Transcript
Okay good morning boker tov welcome back to Living with Emuna I want to thank as always we begin hakarat hatov we begin with our gratitude thank as always our generous sponsors our dear series sponsors Avi and Bella Morgen in memory of Rabbi Doctor Brian Galbut in memory of Bella’s mother Doctor Ellen Schanz נשמה שתהא לה עליה. A big thank you to Carol Wolde who sponsored this morning in memory of her friend Miriam בת אליהו הלוי וגיטל and by Rebecca and Evan Goldberg in honor of Stephanie and Perry Friedman we love the Friedmans we're so happy they're here in memory of Aviva Golda bat Yehuda whose unwavering emuna was an inspiration by Rina Flambaum Adina and David Frankel Lisa and Ari Keene Risa and Mordechai Pollack Marilyn Jeremy Strauss Anat Eli Schick in memory of their dear friend Bruce Wenguer נשמה שתהא לה עליה דב ארי בן ישראל and by Rachel and Alex Katz my dear friends in Yerushalayim big thank you to them for helping organize last week’s emuna shiur in Yerushalayim and for all they do and this is in honor of their son Ezra’s upcoming IDF draft to Golani this coming Sunday he should be safe they know he'll have to exercise their emuna muscle while he's in I'm sure they will Ezra and all those drafting with him we have a whole group from Shalvim from our community we should be very very proud who are drafting as well they should all be safe and successful and be at home and not on a front line we should have a sweeping defeat of all of our enemies and lastly by our dear friends Jeff and Faye Walkowitz and Henny Daniel Blum in honor of BRS and the emuna shiur and much more importantly for a refuah sheleimah for ירדנה ליבא בת שרה פנינה undergoing a procedure today should be successful and well she should give her parents a lot of nachas and grandparents and have a complete speedy and painless refuah sheleimah for her and all that her family has gone through. We'll start as we always do with a few emuna letters got some great letters and then we'll dive back into our text together. Okay, Dear Rabbi Goldberg I listen to Living with Emuna on a somewhat regular basis I want to share a story I live in New York and therefore don't have a car but I don't know the therefore but therefore I don't have a car but rent one as needed just a good philosophy it's very efficient so I just picked up a car at a car rental and what should have been a ten minute drive back but ended up on the highway missing an exit and got back forty five minutes later one thought that kept coming to my mind is I am where I meant to be. Nothing major such a big deal as someone who is trying to grow I appreciate the small steps wanted to express appreciation I am where I meant to be. Somebody in my family hurt themselves their back pretty badly they're laid up and lying still and in a lot of pain and they said I guess I am where I meant to be. It's I don't think we coined this expression it's not ours but when a person can really live and breathe and practice and implement that attitude you can just let go of trying to force and change circumstances that are out of your control whether it's traffic or rental car or whether it is an unexpected injury. Okay hold on there was a good one over here I enjoyed it a lot. Not directly connected to emuna but put a smile on my face. Hello again Rabbis as I said previously your shiurim have been blah blah blah blah blah I want to tell you you've also helped my physical needs too. A few weeks ago you mentioned muddy buddies I never heard the term before I grew up in England my wife is American I've always been looking to try good American snacks I was surprised I didn't know what they were. I immediately asked about them in the family WhatsApp group and a debate ensued as to whether they can be bought or only made at home. I did some research and baruch Hashem it turns out Chex Mix makes them and even more amazingly my parents who live in Israel flying to the US the exact same time they brought me back some muddy buddies and I have to say they did not disappoint. Thank you for the shiurim on top of helping with emuna I would not have discovered muddy buddies without them. So I am happy to be contributing so meaningfully to people's lives. I warn you though you can't stop at like one or one handful or one bag so if you're going to go down the muddy buddy road you're going to end up covered in mud so you may want to be careful about it it can be disastrous. Good morning I hope this finds you well. I want to thank you for the embrace your emuna sticker in my car. As I was driving early this morning I started being anxious and overwhelmed by just thinking about preparing for Pesach and pause on the email but who isn't? Every year Pesach can feel overwhelming anxiety inducing so much to get done so