Transcript
Good morning, boker tov, may it be a good day, good morning for Am Yisrael, Klal Yisrael, we should hear besoros tovos, we should hear good news, may the hostages come home, the soldiers return to their families, may we have a sweeping victory for Klal Yisrael. I want to thank our generous Emuna Series sponsors for the year, Avi and Bella Morgan in memory of Brian Galbut and in memory of Bella's mother, Dr. Ellen Schanz, we remain very, very grateful to them for their generosity. This morning's shiur is also sponsored by Sarah and Marty Shandelson in memory of Carol Parsons, Tzipora bas Yitzchak, may her neshama have an aliya; by Carol Wald in memory of her dear friend מרים בת אליהו הלוי, her neshama should have an aliya; by Nati and Brenda Goldbrenner, l'ilui nishmas Moshe ben Avraham on his 24th yahrtzeit, and יצחק אלימלך בן שלמה, and for the yahrtzeit of יוסף יהודה בן רב מרדכי as well. Our learning should be a refuah sheleima, we should hear good news, חיה יעס שושנה בת חנה פרידל, we should hear im yirtzeh Hashem a speedy, speedy recovery. Next week there is no shiur, please G-d we're going back to Israel for a couple of days, so no shiur but we will resume the week afterwards. And I'm happy to tell you we have met our goal in the annual campaign, Baruch Hashem. But a Yid is never satisfied. When you reach your goal, you raise your goal, that's all. No, I'm not raising the goal, relax, relax, I'm not raising the goal, but there are 24 more hours to enter the raffle. We're going to do the raffle, 24 hours to enter the raffle for two tickets, domestic tickets, to Boca Raton to spend Shabbos with us, VIP tickets to Ishay Ribo at P.R.S. on April 7th. So enter the raffle, support and help us spread our spread our Torah. Please, maybe someone can hand it out even while we're learning, but this was sent, welcome, thank you so much. We, I shared with you about Ephraim Jackman, Ephraim ben Shmuel Jackman, his father had shared with me how he woke up early every day in Gaza to learn the Daf Yomi and to daven with kavana and found a way to have that mindfulness and that just extraordinary, extraordinary. Hashem is taking from us our gems, our crown jewels, our best, which just makes it all the more unbearable and painful, and we send love and strength to the Jackman family, and this was sent for our Emuna shiur, everyone to carry this with us, to do things in memory of Ephraim ben Shmuel, and to take upon ourselves something. So this is a bag full of, I guess everyone just pulls what they, you have to fulfill what you pull. So be careful. Honoring my parents. Not talking during davening. Being in touch with family before Shabbos. There's all kinds in here, so you might want to be careful what you, which one you pull, maybe somebody will walk around, everybody pull one out, and we do things in his memory, in the memory of of too many people, of too many people. Last week on Behind the Bima we had the parents of Maoz, the soldier, they got up from shiva and just a few days later joined us to tell his story. He lived al kiddush Hashem, he died al kiddush Hashem, he lived a yerei shamayim, he died a yerei shamayim. Every week we get together to learn about Emuna, but just watch and listen and you'll see people demonstrating what it means to live with Emuna. To live with Emuna is not when the Wi-Fi is slow or goes out, not to lose faith in Hashem. To live with Emuna is not because the Starbucks person got your order mixed up and you didn't lose your faith in Hashem. To live with Emuna is not even when your flight got canceled and you didn't make it where you wanted to go to nevertheless maintain your faith in Hashem. To live with Emuna are the people who've lost irreplaceable loved ones and yet, and yet somehow dig deep and keep that faith in Hashem and understand the mission that they're on in life. And each of the parents, from Jan Airley who was here to Maoz's parents who we had on last week and others, and each, and I hesitate and I'm scared every time I ask it, but I say you made aliya, these are Americans who've made aliya, knowing the price you've now paid, would you do it again? Do you have regret for what you've done? The only reason I ask is I'm pretty confident knowing them a little bit what they'll answer, and it's just extraordinary, it's extraordinary. So these are incredible role models and people, they seem ordinary and maybe before October 7th or before this particular personal loss they went through they were in ways ordinary, but inside them they are always extraordinary. And the truth is in ways they are a metaphor for Am Yisrael. Am Yisrael we are learning about the shoresh haneshama of Klal Yisrael. Who we thought we were versus who we really are, as individuals and collectively as a nation and as a people. And we thought we were ordinary, and we thought we had machlokas and we fought and we were divided and fragmented and partisan and split, and we thought that little things and petty things and material things mattered to us. And since October 7th we've come to discover who we are and what we really are, and the shoresh haneshama, the core, the source of our soul, the root of our soul, each of us individually I think have learned a lot about ourselves and collectively, collaboratively, we spoke about that in the parsha shiur this week, Vayakhel, to come together, to gather together, to return and restore the shoresh haneshama. to complement and supplement one another, to be a kehillah, to be a tzibbur, to be a community, to be a people, to be a nation, and to restore that root and health of our soul, to get back to to get back to that place. So, please don't leave before we'll say Tehillim at the end as we always do, divide all of