Transcript
Good morning, good morning, boker tov, welcome back to Living with Emuna. Special welcome to my niece Daniella Berger who's with us this morning from New York. It's great to have you. Welcome back to Andrea Zucker, we continue to wish her comfort on her recent loss. I want to thank our generous sponsors for the Emuna shiur, Dr. Zvi and Bella Morgan in memory of Rabbi Dr. Brian Galbut, in memory of Bella's mother, Dr. Ellen Shanzer. We remain so grateful to the Morgans for their generosity throughout the year. This morning's shiur is also sponsored, almost a weekly sponsorship by Carol Wald. Where's Carol? Thank you, in memory of her beloved brother Reuven ben Binyamin, Robert Presner, and by Yossi Sidler and Deborah and Larry Sidler in memory of Suzy Sidler. Our beloved Suzy Sidler was a member of our community we lost so suddenly and tragically, was a woman of great Emuna. We remember Suzy this morning. And by Deborah Jacobson in honor of her beloved mother Barbara Frankel's birthday and flew here to be together in person. It is so great to have you. A very happy birthday Barbara, many, many more in good health and happiness and nachas from your beautiful family and so good to see you. I know you listen together and watch together when you're apart and it's great to see you together in person, please God in good health for many, many years to come. Okay, so before we dive back into the sefer we've been studying, Tiv HaEmuna, Rav Gamliel Rabinovich on Emuna, I got a great Emuna email. You know I love when people share their Emuna stories, their stories of Emuna and how it helps them. So I'll share with you this Emuna story and then we'll dive back into the sources itself. So this person who will remain anonymous writes: Rabbi Goldberg, I hope all is well. I'm a weekly listener to the Emuna shiur. I was flying back today from such a place to such a place and I got to the airport with plenty of time to spare. Went through security and quickly glanced my mobile boarding pass to see the gate and saw it said D32. I didn't think twice because the screen above the gate said flight to the destination where I was going. An Israeli lady approached me and said, you know this Jewish person, she asked if I could help her as she was traveling from Israel and didn't have a working phone. She made multiple calls on my phone and asked me to help her with her Wi-Fi. I got completely distracted until I looked at my Apple Watch and it said boarding closed. I was so confused because the gate I was at had not started boarding yet. I then realized that even though I was at a gate to that destination, I had looked at the gate we were landing at and not at the gate departing from. I ran to the correct gate and they told me it was too late and they would put me on a standby for the next flight. At first I was so worried, but then I took a step back and I said I helped another Jew and Hashem will take care of me. Everything will work out and I wasn't meant to be on the earlier flight. I waited on standby, they told me the flight was completely booked and even overbooked by one. I waited there patiently saying Tehillim and the guy said I'll put you on. Even cooler, the seat I was put in was 32D. The same gate where I helped a fellow Jew was the same seat that I got, D32 and it was seat 32D. If not for the Emuna shiur, I'm sure I would have stayed freaking out. Thank you, signed somebody who didn't freak out. So Baruch Hashem, that's other benefits of living with Emuna. It's not the Emuna shiur, it's any Emuna that you practice, that you learn, that you preach, that you teach, that you read, that you subscribe to, but simply the living with Emuna is what enables us in those difficult situations and that is not a difficult situation. In the moment it feels like a difficult situation. We spoke yesterday in the Parsha shiur, Hakadosh Baruch Hu says אשא אתכם על כנפי נשרים, I'll bring you up on the wings of eagles. He wants to give us a look from 50,000 feet down. He says all the things that seem so big when you're down there, if you were to see from up here, you'd see how small they really are. So where we are, they all feel so big, but in scope and context, proportion, they really very small. But when you're going through it, it feels big. And when you go through it no matter what it is with Emuna, we can find the strength to endure, the resilience to be able to overcome, and to get through and navigate the difficult situations and circumstances of life. We get together on Wednesday mornings not just to talk about Emuna, but to work out our Emuna muscles, to get our Emuna LASIK surgery, so that we can see the world through the perspective of Emuna. And when those moments come, we spoke about this last week, we can't wait. You can't wait till the crisis or catastrophe or simply the challenging moment arrives to then try to find Hashem and try to find serenity and tranquility and calm. If we wait till those moments, it's too late. Person has to be living with Emuna so that we are strong and healthy and we have a foundation of Emuna upon which we can lean and turn to and grow in those, in those moments. Okay, so let's continue. We're on page ayin gimmel, page 73, Tiv HaEmuna, a great tzaddik