Transcript
Good morning, good morning, boker tov, welcome back, welcome back to our weekly support group that we in order to avoid a stigma call living with emuna, but really is just a support group, great to be back together again as always, enormous gratitude and thanks to our series sponsors Dr. Avi and Bella Morgan in memory of Rabbi Dr. Brian Galbut, in memory of Bella's mother Dr. Ellen Shanzar, enormous thanks to the Morgans. Also sponsored this morning by our dear friend Hensha Gansburg in memory of her husband צבי הירש בן משה דב בער גאנזבורג, I know she listens from Yerushalayim, so shout out, sending a lot of love, we miss you Hensha, by Rachel Rodensky in memory of her brother Michael Branzel's נשמה שתהא לו עליה, thank you Rachel for your generosity and leadership, by Elaine Trachtenberg and Andrew and Alan Lieber in memory of Dr. Howard Trachtenberg, our beloved member, we miss Dr. Trachtenberg, very special man, beloved husband and father, and by Bayla Smith in gratitude to Hashem, huge mazel tov to Bayla became a bubby for having a grandchild Aryeh Yaakov Kaplan, mazel tov, mazel tov on the healthy baby boy, she should have a lot of nachas and a lot of bracha and only simcha and only good things, so thank you to all of our generous, generous sponsors. We're learning something new today, if you didn't take yet and you'd like, you could follow along inside. Also, I have here some giveaways. We used to have swag, we sold it, we're happy to share it and suggest a donation on the way out in the lobby there's a little iPad, give whatever you like if you want to cover it. This is a coffee cup, I think they call these tumblers, is that what they call it? Beerat Emuna Shiur, caffeinate with kavana, have your coffee every morning, I drink every morning from one of these cups and every day when I see the shehakol nihiyeh bidvaro caffeinate with kavana, it reminds me as I'm about to swallow the bracha faster than I swallow the coffee, it reminds me slow down, pause, think about what you're about to say, be grateful for everything that goes into getting that coffee as we've spoken about many times, the farmer, person who plowed the land, planted the coffee bean, harvested it, packaged it, shipped it, distributed it, ground it, put it into the pod, put it, I don't know how big a snob you are in Nespresso or Keurig or slow drip or depending on your level of coffee snobbery, even more went into whatever it took to get it there. Anyway, but when you say shehakol nihiyeh bidvaro, you're not just making that bracha on the sip of coffee of which I'm not a human being until I drink it, well now with the ice bath, whatever, but I'm not a human being until I drink it. That was two minutes and twenty-eight seconds ago. But anyway, shehakol nihiyeh bidvaro, the whole ambiance, the whole world, the whole life, the whole with whom am I drinking this coffee, where am I having it, what home am I sitting in while I drink it, what peace of mind do I have, what kind of emotional relationship, a good cup of coffee with a pastry, doesn't matter what's going on in your life, it doesn't matter what you're facing, doesn't matter what you're confronting, doesn't matter what you have to overcome, a muffin and a hot coffee, shehakol nihiyeh bidvaro, shehakol! I'm not saying it won't all be back and maybe some new problems because of the muffin right after you finish it, I'm not saying that problems won't return, I'm just saying for a little window, that good pastry, Rabbi Moskowitz, a muffin and a coffee, he knows for me like that emotional, oh that's gishmak. Anyway, we have these cups here, take whatever you want to donate, credit card reader in the lobby feel free. We also produced these if you remember in the past, Modeh Ani thank you Hashem for a new day turn the page, little notebooks every day on top turn the page a new day, we say מודה אני רבה אמונתך every day, every morning Hashem gives us this bracha, we get to start again turn the page, turn the page, it's a new day, every day is a new day, every week's a new week, every month's a new month, that's Rosh Chodesh, every year Rosh Hashana is a new year, every hour's a new hour, every minute's a new minute. We're constantly renewing, refreshing, we're starting again, we don't have to be locked in, we don't have to be stuck, we don't have to be paralyzed in a certain paradigm, we have the ability to constantly, constantly renew and having a little notebook that every day whatever you list you gotta make whatever notes you want to take, whatever you turn the page, new page, turn the page, it's a new page, it's a new beginning, it's a fresh start. So we're giving these away to those who faithfully and loyally come to our emuna shiur, you could fill your cup with a slushy on the way out, slushy with kavana, it's the same bracha, shehakol nihiyeh bidvaro, slushy's the same bracha, fill your cup on the way out feel free to make a donation. Let's get into a few letters then we'll get into our new text which I'm really excited to learn together today and it should be a day that we hear besoros tovos, may we hear good news and good tidings we desperately need each and every day, the hostages should come home, it's not it's mind-boggling that four hundred plus days, fourteen months we're still talking, it's just