Transcript
Okay good morning, good morning, Boker tov. May it be a day of besoros tovos, may we hear good news, may the hostages come home, may we have a sweeping victory over our enemies, and may we hear only, only good things. I want to thank our series sponsors for the Emunah shiur, Dr. Zavi and Bella Morgan, in memory of Rabbi Dr. Brian Galbut, in memory of Bella's mother, Dr. Ellen Shanzer, and remain tremendously grateful to the Morgans for their generosity, for their sponsorship, and for all those who sponsor on a regular basis. This morning our learning should also be li'ilui nishmas the young girl from our community חיה הושענא בת חנה פריידא who's having a procedure this morning, it should go well and smoothly and should lead to her having a continued and speedy refuah shleima, please God. As always we share a couple of Emunah emails before we dive into the, before we dive into the learning itself, get back into the Emes v'Emunah, examining the truth that doesn't care about your feelings and then your feelings that care about the truth, that it works in both directions. But first a couple of inspiring emails, a couple inspiring emails. I have to tell you that I went to New York for a wedding this week, and the flights were so smooth I had no story. I would say it's disappointing, but I promise you it wasn't. I would love to never have another story from flying again. But baruch Hashem, bli ayin hara, it went smoothly and it went well, which was really wonderful, which was really wonderful. Hello Rabbi Goldberg, thank you for blah blah blah, even though this is a few weeks old I decided to share after hearing the recent shiur where in the context of an airport story, you talked about the calming feeling we achieve when we accept that we are in Hashem's hands. I want to share with you how Emunah got me through the night of the Iranian missile strike. This is obviously from someone in Israel and we share as we do every week, and this is really a support group, it's not a shiur. And we're really working on and encouraging one another, and working on ourselves to condition ourselves that whatever the circumstance, whatever life throws our way, whatever happens, whatever we confront, whatever we face, whatever we're going through, that we have the strength and that we have the tools, and the tools to be able to understand we're in Hashem's hands, to surrender, to submit, to do all the work and take all the initiative we can and afterwards, to let go and to let God, and that Hashem will carry us wherever and whatever is meant to be. That's easy when the hardest thing that's happening is your flight is delayed. It's harder when an enemy country that's sworn to eliminate you and eliminate your entire people from the map is shooting 300 missiles in your direction. It's a lot harder to surrender and fall into the hands and the embrace of Hashem and to say that everything He does is for a reason and will be good. My husband and I were blessed to be able to make aliyah two years ago with our children. I've never really struggled with anxiety before, but after October 7th, I had some intense anxiety when I felt paralyzed by fear and unable to eat or sleep. This is by the way the unspoken part of what's going on in Israel, we are focused understandably on the heroic soldiers fighting on the front lines and going into Gaza. We're glued to the news today, tragically we woke up to the worst words in the English language, cleared for publication, three more soldiers who were killed in Gaza in a booby-trapped home in Rafah, three young handsome beautiful pure Jewish souls who now are sitting next to the kisei hakavod in the place where kedoshim and those who die on kiddush Hashem go directly to. But the unspoken part about what's going on in Israel is how about the millions of people suffering and struggling with PTSD, with anxiety, as the letter writer, the author of this email says, that I never had anxiety and now I can't eat or sleep. What kept me going was my children because I knew I needed to be present and be supportive for them, even when I felt like falling apart inside. Though the last seven months have been incredibly difficult for all of am Yisrael and especially those of us living here in Israel, the anxiety I initially felt has been replaced by determination, determination to support our people and our chayalim, to live life here in Israel in a way that shows our enemies they cannot defeat the Jewish spirit. People in Israel heroically, incredibly, have been channeling what should be fear and anxiety and worry and uncertainty and panic into determination, fierce, fierce determination, resolve and tenacity. It is an incredible and a beautiful thing to see and if you haven't been to Israel, you should be thinking about and planning when is your next trip, must be on your agenda, even if it can't be for a year or two or five, but you have to be thinking always about when am I going next, because that energy is in the air. That am hanetzach yinatzayach even seven months in is still there. Fast forward to motzei Shabbos April 13th, around 10 PM, we started getting messages that all educational activities would be canceled the following day due to the chance of a strike from Iran. Now when I lived up north, school got canceled because of snow, and since we live here down south, school sometimes gets canceled because of a hurricane. We've never had school canceled because the forecast are missiles coming from an enemy tomorrow. Just put that in perspective, just think about