today in Yerushalayim, Rav Gamliel Rabinovich, and he writes the following: במה שאדם שקוע זה נותן לו חיות ואם חלילה אדם שקוע בתאוות הרי כל חיותו הוא מקבל ממילוי תאוותו כמו שנראה. Wherever is our passion, that is our life source. What gets you excited? What wakes you up in the morning? What gets you going? I recently got together with a group of community members who are dear friends I hadn't connected with in a long time. And we definitely shot the breeze and made small talk and caught up with one another and then I asked a question which we don't often ask one another. But I think is really a great conversation piece of true genuine friendship. Not acquaintances, it's not comfortable to do this with, but real comfort. And we went around and I said, everybody share what energizes you? What excites you? Where's your passion? What makes you wake up, what makes you jump out of bed in the morning? What energizes you and what depletes you of energy? What are the things that you say, oh, I hate having to do that. I don't want to do that. That's miserable. That drains me. That takes all the energy from me? That you don't have to share, especially if it's someone you're related to. But that you don't have to share. But but what are the things that energize you? What are the activities and experiences and people and practices? What inspires you and what energizes you? I don't know that we ask ourselves that question often enough. I don't know if we ask that question often enough. Chazal wanted us to ask ourselves that question. They talked about the Mishna in Pirkei Avot talks about a tree. Does it have deeper roots, does it have more branches? It'll topple over if the roots are not deep and they're not strong. And what are roots? Roots what draw the nourishment. Roots are what draw the irrigation, they draw the water that will make that tree survive. And the Mishna Chazal tell us that you have to have deep roots. The tree will topple over. We need to do more of what energizes us than that which depletes us and drains us of our energy. Not just physically, although that too, but spiritually. What spiritually energizes us? You know, we talked about and halevai we could institute that we go for a physical, we're supposed to go for a physical every year, a well checkup. There's a comedian performed at a local school dinner the other night and talked about the doctors during corona who only did well checkups. If you were sick you couldn't come. Only well checkups. He had a whole routine about the well checkup. So, but we encourage a well checkup. It's called a physical. You go for a physical once a year and it's a well checkup. What's wrong? Nothing. What's the matter? Nothing. What are the symptoms? I don't have any. Why are you here? I feel well, but once a year should double check, take inventory, take labs. Let's see where I'm holding. A physical once a year. Imagine if we went for a spiritual once a year. A spiritual. When was the last time you had coffee with a friend or caught up on the phone and they said, how's your neshama doing? How's your neshama? What we talk about is and the plumber came and then I just got a new couch in my house and let me tell you what's going on with my children and the new restaurant that opened up and the shul is incredible, the activities, the programs, it's unbelievable. My shul is the best shul on the planet. We catch up on all of that. But when's the last time we're willing to make ourselves vulnerable with ourselves or to others to say, how's your neshama? How's your, what are you doing for your neshama? How's your neshama? When's the last time you nourished your neshama? When's the last time you took care of, protected your neshama? How is your neshama doing? What are we doing for our neshama? Which is really another form of the question, what drains your neshama and what energizes your neshama? So Rav Gamliel says, במה שאדם שקוע זה נותן לו חיות. Whatever we are immersed in, marinated in, passionate about, excited about, that's what gives us chayut. It gives us life, gives us life. Somebody texted me at midnight last night, did you hear LeBron broke the scoring record? I could care less, but there's a world of people that LeBron, I'm a Jordan loyalist, I'm not a LeBron fan, I don't like LeBron, doesn't impress me, doesn't excite me, I'm not a fan of his. But there are people who like basketball and scoring records and that's they live for it. It was an exciting moment. They kept the family around, let's gather, let's watch, let's see this big seminal moment. He's going to break through. He says, gives the example: ממילוי תאוותו כמו שרואים בני אדם השקועים בתאוות אכילה. There are some people who are living for their next meal. שבשעת אכילתם הם שקועים כל כך עד שכאילו הם אינם בעולם הזה כלל. There are some people so committed, so devoted, their life is so, food is so central to their life that their whole life revolves around what's the menu for the next meal? What are we eating, where are we going, what are we having next? And while they're eating, you can't talk about anything else. How does it taste? What is that spice? Are you enjoying? Is this good? How would you rate it? What is it? והם הממש באותה שעה כבריה אחרת עם נשמה אחרת. So the same person