absolutely mind-boggling that the world is tolerating, so may we hear good news, the hostages come home. soldiers return to their families. Rabbi Moshe Taragin, a dear friend of our community who's been here many times, son was injured in Lebanon two nights ago, had an eight-hour surgery yesterday to remove the shrapnel from his lungs and his legs, please God he'll have a complete recovery but needs our tfilos, our heartfelt prayers, all the soldiers who've been injured, physical injuries that we can see and injuries that are invisible, they should all have speedy recoveries, complete recoveries, they are on our thoughts in our hearts every second of every day, every second of every day. Dear Rabbi Goldberg, I'm in ninth I think grade and every single week I love to listen to Living with Emuna on Spotify. I've always wanted to write an Emuna email to you and this week I finally have a story. It's so gratifying that people are like they're waiting for the story. First of all, you can just email and say hi. Hey Rabbi, how's your day? How was the pastry? How was the coffee? That's it. It doesn't have to be a special story. Just to be alive is a story. Cup of coffee that didn't spill on you, you didn't burn yourself, you got the right ratio of whatever you put into your coffee, that in itself is an email Living with Emuna. Last night I was waiting at CVS for my pictures to print out for over an hour just to find out that the worker helping me messed up and my pictures never even went through, so we had to send them again. It took a really long time and within the first ten minutes I was already losing my patience. But then I thought of the Emuna shiur with everyone sharing stories about having Emuna in difficult times. It helped me to stay calm, remember I am wherever I am supposed to be, if I'm stuck at CVS for an hour and a half it's because Hashem wants me to be there and I'm not stuck at all, I'm exactly where I'm meant to be, thanks for the amazing shiur, anonymously. Ninth grade, everybody's waiting. So again, there's consequential, inconsequential, big deal, small deal, the Emuna shiur equally helps us all through wherever we are and you go from being really annoyed at the person at CVS messed up your pictures over an hour, why am I stuck here, to realizing a Jew is never stuck. A Jew is never stuck, a Jew is never lost, we are where we're meant to be, lean into it. Now I'm not suggesting that you know you open a lounge chair, set up shop in CVS, spend the night, obviously try to expedite, try to do things quickly, productively, efficiently, you don't have to dwell some place that you don't want to be or aren't meant to be, but when we feel that we're stuck, we're not stuck, we are where we're meant to be. So we give out in the shul every week Artscroll sends us for the Shabbos table this beautiful little newsletter with divrei Torah, we put it out in the lobby, shout out to my friend Rabbi Zlotowitz and Artscroll for the great things they do, we don't pay BRS, we get color copies, we know what that costs, and they send it every week, we put it out and it's always beautiful. But this grabbed my attention this past Shabbos I wanted to share it with you. So this isn't a letter from Rabbi Zlotowitz or Artscroll, I could pretend it is to me, but it's not, it's the newsletter to all of us and it has the following in it. A young man, Rav Mordechai Pogromansky became renowned throughout the Lithuanian Torah world as a gaon and a tzadik of unusual proportions. He was a man of great spirit, had a tremendous influence on all those with whom he came in contact. Once, he was riding on a train when a fellow passenger suddenly exclaimed, "Oh no! I missed my stop! I'm a mohel and I need to check on a baby. Now I have to get off at the next stop, take a train in the other direction, I've lost so much time, oy hab ich, I've lost my way, I'm wasting so much time." So Rav Mordechai told the man, he said the following, "The Torah tells us that when Hagar departed Avraham's house, this last week's parsha Vayeira, after he sent her and Yishmael away, Hagar became lost in the desert of Be'er Sheva. Rashi states she became lost in the sense she returned to worshipping idols. Why wasn't Rashi satisfied with the literal meaning vatito, she became lost, that she simply could not find her way? Why does Rashi deviate from the translation, the taitsh of the text? The text says that she lost her way. So say she was lost. Why do you have to say she lost her way spiritually that she returned to worshipping idols? The answer is that a believing Jew knows that he's never lost, Hashem is always with him. If he seems to have lost his way, then he can rest assured that Hashem willed that this should happen. If Hagar became lost, obviously she no longer lived by the belief she had been taught in Avraham's house." The train pulled into the next station, the doors opened, on the platform was a man shouting, "My wife had a baby boy, today is the eighth day, does anyone know of a mohel, is anyone here a mohel?" Oh my god. Even if that story didn't have the happy ending the dvar Torah is beautiful. And what was the dvar Torah? Rashi reinterprets the words 'and Hagar got lost' that she was lost spiritually, she began to worship idols again. What compelled Rashi to say that? Why