that for a moment, everyone is so worried about civilians and innocent people. You're talking about an entire country targeted. entire country, men, women and children, elderly and infirm, school getting canceled. Why? Because the forecast is missiles from the sky. High probability. It's mind-boggling. I felt the anxiety beginning to creep in again. An hour later it was confirmed Iran had indeed launched, at that point, 100 missiles towards Israel. I've never experienced such a bizarre moment in my life. What do you do with that moment when you know there are 100 powerful weapons heading in your direction to destroy you, but it will be a few hours till they arrive? The closest we can come is the cone of uncertainty and the hurricane and tracking it, and will it, will it not hit, when is it coming? The WhatsApp chats were exploding with questions and concern. Who's going to sleep in the mamad? Should we put our chametz that we just cleaned out of the mamad back into it in case we need provisions for a while? Do we wake our kids to put them in the mamad where there's only room for one mattress or wait until we need to move them? Should we try to go to sleep in order to save energy if this goes on for a while? Would we even be safe in a regular mamad or are these missiles something we've never seen before? The uncertainty was terrifying. I was sure I would not sleep all night. For a while, I busied myself with checking the news, the worst thing to do when you're feeling anxiety, setting up the mamad, taking out unnecessary items and adding more water and food and blankets. We decided not to wake the children but made a contingency plan of who would grab which kid to run to the mamad in the middle of the night if needed. My husband fell asleep at around 12:30. Then the house was quiet. Just me alone with my thoughts and the anxiety. I finally sat down to daven. I started saying Tehillim but felt like I needed to do something else, so I just started to talk to Hashem. I davened that he should save us and keep us safe. And then, and then I had a moment of clarity where the emuna took over and pushed the anxiety out for good. I realized I had done everything I could and that our brave army was doing everything it could and the rest was in his hands. I said, and now she bolds it, Hashem, we've done everything we can. If you've decided this is how it's going to end for me, I have a few things I want to thank you for before it's too late. Thank you for my husband who's the single brightest light in my life. Thank you for the incredible zechus to have been the mother to four children bli ayin hara. Raising them has been the biggest honor of my life. Thank you for helping us realize the dream of moving to and living here in Eretz Yisrael and thank you for giving me parents who supported me and made me who I am. I've had more than a good life and this is what you've given me and it's all going to end soon, I thank you for all of it. Something about saying those words, feeling them and meaning them brought me an incredible calm. The emuna was not my prayer to keep us safe, though I meant that prayer fervently, the emuna was in this last tefilla that was more of a conversation where I truly felt that my life, my children's lives, our people's lives were in Hashem's hands and I was fully ready to accept it. When I finished talking to Hashem around 1:30 AM, I got into bed, I said the full קריאת שמע על המיטה which has lines that have never felt so powerful and meaningful as they did that night. יהי רצון שתשכיבנו לשלום ותעמידנו לשלום, let me fall asleep in peace and let me wake up in peace. והאר עיני פן אישן המות לא תירא מפחד לילה מחץ יעוף, let me not be afraid of the fear of night, mecheitz ya'uf, ה׳ מה רבו צרי רבים קמים עלי אתה ה׳ מגן בעדי, my enemies are coming upon me but Hashem you are my protection and my shield. We say this every night. We say this every night. Whether it's a hurricane or a tornado or a winter storm or 300 missiles and drones. We say it every night. But for her it took on more meaning that night and I'm sure every night since. Then with no trace of anxiety I fell asleep. When I next opened my eyes it was 6:00 AM. The sun was up, I heard birds chirping, my family and I were all alive and had slept through the night. Because we're located in central Israel we had not even had any sirens. I can't describe the gratitude I felt to wake up in the morning after what I thought might be our last night. I felt like saying Hallel. Indeed I felt the whole country was singing Hallel that morning. A week before Pesach, we truly experienced Leil Shimurim, a night of protection. I pray that the emuna that got me and got us all through that night will get us through the rest of this war and that we should have peaceful days ahead. Thank you for your words of wisdom and guidance. Wow. What a powerful email. Why do I share it? I share all the emails because they're so much better than anything I have to say. But also because they are examples and we grow the most when we read biographies and we hear actual practical examples. Here is a woman who's facing the end possibly of her family and she says the moment I was able to choose to surrender and to submit, the moment I let go and let God, the moment I recognized I did everything I could and there was nothing more and I just fall and collapse into Hashem's hands, I fell asleep. And I woke up. And the amazing thing was all over Israel that next morning, you know what the people did? They went for coffee and they played on the playground. My