Transcript
Okay good morning Boker Tov welcome back to Living with Emuna. So great to be back together again our Emuna support group coming together to work to learn to grow in our feeling and our faith that Hashem is by our side is involved in every conversation is with us wherever we go. He's not only on the journey with us that would be to understate his role. Hashem is not only present on our journey through life he is responsible for our footsteps Hamichin mitzadei gaver he is learning leading this journey he is determining where we go next he is taking us on whatever will be our route. The Emuna series is generously sponsored by Dr. Zavi and Bella Morgan in memory of Rabbi Dr. Brian Galbut in memory of Bella's mother Dr. Ellen Schanzer as every week we are very very grateful to the Morgans. This morning is also sponsored by Ida Wax in commemoration of the yahrtzeit of her husband Cantor Lazer Wax our beloved Cantor Wax what an incredibly special man a survivor someone who had a great impact on all of us שנשמה שתהא לו עליה in the merit of בנימין משה בן ברכה should have success in all of his endeavors and by Ayelet Berkowitz Mazal Tov to Amanda Bergman and Yoshi Melman on their engagement Mazal Tov Mazal Tov Kein Yirbu we should celebrate many more simchas they should build a bayis ne'eman b'yisrael. Also a very happy birthday today I understand this is a significant birthday for Bracha Pitsch a very happy birthday very happy birthday for Simone Brody where's Simone? Happy Birthday to Simone Brody Happy Birthday to Ami Tanenbaum although he's not here but when you turn 96 you get a Happy Birthday even if you're not here too so Kein Yirbu many many more years to come. Okay we're going to start as we always do with some letters some emails you know some people I sometimes get cynical comments like get to the text people are coming to a shiur they make a birchas hatorah they want to learn they want to grow in Torah what's with the emails this is not like some book club what are we reading emails what are we entertaining? So I want to just share again that to me the emails are a sefer they're also learning. When people are practicing and they're implementing and they're executing on what we're learning about in theory that they're actually living with Emuna it's the name of the shiur they're living with Emuna to be living with Emuna that is incredibly incredibly inspiring. Hi Rabbi G thank you for helping me grow my Emuna muscle blah blah blah I've two stories for you today the first is necessary for the second we'll try to go quickly because I know we want to get to the text. Erev Sukkos I got a message from a friend in Modi'in her Torah teacher from New York was looking for someone in Beit Shemesh to help her buy gifts for her children whose father was fighting in Lebanon. I said I would be happy to help I messaged the woman in New York and asked for more details astoundingly she was looking for delivery not only in my city not only in my neighborhood on my street and most amazingly to my daughter's friend who had made my daughter's shidduch. The way the dots all connected was incredible I was so grateful to have been part of this heavenly constructed puzzle which is a great great phrase a heavenly constructed puzzle. In the end the grandmother decided to take the children to the toy store to pick the gifts and I was not even needed but how incredible this had been it was remarkable the way Hashem had perfectly connected all the dots for this chesed to happen this beautiful incident reminded me that Hashem is in the details it was a wink a hug and a smile from Hashem which is how we're meant to live our lives there are no coincidences nothing's random or chance everything is from Hashem and meant to be. At the beginning of this week we surrounded a local family as they buried their son who had fallen in Gaza the loss and devastation is massive couple days later we took our son to draft into the army he's the first soldier in our family he's been waiting for this day for years he cannot wait to be trained as a foot soldier and to be an active soldier what an emotional morning it was our son is drafting during a war and real combat is where he's headed. At the draft he met up with all of his friends loads of photos were taken the anticipation the excitement was palpable the bnei yeshiva from different yeshivos were singing and dancing together with their rebbeim and fathers. I just want to say Mi ke'amcha yisrael there's a war and with no judgment or criticism but we know several wars in this country where a lot of people all of a sudden decided they needed to be rabbinically ordained or needed a PhD in a subject they weren't really so interested or whatever else they could do to avoid being drafted into a war no judgment no criticism there's a war in Israel and young men with their parents with their rebbeim are lining up to be drafted to have a privilege to protect the Jewish people Mi ke'amcha yisrael. Young men and women. Young men and women thank you Lisa songs of excitement in the navy in the army absolutely songs of excitement victory love of their land