not just translate it as she was lost? That's what the word means. And that's what he explained, because if a person ever feels lost, if a person ever feels stuck, they got to check themselves and their emuna. Maybe they've lost their way spiritually, emotionally, because if a person is high-speed connection to God, if a person is constantly in conversation, feels He's with us by our side, guiding us, hand on our shoulder, I am where I'm meant to be, at this red light or stuck at the train tracks with the train going or with the delay. delayed flight, or at CVS with the non-printing pictures, or the doctor's office where, as a famous Jewish comedian says, it's called the waiting room for a reason. Be prepared, be prepared and expect. He has a whole great routine. First they put you in the big waiting room. They move you into another room which is really just a smaller waiting room where you're waiting for the doctor. But they make you get undressed and sit on a wax paper. You never heard his routine? I expect him to put a pickle down and wrap you up like a deli sandwich sitting on the wax paper. Now you're just naked in the next little waiting room, waiting and cold. Yeah, he has a whole routine. He has a great great routine. So wherever you're stuck or lost, it's called the waiting room. So just bring something to do and then you're not going to be miserable and resentful and bitter. How long and what time and why do they bother giving an appointment and what does it even mean and how come that- just it's the waiting room. So just bring something to read or do or knit or sew or write or call or text and then you say: I came expecting to wait, and then you'll be disappointed when they call you. But I'm not done reading my book. I'm not done knitting my blanket. Why are they calling me so quickly? You just change the whole thing around. Change the whole thing around. A Jew is never lost and if a Jew ever feels lost, they're not geographically lost, they are emotionally and emunah-ally lost. If we're lost because we have to reconnect and recalibrate our compass, we are where we're meant to be, where we're supposed to be. A Jew, a yid, is never lost. One more letter. This one goes a little way back a couple months ago. Thank you Rabbi so much for the amazing podcast, blah blah blah. I'd like to tell you the following emunah story. Last week Monday night, I was gathering all my supplies for my nursing clinical the following morning. I wasn't sure what I would do about davening Shemonah Esrei as I needed to get to my clinical by 6:30 AM and it was very far away. I didn't want to rush. It was also a brand new location and I was wary of their parking garage situation. Nonetheless, I remembered your shiurim and Hashem helping you and I've been listening to Rabbi Zacharia Wallerstein zichrono livracha about how just an extra minute of davening can make a big difference in a person's day. One more minute of davening or one minute altogether of davening. Some days it's hard to fit in the time or to have the feeling of wanting to daven. One minute. Just one minute. What one minute can do. And again, I'm not going to get into my polemic about the ice bath or the breathing or the whatever, but I am telling you, I am telling you, I just did, I am telling you from personal experience that there are one minute things that we can do that you'll say it's one minute. It really is going to make a difference. Yeah. If you turn off your phone and you do some deep breathing for one minute, it will change your life. It's not me, it's research. It's Andrew Huberman, it's professors, it's PhDs, it's data. It's not me. Neshama, neshima, we've spoken about it countless times, that the word neshama, which is soul, is the same word as neshima, which means breath. And we do too shallow breathing because we're looking down, typing, scrolling, we're not breathing deep breathing. We're rushing, running, going, doing, so we're not taking deep breaths. And if you're ever feeling stressed out, this is very counterintuitive. This is very counter-intuitive. I'll tell you two counter-intuitive things. When I'm feeling overwhelmed sitting in my office with the list of things that I have to get done, I clean my desk. Now you'll say if you have no time, why are you cleaning your desk? You'll get to that when you have all the time in the world. I don't know when that will ever be. But when you have time, that's- no, no, 'cause sometimes when you're feeling scattered, it's because you're dealing with scatter. If you organize and straighten up, now you feel now I can do it. Counter-intuitive number one. That was a free tip. Organize, organize. It's good for you. Be organized. Shout out to the organizer. Counter-intuitive tip number two. You have no time, you're rushing, you're running, you have no time to spare, is exactly when you need one minute. Just take deep- I'm not going to do it with you right now. I'm tempted, but I'm not going to. Right? Five seconds breathing in, hold it for five seconds, five second exhale through the nose, out the mouth. There's a lot of different attitude, philosophy, where to take it in, expand the belly, Wim Hof method. There's a lot of meth- I'm not getting into it. You do you, figure out what works for you. I'm giving you homework. Next week emunah