Transcript
Good morning *Boker Tov*, welcome back to Living with *Emunah*, our amazing Living with *Emunah* *shiur* and support group. I want to thank our generous sponsors, series sponsors, Dr. Avi and Bella Morgen in memory of Rabbi Dr. Brian Galbut and in memory of Bella’s mother Dr. Ellen Schanzzer, very grateful for their incredible generosity. Also this morning, all of our learning always is for חיה אסתר תהילה בת אריה צביה, she should have a speedy, complete, painless *Refuah Sheleimah* together with all those who are ill. We ask everyone to remain after we continue to say *Tehillim* after the *Emunah* *shiur* in person, so we could really use everybody’s help and cast all of our heartfelt *tefillos* Esther’s way, an incredibly special and beautiful and sweet and amazing girl, a young girl filled with faith and we wish her only *Refuah Sheleimah* and sending her all that love, so please stay for a few moments afterwards. Also if you have not yet joined our WhatsApp group, WhatsApp group that has announcements, *shiur* schedule, the link, how to listen, bonus material and ideas. For example, I posted just this morning a bonus link. We’re studying a new text, we’re starting a new topic and a new author. So you don’t have to ask me who Richard Meyer is, it’s not *Rav Itche Meyer* *B'Yam Darechecha*, *Rav Itche Meyer*, *B'Yam Darechecha* fantastic *sefer*, I’m sure we’ll come back to it. But we’re starting a new *sefer* called *Tuv Ha'Emunah*, *Rav Gamliel Rabinowitz*. *Rav Gamliel* is a *Rosh Yeshiva*, a *mekubal*, a great *Talmid Chacham*, a great incredible individual in ירושלים עיר הקודש today. On our WhatsApp group I put a link to a wonderful article by my buddy Sruly Besser about *Rav Gamliel*. If you want to know more about the author to better appreciate what we’re going to be seeing in the text today, so that’s yet another incentive to join the WhatsApp group if you’ve not yet to get that bonus material information. It’s rabbiefraimgoldberg.org/whatsapp, rabbiefraimgoldberg.org/whatsapp. Before we dive into the new text together, I want to catch up on a few other things. I saw an amazing quote that really closes what we were learning the last several months together. We’re moving on to a new topic, but the last several months we talked about *katnus* and *gadlus* and *panim* and *achore*, *Ratzo V'shov*. We have moments of being close and connected and plugged in and on a spiritual high. We have moments of feeling far and distant and away. And how do you serve *Hashem* and how do you live with *Emunah* not only when everything is amazing? How do you live with *Emunah* when nothing is amazing, when everything feels miserable and everything feels like it’s not working? And we spent a long time, *B'Yam Darechecha* *Rav Itche Meyer*, on that topic. But I want to close that entire topic by telling you a beautiful quote. The quote is from a woman named Christine Caine, I have no idea who she is, no idea who she is, but she said something brilliant. She said, sometimes when you’re in a dark place you think that you have been buried, but actually you’ve been planted. Sometimes when you’re in a dark place you feel that you have been buried, but actually you’ve been planted. And the reason I thought that was such a beautiful quote that really summarizes and closes that last *limud* is that what *Rav Itche Meyer* was telling us in *B'Yam Darechecha* was that in that dark place and from that distance and in that low point, sometimes when you fall, you can bounce higher than you ever were. That we like the bat who lets go, we can take the momentum from the fall to create lift to be able to soar and to be able to fly. So in that dark place you could wallow and pity, self-pity, and you could despair and you could give up, or you could say I’m in this dark place because I’ve been planted. I’m underground and I’m about to blossom. And I’m about to burst forth and I’m about to yield fruit and something special is about to happen. So that is up to us, when we feel that we’re in that dark place, are we willing to concede, do we want to say that we’ve been buried or do we want to see it as we’ve been planted? And the choice is up to us what comes next. Will we use it to despair or will we use it as a springboard to soar and to fly, to make sure that we have not been buried but we have been planted. All of that is number one. Number two, word of introduction. My whole week revolves around the *Emunah* *shiur*. What did I hear, what did I see, what story was I told, what did we experience that is going to become part of the *Emunah* *shiur*. So last *Motzaei Shabbos*, last *Shabbos* was the *Agudah* Convention, last *Motzaei Shabbos*, last Thursday night, I think it was Thursday night, but Sruly Besser does asking for a friend with two great *rabbonim*, *Rav* Lopiansky is always one of them, and he asked the question, the following question. It’s a great question, and it’s a relevant question for our learning. I don’t remember what number we’re up to, 260, whatever number we’re up to of an *Emunah* *shiur*, but this is something that’s always bothered us, we’ve shared before. So many of the *Emunah* stories that we hear, that we share, that we read, that we receive in our inbox, on our WhatsApp, so many of the *Emunah* stories. stories are all about stories that have a positive outcome. A good ending. Right, the