Tehillim on behalf of our brothers and sisters in Israel, on behalf of the families, on behalf of the countless wounded. And last week we spoke about what it means to be wounded. Wounded is not a splinter, wounded is not a bruise, wounded is not a broken arm. In fact, somebody who was just there told me that they went to visit somebody who the news reported as being lightly wounded, and lightly wounded could be losing a limb. And that's still lightly wounded because if a person is not in critical condition and their life is not threatened, they're called lightly wounded, and lightly wounded could mean you lost a limb. I told you a good friend of mine's nephew who lost his leg, the other leg below the knee, one hand, and the thumb of the other hand, and his life is just radically changed forever. And that's where our tefillos, our heartfelt tefillos, our pleas and our storming the gates of Shamayim to Hashem, to show us a rachmanus, to show compassion and love and to intervene with miracles and to end this madness and to allow, to allow the people of Israel to go back to the lives that they deserve to live. I want to share an email, I want to tell you about somebody I never met or knew, and then we'll get back to what we were learning, the last piece in Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz, the Sichos Mussar that Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz delivered in the Mir Beis Medrash during the Yom Kippur war. So an email first. Dear Rabbi Goldberg, love listening to the weekly Emunah shiur, blah blah blah, they inspire me and they are such incredible reminders of the active role Hashem plays in our lives. I have many Emunah stories to share, but something happened recently where I couldn't help but notice how Hashem had drawn so many pieces together to make sure my husband and I were in the right place at the right time. My father was diagnosed with esophageal cancer earlier this year. He spent the last six months undergoing chemo and Baruch Hashem the chemo was successful. However, the standard procedure for the esophageal cancer is to have a complicated surgery in which the esophagus is removed and reconstructed using part of the stomach. Which is amazing also that we live in such a time that that can be done. I don't know how long ago that was a pipe dream, pun intended, I guess. Thank you, thank you for coming, you've been a great audience. That was a pipe, but even that, to live in miraculous times that to be diagnosed with that horrible thing, one can focus on being diagnosed with it, where's Hashem, it's not fair to me, why, or one could be, or one could be focused on being diagnosed with it in a time in which there is a medical procedure. The author of the email writes, my father is a very cheerful person, and though he was trying to stay positive, it was obvious the surgery and the long recovery period to follow was weighing heavily on him. This is not my father's first time battling cancer. My husband and I live in Eretz Yisrael, and though it was the middle of winter zman we decided we wanted to go back to America and be with my father for the week of the surgery. It wasn't an easy decision and it wasn't easy to find flights, but Baruch Hashem we made it, and we were able to spend time with my family before, during, and for a little while after the surgery. Surgery was scheduled for Thursday morning and lasted 14 hours until around 11:30 PM. I had spent the last couple of hours in the hospital with my mother and some other family members before returning home. Five hours after the surgery ended, my husband woke up in excruciating pain. I called Hatzalah and the amazing volunteer who came recommended we go straight to the emergency room. I got my husband in the car, turned the GPS, and typed in the nearest ER, but somehow my GPS was still in Israel and kept directing me to Wolfson Medical Towers in Rechavia, 7,000 miles away. We ran to the Hatzalah volunteer and asked him to please take us to the emergency room. He agreed even though in most situations Hatzalah members do not do this. We got to the hospital and around an hour later my in-laws came to be with us. It was taking us a while to get admitted. Soon after my in-laws arrived, we were able to get in touch with the incredible chaplain of the hospital. Minutes later, my husband was taken to a room and given medication to deal with the pain. Soon the doctor came, did some tests, and diagnosed my husband with a kidney stone, extremely painful but manageable. Chaplain got us on the VIP list of the hospital somehow so we were the first in line to receive the tests needed to confirm the diagnosis. My husband's brother is also a doctor at the hospital so he was monitoring our situation and gave us constant updates. Later that morning Baruch Hashem we were discharged. I dropped my husband off at his parents' house, almost immediately headed back to a different hospital to visit my father who was beginning the recovery process after his surgery. On the car ride back from visiting my father, I burst into tears, completely overwhelmed with gratitude that both, that though both my husband and father were in the hospital in the last 24 hours, they were both alive, breathing, and on the way to recovery. I don't know what it would have been like had my husband and I not decided to go back to America to visit my father. What I do know is that being back in America we were surrounded and supported by our immediate family. We had Hatzalah member who went above the call of duty to help a fellow Jew in pain. We had a chaplain who showed us how much he cared, making sure we were immediately and later checked in on us. I had the brother who worked at the hospital. I felt that Hashem