sister texted in her WhatsApp... group, our family WhatsApp group, she went to get her nails done, she looked out, the coffee shop was full, the playground was full. Israel's the only country in the world that at night you brace for 300 missiles that could destroy you, maybe with nuclear weapons, and in the morning you have a cup of coffee and you go to the playground and you go on, and it's almost as if no one's talking about it, everyone just moved on. It is a miracle that is hallel-worthy, it is a miracle that is yom tov, establish a day forever in perpetuity of the miracle of the cooperation of Saudi Arabia and Jordan, all the countries that cooperated, they shot them all out of the sky, nobody was injured or hurt, and then the man who pressed the button went down in a helicopter accident a couple weeks later. Is this not like Megillat Esther? Like, could you write a better script? He pushed a button to launch 300 missiles, enemies cooperated with us to blast them out of the sky and nobody was hurt, the country went back to normal the next morning, and the man who launched them went down in a fluke helicopter accident a couple weeks later. It's a yom tov, it should be a yom tov, it's a cause for hallel, it's amazing. But how does a country get through it and still rank as one of the happiest places on earth? One of the happiest places on earth. Israel in the happiness index always comes up in the top ten, far ahead by the way of America and elsewhere. It's unbelievable. One more email then we get back in. Dear Rav Ephraim, while I first intended to reach out and share with you the impact your emunah shiurim has had on my life, I know from other letter writers that anything positive written about you, you'll skip. So instead of sharing how your shiurim have strengthened my emunah, I want to share with you my youngest son's story. Instead of sharing how your shiurim have strengthened my emunah through this war, the death of my father and my son getting injured as a miluimnik, he's 100% better, a miracle story in and of itself, I want to share my youngest son's story. I don't want to say his name, I don't want to give away too many details, but he's a 20-year-old hesder boy learning in yeshiva until Pesach. He's always looking to grow and found your shiur online, sharing it with me. He believes wholeheartedly that your emunah shiur combined with his Torah learning has really prepared him for the next stage, which is being drafted into the army. The thing is, though, that while he has a combat profile, he's also an up-and-coming singer who writes his own music and has been performing together with his brother both in Israel and in the USA. His genre of music can only be described as love letters to Hashem, and I clicked on a few of his songs and they are exactly that, really, really beautiful. And lest you think like some other people who reach out to me who are aspiring songwriters who say check it out and there are six listens, five their mother and one their father, I clicked on his YouTube, on this song he had over 100,000. His songs are songs of thanks or songs that express only Hashem can help us in times of darkness. There is a status in the army called working artist where one can ask to receive a day job, not a combat job, and have flexibility to continue to work as an artist. Very few people get awarded this status. After October 7th, my son didn't want to request it since he felt his shlichut should be as a combat soldier, but his father and I felt that his music is also his shlichut. Spreading a message of love and emunah in Hashem through music and recognizing Hashem is always in charge is a different kind of shlichut that most people cannot achieve. He decided he would put in the request and then let go and let God. I want to be clear by the way, I didn't make up that expression. It comes from the recovery community and recovery world, people say to me all the time, I love when you say let go, I didn't make it up, I can't take credit for it, I'm a big believer in attribution, omer b'shem omro, it's not my own and neither is almost anything else I ever say. I would love to end this email, why am I reading this email? I would love to end this email with, and he got the status so he could continue working and growing as a musician, sharing message of emunah and love of Hashem, but alas, that is not how life works. He was drafted into a combat unit two weeks ago. He's 100% shalem with that since he let go and let God and decided Hashem decided his fate. His emunah continues to strengthen me. There are other avenues we could have gone down to try again, but he refused to do so. Please know the impact of the shiur is touching many people, different countries, blah blah blah blah. May Hashem keep all of our soldiers safe, may the geulah come b'karov, may Hashem continue to give the koach to continue to spread His Torah. The best part about this email was the subject line. You want to hear the subject line? Emunah shiur, spoiler alert, no airport or tied in a bow and a happy ending. Spoiler alert. So, but those are the most powerful emails I find because the email was not, and then we used a connection and then it turned out and then a musician dropped out and they needed him and then it all worked out, and then it all worked out. Because it's impressive to have emunah when it all worked out. It's impressive after the fact to see, see, and on Hashem I fell into His hands and He held me tight and everything was okay. It's impressive, but that's not the highest emunah. The