classic Emuna story is the person who ran late and missed their flight and they were all miserable but then the plane crashed and they survived and isn't Hashem amazing? And there are so many stories like that. And so many people who hinge their emuna on those stories. I don't like to tell those stories. In our Emuna Shiur, we'll share stories of hashgacha where we felt Hashem's presence, but not in miracles, aderaba, exactly the opposite. Something that could have been simply dismissed as a coincidence, some random or chance, to say that wasn't random, and that wasn't chance at all, but that was by design. That was complete hashgacha. That was what was meant to be. It's not that, oh, there's a miracle. It's that the everyday natural things, to recognize that that's Hashem speaking to us, that's Hashem revealing His hand to us. In fact, there's a famous book about emuna, I won't mention its name, who the opening story about this famous book about emuna that was popular several years ago, that that is the opening story about a person who ran late and missed their flight and was all miserable, where is Hashem? Why would He do that? And then the plane crashed. And I went to go see the author of that book, because that story bothered me. And I asked him, wouldn't it be much more powerful story, not about the person who missed their flight, but what about the person who was waitlisted on that flight, and when the individual got stuck in traffic and didn't make it, made the flight and went down with the plane? And now his family sitting shiva says, but it's what's meant to be, it's from Hashem. It's from Hashem because he was waitlisted and he made it last minute and they gave him a seat and clearly this was his time to go. Isn't that a much more powerful story of emuna? So that was the question asked of Rav Lipiansky, Sruly Besser asked him. These emuna stories that are all couched and are all presented. And Rav Lipiansky said two things that I want to share with you then we'll get into our new text. And you could watch it yourself, this video is available online. Maybe I'll put it as a bonus material in our Emuna WhatsApp group to watch. The whole conversation is worthwhile. So Rav Lipiansky said that this is a very important issue. And even though it makes us feel good and it gives us goosebumps and it makes us feel hopeful, but it's ultimately, it's ultimately doing something negative, because it essentially links our emuna to Hashem with the story having a positive outcome, a good ending. So we only want to believe in God or if the foundation of our belief in God, if the foundation of our emuna in Hashem is, Hashem just like in that story, you made everything okay, well, if I have enough emuna, if I have enough bittachon, if I practice enough dveikus, if I attach myself to You enough, my loved one will get better and heal, that shidduch will work out, the baby will yet come, the parnassa will flow. Everything will turn out okay because I get a story in my inbox every day where something was supposed to go wrong and then Hashem made it go right. So clearly my emuna now... and what happens to the person who davens and davens and davens and davens and davens and davens and casts their lot on Hashem and then it didn't go right? And it didn't have a positive outcome. Tonight's guest on Behind the Bima, several years ago, his wife didn't feel well and that day she was gone and left him with 11 children that he raised by himself. And he just wrote a book called Why God: How to Believe in Heaven When Life Feels Like Hell. Why God, a Chabad Rav, started many many Chabads, and he'll be our guest tonight. How do you believe? Where's God? So if your whole emuna is founded on the strength of your emuna is that everything always works out and everything has happy ending and everything is always the way we want it to go and every outcome is the way we want, then what happens when it doesn't work out that way? What happens? Your emuna is shattered. Your faith is broken. If it's founded on something so weak, a deck of cards, it can implode, it can collapse so easily. So he told the story of Rav Lipiansky. Listen to this story. Watch the video anyway, because this was only one question in a long, long conversation. But he told the following story that he had read I think in the Hebrew Yated. He told the story, he said, you know, in Israel, the elections are a business. They happen so often. They're a growth business. And the law in Israel is at polling sites there are people who watch, who guard the polling site. And they're paid, unlike the people here with their fulfilling their civic duty who show up to man the polling sites, who don't get paid. You get paid? You get paid? Oh, okay. What do I know? Okay, so a new career option for me. So you get paid. You get paid. So in Israel you get paid. So this Kollel fellow, this Kollel yungerman signed up because they pay 2,000 shekel, which is like a month's salary for a Kollel member in Eretz Yisrael. So he could make all that money just by sitting one day at an election poll. He got his assignment of where that polling station would be and it was in a neighborhood that he felt as a ben Torah who's in a growth stage of his life, that's probably not the... place for him to be. That's probably not the environment and the dress and the atmosphere and the people, and he had