was pulling the strings bringing us where we were supposed to be, when we were supposed to be there. Baruch Hashem. Postscript, her father is Baruch Hashem doing better and on the road to recovery. So another email, you could live life: why me? My father, my husband, where's Hashem? Or Hashem! I don't know why it had to happen, I wish it didn't have to happen, thank you for putting me where I needed to be when it was happening. On this adventure called life, it is two ways of being able to look at the same situation and I'll give you another example of the two ways that we look at the same situation. And it's not just lip service, and it's not just a person shouldn't, you know, in some inauthentic way earn the Oscar for acting and saying the right things even though they don't mean it, they don't feel it, and it's not who they are. The one who benefits the most when we can transform our experiences to try to live life and look at what happens and try to see the hand of Hashem and again not only when it turned out we were in the right place so they treated us and everyone's doing better, but even when it turned out not and we shared many of those emails and stories, is we're the beneficiary. You could live life anger and resentful and bitter and not only do you lose the life of the person who's no longer here, but you forfeit your own life. And therefore the people in your family didn't only lose that one member of the family, if one sees themselves as a victim of randomness or chance or remains angry and resentful and bitter, then their family members have lost a second person because we forfeit and we give away our own lives. And we are the beneficiaries of when we could put on those emunah glasses and still cry and still feel sad. Emunah, we've emphasized this over and over and we'll do it again. Somehow you keep coming back. Emunah does not mean emunah does not mean during Shiva you sing and you dance and you're happy because they're in a better place. Emunah you sit and you emunah means that during Shiva you sit, you tear keriah, you cry, you're stricken with grief, you're comforted and consoled because it stinks and it hurts and it's painful and it's traumatizing and a piece of you is gone. It's okay. But it means and that's the hishtavus. That's שויתי ה' לנגדי תמיד. Hishtavus, equanimity. Shivisi Hashem. Hishtavus goes all the way back to Dovid HaMelech, שויתי ה' לנגדי תמיד, and the Baal Shem Tov popularized it and we're all trying to live with it. Is that in this rollercoaster of life from the moments of high, I'm happy, I'm singing, I'm dancing to the moments of grief, sitting on the floor crying and mourning, leaning into those emotions, genuinely feeling them and experiencing them, but at the same time behind all of them, informing and animating whatever we experience and whatever emotions that we are overwhelmed with is hishtavus, the equanimity, the peace and the tranquility of knowing it all comes from Hashem. It's from Hashem that I'm in pain right now and feel the pain and it's from Hashem that I'm happy and singing and dancing right now and sing and dance, but it's not the radical rollercoaster of I believe in Him, I don't believe in Him, He's real, He's fake. That's not the way we're meant to live life. It is someone who I love and admire but who's struggling in their relationship with Hashem and in some obvious ways that are evident, not participating as much in shul and the like. And when I ask them what's going on, I miss you, I don't see you. So even though his life is overwhelmingly filled with enormous blessing, enormous blessing, this one particular area that he's having a challenge. And so because in that one particular area there's a challenge, he's not sure: is there a God, does He love me, I don't know what was the point of it all? I would come, I'd early daven, stay, say extra things, do, what was the point of it all? But our relationship with Hashem is not transactional. Our relationship with Hashem is not a quid pro quo because then it's not in fact at all a relationship with Hashem. If the whole relationship with Hashem is I do what I do because when I do, He does what I want, then we're not really in a relationship with Hashem. In a marriage, if we're only devoted and we only demonstrate our love and our loyalty when the other party does what we want, when we want, how we want, then we're not really in love with them, who are we in love with? Ourselves, ourselves. You know when the love is really demonstrated, when the rubber really meets the road, is when you don't want to do what the other person wants you to do and it doesn't make sense to you whatsoever and you say but I love you, so I'm in anyway, Na'aseh V'Nishmah, I'm in. That's love. So emunah is not Hashem you're on my checklist of things that I do. So to earn parnassah I go to work and I do this I do this and I also say Parshas HaMan and I read Pitum HaKetores from a klaf and I do all my segulos and heebie-jeebie superstition. And then I'm supposed to earn a living and when I don't earn the living, then I guess You're not real, I guess You don't love me and I don't love You. That's never, that was never emunah in Hashem. Emunah in Hashem is not our using Hashem as a item on our checklist to get what we want, that's not emunah. Emunah in Hashem is I take my I do my effort and I take my initiative and I love You and this is how I see things and I hope that You'll see things the same way I do, and if You don't, I'm in anyway and I love You anyway. And I defer to you anyway, and I surrender and I submit to you anyway, both because I love you and I'm grateful to you, and because you're infinite and omnipotent and I'm finite and fallible. And the choice between which