who you could engage intellectually, spiritually, emotionally, but in the moment of their indulging physically, they're a beriah chadasha, you don't, they're unrecognizable. You're like, how's your neshama, how's my neshama? Have you tasted this crepe? Tell me what energizes you? What energizes me, have you had any of this dessert? And you're like, I don't even know who, what, who am I sitting next to? I don't recognize you, what are you right now? Hi, where did the neshamah I love go? You're just a guf, you're just a body. Where is the soul that I love? Where'd it go? הדמיונם כמעט כבעלי חיים רחמנא ליצלן שאין בהם דעת כלל. You might as well be sitting opposite the cow or the or the dog or the cat or the hamster that's just indulging in a physical act of eating and loves it and is overeating and is enjoying and and the whole soul of the person has been suspended while they are experiencing the eating. שכל רמח איברים ושסה גידים שקועים באכילה ממש נורא ואיום. All of their limbs and all of their organs and all of their intellect and all of their emotion and all of their soul is directed only to that moment of eating. Not mindfully eating, that's a Jewish concept we've spoken a lot about, gave a whole shiur it's online if you want to find it, on the Jewish attitude towards eating. Mindful eating is a Jewish not only perspective, it's a Jewish mandate, it's a Jewish mission, it's a totally Jewish, we've in one of the many books that I've written, all of them so far only in my head, but I have a whole book on this subject, a whole chapter, it's a lot of footnotes to it, it's all written and documented, it's excellent, it's just right now only in my head. But we've totally, the whole laws of kashrus are that while the rest of the world mindlessly can eat anything at any time anywhere, we should be mindful of what we're about to put into our mouth. The whole halachah that you have to make a bracha before and a bracha after, all of it is a platform and an exercise in mindfulness. We unfortunately have become creatures of habit and rote and we mumble the bracha and we eat the bracha faster than we're about to eat the food and we're not discriminant or or judicious about what food we eat, when we eat, how much we eat, in what portion size we eat, and the opposite, we've become so synonymous, some segments of our community, with unhealthy eating and unhealthy portions of eating and overemphasis on eating, which is never the way it was meant to be. It was never the way it was meant to be. Enjoy good food, simchas yom tov and oneg shabbos, אין שמחה אלא בבשר ויין, there definitely is a major food component to our religion and we should enjoy it, but we should enjoy it with boundaries and parameters and a perspective and in a way that elevates or we elevate it, not not the opposite. And that's a whole, we should work harder in our families and in our community and in our attitude and in our approach to that, and this is not some like we should have vegan kiddushes and kale shaloshudes and I'm not coming to any of those, so that's that's not what I'm advocating. You could have kugel and cholent and good things, but you could have it in a good proportion and a good ratio and and good version of it and so on and so forth and a mindful experience of the bracha and of what we're doing to the food and this is the Jewish perspective to eating. תערוך לפני שולחן נגד צוררי, Dovid HaMelech said, and we sing it at shaloshudes in Mizmor L'Dovid Psalm 23. תערוך לפני שולחן נגד צוררי, you set a table before me in full view of my adversaries. Who are the adversaries? Our enemies? Like that's exactly where Hamas put the spy cameras, they're watching my Shabbos table? That's where that's where Hezbollah is is espionage neged tzorerai opposite my adversaries, they're watching my table? So the Ba'alei Mussar, the Ba'alei Machshava, the Tzaddikim all write, what it means is תערוך לפני שולחן נגד צוררי, you know what the enemy is? My table, what's on it, it's the food. The enemy is within me. Every time we sit down to eat, we are engaging in a war. That's why what's the word for for bread? Lechem, Lechem. And what's the root of the word for war? Milchama, Lechem, it's not a coincidence, the same word. Lechem is the staple of all food, staple of all meals. Today everybody is glucose-free and celiac and conscientious of carbs and all that stuff, but once upon a time when you didn't have a supermarket with thousands of products, what you had was bread. Bread was the staple of every meal. Every time you sat down to eat that bread, you were engaging every time you ate lechem, you were about to engage in a milchama. Neged tzorerai, תערוך לפני שולחן נגד צוררי. So we wage a war with eating, but that's exactly where, you know why we have the the tzaddikim say, I'm going to get back to our text in one second, but the tzaddikim say, why do we have hagalas keilim? You buy a utensil, it was manufactured not by a Jew, it was sold not by a Jew, before you use it, you got to go to the keilim mikvah. And no, you can't use it once before you go to the keilim mikvah, that's a misnomer, before you use it, you have to go to the keilim mikvah. You have to go to the keilim mikvah. Glass and metal, not China, what has to go, what doesn't