highest emunah is when it doesn't. Highest emunah is when it doesn't have that happy ending at the end, when he didn't get drafted into the group he wanted and he ended up a combat soldier nonetheless, and still there's emunah that that's where I'm meant to be, like we saw in last week's letter of the girl who couldn't decide, stay in Israel, go back to America, came back to America and she was where Hashem needed and wanted her to be. so she could be there for her friend who was going through that illness. Sometimes we understand and we discover, other times it remains a mystery, but as long as we let go and let God, then we know where we are is where we're meant to be, where we arrive and where we come is where He's sending us, that we are never stranded, we're never stuck, like the Lubavitcher Rebbe told those women, those Rebbetzins in England, you're never stuck. You're where you're meant to be. You're never stuck, just figure out, why am I here? Why am I here? Why is this delayed? Why is this cancelled? Why am I put into this unit? Why am I right now where I am? But a Jew is never stuck. A Jew is exactly where they're meant to be and they have to ask themselves in that moment and from that place and with what they're going through, what am I meant to do now? Who am I meant to be, how am I meant to live, what difference am I meant to make, what am I meant to do with where I am because we're never stuck. We're never ever stuck as long as we have Hashem. Okay. So we continue we're back in Rei Emuna, the wonderful sefer, a collection of Rav Moshe Shapiro's zatzal's shiurim, the classes he gave on the י"ג עיקרי אמונה on the thirteen principles of our faith. I'll also dedicate today's shiur, it's my mother's birthday, so happy birthday to my mom. Happy birthday. Tried calling her, I didn't reach her but I left her a voice note and I said Mom, I'm so happy you were born because otherwise I wouldn't have been. So happy birthday. And she thought that was a brilliant analysis. She did not think that was a brilliant analysis. But I am happy, I am happy. Okay. And I want to wish a Mazel Tov to Emily Agian who I failed on Shabbos to mention in celebrating the incredible job Matan did, how we study Emuna together every Wednesday. So a big Mazel Tov and you should have a lot of nachas he did a great job and you're doing a great job passing on that Emuna to him. Okay, back inside. Rei Emuna. Anything else I have to? Where are you? We're on page chaf beis. Page chaf beis. Ah, we left off on the zachar and nekayva. Masculine and feminine. Why emes and emuna. So until now what we've seen, Rav Moshe Shapiro developed a difference between emes and emuna. Emes is the fact that Hashem exists. I don't need proof, I don't need evidence. Hashem exists whether you examine the proof and evidence or not. He doesn't need you to believe in Him for Him to be real. He's real, that's a fact, that's a truth, and it doesn't need or rely on you. That's emes. What's emuna? Emuna is implementing, executing. Emuna is when you're in the different unit than you wanted to be in, when the flight didn't occur, when you have to go to sleep and the missiles are not maybe they'll be shot. Like could you imagine a greater torture? Imagine the news, just want to let you know, they're on their way. Here's the ETA. According to Waze, they're going to be here, could you imagine? It's better not to know and then you'll find out when it's time to go into the mamad when the siren's about to go off. They had to spend the whole night. They've been launched, here's the ETA, here's when they're going to arrive. That's emuna. Emes is there is Hashem. He doesn't need you. That's a fact, that's the truth. Emuna is when we put it into practice. That's what he's been developing, the notion of ne'eman, bechol beisi ne'eman, Moshe is trustworthy and faithful and reliable. Emuna is can we rely on you? Are you dependable, are you sturdy, are you steady? Can we lean on you? That's emuna. Emuna is taking the truth, the emes of God's existence and emuna is turning it into being faithful to that truth. There all kinds of truths that we're not faithful to. It's true that sugar is bad for you, but are you faithful to that truth? It's true, tell the smoker, smoker can read all of the data, smoker can read all of the evidence that smoking is bad for you, it will kill you, but are you faithful to that truth, to that data, to that evidence? So Hashem's existence is emes. Emuna is how faithful are we to the truth of His existence? Is it something we leave in shul? Something we leave in the siddur when I open the siddur I daven, You're there. But then when I go to gym and to work, then when I'm driving on the road with my road rage, then when I'm in the supermarket and the line is long, then I'm not faithful to the very thing that I pledged and promised in the morning. Emuna is how faithful, how reliable, how consistent, how constant, how steady, how sturdy am I to the emes to that truth? That's what we've been discussing. So the second paragraph on the top of page chaf beis. שתי הבחנות אלו יסבירו מה שהזכרנו מחז"ל מדברי המהר"ל שהאמת והאמונה הם בציור של זכר ונקבה. Now this difference, this dichotomy of emes and emuna is captured in the form of the word. In English you don't have masculine and feminine, but in Hebrew you do. We have different ways of formulating words. Different ways. So like, I don't know for me at my age, I'm embarrassed to be admitting this, I'm ashamed to be admitting this, I still struggle with numbers. Shnayim