and love of their people and service of Hashem while they sang and danced I begged Hashem for their safety and safety of all of our soldiers they finally boarded the bus and drove away I was filled with pride and fear what an emotional day it was later that afternoon he called me devastated his BMI body mass index was too high and they wanted to drop his profile unfortunately. Listen to this. He got 11 days in which to lose seven kilo. He was on his way home. Again, Mi Kamcha Yisrael, what kid doesn't say, I tried, I wanted combat, I went for it, what could I do? I wasn't accepted, my BMI, what can I do? Too many muscles, what can I do? My BMI was what can Mi Kamcha Yisrael. And these kids are these young people, not kids, Halevai they're kids. They're bigger men and women than many of us will ever be, they're not kids. They're walking around Israel, they're on a bus or a train or at a cafe like they're nobodies and these are heroes, these are extraordinary people. So many thoughts were flying through my head. Would he manage to meet this crazy goal? If he did, would he be put back with his friends or put in a different combat unit? Would he maybe just be safer if he's in a different unit than they want to put him in? There were no guarantees in this war. I don't know the answer to any of these questions, I didn't know what to daven for. And then I remembered the Succos Toy story, and I remembered Hashem is in the details. My son is exactly where he's meant to be. Hashem has put my son in this situation, it's all from Hashem. We're on day three of his 11 days and I don't know what's going to pan out. He's working on his weight loss, davening and learning. I know it's all from Hashem and the outcome is from Hashem. I repeatedly ask Hashem to take care of my child, put him where he's meant to be, and then I give it back to Hashem and let go. Hashem is in the details, this is from him. My son is exactly where he's meant to be and so am I. When I focus on this, I can let go and breathe. What a mother, what a son, what a Jewish people, Mi Kamcha Yisrael. Normally Jewish mothers say eat, eat, eat. This Jewish mother is saying stop eating, stop eating, stop eating. No, but it's what Mi Kamcha Yisrael. We are where we're meant to be. And if it works out and he gets in, it's where he's meant to be. And if it doesn't, it's where he's meant to be. And last week I put Ilana Lando on the spot and she came through, as always. And we're working on a decal for the windshield of your car, cart, you are where you're meant to be, Vayifga bamakom, Yaakov encountered the place. I didn't share it here, but I'll detour with a dvar Torah quickly. I shared at Shalosh Seudos last week. Vayifga bamakom, Vayifga bamakom. Yaakov Avinu encounters the place and there he introduces the prayer, the tefillah of Maariv, the nighttime prayer. Avraham introduced Shacharis when the sun is high in the sky, when we have clarity and confidence, when the day is filled with hope and optimism and promise of what will be. Avraham says go, Shacharis. Yitzchak introduces Mincha. It's twilight, the sun is setting, it's still day, it's sort of night, it's a transition period. What will be? There's the accomplishment of the day, but the unknown of the night. And then Yaakov comes along. He's running away from his brother who wants to kill him. He's on his own. This young introvert who grew up sitting in tents studying Torah. We picture this meek, pale Yeshiva bachur. And now he's on the road, on his own, fighting for his life, and Vayifga bamakom, he finds the place. And he says I didn't know God was here. אכן יש השם במקום הזה ואנכי לא ידעתי. Turns out God is here, I didn't even know. He has this dream of a stairway to heaven, of a ladder bridging heaven and earth. God is here and I didn't know, I had no idea, I had no idea, I had no idea. The Beis Aaron of Karlin says Vayifga bamakom, what does it mean to encounter the place, makom? He says what Yaakov introduces for us is wherever you are is where you're meant to be. Makom, our makom is where we are. That turns out to be your neighbor, that's your job, that's your coworker, that's your extended family member, that's the person sitting next to you in shiur at the Emunah shiur. That's where the red light or the traffic jam or the canceled flight, Vayifga bamakom, you've encountered a place. יש השם במקום הזה. You need to know that God is in that place. Wherever you are, you're not stuck, you're not lost, it's where you're meant to be. Now we can't fit all that on a decal. You gotta still see out of the windshield. Something, somewhat. So we can't fit all that on the decal, but Vayifga bamakom, you are where you're meant to be. Got a great image, we'll make a decal, you stick it right under your three carpools and four Atlantic Bridge tolls and seven whatever. And when you look out that windshield and the red light is taking too long, the person in front of you is going too slow, or the traffic is not moving, or you made a wrong turn and just added 15 minutes to your time, you look at that decal and we'll remember Vayifga bamakom. I want to make it a magnet