have to go, for another time. Why? It's bizarre. Yesterday baruch Hashem four new Jews in our mikvah, we converted four new people, four beautiful new souls. The mikvah's a place that non-Jews can become Jews. The mikvah's a place that a man who experienced an act that he wants to cleanse himself and purify... himself and elevate himself from, goes to the *mikvah*. A woman whose body did not realize the possibility of conception of a new life and instead there was the loss of that possibility goes to the *mikvah*. These are holy beautiful descriptions of why we have *mikvah*. And what else? So a person that wants to convert, and a man who wants to elevate himself to learn and *daven*, and a woman who wants to be reborn with possibility again after experiencing the unfulfilled possibility of conception. And my pots. Yeah, right. And my pans. And my forks and my knives. Right? This is the sobering part of getting married. *Chatan* and *Kallah* are on cloud nine and they're counting all the checks and gifts and then they realize what pile has to go to the *keilim mikvah*. And that is the sobering part of marriage. That's why in *Sheva Brachot* you can't go to work because you spend the whole *Sheva Brachot* at the *keilim mikvah*. So but what? My pots and pans and forks and knives? Where's the holiness in that? So beautiful, beautiful insights of righteous people who say that what we're doing is we're converting our eating utensils into Jewish eating utensils. Because we're trying to convert them to have the mindfulness that my pots and pans and my forks and knives, I'm not going to encounter engage food the same way as the rest of the world. The rest of the world does it just indulgent. We're living through this pandemic in America, it's the unspoken one, about the obesity crisis and the health crisis that has come. It's actually a subtext of the last pandemic which disproportionately affected people who were not healthy and because the viral load of COVID attacks specifically fat cells and so people who struggled more were the ones who were not healthy, we're not allowed to talk about those things today, and we're not going to talk about them here. We're not allowed to talk about those things. But we're supposed to be living a different mindfulness, a different level life, a different consciousness. The Jewish approach and attitude is that my pots and pans, my forks and knives, I'm about to cook really delicious food and delicious recipes, recipes of my ancestors, recipes that have an emotional connection to me, recipes that will enhance my *Shabbat* and my *Yom Tov*. I'm going to cook those, but I'm going to do everything I do around eating mindfully. Not blindly, I'm not going to indulge, I'm not going to follow an animal appetite or an animal impulse or an animal instinct. I'm going to be mindful. Mindful to the point that by the way we believe, the *Mei Pinchas*, *Reb Pinchas*, *Reb Pinchas* of *Koretz* and others, talks about we metaphysically add ingredients into the food that we cook based on what we're thinking and talking about while we make it. The dough of *Sarah Imeinu* that *Rivka* was able to recreate in the tent, *Yitzchak* knew *Rivka* was the one because when she came back to the tent, the tent that *Sarah's* candle was lit from *Shabbat* to *Shabbat* and the dough was perfect and so on. What does it mean the dough was perfect? So the *Mei Pinchas*, *Reb Pinchas* of *Koretz* says, what it means is what you're speaking about or listening to, what you're thinking while you're making the dough, the *challah*, is actually one of the ingredients that goes into it. And the people that you love that are going to eat that *challah*, they're going to eat and they're going to swallow and they're going to imbibe and they're going to digest whatever you were thinking or talking about. So if you're on the phone sharing *lashon hara* while you're making your holy *challah*, so that *challah* is now an instrument of poison. If you're listening to something you shouldn't be listening, watching something you shouldn't be watching, feeling and thinking envy or arrogant or angry thoughts while you're making the *challah*, then the *challah* is now the medium of those qualities to whoever's going to eat it. The chicken soup. I always say *Yocheved* makes incredible chicken soup. She knows my line. I always say it's not chicken soup, it's medicine. Delicious. It can heal whatever's going on physically or spiritually in your life. Chicken soup is delicious. But that's because she has holy thoughts while she makes it. If you make the chicken soup and you're adding all the ingredients and as you do you're watching, listening, talking, thinking things you shouldn't, it's all going into that chicken soup. That's what we believe. We have a very different attitude and approach to food than everyone else. And when you take the *keilim* to the *keilim mikvah*, that's the thought. Not the label and this glue and that antisemite who put this label on this pot with this glue and a sticker and I can't get it off. That's not the thought. The thought is *Hashem*, I'm putting this in the *mikvah* and I'm converting this pot, I'm converting this fork, I'm converting this knife, I'm converting