shtayim, masculine, feminine, when do you use each, when do you use which, I gotta go back to ulpan to figure that out. I'm embarrassed and ashamed to admit that at my age, but it makes Hebrew complicated. Which is the masculine, which is the feminine, how do you count and so on. So these words, האמת פועלת באופן של זכר. The word emes... Truth is cognitive, is intellectual, is in the mind. Now does that mean women aren't intellectual or smart or cognitive? No, it doesn't mean that. Women may be smarter than men. But it means, and here's a truth, here's an emes that is getting blurred and erased in this world. Maybe I'll get cancelled for saying this. But that'll just accelerate my aliyah. So here goes anyway. Emes, emes is zachar. I'll tell you a truth that's not safe to say anymore. There's a difference between men and women. There's a difference between men and women. Anatomically, physiologically, there's a difference. There's a difference. Women conceive, women can carry a baby, women give birth, and women can feed that child. And men, no matter how jealous, no matter how much they want or crave to know that feeling, which women will laugh at cynically and say haha, you don't trust me, but men may say no matter how badly they want it, they can't have it. It's simply not the way the universe was designed. There's different anatomies between men and women and even if surgically a person attempts to change that anatomy, the reality of the chromosomes and the anatomy are there's differences between men and women. And what's true physically is true metaphysically. There are different energies and there are different predispositions and there are different emotional makeups between men and women. And it's not a Jewish concept or some right-winger fanatic concept. Someone made a lot of money off of their book, Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus, because they're from two different planets. From two different planets. And if you don't believe, then just try if you're a woman to live with a man, try if you're a man to live with a woman. It's the most rewarding and amazing and fulfilling, a happy and a wonderful marriage that you compliment each other, but you need to learn to navigate those differences, those assumptions, those predispositions, those love languages, those needs, those wants. There are fundamental differences. Are there exceptions? Of course there are. Of course there are. That means, are men taller than women? Yes. Statistically men are taller than women. Are the women of the WNBA taller than almost all men? Yes. The fact that there are exceptions to a rule doesn't negate or undermine the rule. So statistically there's a reality and a rule that men are taller than women. Are there outlier women that are taller than most men? Absolutely. So there are qualities that are masculine qualities or qualities that are feminine qualities. Are there men who have that femininity? Are there women who have more of that masculinity? Absolutely, there are outliers and exceptions to those rules and there's nothing wrong with it, nothing wrong with it, but on the whole that doesn't take away from the rule and the way that Hashem designed the universe. And now is not the time to get into this in length, but it's a pasuk, zachar unekeivah bar'am, Torah tells us that Hashem created Adam and Chava, male and female He created them. Because unlike what we're taught that Chava was taken, extracted from Adam's rib, that's not true. The Midrash tells us explicitly that Adam and Chava were born together, united as one androgynous figure, half man, half woman. And then Hashem divided them in two. He originally created them as zachar unekeivah bar'am. And the Gemara tells us that we have to, the Torah's rules are in order to protect and preserve the boundaries of those important differences. For the world to exist and be a healthy place, there has to be that balance and that equilibrium, there has to be a protection of masculinity and femininity. And when they get blurred and blended, when we no longer live those differences, when each is imitating or competing with the other, then the world is out of whack, it's out of balance. Zachar unekeivah bar'am, there is a balance between those forces and those energies, those predispositions, that design and that makeup, and it's true says the Gemara, says Chazal, zachar unekeivah bar'am, masculinity and femininity are true in the human species. It's true in the entire animal kingdom. It's even true in botany, in plant life, in ways that are far beyond me to explain, but there are plants, masculine, feminine, every component of this world Hashem created a parallel of masculine and feminine. And we need the healthy interaction and integration and respect and boundaries of the two in order for the world to be in balance. And when we pretend that there are no differences and erase differences and blur differences, we're doing a horrific disservice and we are introducing horrific and almost irreparable dysfunction. And that's the reality that we're seeing in our world today that for some reason thinks it's woke when they're really asleep at reality to introduce and erase. Now that's not the point of our shiur, this not why you come for Living with Emunah, but it's an important background to this and it's important for us to understand. And it's important for us to not be defensive or apologetic, of apologetic. There are different roles and different energies, neither is superior or better than another, and we need the combination of them both, and