this big internal debate: Do I go? It's good money, it's the money I make a month in the kollel, what that could do for my family, but you know what, what will it do to my neshama? I don't know if I should go. And he decided in the end, you know what, the money's not worth my neshama. The money's not worth my olam haba, the money's not worth the nisyonos, the test that it will be, so it was within enough time that he could back out, having done nothing wrong, they could find someone else, he backed out. And then he continues in the story. Says a few weeks later he was walking in the street and he found something. Says I didn't find 2,000 shekel, I didn't find 200 shekel, I didn't find 2 shekel, I found myself. So Rav Lopiansky told this story because he said everyone was all geared up, right? You expect the end to be, I backed out, I did the right thing, I showed Hashem I want to be the right person and lo and behold I was walking in the street and I found 2,000 shekel. But that's, that's not a story that will be a a healthier constructive way to build our emuna. He didn't find 2,000 shekel, he didn't find 200 shekel, he didn't find 20 shekel, he didn't find 2 shekel, he found himself. He did the right thing because it was the right thing to do and he became a better person for showing that fortitude and resilience and for making that choice that he made that was not an easy choice to make. He didn't find the money, he found himself. And Rav Lopiansky said that's emuna. The reason we show emuna, the reason that we live with emuna, we talked last week, we don't have emuna, you have a car, you have a phone, you don't have emuna, you practice emuna, you live with emuna and just because you showed emuna yesterday, what does that have to do with... you don't have love for your spouse, you love them, and just you can't say I loved you yesterday. What are you hocking me today? I loved you yesterday. I loved you last week, enough already. No, love is something you need to live with every day, every moment, and it's not something you have, it's something that you practice and it's something who you are. Emuna's not something that you have, and you didn't do it yesterday. Emuna's the way we live, it's part of our very identity, it's the air that we breathe, it's the filter prism through which we experience the world. You wouldn't say, just to extract that metaphor as far as we can take it, you wouldn't say I wore glasses yesterday. I wore my contacts yesterday, what do I need to wear them today? I have glasses. Well that's nice, they're sitting on the counter, they're sitting on your dresser, they're sitting in a drawer. How does having glasses help you? I have glasses. That doesn't help you unless you're wearing them because you won't see clearly unless you're wearing them. And you can't say I wore my glasses yesterday. I wore my glasses last week. Everything will be blurry to you today and you're going to stub your toe and you're going to crash your car and you're not going to experience the joys of life if you don't wear your glasses today. Emuna are the glasses that we wear, it's the way we see the world, it's how we perceive and experience everything that happens. We don't have them, you don't have emuna and then it sits in a drawer, you wear your emuna so you can see the world and see Hashem everywhere. You don't want to live and see the world in black and white, you could experience the world in living color. Hashem is in every blade of grass and the rustle of the tree, he's in every sound of a of a chirp of a bird, Hashem is in that cool breeze on your neck or Hashem is that warmth of the sun in this magnificent now South Florida December weather, finally, Baruch Hashem, bli ayin hara. It's Hashem everywhere. Hashem is when you find that parking spot, Hashem is when everything goes right and as we were studying the last several months, Hashem is even where everything goes wrong. It's in that moments, it's in that hospital room and it's in that diagnosis that you get and it's in that horrific moment that Hashem is in all those places too. It's in that low, it's in that low where we've fallen because of our own mistakes or we've been knocked down because life has dealt us, dealt us such an unfair hand. Hashem is in those moments too. Our emuna should not and cannot be founded on fantastical stories where it all works out. This kollel yungerman says I didn't find 2,000 shekel. I didn't find 2 shekel, I found myself, I found my strength, I found my backbone, I found my spiritual spine, I found my emuna glasses that I now wear and see the world with the pride of having made the right decision. And he says Rav Lopiansky that emuna hashgacha is that Hashem leads me towards my tikkun. Hashem is leading me towards my purpose in this world. Not that everything that happens is good, everything that happens is for the good. Not that everything that happens is pleasurable, but there are painful things that are also good because they lead me towards my tikkun and towards where I'm meant to go. I started to read the book of our guest tonight and he talks about the positive that came out, how horrific and the pain he continues to live with without his wife and raising 11 children on his own but how they grew and their better because of it. He wouldn't welcome it or want it. He didn't ask for it. He would do anything not