for a fridge too, but no appliances have metal anymore. If anyone has any other ideas where else to put that, what else should we make that? Where else do we feel stuck? I don't know, your passport, your boarding pass, on your mirror, where else can we put that? Okay, back to so this, this mother about her son, he's not stuck. If he loses the 11... the seven kilo in 11 days, hopefully in a healthy way, then he'll be where... wherever it is, he'll be where he's meant to be. Lichvod Rabbi Goldberg, ever since listening to the Rav's Emunah shiur, I try to talk to my nine-year-old son in the language... My son challenged me. He said in the past I described Hashem's kindness as a hug. Who are we to say this particular kindness was only a wink? In my mind, everything from Hashem is a great big hug. I wasn't sure how to answer him. I told him I'd pose his question to the Rav in an email. He's patiently waiting for the Rav's answer. When is it a wink, when is it a hug, when is it a kiss? It is what you feel you need it to be in that moment. How's that? I don't know, I didn't see in a sefer when it's what. I don't know. Sometimes you want a hug, sometimes you say, sometimes you need a kiss. It is what you need it to be in that moment, but it's from Hashem. It's a metaphor. So there's small things, there are big things, there's a great big bear hug, there's a small little a kiss or a wink from across. Sometimes Hashem feels like He's across a room but He's just winking. He's just winking at you. Sometimes He's right there embracing you, He's right there holding you. Some of the sefarim bring down, I understand the audience I'm speaking to, but that when a person, when a man puts on a tallis l'isatef b'tzitzis and he wraps himself in the tallis atifa, there's an atifa one wraps, you put over your head, you throw over your shoulder. You're not supposed to, you see some people they do that in one motion, they wrap and unwrap and they're running and they're late and they're catching up and what, no. Supposed to wrap yourself in the tallis and the amount of time it takes to walk daled amos, six feet, which is still only a few seconds, but in that moment you're getting the biggest hug from Hashem. Who doesn't need to start their day with a hug from Hashem? A hug from Hashem. So whatever hug, wink, kiss, whatever it is we're looking for, it's coming from, it's coming from Hashem. Okay. Bear with me for this one. We're going to get to the learner. I'm trying to weave in the divrei Torah a little bit here. Now I'm paranoid that we're not learning enough. Okay. Dear Rabbi Goldberg, my name is such-and-such. For context, I'm from New York. A few weeks ago I was in Boca. Thank you for the shiurim that you would just call blah blah blah. So I guess I'll just save you the time and not make you read the thank you part. Thank you. I flew back from Shabbos in Boca the next morning Sunday to make it back for shiur in Landers where I'm a student. Just to land and find out shiur was cancelled that day because one of the students unfortunately had passed away. After arriving home my parents told me they were rushed to the hospital where my grandmother was in bad condition. She ended up passing away a few hours later. Following days were a whirlwind as my father and aunt tried to find plane tickets to Israel where my grandfather had bought burial plots many years ago they were living in Israel. This is when I want to share two stories that were clearly guided from Hashem. My father found a one-way ticket to Israel to bury my grandmother Tuesday but had no return flight. After the levayah he took a taxi straight back to the airport in order to make it to sit shiva with the rest of the family and the rest with the my grandfather and the rest of the family in New York. On his way to the airport he was told he was still frantically searching for a plane ticket. He called a travel agent who told him there are over 40 EL AL Platinum Plus and Platinum members waiting on standby, you have no status, there's zero chance you're getting on the flight to JFK or Newark or anywhere for that matter. My father told me that for some reason, and this is not like him, he had a calm feeling that it would work out, that Hashem would not let him miss sitting shiva with the rest of the family. And sure enough, after arriving at the airport, no ticket, my uncle called him from America that a guy in Brooklyn had managed to book him on the next flight straight to JFK, no strings attached. It's always a guy in Brooklyn. You need everybody needs a guy in Brooklyn. You need a few guys in Brooklyn in case the first guy in Brooklyn's not available. You need a few guys in Brooklyn. So my father sat down on his plane seat at 12:30 AM in Israel. We had finished davening Maariv at my grandfather's house. My sister was coming in from the city and needed to be picked up from the train station. After a short argument of who was going to go pick her up, I decided I would go. I got in the car. As I was driving down the main street of our town, right past the Dunkin' Donuts on one side and a large shul on the other, an out-of-control