shiur you're going to come back and you're going to say: I had a day where I was losing it on someone, I was frustrated, I was anxious, I was angry, I was overwhelmed, and I stopped and for sixty seconds I did something, and I am guaranteeing you you will come back and say it made a difference. It just made a difference. It slowed everything down. So the point is that there are little moments that we can take that make enormous differences. The payoff, the return on that little amount of time is enormous. Whether it is the ice bath or whether it's breathing or whether it's one minute of davening. Eino domeh, you can't begin to compare a day in which you did not have a conversation with God than one in which you had a one minute conversation with God. And if you think you can compare, I'll ask you: what would a marriage look like on a day where there was zero interaction versus even one minute? How are you? I'm thinking about you. I wish we could be talking right now. now, I'm connecting, I'm making a bid for one minute. Children, is there a day that go by that I don't connect with my children or family? My—they're gonna kill me for this—but my family WhatsApp group, my children, we have a WhatsApp group, Baruch Hashem, bli ayin hara. So you know on WhatsApp you could press video basically calls everybody and those who want to come on, come on. That basically starts in the morning. That video chat goes on the whole day with different children and parents dropping on and dropping off and checking in and checking out. And that's the bracha I give you, because that's the ultimate bracha that your kids actually want to be talking to each other, to their parents in conversation, filling in. I'm giving you that bracha and I'm pushing off any ayin hara, and I'm telling everybody there is nothing more satisfying on the planet than they're wanting to be talking to each other, except this morning when I pressed it to join on and my one little granddaughter started crying, "I don't want Zeide, I want Eliana," her cousin. I was like, "Good morning to you too." So it doesn't always—doesn't always pay off the way you want it to. But that's the biggest bracha in the world. So if you on a day only got one minute on there, that's not gonna change your day? Zero time connecting to your children or grandchildren, or a sixty-second connection? I see you, I know you, I love you, I feel you love me, have a great day, see you tomorrow. Eino domeh, you can't compare one day to the next. And if that's true with our spouse and it's true with our children, it's also true with our Father. One minute. Hashem, I don't feel like talking to you today. I don't have time to talk to you today. I'm not saying these are thoughts that we promote or encourage, but they are real that people have. There are obligations of davening, I'm not—I'm not weighing in here on the halacha. I'm just saying that the reality is, particularly with women, sometimes there is no time, there are other responsibilities, sometimes people are not in a place. But one minute. You can't compare one minute. Back to this email. One extra minute of davening can make a big difference in one day and life. As a result, I said to myself that this one week I can make it work and made sure to daven at home exactly at netz to avoid looking for a corner in the hospital at a later point to daven Shemoneh Esrei. I got to my clinicals on time, Baruch Hashem, without any difficulties. Now here's the catch: since it was my first time in this parking garage, as I was leaving for the day I didn't realize it was a one-way. You would think all the cars going one way would have been a clue, in addition to all the parking spaces being a slant in one direction. But I didn't think anything of it, I just kept working on turning my car around. I started to go down the garage, quickly realized I was going the wrong way. Baruch Hashem they stopped their cars, and I—and I apologized profusely, realizing what I did was wrong. They were kind, understanding, they said they would stay where they were to block any incoming cars while I tried to turn myself back around. I thanked the person profusely, I proceeded to back up my car. Now parking is not my strong suit. I don't know if that was on the shidduch resume or not, but parking is not my strong suit. And I did not know how to back up into the slanted parking space, didn't even try. What I did do, however, is when I got back into the parking spot I was originally in, I parked at an awful angle, didn't allow me to turn myself around. I was stuck. I couldn't figure out how to maneuver my car without hitting the car to my right. Not sure what to do, I decided to get out of my car, ask for help. Baruch Hashem a couple minutes later, a kind lady parked near me and I asked her to help me, she did, and within thirty seconds my car was parked correctly, no issues. I thanked the lady and we both went on our ways. A lot of humility. It takes humility to say, "I'm stuck," when we're stuck, "I feel stuck, I need help, I'm asking for help." You bet your life savings that this author of this email is not a man. "I'm asking for help," and I got the help, and I'm ready to go. And I'm ready to go. I was—I was thinking to myself during and afterwards, this is the kicker, this is the point of this