to have experienced it, but now that it's happened to understand and to see the positive, the good, what's come out of it in a way that he can have resilience from it. So Sruly Lopiansky גם כי אלך בגיא צלמות לא אירא רע. Why? That's emunah and hashgacha. The emunah and hashgacha is Ki Ata Imadi. Gam Ki Elech, David HaMelech doesn't say even when I walk through the light of heaven, my faith won't falter because you're with me. He doesn't say even when I win the lottery and the baby's born and standing under the chuppah and everything goes right, Hashem I will see you because I know you're with me. David HaMelech says even when I'm running because my father-in-law is trying to kill me. Even when I'm running because my son is conspiring to kill me. Even when I know there's a rebellion brewing and they're trying to assassinate me. Even when I know that I'm fighting a battle against a Goliath or I'm being falsely accused of, lo ira ra. I'm not worried. You know why? Ki Ata Imadi. So emunah, emunah's not when everything's going right and everything's well and everything's hunky-dory. Emunah's not when everything is a fantastic story with a happy ending. Emunah is Ki Ata Imadi. Wherever and whenever and whatever is happening, I can wear my glasses and see you and know Ki Ata Imadi. You are right by my side. And what does that mean Ki Ata Imadi? That what I'm going through has meaning and has purpose, has tachlis. And is tachlis. The last introduction I'll say, I hope we get to actually a new text today. Last week Yocheved and I did a panel for the very first time. Did I speak about it last week at Emunah? So we did this panel. I don't have to rehash, you can watch it also. I will post it also. Wow, I'm going to overflood your Emunah WhatsApp group in the next couple days. Yocheved remind me to post all these things. So for the first time in 21 years, only because it was the first time we've been asked, we talked about a stillbirth that we experienced 21 years ago, which Baruch Hashem bli ayin hara a billion times over, we've been blessed in every which way. And but at the time was an incredibly painful experience that we had. And one of the things that I shared on this panel, Yocheved did most of the talking and shared our experience brilliantly and insights and advice from it. But one of the little things that I contributed was a perspective that in the questions we didn't have a chance to get to. It left us, there's so much more to talk about and to share. Maybe we'll find an opportunity to do a part two. But several of the people listening, we the panel can see the questions coming in, so if you were watching you couldn't, but several of the questions were actually about this, were the following. Many people who experience a miscarriage or stillbirth, which is one quarter of all pregnancies, a quarter to a third of pregnancies don't end in life. They unfortunately end in miscarriage or stillbirth, which is a statistic that young people should know. Yocheved made this point. They should not think, "Well, as soon as I want to get married, I call the shadchan and I'll be married within a few weeks. And then when we decide we want to have a baby, nine months later we'll have a little baby bouncing in our arms." We shouldn't scare them and we shouldn't create anxiety over this for them, but we should also prepare them for the way that life works because then they won't be shocked in a way that they can't overcome later. The stronger we are, the more we can withstand, so we should be honest and forthcoming about not only the beauty and the bracha of when everything goes right but some of the challenges of when it goes wrong. So a quarter to a third of pregnancies end in miscarriage or stillbirth. And often people feel, and I remember vividly this was a feeling that Yocheved had, that we had, what's the point? What was the point? Why go through pregnancy, why go through pain and nausea and sleepless nights? Why go through aches and pains? Why have to have gone through delivery and induction? Why have to go through recovery? Why have milk come in and a body continue to tell you that you should have someone to nurse? Why? It's all pointless. It's all meaningless. It's all for nothing. I very recently had somebody who suffered several miscarriages ask, "Why does Hashem keep toying with me? Why does He cause me this pain? Why get pregnant if it's not going to ultimately yield and conclude in a healthy baby? Why? What's the point? What's the point of all the promise? What's the point of the hopes and the dreams if they're just going to crash? What's the point of it? What's the point of it?" And I shared a perspective. Rav Moshe Wolfson has shared it, others. גמרא יבמות ס"ב tells us that Mashiach's not going to come עד שתכלה כל הנשמה שבגוף. The moment of creation Hashem created every soul that was destined to exist. So 5,783 years ago, he created babies that are not yet born. He created every soul that was destined to exist. And he has some celestial file cabinet, some storage system in the sky, and at the moment or 40 days after conception when he deems the time is right, he reaches into his file cabinet, he takes a soul and he puts it into a body that lives a very short finite amount of time in this world, and then he extracts the soul from that body, and hopefully they have been united for 70, 80, 120 years. Tragically and sadly it's way too short, but in the scope of eternity it's all too short. 