driver, many witnesses seemed to say he had substance or blatantly drunk, swerved onto the wrong side of the street and smashed into my car, right into the driver's side headlight area going 40 miles an hour. My car flew from the left lane, ended up three feet from the curb, all the airbags deployed, and I knew my car was completely totaled right away. There's the car. There's the car. There's the car. The car, we got visuals, the car was totaled right away. The first thought I had, all the airbags deployed, car thrown in the air, head-on collision, the first thought I had, I told myself this is clearly from Hashem and it's where I need to be. As the Rav always says, a Jew is never stuck. It's time to step up and put my emunah to the test and see how calm I could stay during this. I looked to my right and saw two friends of mine right there on the sidewalk. Within minutes Hatzolah and the police were on the scene. It was 5:30 PM, it was rush hour, and there were dozens of my friends who left the Beis Medrash across the street to see what happened. People from the community on the street saw the whole thing pull over shortly. Within 15 minutes Tehillim chats were opening praying for me, but no one knew yet I actually walked away from the accident. I didn't know why he decided to make me crash and why he decided I would walk away from this accident, not even a single injury, not even sore. I got home from the hospital at 2 AM and I was in the shiva house at 7 AM for minyan. But I know he orchestrated all this and wanted it to happen. And because of my emuna preparation, I was able to stay calm and collect throughout the entire time. So much that even when the guy that hit me came over to apologize, I told him, God made me, God made you hit me, dude. It's all good. God wanted this to happen and that's all that matters. Needless to say the police officers and Hatzalah members who heard this were in complete shock. And I was too. I don't know where the koach came from, but Hashem put in my hands the chance to be mekadesh his name at that moment. And in the upcoming days during the shiva, when people would visit and see me and say, aren't you the guy who totaled his car? How are you completely fine? I would smile and just say Baruch Hashem. Baruch Hashem. I'm not saying I'm perfect at all, I struggle every day to stay calm, believe in Hashem, but the little things but in those hours I lived more with Hashem than ever in my life. Anyway, if you don't think it's worthwhile to work on living with emuna in those moments, oh, there were so many more I wanted to read. But we got to learn. Okay, just one more that connects to last week. And then we'll get to it, we'll get to it. We'll get keep sending them, please send them, they mean the world to me and to others. One more quick one back to the text. Two weeks ago I was waiting for an Uber in New Jersey. Remember my Uber story from American Dream Mall? I was waiting in Uber in New Jersey when it kept getting cancelled. I really needed to get somewhere and after three cancellations one finally came and I got in the car. When I told him I'm going to New York the driver says, no, I don't drive there. Get out. Welcome to the Tri-state area. At that point, I'm from there, it's okay, I'm allowed to say it, save those emails. At that point it was getting it was cutting it close and I was getting pretty frustrated. I kept telling myself a Jew is never stuck. I'm right where I'm supposed to be. But I was still in a rush. After a few minutes Uber picks up, this time a black Escalade pulls up. When I get in the car the driver, an elderly guy, looks at me through his mirror and says, Medaber Ivrit? We went on to talk in Hebrew the rest of the ride about his time in the IDF, how although he isn't so connected to religion, he feels so much love from Chabad, inspires him to always keep a yarmulke in his pocket. I now know that every Uber cancellation ends like this, sorry, I know not every Uber cancellation story ends like this and I was only debating sending the story in, and then the most recent shiur was labeled when your Uber cancels. I knew I had to send this. Nothing is chance and Hashem wanted it this way. I was going to get there. Thank you for what you do. Thank you Hashem. Okay. There are many more, they're fantastic, we'll get to them. We've been learning Emuna Bitachon Rav David Abuchatzeira shlita from Nahariya, the north of Israel, he and everyone should be safe there. And we last left off with a very radical idea. It's not his, comes it stems from the holy Baal Shem Tov. The הייליגע בעל שם טוב says the following. The Gemara tells us how reshaim melayim charatos, that wicked are filled with regret. And the Baal Shem Tov asked, regret is a very positive attribute. Regret's a positive quality. You regret mistakes, regret indiscretions, regret poor judgment, regret what we did wrong. Regret is what stimulates it's the catalyst it what motivates change and growth. Regret's good. Regret's good. So what do you mean reshaim are melayim charata? Wicked are filled with regret? If they're filled with regret, clearly they're