much expense so much cost so many people it can easily overwhelm. Last Sunday I gave the pre-Pesach workshop if you want to not be overwhelmed learn how to clean your house and kosher your kitchen in just a few hours and one of the biggest pieces of advice I began with and I will share it again here is and it's true for emuna in general and life. If you want to stay calm cool collect work off a calendar and a schedule. Reverse engineer your life. Why do we start to feel overwhelmed and anxious because it's all piling up and it's all inside we're trying to maintain I gotta do this and buy that and schedule this and how will that happen and when I'm gonna also get this done and when you sit down with a calendar a physical one or a virtual one and you reverse engineer and you say okay this is when Pesach starts motzaei Shabbos which means I have to be ready. on Friday this year, which means I need to cook for how many days, which means when do I need to kasher, which means when does my kitchen need to be ready, which means when do I have to clean my house, which means when do I have to shop for my ingredients and mark your calendar with every detail. And then instead of feeling overwhelmed by the next three weeks, all you have to say is, what do I need to do today? Today, Hayom. And that comes from Emunah u-Bitachon. We learn this from Avidat Abuhatzeira, the idea of Hayom, the idea of today. Be present, be mindful, be invested, be focused, only ask yourself, what do I need to get done today? Now, a person can't live that way without also thinking about and planning for the future because if all you say is what do I need to do today and you're not thinking about Pesach, you'll find yourself on Erev Pesach having to do everything for Pesach. So the today is not at the neglect of the future. It means I look at the future, I think about the future, but it informs only what I need to do today. And therefore once I have on paper or virtually scheduled everything I need to do, now, what do I need to do today? That's what we spent a lot of time on. That's what he taught us and showed us in all this language of Hayom. V'yadata hayom vahashevosa. והיו הדברים האלה אשר אנכי מצוך היום. Misham u-vikashtem misham. ראה אנכי נתן לפניכם היום. ויברכם ביום ההוא לאמר. The biggest Bracha you could give someone is bayom ha-hu. Embrace Hayom. Embrace today. Embrace today. So the best way to not panic or get anxiety or worry or feel defeated in Emunah about Pesach is schedule the next weeks or three weeks of your life. Is it three weeks or is that wishful thinking on my part? Less. Less. Ouch. It's you have to be ready by Erev Pesach. I got to be ready a week earlier because Shabbos HaGadol Drasha this year is a week earlier than that. So I got to cook up something even earlier than your cooking. Anyway, but when you work, and that's how I did the Shabbos HaGadol Drasha. I say, when do I need to print the source sheets? When do I need to have my outline? When do I need to choose my topic? When do I need to do my research? When you analyze and organize and schedule, then you can just say what do I need to do today? Today, what do I need to do today? Believe it or not I'm going back to Israel tomorrow, Baruch Hashem I have a Simcha this Shabbos, my niece's Bas Mitzvah. So two plane rides to and from Israel. You can get a lot done for the Shabbos HaGadol Drasha. That's how I scheduled my today for preparing that. So back to our email. As I was driving earlier this morning, I started being anxious and overwhelmed by just thinking about preparing for Pesach. This email was written on March 18th. The shopping, cleaning, cooking, taking off from work to get it all done, so I can host a bit over is a bit overwhelming. This morning as I was driving I glanced to the side and saw the sticker. Embrace your place. Baruch Hashem it refocused me and brought me back to reality and not anxiety. I've been making Pesach for at least 30 years and it all miraculously gets done every year. One year I was standing in the neighborhood kosher market and someone was lamenting about all the groceries that we're buying and I calmly replied back, thank goodness I'm able to shop for all these groceries and I'm able to cook and feed my beautiful family, feed my beautiful family. In all the craziness of the holiday, we have to embrace our place. Whatever it may be because that's where Hashem wants you to be. Thank you for reminding me of this early morning. Have a beautiful day. Isn't that great? The sticker. You could be driving, your mind is wandering, you're feeling overwhelmed, and that's the idea of the sticker. You could still order or stop by the office and get one. Decal for the car, sticker for the back of your phone, a tag for your luggage. אכן יש השם במקום