Transcript
Good morning Boker Tov, welcome back to Living with Emuna. Wonderful to see friends again coming together to learn and work on and grow our Emuna muscles and see the world through our Emuna glasses and feel the presence of Hashem even more in our lives. I want to thank our Emuna series sponsors, Doctors Avi and Bella Morgan in memory of Rabbi Doctor Brian Galbut and in memory of her mother Doctor Ellen Chanzer. We're very, very grateful to the Morgans. This morning is also sponsored by the Sadovsky family L'ilui Nishmat Rabbi Gershon ben Aaron Sadovsky; by Sylvia Brody in honor of the 22nd Yahrtzeit of her husband אשר יוסף בן בנימין, nishmato shetehei Aliyah; by Elaine Trachtenberg and Andrea and Alan Lieberman for the Refuah Sheleimah of אסתר בת חשא גולדה, please God a speedy Refuah Sheleimah; by Brew Pullen and family for the Refuah Sheleimah of her mother Yael bat Chana, she should also please God have a speedy Refuah Sheleimah. Okay. Got a flurry of emails. I love all the Emuna listeners, our Emuna community, our Emuna movement, our Emuna world. Each and every email I read, each and every email inspires me, motivates me and moves me. And each and every email I wish I could share, but we'll have to do it over time. Keep sending, keep sending them. I don't know, somebody suggested maybe we collect these emails anonymously without a name and one day do a book. We'll intersperse the Emuna Torah teachings with the emails, divided into different chapters. People are struggling with Emuna in different areas. Airports will be the longest chapter, but we'll have other chapters as well. Maybe one day. So keep sending in those emails. And don't worry, if we ever did that it would be anonymous and with the permission and so on and so forth, so don't hesitate to send an email now because you're afraid it's going to make it in a book. Good morning from London Rabbi Goldberg. In need of a Yeshua, I sat down to Daven one morning in a first for me. I decided to do a few extra minutes of Hishtadlus by reaching out and connecting to Hashem. So a person needed something, they were struggling, and for the first time they decided the way that they would show their initiative is by Davening for a few extra minutes. It is not my way, it is not my go-to way of connecting as I find Davening difficult, but I'm working on it. Following that and before starting work, I Googled Emuna Shiur and yours came up in Spotify. I told you, I owe Spotify a huge finder's fee or Shidduch fee. Spotify's what's building this community. Imagine my absolute thrill when the first 10 minutes of the first Shiur I randomly picked was exactly about Mr. Lauder, the person who takes an extra minute to Daven, and how important it is to make an effort with Hashem. To my absolute delight, a few minutes later, you randomly mentioned retinal tear and waking up one morning without sight and being grateful for everything we have. Once again, this was directly applicable for me. It was a beautiful hug from Hashem telling me I'm headed in the right direction. Thank you for being the Shaliach. Here's somebody waking up with an eye problem, a retina problem, for whatever random reason, random reason, we mention retina problem. Pokeach Ivrim Hashem lets us see. What a miracle. If you woke up this morning and there were no floaters and it wasn't blurry and you could see straight, wow, Pokeach Ivrim Hashem, thank you. It's not a given. It's God forbid a person who wakes up and can't see straight, that all of a sudden makes that Bracha with a lot more Kavana. Pokeach Ivrim. So yet again Spotify is the Emuna picking out the right Shiurim for the right people. This next email's a little bit tough. Dear Rabbi Goldberg, 23 years old, I made Aliyah by myself from a certain community at age 19. I learned in Yeshiva for two years and then I drafted into the IDF. During my Shana Bet, I first heard your six-minute Siddur snippet Shiurim and since then I've been hooked. For the period leading up to my draft, during eight months of grueling training, a year of active service, during which I met my wife, and then the war, I've been listening to the Emuna Shiurim on the way to or from base, during Shemirot or runs or just at home. Throughout these almost four years I have tons of Emuna stories to share which I will one day be sending you as I write them out. But just to tell you, just to explain to you where I am now and where I've been. My wife loaded a few Living with Emuna Shiurim onto an MP3 player to take with me to the war. And I listened to them on Shemira. First of all, it feels like the totally unworthy but wow, to think that in some MP3 player device, some soldier loaded the weapon and loaded the MP3 player with Emuna lessons and the weapon