not so wicked. To which the Baal Shem Tov answers that one we need to know. שלא קאי אמילי דשמיא אלא מילי דעלמא. Ve'ha-peirush hu kach. That it's not talking about religious activity, although everything is religious activity. It means I regret I missed davenen. I regret I didn't say a bracha. I regret I spoke lashon hara. That's healthy regret. That's healthy regret. Says the Baal Shem Tov what the Chazal what our rabbis were saying us is in milei d'alma. Why didn't I make that turn? Why didn't I say a few minutes later? Why didn't I invest in that stock, in that property, buy that apartment? הפירוש הוא כך שצריך כל אדם לדעת שכל מאורעותיו וכל מעשיו הכל הוא בהשגחת השם יתברך. All of our decisions and all of our actions, wise or foolish, prudent or imprudent, they all come from Hashem. והוא נותן לו במחשבתו לעשות כמה שהוא עושה. Hashem is the one who put that crazy idea. Hashem made us either do something natural or unnatural. Hashem made us do something that makes sense and for whatever reason in that moment do something that makes no sense. As the pasuk says, וזכרת כי הוא הנותן לך כח לעשות חיל. Hashem gives us the koach la'asot chayil. ותרגום אונקלוס ארי הוא יהיב לך עיטא למקני נכסין שאין לו לאדם להתחרט על שום דבר שעשה. So we look back. Jackie Mason has a whole routine about how every Jew has a building in Manhattan they could have owned. You know that old routine? And it's true you could have regret. But I was invited, do you know I had Apple stock but I sold it at whatever? I got early in, it could have been early in on Tesla, do you know that apartment, you know that building, do you know how many lots? When I moved here in 1999, what a lot went for, I could have bought 10 lots for the price of one, what they would be worth, and you're living and you're sitting with regret. Why did I sell too soon? Why didn't I hold? Why did I hold too long? Why did I say no to that person? Why did I say yes to this one? And we beat ourselves up and we knock ourselves down and we live with regret. And like Lot's wife, we turn into a pillar of salt, paralyzed and preserved and stuck, stuck in the past. Says the Baal Shem Tov, risha'im mele'im charatos. That's what the rabbi meant. It's wickedness to live with such regret. Draw a line in the card, weiter. Go forward. weiter. I told you my son, he loves to say not just when we're learning, weiter. As soon as the light turns green, Abba, weiter. Drive. weiter. weiter. In life, don't live with regret. I don't know if there's any golfers here. But one of the great things about golf, it's 18 holes, but you know, on the scorecard, each hole is in a little box. And you know, when it's in a little box, it means you could draw - golfers know this - you draw a line on the card. Why do you draw a line on the card? 'Cause you start again. So you blew up on a hole, you got a triple bogey, you hit in the woods, you hit in the water, you had a bad string of holes. Golfers know you draw a line on the card, let's go. Next nine. Let's see how we do on the next hole. I can't change the last hole. I can't change the last hole. What am I going to do on the next hole? One of the greatest statistics in golf, you didn't know you were coming today for some golf, one of the great statistics in golf for pro golfers is their bounce-back from bogey ratio. What happens if you get a bogey on the next hole? Bad golfers, amateur golfers - bogey is a bad score. You hit the ball in the water, in the sand, it took you - par is how many it should take to get in the hole. A bogey is above that, a birdie is below that. So what happens? You had a bad hole, you had a blow-up hole, hit the ball in the water, you got a bogey. What happens on the next hole? The worst golfers in professional sports get another bogey or they get a par. The best golfers - I think Tiger might have had the best birdie-after-a-bogey ratio. Do you bounce back? What happens on the next hole? And that's true for us. You had a meeting, you had a gathering, you had a yom tov, you had a shabbos meal, you cooked a recipe, you had an investment opportunity, you blew up, you had a bogey in life. You blew up. It was a change - your kid left a toy in the middle of the floor, your spouse didn't react the way you wanted and you blew up. Are you live - you beat yourself up, you - the next hole, draw a line on the card, next hole. The next hole of life. The next investment opportunity. The next work. Those are the other - we should give them away again - the notebooks. Turn the page. We made notebooks, living with emunah, turn the page. Modeh ani lefanecha, rabah emunasecha. Hashem, I wake up every day is a new day, we turn the page, we start again. I can't change the past, I can only control the present and plan for the future. And risha'im are mele'im charatos. To live stuck in the past, to think about, oh, but that chip, that bad putt, that bogey, literally or figuratively in life, to get stuck and to be paralyzed will simply compromise and sabotage your present. Don't give up the present because you're stuck in the past. risha'im mele'im charatos. That's a thought of wickedness. That's thinking of wickedness. וזכרת