הזה. Embrace your place. You are exactly where you're meant to be, and you're going to get through whatever you need to get through. And the attitude that we bring towards Pesach or any other aspect of our Yiddishkeit is going to have such an impact on others. The article I wrote, I published last night. The non-Jewish nanny, the now-Jewish nanny, who converted to Judaism, and is a wonderful real deal special person, but was inspired by the families that she worked with. And her story is extraordinary. And her Rabbi and Rebbetzin who mentored her are wonderful people, but I think the real heroes of the story are the families that she worked for who rather than being exposed to them and their children, she wasn't turned off but she was turned on. She wanted to draw closer, not run further away. And the question we have to ask ourselves is, if someone lived in our home while we were getting ready for Pesach, would they walk away saying I want Pesach too or thank God I don't have Pesach? And then I'll tell you a little secret. There are people who live in our home and who watch and they're called children and grandchildren. They're our neighbors and they're Neshama, they're ourselves. And the attitude we bring, does it draw people closer or further away? Fall more in love or begin to despise and resent? Ki besimcha seitzeiu. The way out of any predicament, the way towards the life we want to live, Ki besimcha seitzeiu. It's BeSimcha that we get out of it. So whatever one is going through, whatever one is navigating, whatever one is overcoming, whatever one needs to prepare for and execute and get done, there's so much. So being farbissene and miserable and sad won't make it better. You know what will? Ki besimcha seitzeiu. Be BeSimcha. Make the choice because as we've said many times happiness is not an emotion, happiness is a decision. Okay, Dear Rabbi Goldberg, our family is aware of the wink from Hashem. I'd like to share this personal story. Recently we were involved in the sale of our home. Shortly after the inspection, I received a call from our agent. It was 8:30 at night and the buyer wanted to send his own plumber at 9:00 to check on some feature of the report. It was late, but reluctantly I agreed. I called my son and told him; he adamantly told me to cancel, it was too late. So I called the agent and said no. Earlier that day we had the company, I had ordered the traditional Chinese lunch specials. Five orders, five fortune cookies. One was left unopened. I realized that was mine. I opened it and it read, 'Sometimes it's okay to say no.' Definitely a wink from Hashem. Nothing's a coincidence. Even the fortune cookie, Hashem puts that message in the fortune cookie. It's not a fortune, we don't believe in those. The cookie that you got and the message that is in it is a wink or hug. It is a message from Hashem. Her message was 'Sometimes it's okay to say no,' and I hope that Chinese special was good. Those are the most inexpensive kosher Chinese lunch specials in the world because I happen to know where she lives, still in that community. Okay, one more email, then we'll get in. Let's see. Okay, this one was powerful. Dear Rabbi Goldberg, I have to share this story with you. This past Friday was my daughter Michal's third yahrtzeit. She was stillborn at 40 weeks after a totally normal pregnancy. In fact, we helped sponsor the last recorded Living with Emunah shiur in her memory. Today is her English birthday, and I unexpectedly found myself with a 25-minute drive, so I went to look for a Living with Emunah shiur to keep me company, but no new shiur was out. So I went to look for a Parsha Perspectives, but that too was not updated. And so I chose to go back to the shiur closest to her actual birth date, and I found the shiur dated March 23rd, 2022. That was the night my daughter died. I turned on the shiur hoping for some chizuk on this difficult day. And the first letter you read was from a man who happened to hear a shiur where you discussed the story of your own stillbirth on the day that he found out his wife miscarried. I was blown away. Of all the days and shiurim that you could have discussed this on, it's March 23rd, 2022, the day my daughter passed away and here I am listening to it today, three years later, of all days. I was overwhelmed but so comforted to hear you talk about your experience with your own loss. What a moment straight from Hashem. But that wasn't all. After the letter you dove into the shiur, which was about simcha. In fact, only an hour earlier my husband and I had met with the Rebbe who is visiting this week. He spoke to me directly about simcha, about emunah and simcha, and the significance of having those in my life. It seems Hashem really wanted me to hear this message. This