120 years in the scope of eternity is the blink of an eye is nothing, but it's united for a short time and then he extracts the body from that the soul from that body. But the Gemara says that the ultimate redemption, Moshiach will not come, we will not transition to the next phase of reality until every neshama that he created 5,783 years ago comes down to this world, needs to be realized in this world, and only when the neshama comes down then and only then can Moshiach come, can redemption occur, can the next phase of reality happen. And therefore and therefore there is no such thing as a miscarriage. That's what Rav Wolfson writes. There's no such thing as a miscarriage. Miscarriage suggests that it wasn't meant to be, it was a waste, something went wrong, there was a failure, something didn't happen and there was no purpose, it wasn't fulfilled, the goal was not reached, this was for nothing. But we don't believe in miscarriages. We believe that whoever was chosen was chosen very painfully and unfortunately and would never ask for it or sign up for it, but they were a vehicle and an instrument to bring a soul down that though it never saw the light of day it brought us one step closer to Moshiach and to redemption because each person needs to be that vehicle, that instrument. And in fact in some ways is even a holier and purer instrument and vehicle because a baby that's born becomes a human being that makes choices and that soils that soul because we don't always make all the right choices, so even though אלהי נשמה שנתתה בי טהורה היא, God the soul you gave me was pure, but nevertheless it gets blemished and contaminated and soiled and that's what teshuva we have to undo it and cleanse it, but the soul that came down and never lived in this world and never experienced free will and choice never made a mistake. It was here pure and it was returned pure and the person who carried such a soul was a vehicle and a conduit was a host for something so pure and it wasn't a waste and it wasn't for nothing, but they played a pivotal and critical role in the incremental progress towards the complete redemption and towards Moshiach and what a privilege that is. Not one we'd sign up for or wish or hope for anyone, but if they did they should look back and feel comforted to know that it's not for nothing, it's not for a waste, it's not random or chance, it's not for nothing. So several of the follow-up questions that people asked, yeah well that doesn't feel so good when you're going through it. That's lovely, that's nice, that's philosophical. Save it for living with emuna Goldberg. Nobody wrote that but that's how I read it. Save that for living with emuna Wednesday mornings. But when you're when your body is in pain, when you are recovering from aching arms that should be holding a baby or from a body that's telling you you should be nurturing and feeding another human being, that philosophy that doesn't cut it, that doesn't do it. To which I ask, what's the alternative? What's the alternative? Again I know that and thank God this was the biggest challenge we've gone through in our lives and we're grateful in the big menu of options of what it is, but at the time I remember that that was one comforting thought that we had. Yocheved said it to the doctor in the middle of the night during induction waiting to give birth to this lifeless baby. She said, you know thank God that we believe in Hashem because I don't know how I would get through it, I don't know how others get through it if you don't. You just lie there in pain thinking random, chance, just a victim of nature, just happened, no meaning, no purpose, no reason, no order, no higher explanation, just happens. How do you get through it when you feel you're a statistic or you're data or you're a victim of chance? It's when you surrender to a higher being and when you believe that even if you don't have access to it there is an understanding and a purpose, there is a higher order, there is a tachlis to what you're enduring, that's what gives you the strength to get through it. I shared that they never had an explanation in our case. They never had an explanation, they did a chromosomal analysis and checked the umbilical cord and they checked everything, they never had an explanation. Why, what happened, what went wrong, we'll never know. Some people would be plagued by that, I was comforted by it, because if you knew why something went wrong you would wonder why did it have to go wrong and could we have fixed it, and could we have known it, and could someone have done something about it. And when you never know you have no choice but to conclude this was from Hashem, it wasn't meant to be. This was by design, this was his choice, this was from him, this is the way it was. was supposed to happen. I don't know why, and I don't know why we had to endure that pain, and we wouldn't welcome it on anyone else, but it was what was meant to be. Why am I telling you all this and rehashing it? Because Rav Lopiansky said, גם כי אלך בגיא צלמות לא אירא רע כי אתה עמדי. Emuna is ki ata imadi. Ki ata imadi, that's Emuna. When we first started hundreds of Emuna shiurim ago, we went through a big phase of ein od milvado. The ein od milvado phase. We should make some swag with ein od