loaded with guns and the MP3 player loaded with Emuna Shiurim was ready to go off to the battlefront. What an image. What a Jewish people. Mi K'amcha Yisrael. Our soldiers, our soldiers. I don't want to speak negatively about Ukrainian soldiers or soldiers from any other country. I don't know, are they loading up Emuna Shiurim? Are they loading up classes about faith? I'm sure maybe some religious personalities and figures are, but how many of our soldiers? Incredible, incredible people. These are our people. Mi K'amcha Yisrael. As I listened, hearing stories of faith during the war, stories of soldiers and their families, stories of support and love for Am Yisrael, I had tears streaming down my face in Gaza, believing in the not yet, hoping and knowing I was Hashem's Shaliach to make the world better and brighter. that I was under his kanfei hashchina, the wings of his presence. I experienced an extremely uplifting period of emuna, where I was able to be strong and so full of bitachon baHashem, faith in God, that I was able to smile through months and months of war, death and destruction. Now I've been released from the army after two years and eight months. I, like hundreds and hundreds of soldiers and normal people, have been through a very long difficult year. Through emuna, bitachon, and hashgacha pratis, divine intervention, I was able to keep my head high throughout some of the hardest moments of my life. I'm writing to share with you that now my head isn't held high. I'm going through a hard dark time where bitachon feels far from me and the only way I can hold on to it is mamash by my fingernails. My heart finds it hard to feel that same trust that I felt in so long, even though my head knows it to be true. I know intellectually Hashem is with me, I know intellectually he's with me in this pain, and that it is all from him and all part of his plan, but it doesn't make it easy. Once again I draw from the shiur and from the letters when you talk about not yet. Even though my mind knows that things will get better, it hasn't penetrated my heart yet. But I know it will, I know it must, I know that Hashem is guiding this all with love. I look forward to sharing more of my journey and the crazy emuna experiences I've been through, but this felt like an important prologue to begin with. Thank you for everything you do, for the support groups which support so many, for Tehillim groups, which I'm quite sure have impacted mine and my friends' lives. Hope one day to be able to share these stories with you in person, all the best, your fan and talmid. I'm his fan and his talmid. What an incredible letter and it breaks your heart. I want you to know and this is not the emuna shiur topic, but I've written about and I feel so incredibly strongly about from the bottom of my heart, the PTSD and the consequences of this war, we don't begin to know and understand. And if we think we had to dig into our pockets to provide through duffel bags and barbecues on bases, that was scratching the surface and that was only the beginning of what is to come. We need to daven for and send love to and be prepared to underwrite the mental health and the healing of a nation, of a nation. This is a soldier, thank God not physically injured, married, now released, gone home, but you feel his pain through those words, through those words. And he had emuna, he has emuna, he's struggling with emuna, he's desperate for emuna, and he deserves all of our love, support, and we're going to have to step up. I'd say when the time has come, but the time has come, the time has come to organize the same way that we have so many organizations and Hatzalah and all the ways that we're able to support physically, we have to be there to support. Okay. From a heavy one to a lighter one. Rabbi, I've never done an ice bath before, but hopefully you won't stop reading now. For what it's worth, I'm interested in trying one day. He had me at ice bath. Okay. Which is why he wrote it. My wife and I recently visited Morocco on vacation. Our first day there was Erev Shabbos. Turned out to be very hectic and unvacation-like. About thirty minutes before candle lighting, I ran down to the ATM outside the hotel to take out local currency we'd be needing right after Shabbos. Naturally, the ATM ate my debit card. When I ran over to the bank with my Google Translate app at hand to let them know, they casually responded it happens all the time, not to worry since someone will be coming Wednesday to open it up, at which point we'd be on our way back to America. Unsure what else to do with minutes until Shabbos, I went to our hotel room to plug in the blech to heat up our dinner when of course the circuit blew and the power in the room went out. No