it to a Jewish approach, a Jewish mindful approach, a Jewish healthy approach, a Jewish attitude to it. So how do we get into all this? Because *Rav Gamliel* says that there are people who when they're eating, they're another *beriah*, they're altogether a different creature. They're an animal more than they are a human being, they've suspended all their intellect, all their emotion, all their spirituality, and all they're doing in that moment is indulgent like an animal. וכן אפשר לראות בחוש בני אדם השקועים בתאוות ממון and there are other people that when they're making a deal, when they're negotiating a deal, you don't know who they are anymore. There's The person you know who's kind and compassionate and sweet and self-aware, and then there's the person who's hunting that deal, who's negotiating that deal, and they're ruthless and they're a killer, and they no longer have emotion or feeling or empathy, they no longer have perspective on what matters and what's important, and you say, "Who, who is that person?" They're like a hunter with a weapon and they're only happy if they've made a kill and they view life as a win-lose, not a win-win. שבשעה שיש להם איזה רווח גדול ועסק יפה הם יכולים לעבוד שעות רצופות הרבה ואינם מתעייפים ועובדים כמעט למעלה מכוחות הגוף. There are people in the pursuit of money and material things don't need sleep. They could work 23 out of 24 hours and not tire. The adrenaline rush they get from making a kill, from making a quick buck, from landing a deal, from turning a profit, you've never seen such happiness, such joy. You don't even know who they are, they're unrecognizable at the moment. כמו שאפשר לראות בחוש באלו שעובדים משנה לשנה בערב הפסח באפיית המצות וערב סוכות בארבע מינים שהזמן קצר והמלאכה מרובה והרווח גדול הם יכולים לעבוד 18 19 שעות ביממה וזה היותם שקועים בעבודתם מחיה ומאמץ את הגידים על כן הם מקבלים חיות מעבודתם מתאוות הממון. Right, the corollary or the the more appropriate manifestation or expression of this is you see the people who run the matzah bakery before Pesach, which by the way the matzah's almost all done already for this Pesach. It was done by Chanukah, the matzah for this... I just saw the Shatzer matzah factory closed down, shut down. No Shatzer matzah this year. Shut down. So I say, retired. I don't know if it's true or not, a rumor, Shatzer Shatzer matzah. Anyway, so the people who run that matzah factory, it's round the clock. They don't tire. They're so driven to provide the matzah, to make the matzah, manufacture the matzah, and to make a living off that matzah that they're just driven and they get a chayus. I don't know what a good translation of the word chayus is. Chayus, chayus is you get life. It is your source of life. It's your life source. It's not a good translation for the word chayus. Chayus is your life source. What gives you chayus? What gives you drive, what gives you energy, what gives you excitement, what gives you passion, what gives you enthusiasm? It's your chayus. אני לא מדבר חלילה על אלו שעובדים באפיית המצות וארבע מינים לשם שמים. He says, but there are other people who say, you know, "I'm going to corner the market on daled minim, lulav and esrog. I'm going to corner that market, I'm going to push everyone else out, I'm going to market better than everyone, I'm going to sell the most daled minim." He's not lo leshem shamayim, but the people who want the profit. They'll work all hours the day and night. They're unrecognizable. All they care about is that dollar. All they care about is that profit. All they care about is that bottom line. You don't even know who they are anymore. u-le-umas zeh. Says Rav Gamliel, why is he mentioning all this? Because u-le-umas zeh, when a person is כשאדם יזדהה עם אותה בחינה שהמסילת ישרים מדבר שיתברר ויתאמת אצל האדם מה חובתו בעולמו. If a person were to really stop and think and contemplate and remained very conscious and conscientious and aware, why am I here? What am I meant to do? What is my legacy I want to leave? Is it going to say on your tombstone, "He landed the most deals, he turned the greatest profits, he ruthlessly beat out every competitor"? Is it going to say on the tombstone, "Had the best recipes, ate the most, was the most engaged when we were eating in the food, didn't care about anything else"? Is that what we want them to say at our levaya? Is that the dash, you know the famous poem, the dash between the years? If you don't Google it, read it, have some tissues nearby. All that matters is the dash between the years. Is our dash is it about the recipes or how much we ate, how many restaurants we toured, where we went, our knowledge of food and flavors and umami? Is that is that what it should say on our tombstone? That's not the answer to mah chovato be-olamo. What was missing in the world before you were created? And what is waiting for you and you and only you to do? And what would be incomplete in Hashem's world if you didn't do it? The answer's never going to be about another deal or making more money or eating more food. Again, there's nothing wrong with making money and there's nothing wrong with enjoying good food. This is not we are not a religion that believes in asceticism or vows of celibacy or abstinence. We don't think holiness is found