was the exact shiur I needed to hear today. Thank you for your part in the emunah moment. So I'm glad I didn't give a new shiur that week, so that Hashem planned for that person to turn that on. Those are those moments. Coincidence? Random? Chance? Can't be. It's a wink, it's a nod, it's a hug from Hashem. Does that make all the pain go away? Absolutely not. But it is something to feel that we're not victims of randomness, we're not victims of chance, that there is order and meaning and purpose to this universe. Things happen for a reason, and that even though things are painful, we don't have to suffer. There's a difference between pain and suffering. Pain is inevitable, suffering is a choice. And ki vesimcha seitzei-u, that's what she was writing. Ki vesimcha, even when one has gone through pain, they don't have to suffer. That's not to deny the pain or disrespect the pain. Lean into the pain, experience the pain, cry from the pain, grieve with the pain. But then bounce back besimcha, ki vesimcha seitzei-u, besimcha, the only way to live life, to restore life after a loss of life, to restore one's own life is besimcha, ki vesimcha seitzei-u, ki vesimcha seitzei-u. Okay, there are more emails, we'll have to get to them. I got a great Orlando Pesach email for next week, which will be before Shabbos HaGadol. Okay, we're back to Emunah Bitachon, this wonderful sefer of Rav David Abuhatzeira Shlita, that was published as they the north of Israel, he's in the utmost north, in Nahariya in Israel, have suffered terribly, and that's when the sefer was written. So at the top of page lamed gimmel, 33, I think I posted, if not I'll put them in the Emunah group. Our first Emunah group closed out, it ran out of space, so we opened the second Emunah group. If you're in the first group, you don't have to join the second group, it's just a duplicate. We're just posting the same thing, the shiur schedule, the shiur link, some bonus material every now and then, that's what we're putting. There's more if anybody wants to follow inside. So top of page lamed gimmel, משמם של צדיקים נאמר ויש שהביאו זאת משמו של הבעל שם טוב, they quote this in the name of Tzadikim, some quote in the name of the holy Baal Shem Tov. הם מצטטים את זה בשמם של צדיקים חלקם מצטטים בשמו של הבעל שם טוב. אם אדם חפץ שיהיה לו שפע פרנסה וכדומה, if a person wants an overflowing amount of blessing in their life, you want parnassa, livelihood, you want bri-us, gezunt, health and happiness, shalom bayis, nachas, הדבר הראשון שנצרך לזה הוא אמונה. First thing that's necessary is emunah. Whatever it is you want, whatever you feel is lacking, whatever you want to fill in. It could be you want to learn to be fluent in Hebrew and read Hebrew, you want to lose a few pounds, you want your potato kugel to come out well, you want nachas from your children, you want to be able to reconcile and have shalom bayis and a happy future with your husband. You're longing for a child. You're trying to navigate complicated halacha, whatever it is we want. Parnassa, Pesach's coming up, need a few extra shekel just to buy a pound of matzah. Whatever's happening. So whatever it is one wants, the Baal Shem Tov said, before initiative, the first act of initiative we take is to choose emunah. You would think, go to work, earn your paycheck, try to make it rain, network for clients, try to drum up business. Oh yeah, also don't forget daven. Also oh yeah, don't forget have emunah. Said the Baal Shem, no no, you got it backwards. Before you go to work, sit in the parking lot outside the office and shtickle emunah, lean in, embrace your place, a little let go and let God, a little Hakadosh Baruch Hu, I can't do this without you, a little bit הלואי שיתפלל כל היום, I'm davening the whole day. Before every meeting I go into, before every client I meet with, before every pitch I give, before every email I send, emunah comes first. צריך אדם להאמין ולבטוח בהשם יתברך, ke-ma'amar ha-pasuk, וזכרת את השם אלקיך כי הוא הנתן לך כח לעשות חיל. The Baal Shem Tov got this from a pasuk itself because the pasuk says ve-zacharta, remember Hashem, כי הוא הנתן לך כח לעשות חיל. Hashem is the one who gives us strength to do our work, to do our bidding. As Onkelos, the great righteous convert, translates: ארי הוא יהיב לך עיטא למקני נכסין. Hakadosh Baruch Hu's the one who put into your head, how come you bought that stock instead of another stock? You pitched the client instead of another client. How come you this instead, who gave you that great idea? Who put that drasha, that story, that quote, who put it all together for you? Who made you stumble upon that article, that sefer? Yes, be proud of the initiative you took, be proud of the effort you put in, be proud of the accomplishment and achievement and the result that