of our perspectives I have no choice but to go with yours. That's emunah. That's emunah. I said to this person who's going through the particular challenge, first of all, look at all the other enormous blessing in your life. And I don't say that, you know, my friend Rabbi Leo Dee, who I love and I'm still in touch with and who again is another walking raw model of emunah. He goes all over and he speaks, often I then hear from wherever he is because he's so incredibly kind, I owe him a fee for promoting Living with Emunah. So I'll mention the shiur Living with Emunah. I hope he's not listening to this one. And I'll talk about how even when he was in the hospital after that terror attack that cost him the lives of his wife and two of his daughters, and before they were, it was clear that they were killed, you know, or even after, he said to himself, "But look, I still have other children. But look, I still have this." To be clear, I almost want to follow up wherever he speaks to say, I didn't tell it to him while he was going through this. I would never say to somebody while they were experiencing a loss, "But look at everything else you have." I would never, ever, ever, ever, ever say that. He is drawing on from things that we've said and studied in other contexts that in that particular thing it's hard or that particular thing you wish you had and you don't, but focus on what you do have. That we say. If your happiness is defined by what's missing, you'll never be happy because there'll always be something else you could have. And if your happiness is defined by what's there, you'll always be happy because you always have something. That's why the word simcha, we're now in the Chodesh Adar. Eizehu, when we enter Adar, משנכנס אדר מרבין בשמחה. As we've spoken about, not just mishenichnas Adar, when we enter Adar, when Adar enters us, marbin, we can expand the sense of simcha. What's simcha? Sam moach, wherever you put your head, whatever you're thinking about is simcha. So what do you think about? What's missing? There'll always be something missing. There'll always be something missing. I like to read the Forbes 400. I like to see how many names I recognize, how many names I can get access to. I like to read the Forbes 400. It happens to be, it's fascinating. The Forbes 400 is really interesting because it has on it not only the 400 wealthiest people in America, but it rates self-made on a scale of 1 to 10. You know, so if your last name was Walton, you didn't rate very high on the self-made, for example. But other people rank very high on the self-made where they earned it all themselves. It also has a scale, five stars, of how charitable you are. Fascinating to me how many get one star, half a star. We're talking about, you can't get on the list if you don't have, I think, three billion dollars. How can you not be charitable if you have three billion dollars? You could give away so much and still take care of the rest of your family forever. And you're not taking it with you. I think Mike Bloomberg, a Yid, former mayor of New York, just announced he's leaving like 60 billion of his fortune to the foundation, to charity. Because you could leave a few billion to your family, they're set for life for everything they could ever need, and still transform the world. And anything you hold on to, you don't get to take with you, and what you gave away, you keep for eternity. So I look at that and I'm like, it's mind-boggling. Right? It's not a bunch of people who are on food stamps and they make $15,000 a year and it's a charity rating about how much they give. You're talking about people that could give away enormous amounts without it impacting their lifestyle an iota. And yet, some people are half a star, one star. I want to go shake them. I want to go find them. Why am I telling you this? Oh, because the Forbes 400. The Forbes 400, you just gotta come on this ride with me. The Forbes 400. Because, you know, number 400, nebach, only has three billion. Nebach. He wants to break into the top 100. And if you're in the top 100, you don't go out for dinner with your family, you want to be in the top 10. And if you're in the top 10, but you didn't make it to number one. And I think yesterday Bezos surpassed Musk again. I don't, I'm not obsessed with tracking these things, I happen to have seen it. But right? They're vying like who's number one. Who's number one in a category of having more money than most countries? Like it's not, like you're not vying for who has more and can do more, like you each have enough. But still, so if your happiness is defined by what you don't have, if you're number two, you're not happy. Ah, you have, I don't even know what the number is, how many hundreds or tens of billions, some obscene number. But if you're number two, you're not happy because there's something you don't have. And if you're number one, you're not happy, you know why? You want to be the first to a trillion. But if your happiness is what you have, then you're not only not on the list, you're on the list of the 400 poorest people in America. You could be number one on the list of the 400 poorest people in America, but there are people, nebach, that they're so poor all they have is money. There's some people. There's some people that are so poor all they have is money. So who's richer? There are people on the list of the 400 poorest people in America who are so much richer than the Forbes 400. 