in elevating above these things. Enjoy them. It's a beautiful world Hashem created, He wants us to enjoy it. But in perspective. And that's not... they're all a means towards something else. The food is a means, right? We won't get into it now, but it's this week's parsha also. Yitro comes and vayisaper Moshe, Moshe tells him everything that happened, you're not going to believe it. Shver, you're not going to believe it. Father-in-law, you're not going to believe what happened. And then there was ten plagues and then we thought it was over, the Egyptians, and then the sea split, you won't believe it. And Yitro says, "That's incredible, what's for lunch?" "That's amazing! Do I smell a barbecue?" "That's unbelievable!" And then Yitro all of a sudden makes a barbecue. He brings olos u'zvachim, he makes a barbecue, he makes meat, and everyone else smells the barbecue. Aaron comes and the zekeinim come and they all sit down and they eat. And now we're ready for But it is the notion of the role of food in a positive sense, that we can elevate the act of eating, and the act of eating elevates us. And it is the union of the body and the soul when we do it right, when we get it right, and we do it in a positive way. So we're not railing against it. It has a place and it has a role and we should enjoy it, but we should never confuse it with being our mission or our life. Never confuse it with the answer to ma chovaso baolamo. Why are we here? It's never too late to ask yourself that question. It's never too late to live the life you were meant to live. It's never too late to create the legacy that you were meant to create. But how many go deep into their lives and never ask, and never think about that question, ma chovaso baolamo? It's how the Ramchal begins the Mesillas Yesharim. יסוד היסודות ושורש העבודה. He says the core and the foundation, the source, the root of all life is to ask ourselves מה חובתו האדם בעולמו. Why did you wake up this morning? Why did Hashem have you wake up this morning? What are you meant to still do? What is the world waiting for you to do, to be? And it doesn't have to be on a large scale. Cure cancer, make world peace, solve. It could be to be the best version of you, to be the best mother or father, husband or wife, best community member, best friend. Those little small things are very big things, but they're very different than to eat more, to earn more, to buy more, to vacation more. ומגיע להכרה שתכלית הבריאה הוא רק קרבת השם. So what is the purpose of life? Kirvas Hashem. It's a beautiful pasuk in Tehillim. It's a beautiful song that was recently composed. קרבת השם לי טוב. Kirvas Hashem, being close to Hashem for me is good. What is the measure of success? What is the measure of life? It's not how much I have, but it's rather how close to Hashem I am. קרבת השם לי טוב. You know what's good for me? So if you go for a physical, when you're done, the doctor reviews your labs and reviews the tests and reviews the exam and says, you know, go for a little bit more of a walk, you could use a little bit more exercise and cut off the salt, the sugar, or whatever the advice is. So if you went for a spiritual, if we went for a spiritual, you know what the spiritual doctor would say? Add a little bit more Kirvas Hashem. קרבת השם לך טוב. Kirvas Hashem for you would do good. It would be good for you to get a little closer to Hashem. Talk to him more, confide in him more, unburden yourself on him more. קרבת השם לי טוב. וממנה תהיה כל סיפוקו וחיותו. That's the chiyus. If you came to experience and taste what that means, that would become your chiyus. I don't know how many of you were at Rav Weinberger a few weeks ago when we had him here, but that's his chiyus. Kirvas Hashem. It's his chiyus and it's contagious. There's a contagion factor to it. There's contagion to negative attributes and qualities like your health. Your eating habits are a direct result of the people you spend the most time with. There's a negative contagion factor and potentially positive contagion factor. But there's also a contagion factor spiritually. Are we around people who drain us, who are cynical about God, cynical about spirituality, turned off, disaffected, disillusioned? Or do we connect to other people's hotspot? Do we have incredibly high-speed connection to Hashem because we're latching on to other people's hotspot? We're around them. I don't know anyone who walked out of Rav Weinberger who was like, that was a waste of a night. I'll never get those couple hours back. That was pretty boring. I don't know anybody who walked out that way. And if there were, I don't want to know about it. But everyone I know walked out was like, wow, I feel something. I'm on fire. I sang and I danced and I was moved and I thought and I laughed and I cried and I had goosebumps and like, I want some of what he's having. Can I have some of what he's having? Whatever Rav Weinberger is having, I want some of that. So I'll tell you what he's having. Kirvas Hashem. He's having that he talks to Hashem. I'm not over-romanticizing Rav Weinberger. He's a human being like we're human beings, but there are other righteous men and women, other very holy men and women and people. And not all of them have big platforms