cash, bank card, power in our room or time left to spare before lichtbentching, we speedily lit and went out to find the shul, which was point three miles away according to my printed out map. I still had time in the eighteen minutes, so I carried the map with me, figuring I would deposit at shul when we got there. I showed the bellboy where we needed to go on the map, he told me to walk a couple of minutes down the street, turn and we'd be there. Only problem was he pointed us in the wrong direction. After several minutes of walking, we were clearly lost. It's a machlokes between my wife and I how many times we stopped to ask people how to get there, but we did agree on it being more than ten times. At this point the eighteen minutes were up, it was dark, we were lost on Shabbos in Morocco. To top it off, I was a little worried my black and white with a baseball cap might possibly give away my identity as a Jew. Perhaps the locals might notice me pointing over and over to a place that said synagogue on the map. Needless to say, for better or worse, I justified carrying the map with a shinui as shalom bayis and sakkanas nefashos trumped all in that moment. No eruv, but it was life-saving. For the next hour we circled the city looking for the shul. We're pretty frustrated and tired, but then it hit me. I turned to my wife and rhetorically asked, 'You know what Rabbi Goldberg would say right now?' With full disclosure, we don't discuss your teachings much with each other, so there is no way I could have seen this coming. Without any hesitation whatsoever, she goes, 'You're never stuck, you're always where you're meant to be.' It was just too perfect. I wish we had it on camera. I wouldn't classify this as one of those happy ending stories as it still quite took us quite a while to find the shul, which was obviously over by that point with many wrong turns along the way. I can however truly say we both felt tremendous comfort, real chizuk in a tough and scary time. Thank you for the inspiration. Okay. And on that note, got this great one. Rabbi Goldberg, I don't know if you remember me, I'm the daughter of so-and-so, married to such-and-such. I listen to the Living with Emuna shiur every week. I just turned off my car when I walked into HomeGoods and I saw the following picture: You are exactly where you need to be. At HomeGoods, you can buy, hang on your wall: You are exactly where you need to be. So I gotta go to HomeGoods for only nine ninety-nine. No? The organizer says no. HomeGoods? What's the matter with the HomeGoods? You are exactly where you need to be for only nine ninety-nine. Maybe we'll make one and brand it with the Emuna logo. You are where you need to be. Okay, never mind Home-, sorry HomeGoods. Never mind, easy come easy go. Anyway, you are where you need to be. Baruch Hashem. Oh, let's do one or two quick ones and then we'll get to our learning. Dear Rabbi Goldberg, hope this finds you well. I'm a recent listener to your Living with Emuna shiur. It's completely changed my outlook on stressful situations. Last week on Motzei Shabbos, my sister and I decided to go on a shopping trip, just the two of us, planned in advance as we had three little children each. Shops we're headed to is about half hour from our home. As we approached the ramp up to the car park—let me translate because this is from London, a car park is a parking lot. As we were approaching the ramp up to the car park, my newly serviced car just conked out out of the blue and I was blocking a long line of cars coming in. Some kind people helped me move the car to the side and I called AA services car mechanics who said they'd be there earliest in two hours time at 10 PM. We decided we might as well put a sign on the car we were waiting for AA, go shopping instead of waiting in the freezing car. We went about our shopping and exactly as the shop closed, the help arrived. My sister and I, both stressy people by nature, remained calm and laughing throughout the annoying ordeal. We said to each other how perfect it was that although the car died out of nowhere and would end up costing a fortune, we still managed to do our shopping and had a nice time. If the mechanic had come quicker as we usually want, we would have had to wait in the cold, not gone shopping and would feel we wasted the night. The mechanic also noted I was anxious about the car dying again on the way home, so he kindly offered to follow us back home to make sure we were okay. Turns out my sister and I both started listening to the shiur recently, decided to see that help come exactly the time and the kindness of strangers as a wink and hug from Hashem. Thank you for the shiurim. Okay. One more. We live in Israel, my husband was in Orlando