'Cause if you're on the Forbes 400 and your kids aren't talking to you and you've been divorced 13 times and you're miserable and you have to see the therapist 30 times a day and pop 400 pills just to make it to the end of every day, no matter what it says in the bank account, are you rich? Are you really rich? So how is happiness defined mishe'nichnas Adar? Not when we turn the calendar page and enter Adar but mishe'nichnas when Adar enters us, aluf dar, the one and only Hashem, when we give him a dirah betachtonim, aluf aleph, when Hashem lives with us down here in this world, but we look around emunah and we see him everywhere and we understand whatever happens it's him. So now marbin besimcha. Now I'm along for the ride. Will I get the parking spot, will I make the flight, will I close the deal, will the kugel turn out okay, how will we overcome this issue, when will we finally conceive and have that child? And I'm not making all those things equal at all, but mishe'nichnas Adar, when the אלוף דר אלף דר, when Hashem living down here enters us, now simcha, now sam moach, now I can place my thoughts in my head, now I can see the brachos that I have and now I can live with a little bit more happiness. So there's two choices how to live life. We can walk through and go through life with what's missing, with anger and bitterness and misery, and not only suffer whatever is not there, but suffer also. Or we can lean in and say Hashem, you have a plan. I don't know what it is, but I need you now more than ever and that's what I told this individual, my dear buddy that I love. I said I got it, you're bitter, you're angry at Hashem because of the particular thing you're going through. First of all, look at the rest of your life: health, wealth, the other nachas from other children. Yeah, there's one particular issue, so because of the particular issue you're going to therefore not recognize or be grateful for and also actually sabotage everything else that's going on? Or instead of pulling back and pulling away, do you lean in and say Hashem, I'm not happy with you, I don't agree with this choice, I'm angry, but you got me into this, you get me out. And I'm not going to leave you until you do. I'm not going to stop talking to you, knock on your door, storm the gates of your heavens. I'm not going to leave you alone, because I don't know why, I got it, you're bigger, you're everything, I don't know why you did it this way, but if you did it this way, if you got us into this, get us out of it. So you could experience whatever challenge in life as an excuse to lean out, or it can be the conduit and the propeller that causes you to lean in and find closer than ever. Because what's the alternative? Who are you going to turn to? Who else are you going to submit to? What's the alternative to it? So I'll read to you an article and then we'll finally learn. Oh, so late. This is the 300th emunah shiur, by the way. Mazel tov. Today is number 300. I have no idea the significance of that, other than your ooh and ahh. 300. Feel free to give a bonus to the Global Campaign in honor of the 300th or if you haven't yet joined to give. So I want to read to you this article that came across my desk from a Simon Boas, B-O-A-S, the director of Jersey Overseas Aid, the chair of the Jersey Heritage. I don't know who he is, I don't know anything about him other than this article that he wrote. He says the following: My favorite bit of understatement ever comes from not a Brit or a Spartan, the Japanese Emperor Hirohito. In August 1945, following Japan's defeats in every recent battle and the obliteration of two cities with nuclear bombs, he broadcasts that, quote, the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage. Well, I'm sorry to have to announce, he writes, that my cancer situation has developed not necessarily to my advantage. Last September I described in these pages my diagnosis of throat cancer and likened my upcoming treatment to the journey to the South Pole. Sadly, although the chemo and radiation did a good job on the tumors in my throat and neck, my lungs are now riddled with bloody things. The prognosis is not quite don't buy any green bananas, but it's pretty close to don't start any long books. So it seems I'm going to probably sooner rather than later. But many things give me comfort at the minute: the huge support and compassion of my wife, my job I'm so lucky to love, and three related thoughts I have again and again which bring me joy and which I am writing this to share with you. Three thoughts that bring me joy. He's got weeks, the author of this shares, to live. First of all, I take comfort in the thought that I've already had a really good, almost charmed life. I've dined with lords and billionaires, I've broken bread with the poorest people on earth, I've accomplished prodigious feats of drinking, I've allocated for several years personally delivered at least 100 million pounds worth of overseas aid, I've been a Samaritan, a policeman, and got off an attempted murder charge in Vietnam by singing karaoke. I've climbed the Great Pyramid, even lists a whole list of things that he's done and he's grateful, instead of looking for how short his life is, but grateful for the charmed life that he's lived. At 46, I've lived far longer than most of the humans. In the long history of our species. So have you probably. And if the book of my life is shorter than many modern people's, it doesn't make it any less of a good read. I want to read that again. Wow. At 46, I've lived far longer than most of the humans in the history of our species. So have you. And if the book of my life is shorter than many modern people's, it doesn't make it any less of a good read. Length and quality are not correlated in lives anymore than they are in novels or films. So carpe that diem and keep it carped. And enjoy the tiny ways that you can make other people a little happier. That's actually the secret of being happy oneself. That's his first thought. I don't