and big names and fancy titles and big followings. Some of them are sitting next to you right now in this room, and they live every day with extraordinary emuna. And when you attach to their hotspot, pssh, you could have such a high-speed connection. Just attach to their hotspot and you could, even if you're struggling to connect directly, connect to their hotspot and you could have such a high-speed connection because they're Kirvas Hashem. They're having some Kirvas Hashem. Say, I'll take what they're having. I'll have two of what they're having. Kirvas Hashem. If that becomes our chiyus, a chiyus. Rav Weinberger wakes up in the morning and he's not like did LeBron break the score... scoring title yet today? What's the market doing today? There's nothing wrong with getting excited about basketball and there's nothing wrong with following the market and being invested in it and doing well with it but is that your chiyus? Is that your chiyus? Is that what drives you? I had a cousin in Lakewood who tragically died at the beginning of Corona. Tragically. He was an unbelievably modest but extraordinary talmid chacham. He was an accountant and he was old school, old school, there are very few people like him in the world today. He would work every day till he had enough money for his family and then stop and go to learn. And he's brilliant, so he had clients who desperately wanted him and they knew that you needed to call in time before he shut down for the day because he did well enough that day that he could now go learn. He was an amazing talmid chacham, he wrote countless sefarim, he was admired by the Roshei Yeshiva of Lakewood and a humble, modest, very, very special person, רב זלמן הלל פנדל, zichrono livracha. Married to my first cousin, very, very special person. So, he told the story, his daughter became an accountant too and once, when is tax April 15th is when taxes are due? Yeah. So April 14th at night she called him and she said, Ta, how you doing? He said, amazing, I'm finished. She said, finished? Wow, that's incredible, it's so early in the evening, you're finished already, April 14th, all your clients, you're done. She starts talking to him about taxes and clients and finances and you're finished. He said, no, no, not taxes, I just finished masechta. Finished, he didn't even know what she was talking about. Are you finished? His mind went right to whatever masechta he was learning. There was one night, his brothers-in-law, my other cousins told me one night he said to them, could you come over, I'm trying to put together a minyan, I'm making a siyum. What's a siyum on? Megilla, Taanis, Moed Katan, Makkos? What's the siyum on? Seder Nashim? So they got there, he said, yeah, it's a siyum on Shas. I decided a year ago I wanted to chazer it, so I did seven and a half daf a day just to chazer it. Didn't make a big party, didn't have a band, there was no famous singer who came, it was just a siyum on Shas. I just need ten people so I could do that and then start again. So April 14th when his daughter said, how are you doing? He says, I'm finished, amazing, I'm so happy. And she thinks he's talking about taxes. He says, no, no, I finished just the latest masechta. He wrote a commentary on Yerushalmi that they showed Rav Chaim Kanievsky, who was specialized in everything but Yerushalmi, who was blown away and said it needs to be published and they're working on that now. Just an exceptional person. Why am I telling you this story? Because it deserves to be told, he deserves to be spoken about, but because what Rav Gamliel is describing, you know what his chiyus was? He was a brilliant, brilliant with taxes, brilliant with numbers, but that wasn't his chiyus. His chiyus was Torah, was learning, was Hashem, was his family. That was his chiyus. That was his chiyus. Never confuse earning a living with living. Chiyus is living. Earning a living is what we need to do to be living. That was the story Rav Weinberger told, the other people put their logo on and spread all over the internet, but that was the story that he told here at the Boca Raton Synagogue, that his father, when he called and he needed his father, it was the middle of the day and he said, hold on, and his father came back to the phone and they spoke for 45 minutes and later that night his mother told him, you know your father kicked everybody out of the store, it was a dry cleaning, and locked the door. And he felt horrifically terrible. His father's ikar parnassa, he kicked everyone out and locked the door in the middle of the day. So he went and he apologized to his father. And his father turned to him and he said, why are you apologizing? Why do you think I have a store? Why do you think I do all this? Why do you think I earn this living? It's for those 45 minutes when you need me. What do you think it's all for? What was he saying? His chiyus is not dry cleaning. His chiyus is not his parnassa. Maybe he enjoys it, maybe he's devoted to it, maybe it's his calling, it's not his chiyus. What's his chiyus? Chiyus is not necessarily what you spend the most time on quantitatively, but qualitatively it's chiyus. You have so little time nebach in this insane world today with our children, but that's your