for a conference. It was Wednesday morning as I am finishing this email to you and I started it last night before going to bed. Last night's email: My husband just finished a conference in Orlando and he needs to connect to JFK to catch his flight back to Israel. Can't have no airport or flight story. The flight from Orlando is delayed and at this point I'm hoping he's going to make his flight at 11:50 from JFK. I started looking at flights and saw there's no other available El Al flights out of the US until the 22nd. If he misses his flight, the visualizations were going on and on, but wait, Hashem has him where he needs to be. At this point it's 11:20 PM, she's writing the email as the night's going on. I know I need a good night's sleep, we shouldn't stay up tracking flights, there's nothing else I can do. So I put on Living with Emuna hoping to listen to a good flight story and last week's class came up about breathing. So I tried that. I figured maybe Hashem just needs me to breathe. When the class finished, the next class Spotify put on was class number 311 and the first story was an airport story and you said the following words: Quote, we're never stuck, we're exactly where we need to be. Emuna heals us, anxiety doesn't help, it only sabotages our success and happiness. After I do my hishtadlus it's all up to Hashem, let go and let G-d. I sent this to my husband, decided there's nothing else I can do, Hashem will work it out, I went to bed. No anxiety, no panic attack, just sleep. Email continued: Boker tov. This morning I woke up 6:30 AM and saw the following message from my husband: Baruch Hashem, Hashem takes amazing care of us. He brought me from the plane to baggage claim to check in within 25 minutes in good time and I'm going to the gate. The El Al flight ended up being delayed by 42 minutes and is currently in route. Like you say, the story ended up nicely but the personal win was I was able to let go and let G-d. Thank you Hashem for orchestrating Spotify for letting me listen to the exact words I needed to hear when I needed them. Thank you again Spotify. Amazing. So grateful to Spotify. Let go let G-d, we're exactly where we need to be. We all know the messages, somehow some reason you keep coming back because we all need to hear it each and every week. We need to listen and hear it again and again and again because we may know it up here but it doesn't always filter down here and when we find ourselves in those stressful situations, panicking and we sometimes don't know what's going to be. Last week there was somebody visiting who was here for a short time, and I really wanted to help meet an administrator at a local school as a possibility for their future, and I couldn't get through the administrator and the schools were really closed, and that administrator was out of town and out of town and I wasn't connecting and this person was stressing and was going to leave, and I didn't know what to do because I really wanted to help this person. And I was taking care of, was going, not taking care, I had the privilege of going out with my grandchildren, and after we went to the park they wanted ice cream, I said where do you want to go, they said Carvel. So we went to Carvel, but did you know that on Thanksgiving morning Carvel's closed? So we went to Carvel, Carvel was closed. I said where do you want to try next? They said Menchie's. I said okay, so we went to Menchie's, and as we pulled up to Menchie's, an administrator from that school was leaving Menchie's to get in the car. And I said wow, Hashem put me here right now, can you help me, can you help this person, can I make the connection? They said absolutely sure, it'd be my greatest pleasure. Again, a little wink, a little nod, a little hug, all that frustration why aren't I getting through, why isn't the person calling me back, why did I drive all the way to Carvel and it's closed, what's the point? Hashem puts you Hameichin mitzadei gaver. We wake up, Hashem leads our footsteps, we don't know which ice cream store our grandchildren are going to choose, will they be open, will they be closed, where is he leading to next? You know what Menchie's costs? But anyway, that's another point. That scale, wow. Anyway, so Baruch Hashem, everyone needs to make a living. But Hashem takes us where we need to be at the moment we need to be there, Hameichin mitzadei gaver. He leads our footsteps to where we're meant to go back in emuna u'bitachon, Rav David Abuhatzeira Shlita. המאמין בהשם לבו סמוך ובטוח שלא רק כל הקורות אותו הוא בגזירת עליון אלא גם בשעה שהוא בוחר כיצד לנהוג בענייני העולם הזה ידע נאמנה כי הקדוש ברוך הוא הנותן בלבו הבינה והדעה בכל מה שיבחר. Okay, this is a difficult concept, and not everybody agrees to it. I