you earned. Be proud of it. But where did you get the entrepreneurship, the ingenuity, the creativity, the work ethic, the strength, the focus? Where did it come from to achieve all of that? הוא הנתן לך כח לעשות חיל. Hashem is the one who gave it. There's a Derashos HaRan. The HaRan, Rabbeinu Nissim, in the Derashos HaRan, the HaRan writes in his derashos that a person, the Torah cautions us, right before this pasuk, one should never say כחי ועצם ידי עשה לי את החיל הזה. It's not kochi, my strength, my hard work, my smarts. Arrogant people struggle because they're wrestling with God all the time. What do you mean God I'm supposed to thank you that I did well in business this year? I did well in business because I worked hard in business. I went in early, I stayed late, I focused, spent time away from my family and my hobbies and the things I wanted, I worked hard. I'm the one who had that fantastic idea how to market, how to advertise. I'm the one who figured out that new financial instrument. I'm the one who invested in that place. I'm the one who was smart enough to have shorted the market. I'm the one who understood. What do you mean you? Why shouldn't I say kochi ve-otzem yadi? Why shouldn't I say it was my energy, my strength, my ingenuity? Why shouldn't I? After all, I did. You could draw a straight line, traces back to me. Says the HaRan, Hashem doesn't want you to deny that you had a role and you had a part. He doesn't want you to not take pride in what you did. What he wants you to realize is, don't say kochi ve-otzem yadi, it's my strength and my hand that brought this result. What you should realize is הוא הנתן לך כח. Because if Hakadosh Baruch Hu wanted you to be in bed, to be hit with an illness, to have the flu, if Hakadosh Baruch Hu wanted you to be overtired, confused, and not choose that stock but choose a one to go long instead of go short, to make a bad pitch instead of a good one, then you would have failed and you would have fallen flat on your face. Who gives you the koach? Who gave you that memory, that intellect, that insight, that entrepreneurship, that creativity? Who gave you that strength to be able to plug away with that work ethic? Who gave it to you? הוא הנתן לך כח לעשות חיל. Hashem is the one who gives it to you. So therefore, and that's the way the HaRan understands. For me, this was a radical change in the way we see what it means to live with emunah. To live with emunah doesn't mean that you walk around saying, no, it wasn't a good drasha and it wasn't me and Hashem just made it come out of my printer, I don't even know how that happened, it just came out of the printer and I just read it. No, no, I worked hard. I work hard and I'm proud. But who gave me the strength and the focus and the creativity and the talent? It's all from Him. And it is on loan. It can disappear tomorrow. Ask famous singers who suddenly had laryngitis and had to cancel their shows. Ask brilliant people who were hit with debilitating dementia. Brilliant, brilliant people and minds who suddenly can't remember little things. הוא הנותן לך כח. Athletes who all of a sudden can't make a throw or their legs don't work. הוא הנותן לך כח. So the key is not to not take pride, to deny what we're good at, what we're talented at, where our skills are. Those are gifts from above. Appreciate them, be grateful for them, be proud of them, but also live and realize they could disappear any moment. I'll tell you as a darshan, as somebody who darshens, on any given day of the week I speak several times. That's the business I went into. And I'm grateful for it and I love it and I'm so happy about it. From two shiurim this morning, and I'm speaking at a lunch at the Agudah business thing summit today to our shul dinner tonight and I don't know exactly what I'm speaking at about at the next ones. And Hashem is unbelievable, unbelievable. Not every sometimes I speak it's a single, sometimes I hope it's a home run, sometimes it feels like I'm striking out, but each and every time afterwards I feel like Hashem you made me trip or stumble or think about and put that together and please just keep it going. And I publish a lot of what I say, I put out online source sheets and drashas and articles and people close to me, maybe some I'm related to, say why are you doing that? You give it to the whole world and other people are just going to use it and plagiarize and I say they're welcome to it. The more I share it, the more I hope Hashem's going to give me and replenish it. And the more I hold on to it, I think Hashem's going to turn off the valve, he's going to turn off the faucet and I need him to leave it open, I need him to leave it open. So the key in life in whatever you do and whatever we work on, from the mundane and simply