כי הוא הנתן לך כח לעשות חיל Hakadosh Baruch Hu gives us. So what happens? You made a bad investment or you missed out on a good investment. You sold too soon or you held on too long. You know who put that thought in your head? Hashem did. That doesn't mean you can't say how could I learn from it, what could I do better next time, how can I grow from it. Of course those are all thoughts that we have and things that we say. So on the one hand simultaneously we say what can I learn, how can I grow, how can I do better, but I don't have any regret. I don't have any regret. We can all look back at our lives, what school we went to, some of the things we did in those schools, some of the friends we hung out with, some of the things we did with those friends. I look back at my life and my journey and I didn't do - especially if my wife's listening - I didn't do anything too crazy, outrageous, outlandish, I was a good boy. I was always a good - I was always a good kid. I was always a good kid. But you look back and there even for the good kid there are those things, but I don't have regret. It was all part of the path that contributed to who I am now. And how do I know that I'd be who I am now or I'd be on the road to who I still want to be if I didn't go through and live and experience. And that was Vayifga Bamakom. That's where I was placed. That was among whom I was placed. That was the environment. And all of us in life, Hakadosh Baruch Hu orchestrated, He curated, He choreographed specifically for each of us. We have our own playlist. He doesn't just have a generic one He gives us all. We each have a playlist of our life and Hashem is the one who makes the playlist for you. He makes a playlist. You know what that means? You know what that means? I won't take advantage because she's not here and tell you the story. I'm just going to tell you this story. to protect the innocent. So we got back together. Maybe you remember, I don't know if anyone here's old enough to remember, there was such a thing as tapes, cassette tapes. And do you remember that people would dub tapes? You'd buy the with the two tapes, and you'd put the blank one in, and you'd you'd have different albums. And then you'd take a song from this album, you know the mesiras nefesh it took? You know the effort it took to play the tape to find the song that you wanted to find, stop it right at the place where you're going to play it to put it onto the next tape, and then press record play and play at the exact same time and start it at the right moment to get the song, and stop it at the right moment to get the to stop it at the right time, and then bring out the next tape or turn on the other side or get it to the next song and you'd make a mixtape, right? A mixtape. Everyone remember the mixtapes? Sure. So when we got back together and I was going to I we were getting back together, she wanted to get back together, I decided I was going to Eretz Yisroel for for a week. And she met me at the airport, she had made cookies, and she made me a mixtape to listen to. What an act! What a gesture of affection! A mixtape! A mixtape! Just for you. I thought of these songs, and you're going to Israel, you're going to be here, this song, in this order, on this tape. Took this many hours. Wow, wow, wow, what a moment. Hakadosh Baruch Hu makes a mixtape for everyone called our lives. This is your playlist. These are the people you're surrounded to, this is what you're listening, this is where you are, this is where you live, this is your job, this and Hashem makes this mixtape for each and every one of us. It's your mix. Now it happens to be today, we don't make mixtapes anymore. Now what do you do? In three seconds you make a playlist. And then what do you have? I have my slow playlist, my fast playlist, my erev Shabbos playlist, my Israel playlist, my wartime playlist, my peacetime playlist. We make playlists because they take three seconds. And it's great and it's easy and it's wonderful, and there's also a very big negative and downside to it. Because it used to be that when you listened to a tape, you had to suffer through the songs you don't like also because to forward it to find where to stop, you had to listen. When you bought a new album, I won't say a name because I don't want to suggest they had songs that aren't great. You bought a new album from this new music superstar. So, I don't know, on that tape there were eight, ten songs. Two of them were fantastic, three of them were pretty good, the rest you weren't really, but you had to listen for them all to hear the songs you liked because that's the way it was. Now what do you do? Forward, forward, forward, delete, I don't like that song, I don't want that song, I'm not listening. And you know what happens because of that? We're living in a world where we think that the people opposite us, they're our playlist. So your parent or your spouse is saying something you don't want to hear, you say forward, delete, that's not on my playlist. I don't want to hear this feedback about my book report, or the feedback about where I leave my socks, or the