know who he is. But I'm grateful he wrote this. My second comforting thought is this: Nobody knows whether there's a God, we do, or an afterlife, we do. But it seems unlikely to me that our existence is merely a brief and random flash of consciousness between two eternities of nothing. A benevolent creator strikes me as no more far-fetched than the latest efforts of physics to make sense of our world. Our almost instincts may well be true. We- what will survive of us is love. And finally, the thought I keep coming back to is how lucky it is to have lived at all. To exist is to have won the lottery. In fact, there are many bits of extraordinary unlikely good luck that have occurred just for us to be born, that's that it's like hitting the jackpot every day of the year. Consider some of them. There's nothing- rather, there is something rather than nothing. The laws of physics, the strength of forces, the mass of an electron are poised precisely so stars and planets can form. Inanimate stardust somehow combined to become self-replicating and then somehow develop further into complex life. And then complex life didn't just stop at ferns and fishes, but evolved into creatures that are aware of their condition. Matter became conscious of itself. Of all the billions of people in the world, your parents met and merged. And of all the sperm and egg they produced, it's a billion-to-one shot just on its own, the only two that would make you fused and multiplied. It's unbelievable. Of all the billions of people in the world, your parents met and merged. And if you know the shidduch system, that's really a miracle. Miracle in its own right. Of all the sperm and egg they produced, this is a billion-to-one shot just on its own, the only two that would make you fused and multiplied. If the moment you were conceived had been any different at all, a week later or, you wouldn't have been born. To the staggering improbability of you just being here to read this, in physical and biological terms, is added our good fortune in where and when we live. To have- he's born in Western Europe is itself to have won, he says, first prize in the lottery of life, we could debate that. And we live in the longest era of peace in human history where our chances of dying from disease or violence are lower than ever before, even with this war raging, I'm adding on. We also live in an age of extraordinary abundance, the poorest of us richer than any medieval king in terms of access to food, energy, care, transport, knowledge, and justice. So if I whine that my life will have been shorter than many modern people's, I am massively missing the point. I've existed for 46 years. It is- it's as churlish as winning the EuroMillions jackpot and then complaining bitterly when you discover that there's another winning ticket and you'll only get half the money. Life is inordinately precious, unlikely and beautiful. You are exquisite. When you say, as you do 20 times a day, I'm fine, realize that you don't just mean I'm adequate, you are fine, capital F-I-N-E, refined, unique, finely crafted, fine dining, fine china. You really are fine in that sense too. We say it all the time, but unknowingly we speak the truth. We should be dazzled by our good fortune, dancing on the tables every day, and I mean to keep dancing in whatever time I have left here, and who knows, perhaps afterwards as well. So, I don't know, I guess Jersey is not next to New York where I grew up, but Jersey is in Europe. But I thought it was powerful and worth sharing. Let's finish up this maamar even more powerful and worth sharing, Torah of course always our greatest source and our real learning. So if you have a copy, have it, if you don't, listen, maamar vav, Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz, great rosh yeshiva of the Mir, got up in the middle of the Yom Kippur War and gave several sichos, several shmuzen, gave several talks to the Mir Beis Medrash, and we learned half of this sixth one. Hashmieni es koleich, the pasuk in Shir HaShirim, last week we spoke about Shir HaShirim is Kodesh HaKodashim, the metaphor of husband and wife, the romantic love we have with Hashem. The ultimate metaphor is not master and slave, king and subject, parent and child, but of all the metaphors that each have some semblance of truth and are meant for us to connect with Hashem, but the ultimate metaphor is a husband and wife love, love and longing and knowledge and intimacy, which we developed all last week. So Hashmieni es koleich, just like in marriage, some of us have to do better with it, it's about the time that we dedicate and the conversation and the communication. and the and the accessibility and the exposure and the connection that we form. So Hashem says Hashmini Es Kolech. Don't say you love me but not spend time with me. Don't say you love me but never talk to me. Don't say you love me but spend time and talk but never really let me in. If you really love me, if we're in a relationship, Hashmini Es Kolech. Let me hear your voice. Make time for me. Talk to me. Tell me. Be vulnerable with me. Talk to me. And we saw that's why he made our our matriarchs barren because too often what wakes us up to finally talk to him is whenever everything's just going hunky-dory, everything's going well and ordinary, we don't have time. When we're in crisis and and even when everything is going well, which is when we should easiest and most run to thank him, we also don't have time and we forget. And when does everyone wake up? There are no atheists in a foxhole. In that foxhole there are no atheists. Everyone wakes up. And we're seeing that now, not with any criticism, with beauty. Every soldier putting on tzitzis and tfillin and singing