want to make the disclaimer, not every opinion, the beauty of Torah is that there are shivim panim l'Torah, 70 paths of Torah, we have a multiplicity of perspectives and opinions and approaches, not everyone is for everyone. This is one, some find it very comforting and empowering, others may struggle with it, but Rav David Abuhatzeira, this is more of a Sephardi and a Chassidish approach to the issues of emuna, believes the following on the bottom left of page zayin of page seven in this essay in this new sefer emuna u'bitachon, Rav David Abuhatzeira. He says emuna in Hashem means that your heart should be confident and sure that not only that which happens to us is from Hashem, but that which we choose, that which we elect, that which we initiate, also Hakadosh Baruch Hu urged, pushed, encouraged, led us to that conclusion. ומשכך הוא מצוי תמיד במנוחה והשקט ואינו מסתבך בלבו מדוע בחר באופן זה דווקא. A Yid, a Jew, has to live with no regret. Now that doesn't sound very Jewish. No guilt, no regret, no shame. In an unhealthy way it can be debilitating, I don't mean Jewish guilt and shame that's debilitating, but I mean isn't teshuva, isn't self-improvement teshuva, isn't that all about reviewing, reflecting our past, where did I go wrong, where did I come short, what mistakes did I make, how can I learn, how can I improve, how can I change, how can I do better? What do you mean I'm not responsible or accountable for anything? Aren't relationships all about - so my spouse is upset at me, can't believe you put your socks next to the hamper again, I can't believe you didn't the toilet seat, I can't believe you didn't put the dishes in the sink. You say honey I understand why you're upset, I get why you're frustrated, it wasn't me, Hashem made me put the socks next to the hamper. I go to the emuna shiur and Rav David Abuhatzeira said that it wasn't me, it wasn't me. So you didn't pick up the dry cleaning again, I don't have shirts to wear, sweetie it wasn't me, Hashem made me not go to the dry cleaning. Aren't relationships, the core of all relationships, accountability, responsibility, regret, learning, apology, remorse, reconciling, improving, repairing? This is the foundation, the bread and butter, the beginning of all relationships. What does this mean? So Rav David Abuhatzeira says that a Yid who lives with emuna needs to know that we do learn and we do grow, we do improve and we do take responsibility, but we don't beat ourselves up, we don't knock ourselves down, we don't go backwards and get stuck in the past in a way that we can't get out, in a way that we can't move forward. You know who got stuck in the past, you know who couldn't move forward? I don't remember if I said it in this shiur or a different or a different one a few weeks ago. But you know who got stuck? Who got stuck? Who wasn't supposed to turn around and she did? When Lot's wife turned around and looked at Sodom destruction and she had nostalgia, she wanted to go back there. The next chapter of your life, your best is yet to come, the best version of you you haven't yet met, your future is in front of you, don't turn around, don't look back, don't get debilitated, don't get stuck, don't replay, don't have remorse, don't think about what you could have done differently, go forward. What does Lot's wife do? She can't help it, she turns around. Salt is the preservative, salt makes you stuck, it preserves you in exactly where you are, you're stuck, but a Yid is never stuck, we're moving, we're always in motion, we're in transit, HaMechin mitzadei gaver, my footsteps, we're always going forward, so you never turn around, you never get stuck, and that's what Rav David Abuchatzeira is saying, emuna takes you to the point that you say I'm going to learn from it, I'm sorry, I forgot your dry cleaning, I feel bad that you feel that I don't care about you because I forgot it, I came up with a new system to remember, I'm not going to forget again, but you know what I'm not going to do? Be filled with shame and guilt and knock myself down and get debilitated and be paralyzed because I'm going to look back and I'm going to say to myself for whatever reason Hashem meant for me to make a mistake that I'll learn from, so we don't deny it's a mistake, we don't deny that we need to learn from it, but we look back and reflect with a recognition that for whatever reason Hashem had me make a mistake that I need to learn from, I'm learning from it and now we're going forward, vaite, let's go, we're going forward, we're going forward, and such an attitude and such a mentality מצוי תמיד במנוחה והשקט, you live a life with a serenity and a quiet and a peace of mind. So many people are so stuck in the past, they're replaying things from decades