feedback about what time I got home from work. So, it's not all positive. The technology breakthrough has added a lot of ease and comfort, but it's overlapped into other areas of our life which aren't so positive. Okay, back to our regular scheduled program from from playlist. Hakadosh Baruch Hu makes the playlist of our life. We are vayifga bamakom. We are where we're meant to be, with whom the people we're meant to be with in that circumstance. And if we went longer, went short, or held on too long or sold too early or invested or didn't invest, Hakadosh Baruch Hu is the one. הוא הנותן לך כח לעשות חיל. He's the one. He's the one. כי הוא היה ככה על פי רצון הבורא יתברך שמו. ואם הוא מתחרט נמצא שאינו מאמין שהכל בהשגחה יתברך. And then Rav David Abuhatzeira goes so far as to say something strong and bold, and he says, if you live with regret, if you get stuck, you're a kofer. You're denying God's role in your life. It's an act of... you don't have emuna. You don't have emuna. It's heresy. The person who lives with emuna says, this was part of His plan that that's where I took out that meal, or that's what I ordered from the menu, or that's why I... and you don't beat yourself up, I shouldn't have ordered that, I remember from last time I don't like that, why did I order that? I should have tried the new thing. Why didn't I? And three days later, you're still thinking about what you went to the restaurant, how much you paid, it wasn't the best thing, you should have just... That's a lack of emuna. That's a lack of emuna. What you could say is, remind me next time to order the other, I want to learn from it. No one suggested that we blindly go through life and we don't learn from our experiences of the past, but we don't get stuck, we don't perseverate, we're not paralyzed, we're not preserved, marinated in that salt that's holding us back. Hakadosh Baruch Hu is the one in our head. Whatever reason He had you choose that, whatever reason you went there, whatever reason you said that. על כן הם נקראים רשעים כי לא כן הוא אלא הכל הוא על פי רצון העליון. It all comes from... comes from the ratzon ha'elyon, comes from the Eibershter, it all comes from the Ribono Shel Olam. So what do we do with one of the letters I got this week, one of our wonderful members of our community, one of our Emuna listeners, heard the shiur last week Rav David Abuhatzeira and the הייליגע בעל שם טוב and asks the following: Good afternoon this question has been bothering me for some time as we continue to work on accepting everything that happens is due to God's determining for us. If that is so, if that is so, then is bechira chofshis just an illusion on our part? Do we have free will do we not have free will? If that's where God wanted us to be, if that's the thought the idea he planted in our head: go to that restaurant, order this from the menu, invest in that, sell now, hold it longer even though it's going to go down, buy that don't buy that - is it our free will or is it predetermined from God and from above? I used to try to explain to myself that bechira was like driving a car with GPS. We're holding the steering wheel, but God is navigating the journey. But now if what we have learned that even our wrong turns are Hashem's will, then where is our choice other than how we react in life's vicissitudes? Thank you in advance for addressing this. I was hoping to not get that email. 'Cause it's a tough question. It's a very tough question. It's a beautiful way to live and it's the way we're meant to live according to the Baal Shem and many others, that Hashem is the one putting these ideas in our head and making us live in that way. But where does our free will come in? Footnote Khaf Aleph. Go to the bottom. ואף שניתנה הבחירה בידי האדם זה אינה לבחור בין טוב לרע בקיום מצוות התורה אבל בענייני העולם מונהגים אנו כרצונו יתברך הכל בידי שמים חוץ מיראת שמים. So the way that he resolves, the way that he deals with this is to say that when and where do we have free will? When it comes to spiritual religious choices. Am I going to daven, am I going to make a bracha, will I gossip, will I do the mitzvah, will I neglect the mitzvah, will I be righteous, will I be not righteous, that's where we have free will. But milei d'alma, which restaurant, make the turn, invest in the house, what we call mundane matters, not religious matters, that Hashem is the one putting the ideas in our head. That is all coming. That's how he resolves it. I struggle with that for the following reason. The Baal HaTanya says, as Rabbeinu Bachya liked it too, there's a question: are there really any mundane matters? If a person is living a really religious life, a life of Emuna, there is no mundane matter. Every choice, every behavior, every action, every thought is infused with an invitation and an opportunity to connect to Hashem, to pursue our mission of why we're here, to elevate it with religious meaning, or not, or not. There is no in between, there's no parve. You could have milchigs and fleishigs and parve. I happen to highly suggest against parve in the kitchen because I think it's hard to maintain. The hardest questions