email then we'll get into learning. I was thinking to myself both during and afterwards how one extra minute of davening can make a difference. Hashem sent me such kind people to help me with this looking back quite hilariously but obviously stressful in the moment situation. Do I know if this is exactly the reason I was able to get help and be safe? Only Hashem knows. What I do know is that I felt extreme menuchas hanefesh, calm, driving back, thanking Hashem for having me be safe, grateful I took the extra couple minutes to daven that morning. Will I be able to do that in future weeks? Honestly, probably not. But I do think it's important to remember that every small mitzvah, middah, intention matters. I remembered in the moment to stay calm, to have emunah it will work out, Hashem helped it work out, one extra minute of davening, what it could be. Don't let a—don't let a day go by. One minute. There's no one here who could say they don't have one minute. Everybody has one minute. If you think you don't have one minute, give me your phone, I'll look through it and I'll show you you have plenty of minutes. We all have minutes. We all have minutes. One minute, that bid for connection, to talk to, to hear him talking to us, to feel connected. One minute is an enormous game changer. Okay, new sefer Emuna u’Bitachon. Very grateful to my friend Jay Bardavid for sending it to me. Emuna u’Bitachon is a new sefer, the teachings of Rav David Abuhatzeira in Nahariya in the north of Israel. He should be safe, his community should be safe. Rav David Abuhatzeira, grandson of the Baba Sali, the Abuhatzeira family. If you've ever gotten a bracha, the great Rav David Abuhatzeira, the great kabbalist. So he gives a series of shiurim on emuna u’bitachon, they collected his Torah... How could it be? How are we tolerating? How are we tolerating? 80,000 people? Kids not in their school, not at work, not working their fields and their vineyards, wineries that have shut down, that have closed their business. It's not acceptable. How could it be? How in the world could it be? How could it be? We have to do whatever is necessary with whatever it takes to return people to where they to their homes. That's what a country owes its citizens. There's nothing to talk about. It's not we don't owe other innocent civilians more than we own our own owe our own innocent civilians. Go in, do what it takes, get it done, get people home. Okay, nobody's asking my opinion. Emuna u'bitachon. Says Abuhatzeira the following: Kesha'emuna chazaka again the copies here if anybody wants. Kesha'emuna chazaka I was about to read it the way he would. כשהאמונה חזקה אצל האדם הוא אכן זוכה לחיים אחרים בבחינת עם ה' אלקיך. If a person lives with emuna, you're living a different life. Two people standing next to each other, one has a relationship with God, one is in conversation with God, one feels and hears God talking to them, one is stuck, one says I'm never stuck. One sometimes is lost, the other says I'm never lost. One longs for and craves all these missing things, the other says I have exactly what I have. The two people both look like they're human beings on earth, they both seem like they're similar from the same species, but they are categorically different. You cannot compare a life of living with emuna and a life without. A life im Hashem Elokecha with God by our side, in our ear, hand on our shoulder, to facing this world and this life on our own, figuring it out by ourselves. כפי שמובא בדברי ישראל as the heilige Maggid says, כשאדם מאמין שאין מקרה בעולם רק הכל בהשגחה פרטית מן השמים. When a Yid, when a Jew lives their day, that there's nothing random, and there's nothing chance, and there are no coincidences, everything is from shamayim. The technology worked today or it didn't work, I wasn't able to stream today. Connection worked or we cut out, it didn't work. Everything went according to plan or the plan blew up. Everything is by design, carefully choreographed, curated from above, meant specifically for me. וכל ההווה ומתרגש בעולם אפילו תנועה קלה אפילו צעדי רגליו ספורים בהשגחה. Every little movement, every step you take, it's all from Hashem. Remember last week's letter? Person who twisted their ankle and almost fell while running in the middle of the street, could have got hit by a car, ended up continuing their run till they fell later on a track where and they said to themselves, that was also Hashem. Every step we take. Did you step in the hole and twist your ankle? Did you catch yourself, you didn't twist your ankle? Did the person fall and break their hip and spiral downward or did it work out that they were okay? It's all from above. כמו שאנו מברכים בכל יום בשם ומלכות ברכת המכין מצעדי גבר. We make a blessing, we make a bracha every day. Every morning we wake up and there's a series of 15 blessings we say, we call them birchos hashachar, the morning blessings. The morning... God pokeach ivrim, you open my eyes and I can see. Wow, I can see. There are people wake up, they can't see. People wake up, detached retina, floaters, cataracts, macular degeneration. People wake up, they went to sleep the night before, they never even appreciated that they could see. They took it for granted, it's a given. What do you mean? I'm entitled to see. I signed up for seeing. I'm in I should see, why don't I get seeing? That comes with my package called life. Who says I shouldn't see? Until they wake up the next morning, why can't I see? Why is everything fuzzy? Why isn't it clear? So we make a bracha pokeach ivrim. Hashem you let us you let us see, you give sight to the blind. 