you're moseir nefesh. You know what mesirus nefesh is? Time. For some people giving up time is harder than giving up money. Time. Give up time for God. For some it's moseir nefesh to talk to God. For some it's moseir nefesh to talk to your spouse, your children. You don't want to, you don't feel like it, it's painful, it's like root canal, but the core of any relationship is communication and time. Time and communication. That's the core of any relationship. If you neglect, if you don't give time. priority of time, and if you don't communicate, if you're shut down and resistant, if you're not an active listener, you're not interested in the other person, then there's no relationship. Sometimes that takes mesiras nefesh because I don't have the time or I don't feel like listening or I don't want to communicate and yet a person has to leave their comfort zone and be moser nefesh and take risks or give time or extend themselves because that's what love is. That's what love will come from. And what's true in the human realm, interpersonally is true in our relationship with Hashem. Do we make time for God? Do we make time for God? Are we in conversation with Hashem? Spoke last week about the hisbodedus on the beach two weeks ago. More than 50 people came and made time for God late on a Thursday night and communicated. I didn't eavesdrop, I don't know what was said, but sat in the sand and said God, here it is, let's have a conversation. I'm going to thank you for the things I'm grateful for, got some things I'm unhappy that, got some suggestions about the way you run on the world. And then I've got some requests of questions for you. I'm not reading it in a book, I'm not stuck on the words in the siddur, I'm not singing a song, I'm talking to you from my heart. That's not easy. There is a Jew in our shul, a young man who does hisbodedus for an hour every day. For an hour every day he stops and talks to God. I don't mean he comes to Shacharis for an hour every day. I mean outside of shul he told me how he does it. 20 minutes, 20 minutes, 20 minutes, what it's broken up into, how difficult it is, how many days he doesn't feel like doing it. He believes that certain bracha only comes into his life because he made the commitment to do it every day, so he does it. An hour. I don't know if you were on the beach that night. Some of you were. Like 30 seconds in I was like okay, this is awkward and uncomfortable and is it enough, is anyone leaving, can I go? Can I go now? Unfortunately many of you didn't, so I had to stay, keep looking over my shoulder, when did enough people leave that I could leave without feeling self-conscious? But 30 seconds is really hard. No siddur. I'll tell you for me the easiest place to do it is driving. When you're driving, I don't know, maybe because the driving itself is distracting, leave the radio off, leave the music off, leave the podcast off, don't be talking on the phone, just talk to God. God, here it is, here it goes, you ready? Let's have a conversation. Let's have a conversation. Usually on the way back from carpool you have some things to tell him about how you'd like him to help people behave. So talk to him. Do we make time? Do we communicate? Are we moser nefesh for God? And the message I want to get across I guess for today until next time is to be moser nefesh. So this is the challenge: when you don't feel him in your life is when you don't feel like being moser nefesh for him. By the way the same thing's true with marriage. I mentioned last week the therapist suggestion about touching, touch a hand, give a hug in the middle of a fight. Again sounds bizarre, sounds even risky. You're in the middle of a fight you're going to give a hug? In the middle of a fight you're going to touch the person's hand? The answer is that contact is a reminder that there's a bigger picture of love that gam ze yaavor that the five and five rule that it won't matter in five years it shouldn't matter for five minutes, we can get through this because there's something bigger. But there's something more than just that is that the more you don't feel like doing for the other person, do something and that's what will bring you both back. I'm not a therapist. I always refer to legitimate therapists but I compliment their therapy for people who come to me and one thing I always say is love is not an adjective. What is love? It's a verb. Love is a verb. Love is a verb. Love is not on a Hallmark card, love is not in the flowers, the box of chocolates. That's all cute and lovely and nice and it's important and it's gestures of thoughtfulness and affection. Love is a verb. It is a verb. It's a verb. It's a verb to God. ואהבת את ה' אלקיך. We have a commandment. In fact it's how some understand that we can have a commandment. How can you be commanded to love God? You can't turn on emotions on command, on demand. So how can you love God if you can't love on demand? The answer is love the adjective you can't do on demand but love the verb you can. Love the verb you can. So when the Torah says love God it says don't worry about the feeling, the adjectives. ואהבת את ה' אלקיך means kabbalas ol mitzvos. Make time. Talk to him. Give to him. Sacrifice for him. Compromise. Do it even though you don't want to. Do it even though it hurts. Do it even though it's