there's nothing wrong, by the way, that's not to say that men don't have and shouldn't be in touch with their femininity, they have, or women shouldn't be in touch with the masculine energy they have. Every human being, every tselem Elokim has part of both. We're not denying that. Question is, which does it have more, what proportion, what ratio, which is the predisposition, and on the whole, the gender differences are critically, critically important. We need that. We need mothers and we need fathers, we need husbands, we need wives, we need feminine leadership and masculine leadership. We need a world that is gaining from and drawing on and learning from both and not deleting or erasing or blurring them. So back to our regular schedule class. Emet is Zachar. And what's Zachar? Zachar is more cognitive, more intellectual, less emotional, less intuitive. אך כדי שהוא יוכל לחפוף בעולם על פי אמת זאת, so it's wonderful to have access to all the truth and all the facts in the world, but if you don't know how to apply it and you don't know how to live it and you don't know how to implement it, כדי שיהיה לו מקום וקביעות הוא צריך בית. You need a vessel. You need a house. You need a vehicle to take all that truth, all those facts, all those reality, and to put it into practice, to manifest it, to bring it into reality. Vezu bechinas ha'isha. And that's what women, the feminine energy specializes in, is taking truths and turning them into implemented reality. העושה בית בכדי ליישם את האמת בחיים. To take something that's pie in the sky and theoretical and up there and say, yeah, but we got to get to school, but it's carpool, but we got to have something to eat, but you know, we've got to have a Shabbos and a Yom Tov. We got to implement, we got to put into practice, we got to make it a reality. ולעשות לאמת קביעות במסגרת חיי האדם, and that's why Rav Moshe Shapiro suggests, Emet is lashon Zachar, and Emunah is lashon nekeivah. Women don't have Emet? Of course they do. And men don't have Emunah? Of course they do. But when we talk about their different roles and their contributions, again, which all science and research back, those scientists who have the courage to be willing to today share what their research concludes, because it takes courage today to do that, just to share the science and the research, it concludes exactly the same thing of the contribution of these different energies. חז"ל גילו לנו עניין נוסף מכח האמונה. Our rabbis revealed to us another idea from the power and the strength of Emunah. בתוספת שיש בעל האמת באמרם. And what Emunah adds in addition to Emet. Amar Reish Lakish, the Gemara in Shabbos, דף קי"ט. ברוך אתה ה' אלוקינו מלך העולם שהכל נהיה בדברו. Don't forget you could caffeinate with kavanah, you could order the cups, happy to send them to you. I start every day with a caffeinate with kavanah, this is my second coffee of the day. Thank you Bracha. And I promise you every day since we made this cup, every day without fail, the very fact that these words are on the cup make me pause and stop, that berachah is probably the berachah I have more kavanah on than any other day, any other berachah throughout the day. We make 100 berachos a day, we studied that together, I'm working on the other 99, but this one, because it's right in your face and you pour that coffee and you need it so badly to wake up, you're waking up physically and you're waking up spiritually. Shehakol caffeinate with kavanah, shehakol nihiyah bidvaro. We talked about what that means as well. I don't make money. I'm not selling. I'm not in sales mode. I don't make money off of it, but you can make mitzvos off of it. So feel free to order it or not, or just put up a sign next on top of your Keurig or your Nespresso or whatever your coffee snob drip fancy way of making coffee, however you do it, which I'm sure is so much better and nobody else makes coffee like that. Put a little note next to it, caffeinate with kavanah on that. Someone sent me an email with a picture in their home of their coffee station with a big caffeinate with kavanah, they printed their own sign, do it your way, not looking to make money, looking to help inspire all of us to have more kavanah. Anyway, the Gemara Shabbos דף קי"ט, Amar Reish Lakish, כל העונה אמן בכל כחו, whoever answers Amen with all of their effort, פותחין לו שערי גן עדן, the gates of Gan Eden will be opened for them. שנאמר פתחו שערים ויבא גוי צדיק שומר אמונים, אל תקרי שומר אמונים, ela sheomrim Amen. What is the key? What is the code? What will open the doors to Gan Eden, the Garden of Eden? Answering Amen with all your effort. It's amazing. You don't have to memorize a code. There's no key. There's no credit card machine. You know how you get into Gan Eden, what opens the gate to Gan Eden? You want a glimpse? You want a window? You want to see in? You know what opens the doors? Answering Amen bechol kocho. Peireish Rashi, bechol kocho, bechol kavanaso. When you hear someone else make... a beracha and you answer amen. We spoke about this on Shabbos Hagadol. The power of amen, power of amen is even greater than making the beracha. Amen and emuna answering amen in our homes, in our lives, with our coworkers, with our friends, you're meeting for lunch, you're meeting for coffee, you have a tayna, you have a claim on somebody who mumbled their beracha, who swallowed their beracha faster than their food. Say, say it out loud, I want to answer amen. Amen! I want to be able to answer amen. ממה שאמרו פותחין לו אנן למדים, says Rav Moshe Shapiro. I would have thought, what's