milvado. But ein od milvado, we went through our ein od milvado phase. Ein od, there is no one and nothing but him. Ein od milvado, the tradition that the Nefesh HaChaim has, that if you're in a horrible moment, you have to say ein od milvado, there is no one, there is nothing but him, ein od milvado, there is nothing but him. So now our next motto, our next bumper sticker is ki ata imadi. You're with me. Ki ata imadi. You're by my side. What does ki ata imadi mean? This Rav Lopiansky said. Rav Lopiansky's teaching the Emuna shiur today. This is what he said. Ki ata imadi means that what I am enduring is not random and it's not chance, there is a tachlis, there's meaning, there's purpose, it is leading me towards a tikkun in my life. And that gives it meaning and gives it purpose. You know the saddest thing in the world, the hardest thing in the world is when you think something has no meaning and no purpose. When you think that you are overcoming or confronting something for no reason. That is the hardest thing. Oh, when you know there's a tachlis, then you can take it on. Too many in our community are having to give their kids poison to make their kids better. They're having to give their children poison to make their children better, to help them heal, please God of a full and a speedy recovery. I was just talking to one. To give your child poison, to make them sick, to see them lying there in pain, is so hard for a parent. But what enables the parent to do it? There's a purpose. The pain has a tachlis. The tachlis is to make you better. Tachlis is to get you closer to a goal. Tachlis is to get to a destination. So if you were in pain for no reason at all and no explanation and no nothing to come out of it, you could never survive such a thing. But to undergo a treatment because you know that its purpose is ultimately to heal, to repair, to get you to a better place, so then you can find what it takes to undergo that treatment because it's a treatment. Ki ata imadi means whatever we're going through in life is the treatment that we're meant to take. Hashem is our father in heaven and sometimes he gives us chemo, and sometimes we have to take poison, and it feels like poison and it's the experience of poison and it's the pain of poison, but he's giving us a treatment because it's what he needs to give us to bring a repair, to bring a tikkun, to get us to the next place, to get us where we want to go. Not because the story is going to necessarily have the outcome we want, though we hope and we pray and we'll do everything in our power, but even if it won't, our Emuna is not because it has to have that outcome. Sometimes the answer is no, sometimes the repair, the tikkun that we had to undergo, our guest tonight on Behind the Bima, is that it doesn't have a positive outcome. But for the eleven children, for the husband, they turned it into a tikkun. They saw that painful experience as a form of treatment they were getting from Hashem. It's a tachlis. We can overcome almost anything when we believe it has a tachlis. When we believe it has meaning and purpose, when we believe it has a reason. When we believe ki ata imadi, then גם כי אלך בגיא צלמות we can walk through hell. גם כי אלך בגיא צלמות. We can walk through tzalmavet when, when you're imadi. But if you're not imadi, that's going to make it better? It's not a miscarriage. You were helping the world get one step closer to Mashiach. Why? Why were you chosen? Why did you have to be the one to do it? I don't know. But it wasn't for no reason. There was a tachlis. There is a treatment for the world. This was what was necessary to get one step closer. So ki ata imadi, I just I saw that last week, Rav Lopiansky, I watched that and I thought I had to share it with you because it's really so fundamental to everything that we study and learn and everything that we're working on collectively together. Our Emuna cannot be founded on only positive stories and happy stories and goosebump stories and stories that have the ending, the fairy tale ending that we want. He didn't find 2,000 shekel, he didn't find 220 or 2 shekel. He found himself. And Emuna is the way we find ourselves, our true selves. Who are we and why are we here and what relationship are we meant to and are we capable of having and how can we feel he's by our side? How can we live... כי אתה עמדי אין עוד מלבדו? How can we put on our emuna glasses, so we don't just have emuna? It's not sitting in a drawer or on a dresser, it's not something that we practice last week or last month. It is the glasses, the contact lenses that we have. I'll go a step further. Can emuna become the LASIK surgery? So that we permanently transform our vision to see Him everywhere. Glasses you put on, you take off. We had children who went last night to see something, one of them texted us, "I forgot my glasses." We spent all this money for you to go enjoy that thing, you forgot your glasses? What do you mean you forgot your glasses? Baruch Hashem they saw, they enjoyed. Forgot their glasses? What do you mean you forgot your glasses? If they're glasses, you could forget them. I forgot to live with emuna. I got all frustrated, I got angry, I got anxious, I got envious, I got egotistical. I forgot to wear my emuna glasses. I forgot to see Hashem and I reacted. Those are glasses. Contacts, once you put them in, you can't forget