uncomfortable. Mesiras nefesh, be moser nefesh. I'll just end with this. That's why, that's why one of the... Three things that will help us this season soon, too soon to my liking, on Rosh Hashanah the chazzan will belt out and the tzibur would respond in a way the walls would reverberate with the winning formula. How is it מעבירין את רוע הגזירה? It's not emotionally manipulative to say to you, who is going through things this year that last Rosh Hashanah they never dreamt would even be a problem? Who knew last Rosh Hashanah to daven for one's children lest they get a diagnosis? Who knew last Rosh Hashanah to daven that X, Y, or Z not happen within our family, within our community or within the world? Who even knew? So who even knows what to daven for this Rosh Hashanah? We don't even know what that gezeirah ra'ah is that's hanging over our head that we want to be maavir, that we want to remove and eliminate. But we know one thing. What is the winning formula to remove it, to eliminate it, to nullify it? Tshuvah, tefillah, and... so tshuvah I got. If I become a new me, I'm worthy of a new decree, I can get rid of the ra'ah hagezeirah. Tefillah I even get. Through tefillah, through heartfelt prayer, I become a new me and worthy of a new gezeirah. Tzedakah? I'm bribing the judge? Write a check. Venmo or Zelle God. You're guilty. Guilty as sin. You're accountable. But you know how we'll get out of it? We'll make a donation. We'll name the new beis medrash. We'll give a big donation. That's how we'll get out. How does tzedakah work? It's also part of a much bigger conversation. We spoke about it a few weeks ago on Behind the Bima, we had Jonathan Donath, the founder of Daily Giving. You could listen and we spoke about it much more there. How does it work? So in this context I'll just close by saying, tshuvah hurts. To give up previous behavior patterns, addictions, it hurts, it's hard. Tefillah hurts. You don't really want to wake up, say the words, do it every day. But we know that nothing hurts like the pain of the wallet. There are people I ask for tzedakah, not for me, to help our mission, who say take my kidney, take my liver, take my heart, take my retina, just don't take my money. I think that they would sooner give me their kidney than they would their account, their bank account. There are people, it hurts, it hurts tzedakah. So Hashem says, you want to be maavir the roah hagezeirah? You want to show me you love me? Tzedakah. I have a lot of needs. Not for me personally, says God. I'm perfect, I'm all-knowing, I'm omnipotent, I'm infinite. But my children have a lot of needs. I have a lot of children. I have billions of children in the world. Millions of Jewish children. I have in your own community, your neighbors, in your family, there are a lot of children. Hashem says they have a lot of needs. You want to prove to me you love me? You want to show me you love me? You want to make an effort? You want to be worthy of a new gezeirah? Tzedakah. Let's see. Write a check. Write a check. Not because we're buying our way out, but we're showing our love, we're showing our priority, we're showing that we get it, we're showing mesiras nefesh. Hurts. Don't give to the point it hurts. You can't, you're not allowed to give more than twenty percent. You're not allowed to give to the point where you can become impoverished yourself. I'm not saying give to the point it hurts, but I'm saying for some people giving at all hurts. But give. Tomchei Shabbos, Jewish Education Scholarship Fund, there's the Pillar Society of our shul, keeping the lights on, the classes going. There's a new yeshiva, there's the mikvah that still needs money for the magnificent renovation it did. There's an eruv. There's, you want me to go on and on? I'm just speaking like the local. There are no shortage of worthy places. You know the fruit and vegetable market we did outside before Pesach, we're doing it again before Rosh Hashanah. So that people in this community who don't know how they're going to put food on their table for this Yom Tov season, come, take, leave, whatever you want or don't want. We'll need help, the resources to do that. This is not an appeal. It's also not not an appeal, but it's not an appeal. It's not an appeal for Pillar Society or that market or anything else. But I'm in this context: mesiras nefesh, tzedakah. Okay, you want to... and here's the thing: when you give, when you Zelle that money to God, when you give him your time and you change that behavior, when you make the time and you talk to him from your heart, that's what will break you out of the funk. That's what turns things around. Very counter-intuitively. The further we feel, giving makes us feel closer because you love what you give to. So when you feel down and out and far away, figure out a way to be moseir nefesh to God. Do what feels uncomfortable, what you don't feel like doing, and that's how we'll draw close once again. Tonight we're going Behind the Bima. If you loved last week, Rav Eitiel Katz, you'll love tonight his brother Rav Shlomo Katz. I'm behind the Bimah and Motzai Shabbos, this mental health out of the shadows with Moshe Yachnes. Really, really, really important conversation, the beginning of an important conversation. Until next time. Stay happy, stay healthy, and stay holy.