ago let alone years ago, months ago or weeks ago, if only I shouldn't have dated that person, married that person, made that decision, reacted that way, made that choice, you can't go backwards in time, you can't undo the past, don't forfeit the present because you're stuck in the past, learn from it, grow from it, be accountable for it, and then recognize that Hashem for whatever reason meant for you to have made that choice, and a person who's willing to let go, when you're willing to let go to that shame, to that guilt, to that turning around, to that being stuck, you live with this peace, with this serenity. I've shared with you before, I have the privilege, privilege, the honor to speak publicly multiple times every day, and I often have notes and I often write things out and I often think things through and even with that afterwards I say I forgot that story, I forgot that quote, I forgot that line, I should have ended it this way, this was such a better way to walk it off, and in the past, all of Mussaf, I wouldn't be paying attention to one word I'm saying in Mussaf, maybe with that tallis over my head all I'm doing is beating myself up, moron, you left that out, you could have finished this way, you'd be such a better speaker, why'd you leave that out, you can't get a chance to go back. Now you know what happens? I say I forgot that and then I say okay, Hashem didn't mean me to say it, okay maybe I'll learn from it, put it in my notes more clearly, use a yellow highlighter, whatever I need to learn from it to not leave it out again, but now I let go, Mussaf, a beautiful Mussaf, I don't think about it a second time because I've changed my whole perspective to say if I forgot to say it, Hashem didn't mean for me to say it, and not only do I not feel bad about it, now I see it as part of a master plan, I was part of fulfilling that master plan, I didn't go against it, that was the master plan, that was the master plan, we live bimnucha vehashkeit, by the way that's true again for me, that's my profession, public speaking, but whatever your profession, whatever it is that happened, you're meant to have not enough salt in the dish, you're meant to be late to carpool that day, you were meant for, again, I gotta set an earlier alarm, I gotta get out of bed, I gotta go to sleep earlier, I have to get an ice pack, whatever the thing I have to do to change my lifestyle. Again I'm not I'm not advocating a life where no one's responsible or accountable for anything, I don't want to live in that world, I don't want to have that family, I don't want to be among those friends, I want to live in a world where people are accountable, people take responsibility, people learn from mistakes, but where we all have calmness and serenity because we're not stuck in the past, we're not living with regret, we're not beating ourselves up with debilitating shame and guilt. ואינו מתחרט בלבו מדוע בחר באופן זה דווקא, and we're not stuck with this endless regret, remorse, and beating ourselves up with why we did it the way we did. כי מחוסרי אמונה לבם נוקפם תמיד בכל מעשיהם שמא לא נהגו במעשיהם כראוי, if you see a person who's stuck, who's paralyzed, who's debilitated in the past, who can't stop reliving the past, can't stop trying to relive the past. That person is missing *emunah*. Because when you live with *emunah*, when you see and feel the presence of *Hashem*, when you know he's involved and by our side and part of every decision, every choice, every behavior, every action, then you don't get stuck. *Emunah* is how we get unstuck. *Emunah* is the Triple A. Which in London apparently is Double A. But America is always supersized. The portions are always smaller in London than they are in America. So we have Triple A. Triple, that's not an insult, that's a healthier way of being. I'm going to London soon so I have to be careful, I can't insult. It's a healthier way, smaller portion sizes, but we're bigger portion size. We have Triple A, they have Double A. So *emunah* is the Triple A when you're spiritually, emotionally stuck. It's the tow truck. *Emunah*'s the tow truck to get us out, *schlep* us out, get us on the road again. Get us on the road again. והמאמין יודע כי אפילו טעויות שהאדם גורם לעצמו. A person of *emunah* knows even the mistakes we cause for ourselves. This is the hard part. This is the part that some people struggle with. Even the mistakes we cause to ourselves, ומרגיש כי בשל שעשה דבר מסוים נעשה לו כזאת או אחרת. You say it's my fault. I'm the moron who didn't stop for gas even though the light went on five miles ago. And now I'm stuck on the side of the road with no gas. So imagine you'll say to your spouse, it wasn't me, it's *Hashem*, he wanted us to be stuck. Your spouse will say, hey *emunah* buddy, moron, it was you! I've been poking you in the shoulder for the last five miles telling you, tough guy, why do you have to play this game and challenge yourself and see how far you could take it like every moron guy, how low you can go on the gas level? You knew this was going to happen! I've been telling you for twenty years it's going to happen, it finally happened! What are you blaming *Hashem*? You're the moron! You're the idiot! What are you doing? So no, he is a moron, he is an idiot, and he should learn from it. And from now on, some people don't know this, some people never got this memo: Do you know that you're allowed to get gas even before the tank's on empty? Could be when I drive someone else's car in my family, whenever I need it, it's always almost on empty. And I always say, you know, it's allowed, you're allowed, the way home from carpool, from shopping, you have a couple minutes, you pass a gas station, the tank's half full, it's okay! You're allowed! People don't know that. So here's a memo, public service announcement: You're allowed to fill the car even before it's on empty. It's worth coming just for that. So yeah, this moron on the side of the road needs something, needs to learn: fill the car even before it's on empty. Should he regret that this time now he's on the side of the road? No. Because even when *Hashem* puts a moronic thought in our head, we need to know: we're accountable, responsible, you're going to have to be buying a lot of flowers, a lot of chocolate, a lot of cards to apologize to your wife who's stuck with you on the side of that road for being that moron. Accountability, there's responsibility, there's remorse, there's regret, there's learning from it, and then there's the *emunah* bow on top which is: but for whatever reason, I was meant to make this mistake and learn from it. *Hen be'asiyah mamash*, whether it's something we did, *hen bedibbur*, something we said, *afilu bemachshava*. Do you know how many people struggle with beating themselves up and knocking themselves down for having the wrong thoughts? Not action or speech, just having the wrong thoughts. Insecurity, lack of self-confidence, self-criticism, so many people are stuck, they're making mistakes, the mistake not in action, the mistake not in speech, the mistake is *bemachshava*. *Bemachshava*. How many people are stuck? No one in their life would actually would would know because they don't have access to where these mistakes are being made. אף הם נעשו בידו. But it's all from *Hashem*. אך ורק כי כך החליט הבורא יתברך ברחמיו. Learn, break out, get the help, take the IFS seminar, which has been fantastic, part two is now done, read the book, grow, understand your parts, the self-talk, unburden, unbind them. But it's all from *Hashem*. וכך מוכיח הבעל שם טוב. And here we get to a famous *vort*, famous because I happen to know it, of the *Baal Shem Tov*. הילגא בעל שם טוב, the holy *Baal Shem Tov* learned the following: The *Midrash* tells us our rabbis say, this *Baal Shem Tov* appears *Parshas Eikev*, *Re'eh*, and this comes from a *maimer* of *Chazal*. The *Gemara* says: *Harisha'im mele'im charatos*. Wicked people are filled with regret. *Resha'im mele'im charatos*. Wicked people, evil people, mistaken people are filled with *charata*, regret. והקשו אם יש להם תמיד הרהורי חרטה על עבירה שבידם באמאי קורא להם רשעים. The *Baal Shem Tov* asks a great question: Wicked people are always filled with regret. Well... You're not a rasha. You're not a rasha. Harei amru, the Gemara says in Kiddushin, המקדש אשה על מנת שאני צדיק ונמצא רשע הרי זו מקודשת שמא הרהר תשובה בלבו. The Gemara in Kiddushin teaches a halacha. You're allowed to get married based on a condition. So if I walk up to a woman and I propose to her and I say, you're hereby married to me on condition I'm wealthy. If the condition is met, then the marriage takes place. If the condition is not met, then it doesn't. What if someone walks up to someone else and says, you're hereby married to me, betrothed to me on condition that I'm a tzaddik, I'm righteous, venimtza rasha? Someone overhears it and says, you're righteous? I just saw you coming out of McDonald's eating a cheeseburger with no yarmulke on Yom Kippur. What are you talking about you're righteous? What are you talking about you're righteous? So are they married or not married? Was the condition met or not met? Says the Gemara, they're married. How are they married? Just swallowed a cheeseburger on Yom Kippur, walking out of Burger King, McDonald's. How are they married? שמא הרהר תשובה בלבו. Because how do you know that in the moment walking out of McDonald's to walking up to the woman he didn't decide in his heart, you know what? I can't do this anymore. That's not me anymore. I'm a new person. I'm never doing that again. 