15 blessings like that. Wow, this worked, that worked, the other thing worked. Wow, what a bracha! What a bracha! Something stops working, person person never thinks about the blessing of relieving themselves. We eat, we eliminate, we relieve, we move on with our day, we got stuff to do, that's not exactly something that we talk about, think about, focus on, until you can't anymore. The person who needs God forbid a catheter, the person who has a bladder infection or diagnosis, a person who's suffering or struggling with a digestive disorder, person in the other direction, a person all of a sudden... Excruciatingly painful, challenging, can't eliminate, crisis, emergency surgery, resection, colostomy. All kinds of all of a sudden Asher Yatzar is not a bracha you race through, you run through, that you say as Tefillas Haderech while you're walking to the next thing. All of a sudden, we wake up every morning and we're meant to take a few moments and take an inventory. This works, thank you. That works, thank you. The other thing's still working? Thank you. Wow, thank you. It's a big deal, it's not small, ask someone who it's stopped working. And one of the brachos, one of the blessings we make is Hamichin Mitzadei Gaver. God, you prepare the footsteps of man. You prepare our footsteps. Hamichin Mitzadei, where I'm going to go today, am I going to get there today, will my shoes fit, will I step in a hole, will I step on a nail, will I get a splinter, will I trip and fall, will I arrive safely? Where are my footsteps and where will they take me? Hamichin Mitzadei Gaver, that's you. וצריכין להאמין בזה מאוד שלא יהיה חלילה ברכה לבטלה. That do you believe it or you don't believe it? Do you believe God is preparing your footsteps? God is walking with us? Do you believe God is alongside or not? Because if you don't, you're saying God's name in vain. It's a bracha levatala. אזי על ידי אמונה זו ניצול ממרה שחורה ועגמת נפש שאינו מתנהג בענייניו כרצונו ודעתו. Through this emunah we can save ourselves from a bitter, painful, miserable, negative, pessimistic, depressed, despondent, anxious life. כי על ידי שמאמין ששום דבר בעולם אינו נעשה על ידי רצונו של אדם רק הכל בהשגחה מן השמים ממילא לא יכעס ולא יתקצף ולא יהרהר. So if you don't believe in God, I don't know how you get out of bed in the morning. You wake up, you open your eyes and you say, this one's going to fail me, that one's going to destroy me, this one's how will that work out, I don't know if that's going to come together, this thing could fall apart, I could get in a car accident, I could get diagnosed with an illness, I could have a heart attack, what about my children, my grandchildren, my work, my efforts, my thing, I'm just going to stay in bed for the day for the rest of life. What enables us, empowers us, encourages us to get out of bed? Hashem, I don't know what you got in store in the adventure called today. Let's do it! Let's go! Hamichin Mitzadei Gaver, let's see where you take me in my footsteps today. Let's see where today leads me. I just did an interview with someone the other day about the rabbinate. And I said what I love about it is not no two days are the same, no two hours are the same. And no two hours are predictable. I have no idea what's going to happen. I'll tell you an amazing story that happened last week. Just occurred to me. So I'm, if you can't tell, I'm on this a little bit of a health kick. I'm trying. Happen to be hitting a milestone and I feel like you get certain chances in life, this is it, you know, there's a clock that's ticking and get it together, get it together while you can. So I'm working on some things. And one of the things I made myself a spreadsheet. I don't know what I had this morning that I'm sharing so much today. I find out if my kids listen to the Emunah shiur because I say things that they have reactions to. So you know there's a Peter Drucker who's a management expert who literally the authority wrote the book Management for the secular world, business world. He had a great statement a quote that I love. What gets measured gets managed. What gets measured gets managed. If you're keeping track and measuring it, you're going to do it. If you just don't and it's in your head and you're bluffing yourself, you're not managing anything. So I made myself a spreadsheet. I'm into it now, several weeks into it, and I have categories and it's every day, trying to track how many hours I slept, did I do my ice bath, several things, several things, some things I could still keep private, several things. And one of them is my goal is every day at one point to walk around the lake and come back. It's less than a few minutes to do, not a grosse achievement, but it clears your head, you do some breathing, and מה טוב ומה נעים if I can do it, if I have a meeting with someone I'll say to some people they'll come to me and I'll say you up for a walk? Again now's the weather, no offense if you're listening elsewhere, but now's the weather. So go you up for a walk, let's go for