and dancing to אנחנו מאמינים בני מאמינים כל העולם כולו גשר צר מאוד because in crisis everybody finds their voice to talk to Hashem. So sometimes Hashem says if I haven't heard from you and the only way that you'll remember I'm here and start talking to me is a shtikel crisis, here's a little crisis to make you open your mouth and start talking. So how do you avoid a crisis? Don't stop talking to him. If we don't need to be woken up or interrupted or have our lives disrupted to be reminded to talk to him, then he doesn't need to do it. And it's not as simple a calculation as that obviously, but overall that is a theme that Chazal gave us. That notion that Hashmini Es Kolech, Hashmini Es Kolech, Hashem says I want to hear your voice. So when you talk to me we're all good. But if you don't, there are nebach some marriages that hit such a low that there's an ultimatum, that there's a crisis in the marriage because you're not devoted, you're not dedicated, you're not putting in the time, you're not being vulnerable, you're not being devoted, you're not communicating. And then there's a disruption. So the best way to avoid the crisis and the disruption is to have the ingredients of the healthy relationship and that's true with Hashem as well. V'zehu ma d'chsiv, we're halfway down, third to the last paragraph. V'zehu ma d'chsiv, that's what the pasuk says in Tehillim, אנכי המעלך מארץ מצרים. Hashem says me, I, shalom aleichem, nice to meet you, I'm God. And in case you forgot, I'm the one who took you out of Egypt. Meaning I'm the one who got you out of your last crisis. So I'd like to remind you that I'm here, last time you needed someone who'd you call? You called me. היינו שדוקא שרק אני יכול להושיע. And I want you to realize you could make all the other calls, send all the other WhatsApp texts and emails, you could go to all the other addresses, but in the end of the day there's only one who's going to green-light that salvation and that help and that is me. כמו שראית בארץ מצרים, just like you saw in Egypt. With all the efforts to liberate yourself, to emancipate yourself, with all the efforts and initiatives which we have to take and have, it is only when we cried and called out and he heard that he gave us the green light. So in every circumstance, if you're sick you have to go to the doctor, you have to take the medicine, you have to do the rehab, you have to take the therapy, but doing all those things without Hashem deciding that they work won't get you anywhere. You have to ask Hashem. Now Hashem says don't just ask me, also go do those things. You have to have an army, they're heroic fighters, they're extraordinary, incredible, they deserve all our support and our love, but whether Hashem helps their plan to be able to bring home hostages and defeat enemies and be able to end this war, it's all up to Hashem. הרחב פיך היינו תבקש ממני, right, widen your lips, your mouth, speak, ask me, וכבר נתמלא בזה תכלית וממילא ואמלאהו. So אנכי המעלך מארץ מצרים, harchev picha va'amaleihu. So here he's darshaning it up R' Chaim Shmulevitz what it means. וזה מה שאמר הקדוש ברוך הוא למשה רבינו, this is what Hashem said to Moshe, Mah tizak elai? הלא כבר צעקו בני ישראל, uchvar nismaleh hatachlis. דבר אל בני ישראל ויסעו. Klal Yisrael cried in Egypt, bondage and suffering and persecution and Hashem said nu, gegangan, we're out of here. Let's go, follow me. Then they find themselves with the sea in front of them, the Egyptians behind them and they're frozen. And they cry again and Hashem says yeah we did this already. You spoke to me. I got it. And now I've given you the path, I'm going to split the sea, but you have to do your part, start walking. ואף שכבר נשלם התכלית שאחזו מעשי אבותיהם בידיהם וצעקו אל השם, they fulfill the tachlis, the goal, why were we in Egypt, why did we go through that crisis, why did we suffer, in order to wake us up so that we would cry out and call out to him. they fulfilled the tachlis, the goal. Why were we in Egypt? Why did we go through that crisis? Why did we suffer? In order to wake us up so that we would cry out and call out to Him. We fulfilled that goal, that tachlis. מכל מקום גם החושך נשאר אצלם כמו שנתבאר אצלנו כמה פעמים שהאור והחושך משמשים אצל אדם בערבוביא. Sometimes and it feels like this since October 7th for five months we've been living in a state of light and darkness mixed together. There are moments and pockets of deep darkness, profound darkness, but there are also pockets of beautiful radiating magnificent light. Achdus, chessed, stories of heroism, people of extraordinary faith. There's darkness and light mixed together and for a Yid, for a Jew, there always is. They go together, they're not binary either or, but often and always the two are mixed together. There's darkness but there's a light within the darkness. And the light, it's not fully light, there's some darkness. It's what we call bitter sweet. There's a lot of bittersweetness, bittersweetness. ואף שתכף אמרו אל משה המבלי אין קברים במצרים לקחתנו למות במדבר? Because right after being spared and saved, the Jewish people complained to Moshe. What, there're no graves in Egypt that you take us out here to die here? You had to bring us here? ואפילו הכי כיון שצעקו אל ה' שמע ה' קולם נשלם התכלית וניצלו וזהו החידוש היוצא. And this is what comes out. וכן היה במלחמת עמלק. You also find this in the war that we fought with, with Amalek. כדתנן, ויהי כאשר ירים משה ידו וגבר ישראל. Because the Gemorra in Rosh Hashana quotes the posuk. Posuk back in Parshas Beshalach when Amalek attacked us from behind and we're about to mark the story. We're going to read Parshas Amalek, Parshas Zachor is coming up. And we're going to remember that. You know why we're going to remember that? Al tishkach, never