chiyus, those interactions, which should be longer and must be longer, but those interactions, that's your chiyus, that's what you do everything else for is the chiyus is what gives you life. So our chiyus is kirvas Hashem, is that those moments, talking to Him, connecting to Him, singing with Him, dancing with Him, feeling His love, feeling His embrace, or to quote our new friend, what's your chiyus? Not freaking out. That's chiyus. You understand for the person who sent me this email, she was sitting next to Hashem in the airport on standby. She was sitting with Him, that was her chiyus, kirvas Hashem. She didn't freak out, I was at the wrong gate, I looked at the one we're landing, not the one we're departing from, I can't believe it, I missed the flight, I'm on standby for the next one. There wasn't panic. She said, that's where I was meant to be. I met that woman, I helped that woman, I gave her my phone, she made those phone calls. I wasn't meant to be on that earlier flight, Hashem didn't want me to be there, He wants me to be here. Kirvas Hashem. He's not the person behind the counter, sometimes that we panic and we freak out at them. The person who's seems to be typing their dissertation all while they're looking where your seat is, that's the person that you're having the panic attack against. No, Hashem, Hashem's the one behind the computer, Hashem's the one determining what flight we're on and if we make it, and if we'll get on standby or not. Hashem's giving us our seat assignment. Hoping it's a good one with some extra legroom. But Hashem's the one who's giving that upgrade, that seat assignment, when you live life Kirvas Hashem Litov. What's our chiyas, what's our chiyas? לעומת זה ממי שבכל תענוגי והבלי העולם הזה וכל תשוקתו וחמדתו הוא רק להוסיף קרבת השם או אז הוא מקבל חיות מעבודת השם ומקבל כח למעלה מדרך הטבע לעבודת בוראו. So the same way, the same way that the person who's going to be working overtime because there's a deal they're working on and they can't wait to close that deal and they're going to make a killing on that deal and they're going to feel so good about that deal, they dig deep, they find that adrenaline rush and there's no fatigue, they're so excited. The same way there's no fatigue to try that next restaurant for the all you can eat for the seventeenth platter they put in front of you that Pesach when you said before the meal you weren't going to eat, just a cucumber, a little bit bring me just some cucumber. I'm not going to eat, I'm done, I'm never going to eat again. Seventeen mains later, four hundred desserts later, and the chiyas, you found the chiyas, right? I thought I had nothing left, there was no room left, it turns out there was plenty of room. I thought I had no energy left, it turns out I was able to stay up late eating, there was plenty. The same chiyas that we have to run, to chase, to pursue, the chiyas that people have to stay up late binge watching, they have to get one episode, they never end it, it ends so that you have to start the next the next the next and all of a sudden if you said stay up until three in the morning with me saying Tehillim, someone who really needs it, say you're out of your mind, I'm too tired, there's no way I wish I could. Stay up until three in the morning with me learning Torah, finding Hashem, challenging, are you crazy three in the morning never I could. Stay up until three o'clock in the morning binge watching the new season, it what do they call that, it lands I don't even know what it's called, stay up until three in the morning with me. No, never, it's irresponsible, okay. So we find the chiyas, we find the chiyas for certain things. Stay up and watch LeBron break the scoring record, ah, don't bother. Stay up, we find the chiyas, what do we have chiyas for? That's the question today, question I leave you with, question Rabban Gamliel leaves us with, what do we have chiyas for? What's our chiyas? What energizes you and what depletes you of energy? And what energizes us should not be there are people who their entire life revolves around the next meal. What are we having for dinner? Where are we going for dinner? Next time we go out where are we going, what are we ordering, who will be there? That's my life, that's my chiyas, that's my whole life. I like dinner, I like food, you may have noticed if you've been coming to a few of these shiurim. I like, I enjoy a good meal, I enjoy food. Again, I'm not on the team that's like don't care about that. But is that your chiyas, is that life versus what's the next shiur? What's the next chesed opportunity? When's the next time we're seeing the children? When's the next time we're helping a friend? When the next time, what's the source of our chiyas? When's the next sunrise minyan at the beach? What's the source of our chiyas? How do we answer that question? Because that in so many ways determines our life. Join us tonight behind the bimah with Mort Klein the president of ZOA, you may not know his father was a Satmar Chasid, survived Auschwitz, lost all of his family, how he is a spokesperson for the Jewish people and overcoming Tourette's, fascinating discussion tonight 9:00 PM. Until next time, stay happy, stay healthy, stay holy, and find your chiyas.