a walk. Let's go for a walk. Someone came to me with me I said you up for a walk, let's go for a walk. Walk around the lake once, twice, a few minutes, it's a it's a great way to have a conversation. So we go for a walk for our meeting and I come back and there's somebody sitting outside my office I never saw I never met before, and they were in crisis, they were in an emergency situation, an emergency situation. And it happened to be, it happened to be that the person I was with has an expertise in the crisis that they were in. And it took the next two and a half hours of helping and working with that person Hatzalah, police, it was a whole episode, a whole episode. And I jokingly said to the person afterwards I said... Why'd we go for that walk? If you would have met me in my office, we would have saved two and a half hours of our life, right? We wouldn't have been coming back. He was sitting there, would have been in my office from there into Mincha, would have been good. But then I caught myself and I realized hameichin mitzadei gaver. Hashem arranges our footsteps. I, we were meant to go on that walk in that moment to encounter that person, to be there to help them, and to get them in the direction, hopefully please God, Hashem should shower with love and help in the direction they need to go. I woke up that morning I had no idea, right? I was getting the text where are you? I'm dealing with something, I hopefully will be home soon. I had no idea where those footsteps would lead me that day. No idea what Hashem had in store that day. How many of us on a given day know what's in store on that adventure called life? hameichin mitzadei gaver. Hashem arranges our footsteps, and he arranged our footsteps that day. Go for a walk. Why that meeting, not another meeting? Why at that time? Why a walk that day? Why did he agree? Why not? hameichin mitzadei gaver. He arranges our footsteps and it led where we're meant to be, to encounter who we're meant to encounter, to help however we're meant to help, to see what we're meant to see, to intervene how we're meant to intervene. hameichin mitzadei gaver. When you say that bracha every morning birchos hashachar, thank you I can see, thank you my legs work, thank you my digestive system works, thank you everything's working. matir asurim. Hashem release those who are held hostage and bound. We never knew what that meant, why am I saying that blessing my whole life? matir asurim, now we understand why. We're actually saying release that which is bound in me, what I'm holding myself hostage to become the person I'm meant to be. That's what the intent back in Siddur snippets 600 snippets ago, that's what we said. But now we have a new understanding. matir asurim, release the captives. Release them, let them go, bring them home, bring them back, release them. But hameichin mitzadei gaver means Hashem, let my feet work, I don't want to step on anything, get a splinter, twist my ankle, break my leg, break my hip, need a knee replacement, let it all work. That's the simple understanding. But more than the simple, right? Depending where you are in life, you have different kavana in that blessing. Let this work, let that not break down, let that not need to be replaced, let that, right? Keep the original components. But whatever stage of age of life. But the deeper understanding for all of us of hameichin mitzadei gaver is, I don't know where you're leading me today. I don't know. I don't know where my steps will take me. I'm with you, let's go. Let's do it. Let's find out. Let's see. And I know you'll be by my side all along. I'll never be lost, I'll never be lost and I'll never be stuck, because you arrange my footsteps. And you brought me to CVS with the incompetent person working the picture thing at CVS. You brought me to the, you brought me to the thing, you brought me עד כאן לשון קדשו אמר דרך חיים של דביקות וקירבה נשגבה עם השם אלוקיו עד שמגיע למצב שהאדם חי את חייו בצל הקודש וניזון ממזון העליון הרוחני השמימי. Such beautiful Hebrew. Such a beautiful poetic description. He's quoting the Magid of Kozhnitz, the Divrei Yisrael, and then Rav Abuhatzeira is adding in his own words. You can't compare a life with Hashem and a life without. The person who wakes up and says I don't know what's in store today and it's probably going to be miserable and fate and karma and the universe has it in for me and every day's terrible. That's one life. The other life is Hashem. May not be easy, there may be hard work, may be painful, not pleasant, but I'm waiting to see where you bring us today. What's in store today? Where do my steps take me today? And if you could live the second life, connection, clinging. Hashem is with us, he's on this journey. He's on the walk. Whenever I go on that walk, it's with who I'm meeting with and it's with Hashem. I'm with the meeting and Hashem. You don't mind if Hashem joins us? We're going to go for a walk together, right? We don't really have a choice, he's with us either way. ad shemagia lematzav till we can get to a point שהאדם חי את חייו בצל הקודש till we live our life in the shadow, in the shade of Hashem. venizon mimazon haelyon and we are being nourished from the supply of heaven. The heavenly spiritual supply is nourishing our soul because we're walking in the shadow, in the