forget. Because they're still at it. Hamas, Hezbollah, they're still fighting that war. וכי ידיו של משה עושות מלחמה או שוברות מלחמה? So the Gemorra in Rosh Hashana wonders. Because there, Yehoshua is leading the battle, they're on the front line, heroic soldiers wearing the tzitzis and the tefillin that were distributed, singing and dancing to אין לנו על מי להישען אלא על אבינו שבשמים. And Moshe's back and what's his contribution to the war? He lifts his hands. And when he lifts his hands they win and when he lowers his hands they lose and the Gemorra wonders. Yeah, it's that simple, why don't we do that right now? Let's find, it's not that simple because we would debate and never agree on who the person should be. At least with Moshe, and even Moshe had his detractors, even Moshe had his detractors. It's, it's remarkable. I want to acknowledge the presence of President Berman who's waiting for me to finish, but a zchus and an honor that he's here. So he will agree. It's reassuring when you read the Megilla that Mordechai saves all of Shushan. There's an attempt to exterminate the Jewish people and Mordechai heroically and courageously saves Shushan and shortly after there's a vote on his contract. And he's ratzoi l'rov echav. He gets a majority. Most of the people like, yeah, we should keep him. He saves the Jews from extermination. Moshe too, Parshas Pekudei, it's next week, when they accuse him of, of stealing from the coffers. You know, oh, they did well in the global campaign and must have pocketed some of that on his own paying for all these trips, you know. So, so Moshe also, everybody. It's, I find it at least reassuring and comforting. So we would never agree today who it should be. But if it's that simple, let's find somebody. וכי ידיו של משה עושות מלחמה או שוברות מלחמה אלא לומר לך כל זמן שישראל מסתכלים כלפי מעלה ומשעבדים את לבם לאביהם שבשמים היו מתגברים ואם לאו היו נופלים. It wasn't about Moshe's hands. It wasn't some heebie-jeebie magic superstition segula. It was when we remembered in addition to supporting and donating and making barbecues for and celebrating and honoring and serving and caring about those on the front line, we remember that the ultimate General, the General of Generals, the one who determines and decides whether their efforts are successful, it's Him. Don't leave that most important and deciding ingredient out. And when we looked up and remembered, we won. And when we looked down because his hands got tired and we forgot, despite the greatest efforts of the most courageous and heroic people, then we struggled and lost. והרי כל זה היה ביום אחד, הרי שהאור והחושך משמשים בערבוביא. His hands being up and his hands being down and our remembering and our forgetting and our winning and our losing, says Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz, it was all the same, he's talking it's the Yom Kippur War. The Yom Kippur War, how many hundreds of thousands of graves were dug in anticipation, how much fear was there that there would be a mass slaughter. And that's what he's talking to a people, and Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz, who by the way, and I'll end with this, Rav Lopianky was here thanks to Yeshiva University this week and when he met in the question and answer with some of us, he said that every single year on Yom Kippur night, he told us, every year on Yom Kippur night, Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz got up at the end of Maariv before Avinu Malkeinu and he said the following three things that we have to have in mind. Spoke about three things: Soviet Jewry, he was very dedicated to Soviet Jewry. He said the holy precious idea of soldiers who are fighting and protecting us. And number three to daven for the ruchniyus of Israel because there are people who want to undermine and corrupt and compromise it. Rav Lopiansky pointed out that Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz, numbers two and three were not a contradiction. They were both true at the same time. And that's the mesorah that the Mir, Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz, Rav Lopiansky, that we, that is obvious to us all have. Of course to daven for and care about. But the or vechoshech beirbuvya, the notion of the light and the darkness simultaneously. The heroism and the courage and the faith with the loss and the grief and the tragedy, with the looking up but also looking down and the winning and the losing of אכיון ששמע השם את קולם ends Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz the final maamar vav, the final maamar of the sichos he gave during the Yom Kippur war, once Hashem heard their voice הרי נשלם התכלית ונצחו במלחמה, they fulfilled the purpose and they won in the war וזהו כח של תפילת הרבים. And that is the power, the power of when we can come together and one of the ingredients among the many things that we have to do and are doing is also to lean in and to connect and to storm the gates of shamayim, to not slow down and to never allow fatigue to set in and to keep appealing and begging and cajoling and pleading that it's enough, it's enough, we can't have any more headlines cleared for publication. It's enough. Never again. We got it. This crisis was to wake us up to use our voice we're using it collectively and hopefully still, still, and it should never unravel, it should endure with a sense of unity and please God in that merit, in that merit, hostages should come home and the war should end, the soldiers should return to their families. We're off next week, resume the week after, please remain for tehillim, please come take in memory of Ephraim Jackman, please come take one, and there's a community-wide event Yocheved will announce this Thursday night.