them, you're wearing them. LASIK, you reconstruct the eye, so that now it only sees clearly. Can we get to a point of LASIK on our emuna eyes? That we only live in a world where we see Hashem everywhere. Where we see Hashem all around us. That's our goal, Ki Atah Imadi. When it's Ki Atah Imadi, then גם כי אלך בגיא צלמות. We're all going to walk through Gei Tzalmavet at some point in life. I'm going from here to a funeral for someone I only met once. A tragic circumstance. A family called me, it's not an observant family, not connected to BRS, but this man, a little while ago, was moved for whatever reason in his life to try to explore his Judaism more seriously, and found me online and started listening to our shiurim and printing out our Parsha Perspective write-up and sharing it Shabbos at his table. And his family said he wanted to get to BRS and he wanted to meet me. June he was diagnosed, a neuroradiologist, a young man in his 50s. June he was diagnosed with an illness, last week he had a coma and he went into a hospice and the family said, "He wanted to meet you, he'd love to meet you before he dies, could you come see him?" I went to see him, and he wasn't conscious, but with his family I had a heartfelt exchange because even though we never physically met, but if we learn Torah together, our souls have been spending a lot of time together. When you learn Torah with someone, even from a distance, your souls are connected, and I felt connected. And I only met him once, and he's not part of BRS, but for his children and wife, I'm going to go to the funeral straight from here. They're walking through Gei Tzalmavet right now. I think he's 56 or 57 years old. In June, as a neuroradiologist, he got the film of his own scan and diagnosed his own illness and knew how little he had to live. They're going through Gei Tzalmavet. They're going through their own Gei Tzalmavet. So you tell me, say Rabbi it's nice philosophy, that doesn't make me feel better. What's the alternative? Does it make you feel better to feel there's no God, it's random and chance, there's no reason, a certain quota of people are going to get that horrific dreaded disease every year and leave this world only six months later, and you're the lottery winner? You spun the wheel and you won the lucky lottery, your father, your husband? That's better? That's easier? That's more comforting? It's also not even true. The truth is there is a God and there is a world and there is meaning and there is purpose and there is tachlis, and when we lean into Ki Atah Imadi, then גם כי אלך בגיא צלמות. Then we could walk through the shadow of death. Then we can walk through the valley of hell. When? When do we find the strength, the fortitude? Only Ki Atah Imadi, Ki Atah Imadi. It's not me, it's Rav Lopian, it's not him, it's David Hamelech. So you're going through something tough, print it. When the doctor gives you the prescription, underneath it write Ki Atah Imadi before you give it to the pharmacy. When you get the card for when your next appointment, Ki Atah Imadi. On the medicine bottle, when you take the medicine, כי אתה עמדי אין עוד מלבדו. On the mirror, on your steering wheel, on your dashboard, on your home screen, Ki Atah Imadi. Wherever you're going through, whatever you're going through, Gei Tzalmavet, Ki Atah Imadi, Ki Atah Imadi. With Ki Atah Imadi we can go through anything. And without Ki Atah Imadi, God not with us, if we're all alone and we're facing a world that has no meaning and no purpose and no order and no right and no reason, then I don't know how you can get out of bed in the morning and I don't know how we can go through anything. Okay, let's start. Let's start. Let's just go through at least the first two lines. So this is the Sefer Tiv HaEmuna, series, Rav Gamliel Rabinovich. Tiv HaTorah, Tiv Tehillos, Tiv Tefilah, Tiv Kehillos, Tiv HaTeshuvah, Tiv Halacha, Tiv Shidduchim, Tiv HaEmuna, Tiv Chesed, Tiv Chinuch, Tiv Aggada, Tiv Nechama, Tiv Yeshuos, Tiv HaMoadim. Tiv, the good, the best, the right, the righteous, to draw out. These are all the sichos of Rav Gamliel. He's a Yerushalmi, and again I shared you could Take a look at the link I posted this morning, a great article by Sruly Besser, also getting a lot of play this morning in Mishpacha about Rav Gamliel. You'll appreciate his words in the text we're going to spend the next month learning when you know a little more about who he is. We're starting into the sefer. We're not starting from the beginning. Page Samech Vav, page 67. צריך אמונה שהמלך עומד כנגדו. We're not starting from the beginning. Feel free to keep the copy if you want to take notes. If you're not taking notes, return it so we can keep bringing it back each week. שויתי ה' לנגדי תמיד. The pasuk in Tehillim Dovid HaMelech says: שויתי ה' לנגדי תמיד. Hashem you place you opposite me always. הוא כלל גדול בתורה ומעלות הצדיקים אשר הלכו לפני האלקים. Who sings that? Sruly Williger. הוא כלל גדול בתורה, a main and primary principle, a foundation of Torah is u'maalos hatzadikim and one of the ways the righteous live that they walk before Hashem is שויתי ה' לנגדי תמיד. Hashem you're opposite me always. I don't need it on my home screen and my dashboard and my refrigerator and I don't need it in my on my mirror because I live it. I'm wearing those emunah glasses so you're always I see you opposite me always. כי אין