shade of Hashem. He's on every walk, he's in every car ride, he's on the plane, boat, planes, trains, and automobiles. He's with us every second wherever we go. You can't compare, that's the life, that's what we're working on. That's what we're trying to achieve. Why are we doing it? He doesn't need it. It's not for him. Not for his ego, not for himself, he doesn't need it. He doesn't need our help, he's not lonely. He needs us, yes he needs us. He needs us because he's choosing to need us, to have that relationship like a parent. But we're doing it because we're enriched, we're better. We're calm, we're happy, we're healthy. We're not envious, we're not arrogant, we're not anxious. It's a different life. It's an altogether different life when you can say, I've shared with you again many times, before living with emuna things would have been different. bother me, I'd get anxious, I'd be upset at myself, at others. I meant to say that in the drasha, I can't believe I left out that story, that close. Now whenever anything like that happens I say, okay, that's the way it was meant. Literally, it gives you the tools and the strength to let go and move on, not become, not become paralyzed or debilitated because that was the way it was meant to be. Okay, you learn for next time, take better notes, look at your note, figure it out, whatever. But yeah, if that happened that way, that's how that was meant to happen. Now learn from it, move on, don't perseverate in it, don't go backwards, don't get stuck. That's also last week's parsha. Lot is rescued and saved from Sodom before it's destroyed. He and his family are told, don't look back. If you do, you'll turn into a pillar of salt. The historian Josephus claims to have seen that pillar of salt that was Lot's wife. Lot turned around, Lot's wife rather turned around, she wasn't entitled to look back at the evil people that she should have been included with, their fate. She wasn't entitled to look at it. She did turn around, she turned into a pillar of salt. Literally, figuratively, metaphorically, the most beautiful interpretation I've seen is that what is salt? Salt's a preservative. If you want to preserve something for it to not spoil, salt is a preservative. To turn into a pillar of salt when you turn around means you're stuck in the past. Don't get stuck in the past. Yes, you associated with them, yes, that was your crew, that was your crowd, that was your jam, that's how you ran, that's how you were living, but look forward. That's it. Don't turn around, don't look back, don't have nostalgia, don't look back, don't still feel connected. We've made mistakes, something didn't go our way, we came up short, don't turn around and get stuck. Don't become a pillar of salt. Don't be preserved in perpetuity that way. Look forward. We end Ashrei, ואנחנו נברך יה מעתה ועד עולם הללויה. Shlomo Hoffman says, va'anachnu nevarech ya, God we want to praise you, how? me'ata ve'ad olam, because I'm living now, going forward. The biggest praise for Hashem is I'm not stuck in the past. 30 years ago and 20 years ago and I can't believe and it happened and, you know, there are people, they're stuck in high school, the big game, happened at camp, the person, what they gave up, who they used to date, the real estate they could have owned, the job they didn't take. Enough, we've heard about that, move on. That's it, you're forfeiting your life today and tomorrow because you can't get past yesterday. Don't get stuck in the past. It's lovely, every now and then, nostalgia, open the album, flip through the pictures, then close it and move on and lean into your life today. The biggest praise we have for Hashem, va'anachnu nevarech, Hashem we can praise you how? me'ata, from today, and ve'ad olam. I'm not living in the stuck, I'm not turning my life into a pillar of salt, I'm not being preserved in the past. me'ata ve'ad olam, I'm with you, we're going forward. We're going forward tomorrow. When you live a life of emuna you can't compare two lives, two worlds, two existences. You can't compare what it does for us, what it gives us. We're never lost, we're never stuck, never get angry, don't feel arrogant, don't be envious of others. Live a life of joy, of happiness, of serenity, of equanimity, of peace. Live that life, that's what emuna can give us. Wanted to get much further, we're going to keep going, but that's, I have two pieces of homework for next week. Two pieces of homework. Number one, breathe. neshama, neshima. Even do it once right now, you ready? You're not going to tell me you don't feel different. One breath. Your whole body, you just relaxed your muscles, your neck, your back, your life. You can't tell me you don't feel different. Your neshama's not restored a little bit. Just breathe. Minimum of one minute of davening a day. Obviously much more, beautiful, stay now, do one minute of Tehillim, we'll finish all of Tehillim as we do each and every week. One minute of davening a day, one minute of breathing a day, and organize your stuff, get it together. Okay, if you want to take a caffeinate with kavana, take a book, turn the page, there's an iPad in the lobby, you want to make a donation, we welcome it, we can continue to produce more and share more. May it be a day where we hear בשורות טובות ישועות ונחמות.