in Kashrus I get are my parve knife and the milchig dishwasher, my parve spoon, my parve pot, the thing I try to keep parve, it's very hard to keep. I'm not if you have parve God bless you, more power to you, it's very hard to keep parve. But in the kitchen you could have parve at least in theory. But in life there is no parve. It's either kodesh or chol, it's holy or it's not holy, or it's not holy. And we're meant to, we're instructed to, we're charged with transforming and elevating everything. So even eating, even eating, there's a religious component to eating. There's a bracha before, a bracha after, the mindfulness in the eating, how much, what, when, where, with whom. Eating is we've studied a little bit. We have a whole shiur on YouTube on eating. The Jewish value of eating. Not the Jewish way of eating. It's its own shiur. But the Jewish religious experience that should come from eating. A person can't live without eating. Rav Itche Meyer from Gur has a lot on this. You need to eat to live. You need to eat to live. Which means that every time you're eating you're connecting to the source of life. And if you approach every morsel of food you put in your mouth as this morsel of food Hashem is contact and connection with the divine because it is giving me life. It's giving me life. You know the joy that you have when your cell phone is down to the like two percent? You're barely holding on, you don't know what you're going to do and you get near an outlet with a cord. Someone's got a power pack and they're going to let you plug in. And when you plug it in techiyas hameisim mamash. You come back to life, right? You got you got connected to the source of power. It was about to die and you recharged and reconnected to the source of power. Every time we eat says Rav Itche Meyer without eating we can't live. That's why we get hangry. Without eating we can't live. Emotionally, spiritually, certainly physically. Every morsel of food that we take in, we are connecting to the source of life, to the divine. We're plugging in. And if you would eat it and chew it and think about it, I'm chewing Hashem, I'm swallowing Hashem. I have just recharged, rejuvenated, and I was just born again, I've made contact with the source of life, Hashem. Eating is totally different. Sleeping. He has a whole perek about sleeping. The notion, the Jewish notion, in turn Friday into Erev Shabbos, we spent a few weeks talking about sleeping. Why sheina b'Shabbos is meshubachas, the idea of sheina on Shabbos, what Shabbos, the value of sleeping on Shabbos. A shluf, a nap. I'm very makpid on this halacha. Person has to take a good shluf. Winter months, it's tough, but to sleep on Shabbos. So there is no mundane. There is no mundane. Eating, sleeping, driving, it's all religious. It's all, it's all a platform and a stage to grow and to experience religion. So then, which is it? Free will or pre-determination? The Baal Shem Tov's right, reshaim meleim charatos, don't ever regret. It wasn't you. Hashem put that idea in your head. Hashem led you down that road to that restaurant, order off that menu, invest in that property. It was Hashem, not you. So don't ever regret. What's next? Figure out what's next. So where does free will come in? So maybe we'll talk about this more next time. But I'll give you a hint, beginning of a hint, my dear friend Reb Nechemya, Reb Nechemya I spoke about this with. There's a difference between yediya and bechira. Knowledge and choice. Hashem has knowledge of what we're going to do, but that doesn't take away our choice from doing it. Now we don't understand that because in our experience and in our world, they're integrated. That knowledge and that choice come together. We can't have a knowledge of what someone's going to do and they still have the freedom to choose to do it or not do it. If we know they'll do it, it means that their freedom has been suspended. It means that there's a computer that was programmed, there's a robot that was automated. We can predict with certainty it will happen because there is no option for it not to. Right? That's our experience. They're enmeshed, they're integrated, they're intertwined, they go together. But from Hashem's perspective, Hashem, Hashem lives outside of time. There is no what we will do, what we did do, what we are doing. There is no time. So the whole question only comes up because we're bound by time and we don't relate to the experience of being outside of time. But Hashem who operates and lives outside of time can have a knowledge and we yet still maintain the freedom of which to do, of what to do. But what's the value of that freedom if He's the one directing it? If we took that wrong turn, but He's the one who put into our head to be distracted, to not pay attention, to miss the turn, then did we miss the turn or did He have us miss the turn? That's still a huge question and it's the one we're going to pick up with im yirtzeh Hashem next week. Wishing everyone besoros tovos, wishing you good news from Eretz Yisrael and around the world. Please remain to complete all of Sefer Tehillim in just a few minutes.