the reward for answering amen bechol kocho? What is amen? It's from emuna. Ditto. I believe, I affirm, I agree, I'm bringing down His energy, I'm announcing, I'm faithful, I'm faithful to that truth, to this fact. I'm part of the club, I'm on the team, I'm in, I'm cheering. Amen, amen. We have a few die-hard Ranger fans in our shul. By a few, I mean anyone who cares about hockey in our shul who's not from Canada. That's right. So I wasn't here, I was at a wedding, but on Sunday, I can't tell you how many people sent me the picture of at Mincha, a father-son, a son who flew in—I love this father-son—who were at Mincha in their Rangers jersey at the game, very happy Rangers won in overtime, very excited about it, Baruch Hashem. So what do they wear that to Mincha? So people were very excited. Somebody wrote to me: 'Didn't have on my bingo card today, so-and-so and his son at Mincha in their Rangers jerseys.' Four billion degrees outside and in the hockey—in the hockey jersey. Why do you wear the hockey jersey? Why do people wear that jersey? They say, 'I'm a fan. I'm rooting for this team.' 'My happiness'—don't go near the hockey fan if they lost. Don't go near them. Last night. Sorry for what your home must have been like last night. All right? Don't go—the Panther fans. So, why do you wear the hat? Why do you wear the jersey? Why do you wear the team logo? Because I'm on team—I'm rooting, I'm a fan, I'm all in, I'm emotionally invested, I'm emotionally connected. Lehavdil, lehavdil, lehavdil, when you say amen, you just put on the biggest Hashem jersey. I'm on team Hashem. I'm wearing His logo, I'm rooting for Him, I believe in His brand. You're putting on the big 'I'm on Hashem' hat, right? Like the whole 'Thank You Hashem' movement, the magnets, the bumper stickers. I'm on Hashem, I'm on team Hashem. That's the logo. That's what we should be wearing. That's what we should be cheering for. That's who we're rooting on. Amen bechol kocho. So Rav Moshe Shapiro notes, you'd think you answer amen bechol kocho, you're wearing the Hashem jersey to Mincha, you're wearing the Hashem jersey to Publix, you're wearing the Hashem jersey to work, you'd think, you'd think, you'd think that you'd get entrance to Gan Eden. What do you mean just the doors are open? ששערי גן עדן הם דבר נעול. What do you learn that the doors need to be unlocked? What does that mean about the gates that they're normally? Locked. They're normally closed. If you need a password or a key, a code in order to unlock them, what does that tell you that ordinarily they are locked? זאת מציאות שאי אפשר להיכנס לשם מפני שאנו נמצאים מחוץ למעלה זו וצריך זכות שעבורה ייפתח לנו השער. We don't have a right, we're not entitled, we don't have a license to get in. We can't go in. They're normally locked. Why do you lock something? Because you're shutting people out. So we're normally on the outside. We're normally outsiders, we're normally locked out, we're normally shut out, and the key that we need is amen bechol kocho. Ubiur hainyan, says Rav Moshe Shapiro, how do you understand this? שהאמת מצד עצמה מוגבלת עד כמה השגה יש בה עד כמה שאדם מבין כך הדבר ברור ונתפס אצלו. The emes, the truth, is proportional to how much a person understands it. The truth is the truth. It's sitting up in a book, it's in a library, it's on a shelf, it's floating in the air, it's a truth that doesn't care about your feelings. It's a truth, there's an absolute truth, it is a non-negotiable truth, it's a non-deniable truth, it is a truth. It's a truth. But how much you have a relationship to the truth is relative to how much you understand it, how much you put into it, how much time you spend on it, how bright you are, smart you are, how well it was explained to you. אבל מי שמאמין באמת הרי התוספת הזאת של אמונה לידיעת השכל מחברת אותו למעלה ממה שהאמת נתפסת אצלו. But when you implement that truth, when you live that truth, you've now—you've now surpassed. You just went over the comprehension. So when something is a truth, how much you grasp it intellectually is dependent on how much you understand it. But when you take that same truth and it's not a function of trying to grasp it intellectually, but you're trying to live it and implement it, then when you live it and you're faithful to it, you put it into practice, now you've The intellectual understanding you had of it. Is that clear? Do you understand that? I mean the emes is the truth that's out there. How much do I understand it depends on how much I spend time on it, how capable I am of understanding it, and I might be at a very low level. But if I take that truth and now I live it, and now I implement it, and now I exhibit it, and now I demonstrate it, now my relationship with that truth, it is so much higher and so much deeper and so much better than whatever I was trying to achieve intellectually. האמת משתרעת רק עד היכן שאדם מכיר ומשיג אך על ידי אמונה אדם תוקע עצמו במציאות הרבה יותר גבוהה. You create a reality of being faithful to that truth. A reality of being faithful to that truth. When you demonstrate a truth, you have a closer relationship with it than when you're understanding and analyzing it. Demonstrate it. Put it into practice. Put it into practice. I've told the story many times, and I love the story. I've told the story many times about the father who needed a ride from the airport. He calls the son before Uber, taxis weren't so convenient. He says, "Could you pick me up? I'm flying in and could you pick me up at the airport?" He says, "Abba, Dad, I love you, I love you so much, but