2.0, version 2.0, here we come. שמא הרהר תשובה בלבו, maybe in a person's heart they radically transformed their identity, their sense of self, he's a new person, and maybe taki he's a tzaddik, he's a righteous person. אם כך החרטה שלהם על עבירות מספיקה להוציא מכלל רשעים. So if that's so, regret, that moment between McDonald's and walking up to the woman to propose, regret turned him from a rasha into a tzaddik. He met the condition of being a tzaddik. ברוך אתה ה' אלוהינו מלך העולם שהכל נהיה בדברו. Amen. In that one moment. So what do you see? If a person has regret, they feel bad about the past, they're not a rasha, they're a tzaddik. So how could the Gemara say rishaim meleim charatos? How could Chazal, our rabbis, say that a wicked person is filled with regret? That's the Baal Shem Tov's question. It's a good question. Good question? Vetereitz says the Baal Shem Tov, שלא כענייני דשמיא אלא כענייני דעלמא והפירוש הוא כך שצריך קודם לידע שכל המאורעות וכל המעשים הכל בהשגחת השם יתברך. We're going to end with this, I have to end a little early today, we're going to end with this, we'll pick up next time. You know what the Baal Shem Tov answers? I'll just give you the teaser of the answer and then we'll unpack it more next week. Baal Shem Tov says, you know why a rasha is filled with regret? Because they're stuck in the past. Regret is not regret for the mistake how I can learn and get forward. Regret is, I'm to blame, it was entirely because of me, I'm terrible, I'm a nothing, I can never be better, I'm a reject, I have no future, what's the point of it all? A person who is malei charatos, a person who is filled with a debilitating, paralyzing, sabotaging sense of stuckness and regret and blame, that's a rasha. That's a wicked way of thinking. A tzaddik way of thinking is, it happened. I was a moron. We had no gas, we were stuck on the side of the road. I'm a moron. I made it in my notes to say it. I had a highlighter, I circled it, I drew arrows towards it, I told Brody, don't forget, remind me to end this way, and still I forgot it. I'm a moron. But a tzaddik says with all that, I can't believe I left the salt out of the recipe again. I can't believe we're late to carpool again. I can't believe I reacted that way to my spouse or child again. But a tzaddik says, you know what? Learn from it, grow from it, let's go vaiter. We're going forward. We're plowing forward. I'm not going to be like Lot's wife. I'm not turning around. I'm not getting stuck. I'm not going to live a salt life. I'm not getting stuck in a pillar of salt. Vaiter. Vaiter means forward. Means let's go. Let's go. Vaiter. Next. Let's go. Let's go vaiter. Vaiter. I'm learning with my twelve-year-old son. He picked this up. He says, Abba, vaiter. Now I'll say that you're driving and he wants me to go faster. Abba, vaiter. Let's go. Faster. Let's go forward. That's our life. Vaiter. What's next? You're right. You're right. I'm sorry. Won't happen again. I've learned from it. What's next? What's next? Let's go. What's next? What's next? A person who says I can't talk about what's next, I'm still stuck thirty years ago, I said this, I shouldn't have said it, you said this, I can't believe you said that thirty years ago. If you can't move on, what's next? Let's go. What's next? Vaiter. Let's go. It's a beautiful sefer. Rav Shlomo Hoffman, who was a mental health professional in Bnei Brak, who was the go-to man for Rav Shach and the Steipler and the Chazon Ish. Rav Shlomo Hoffman has a sefer, something about a soul, it's in the title. If you Google Shlomo Hoffman, Rabbi Shlomo Hoffman, they translated it into English, it's all about how to deal with our reaction to mistakes, the past, shortcomings. He's dealing with particularly young men who maybe act out in ways they're trying to control and they struggle with. So do you live with guilt, do you beat yourself up, do you feel shame, and then it becomes debilitating, you're stuck? How do you react, learn, and go weiter? That's the whole book. Modeh LeHismoded in Hebrew, I forgot, I forgot the name of the book in English. Rav Shlomo Hoffman, the word soul is in the title, Secrets of the Soul. Secrets of the Soul. Thank you. I don't get any commission, I don't get anything from it. Secrets of the Soul, it's a wonderful book, it unpacks this more. We'll pick up with this holy Baal Shem Tov thought next week. Reshaim meleim charatos. Don't be a rasha, don't be malei charata, don't be filled with regret. Even the mistakes we made were meant to make, we pick it up and we go from there. בשורות טובות ישועות ונחמות. Please remain to say Tehillim, we got to get the Tehillim booklets and we'll complete all of Tehillim together.