ישיבת האדם ותנועתו ועסקו והוא לבדו בביתו כישיבתו ותנועתו ועסקו והוא לפני מלך גדול ולא דיבורו והרחבת פיו כרצונו והוא עם אנשי ביתו וקרוביו כדיבורו במושב המלך. If you have an escort with the king, if the king is visiting you in your home, if the king is by your side, if you have a shadow, if you have a shadow, we only use that as a new term, kids need a shadow. When I was young, I don't know if anyone had a shadow. But today, everybody's been through it today, shadow. Kid needs a shadow, he needs a shadow, you have to hire a shadow, they need a shadow. Why do they need a shadow? Because they need someone they'll only be on their best behavior when someone's shadowing. They need a shadow. So we all need a shadow and we all have a shadow and his name is Hashem. ה' צלך על יד ימינך, he's your shadow literally. Dovid HaMelech calls Hashem tzilcha, he's your shadow. And what's the idea of his being our shadow? Are you going to watch that if he's sitting next to you on the couch? Or are you going to say that if he's sitting next to you at the table? Are you going to do that if he's watching over your shoulder what you're doing? He is our shadow. He's our shadow, the king. Now he is our shadow, the he is not someone we can manhandle. The he is the king, the King of Kings, the Creator of the universe. כל שכן כששים אדם אל לבו שהמלך הגדול הקדוש ברוך הוא אשר מלא כל הארץ כבודו עומד עליו ורואה במעשיו. We know that our mental health podcast called Out of the Shadows, next one's coming out very soon about trauma, the impact of trauma. So why is it called Out of the Shadows? Because so much of mental health challenges happen where? In the shadows. People feel alone and isolated and by themselves. People go into their own head and the conversations they tell themselves. People live with shame and stigma and in the shadows. And that's where these challenges happen and are, and that's where they lead to acting out and behaviors which are destructive and sabotaging and negative because they're in the shadows. They're in the shadows. They're by ourselves. But a life of emunah is to never feel isolated and never feel alone and never feel in the shadow and never feel stigma. It's to feel Hashem is by my side. If he's by my side, I'm never alone. If he's by my side, I'm never by myself. If he's by my side, he can take me through whatever it is I'm facing, whatever it is I have to overcome. But it also means he's watching everything that I'm doing. He's watching everything that I'm doing. כמו שנאמר אם יסתר איש במסתרים ואני לא אראנו נאם ה'. מיד יגיע אליו היראה וההכנעה בפחד ה' יתברך ובושתו ממנו תמיד. It works both ways. When you live with שויתי ה' לנגדי תמיד, when you wear the emunah glasses and you see and interpret and filter everything in the world and your world that Hashem is there, it both gives confidence and faith and comfort and builds us up to know we're not alone, but it also creates an enormous amount of responsibility and accountability and supervision. And that's what we're trying to achieve. That's what we're leading towards. So at least we've started the text today. Rav Gamliel saying that our mission, our goal, the definition of living with emunah is to feel Hashem is our shadow. He's by our side. Wherever we go, whatever we're doing, he's by our side. He's with us. It's always easier. It's always with us. Yocheved just came back, she was at the Rebbetzin conference, maybe she'll share it some point her experience at the Rebbetzin conference. We always tell each other, whenever we have to travel by ourselves, we always text each other because Baruch Hashem, blessed to have a wonderful marriage, we say, "Oh, I wish you were with me, it's always easier to travel when we're together. It's always better when we're together." Right, some people are like a little alone time, a little alone time, maybe they say that but a little alone time, a little by myself, a little space, a little margin, I don't know if she means it, at least I mean it when I say it. I hope she does. That, you know, it's always better. You're sitting by the gate, you're delayed, you're on the plane, you're waiting. It's always better when you're, it's always nicer. It's always nicer. Hakadosh Baruch Hu sort of says of Rabban Gamliel, we're trying to get to the place of emunah that you're never traveling by yourself. You're never like: which gate do we have to go to? Scrambling to get through security? It's delayed, what's gonna be? What seat assignment did I get? You're always like, no Hashem, we're good. We're going together. Hashem, nu, let's go. They changed the gate. Hashem, let's go. They said it's time to board. Hashem, let's go. We gotta get to the overhead space. We gotta make sure there's enough room for our bag. The level we're trying to get to, the life we're trying to live, is to get to a place as Rabban Gamliel, trying to get to that place of emunah is Hashem's our shadow. He's always with us. He's our escort, he's our shadow, he's our person helping us. It's unbelievable, he's taking us with us throughout wherever we go. And because he's with us wherever we go, we're able to get through whatever we need to. I have to get to this funeral unfortunately, please say Tehillim. חיה אסתר טילה בת שרה צפורה. Please davka say today for a little extra Tehillim. שיהיו רק בשורות טובות, only good things to happen. Stay happy, stay healthy, stay holy.