I just can't." He says, "Okay, I appreciate that, but pick me up at the airport." He says, "You're the greatest father that ever lived. You don't even know how much I love you. You can't imagine how much I appreciate, I so badly wish I could, but I can't." He says, "Okay, yeah, I appreciate that, but I need you to pick me up at the airport." He says, "Abba, there's no word to describe the love I have for you. It's the greatest love, no son has ever loved a father like I love you, and if I could, I would, I just can't." And the father, exasperated, said, "Listen, love me less and pick me up at the airport. Love me less and pick me up at the airport." And that's a great motto for life. Love me less and pick me up at the airport. The emes of love, don't talk about it, don't describe it, don't analyze it, don't look for synonyms for it, don't measure it. The emes of love, leave there. The emunah of putting it into practice, demonstrating, exhibiting it, put it when the rubber meets the road, the proof is in the pudding. Action. It's all words until it's action. It's all words until it's action. People talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. I'm going to, I will, I want to, I do. Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. אמור מעט ועשה הרבה. Chazal tell us in Pirkei Avos say little and do much. Let your actions do the talking. Say little and do much. Say little and do much. Because people talk all day long and they produce a lot of hot air and that's what's really destroying the environment. All the environment is being brought down by the hot air of the people who are אמור הרבה ועשה מעט. They talk a lot and they do little. Don't talk. Talk is cheap. Talk is cheap. Talk is cheap. It's just words until it's action. In every therapy session, between every marriage and every parent and children and every negotiation and every business partner and everything that's coming down, every therapist should have framed on their wall, "It's all talk until it's action." Action, demonstrate, exhibit, perform, show up, do. Im bechukosai telechu is this week's parsha. Hashem says im bechukosai telechu, action, walk. It's all talk how much you believe in me, how much you love me, how much you accept Torah and mitzvos, it's all talk until telechu, start walking. Start walking the walk. It's all talk until you start walking the walk. That's the opening of our parsha, im bechukosai telechu. Halacha. What do we call Jewish law? Thank you, Heaven. What do we call Jewish law? Halacha. Why? Because that's how you're demonstrating, that's the emunah in the emes. I love how you know how many people have told me through the years, "Rabbi, I'm not religious in that I don't observe, but I believe in Hashem, you don't even know, you don't even understand, you wouldn't believe how much I believe in Hashem. Nobody believes in Hashem like I believe in Hashem. I just believe in him in my way. I do it in my way, I live in my way, I perform, I exhibit it in my way." And the answer is that emes is wonderful, it's great. You believe in him, you surrender to him, you accept, it's fantastic. But you know what? It's all talk until it's action. Here's what he says he's asking, he's needing. That's like say, "I love my wife like no one's ever loved. You can't imagine, there's no words in the dictionary, there's nothing, there's nothing that can capture and describe the love I have." Yeah, but she says that you never listen to anything she asks, you never do anything the way she wants, you never follow through on anything you promise her. "That's not important, I love her like you've never heard love." I buy her cards and I write her poems and I give her chocolates. Right. But it's all talk until it's action. Emes is the talk. And the talk is also important. It's also important. But the talk is all talk until it's action. Emes is the talk. Emuna is the action. What opens the door to Gan Eden? Not the Emes. What opens the door to Gan Eden? And by the way, you know what Gan Eden is? A happy marriage. You know what Gan Eden is? A good relationship with your children. That is also Gan Eden. And you know what will open the door to those Gan Edens? If you put it into action. It's all talk until it's action. Love me less and take out the garbage. Love me less, do your homework and go to bed. Love me less and put your plate in the sink or wash the plates that are in the sink. Love me less and pick up the dry cleaning. Love me less and come home when you said you were going to come home. Love me less and it's all Emes, it's all words, it's all talk until it's Emuna, until you're faithful to what you're saying. And you have to demonstrate you're being faithful, we are being faithful to what we say. That opens the door to Gan Eden. Gan Eden of marriage, the Gan Eden of children, the Gan Eden what will open the door to a Gan Eden relationship around us is Emuna if we're faithful to what we say we believe. It's not just words, it's not just talk, it's not just Emes, but we're making it Emuna. We're making it Emuna as well. Okay. This is a good place to stop I think. So we'll stop here. And let's go out and take the Emes and make it Emuna. Put it into practice. In addition to the Emes, we also have the Emuna, you still need the Emes. You have to have the action, but we still need the talk. Part of the talk is Tefilla. Please remain so we can finish all Sefer Tehillim. Please have in mind חיה שושנה בת חנה פרידא undergoing a procedure this morning, all Cholei Yisrael and our brothers and sisters in Israel.