seemingly simple and inconsequential to the significant and big, the surgeon on the way into a surgery to the chef putting the kugel in the oven is Hashem kochi. I'm proud of my contribution to this. I thought of the recipe, I'm a good chef, I've got instinct, I don't even measure out the spices, I just put them in and everyone loves my food. I'm proud, but I also know that הוא הנותן לך כח, that whatever talent, skill, gift, opportunity, potential you give me, it is on loan, it's never part of a permanent collection. It could disappear tomorrow, tomorrow. So based on all this, back to Rav Dovid Abuchatzeira, based on all this says the emunah bitachon, because וזכרת את השם אלוקיך, remember God, כי הוא הנותן לך כח, he's the one who gave you the skill. So remember it every time you use your skill. Before every workout say Hashem, you gave me the body you let it work, let me not tear, break, twist, sprain anything. Every meeting you go into, Hashem you put the words in my mouth and you put the ideas in my head. Help me, help me have a successful outcome, let it go well. Before every surgery, before every doctor diagnosis, Hashem you helped me get through medical school, you help me do all that I do. Before each time, vezacharta, remember Hashem. And so the Baal Shem Tov taught was don't on your list of things say initiative, initiative, initiative, action, action, action, oh yeah I remember once hearing I should probably also daven. No, the first act of initiative is to have emunah, is to remember whatever I'm about to do the outcome is only and utterly dependent on Hashem, on Hashem. Begashmius uveruchnius. That's true with whatever physical thing I'm about to do, whatever flight I'm about to take and the tefillas haderech that I say, whatever car ride I'm about to take and I remember Hashem is the one who will keep me safe. Begashmius uveruchnius or spiritually. It sounds counterintuitive, we've discussed this before as well, but if we're struggling in ruchnius, we're struggling to have faith, we're struggling to get anything out of davening, we're struggling in ruchnius, we could also ask Hashem. Hashem I need your help. I need your help connecting to you because I'm not connecting, I'm not feeling it and I want to feel it. Hashem help it flow. The faith, the emunah, the connection. ובהן בקנין נכסיו הרי יהב לך עצה למקנה נכסין. Who put that idea in your mind that yielded that business success and result? ובדברי נכדו הגאון הרבי הקדוש ר' ברוך ממעז'בוז' in the words of his grandson, עצבות מאד מקלקלת את הפרנסה. You know what destroys parnassah? Sadness, melancholy, depression, misery, worry. They destroy parnassah. Now you can explain that metaphysically or physically. Metaphysically they destroy parnassah because Hashem wants you to be besimcha and he wants you to lean on him and he wants you to embrace your place and he wants you to let go and let God and he wants you to recognize he's the one who brings your parnassah, so what are you going to be sad and stressed and anxious about it? It all comes from him. That's metaphysical. Physically it ruins your parnassah because who wants to do business with a miserable, farbissene, angry, worried, anxious person? Who, who wants? do business with such a person? Your coworkers are going to want run far away from you, your employees are going to dread interacting with you, your customers are going to find someone else to do business with. Atzvos destroys parnassa. ולכן יראה כל אדם שיהיה בשמחה. So every person should be be-simcha. So you'll say but I don't feel be-simcha. I'm exhausted and I'm tired, I have so much to do and I'm facing so many, I'm fighting so many battles, I don't feel be-simcha. So my answer is what do your feelings have to do with it? Who cares about your feelings? What does simcha have to do with your feelings? Simcha, joy, happiness is not a feeling, it's a decision. Samei'ach se-mo'ach, where do you put your brain, where do you put your thoughts, what do you choose to think, how do you choose to act? Smile. Smile. Science shows that when you turn up the corners of your mouth, you actually engage muscles in your mouth that release endorphins in your brain and you actually induce more happiness when you force yourself to smile. We think I'm happy then I smile, but it turns out if you smile, you'll be happier. Smile, I gave you that as homework one week. Go home and just smile. People around you may think you're weird, they're going to baker-act you, they're going to want to send you away, they're going to worry what did someone slip into your drink? Why are you smiling so much? Why are you greeting me that way? Who got a hold of you? What happened? And let them think all that. Smile. Smile. Be-simcha. Sometimes when you feel the most stressed, take a few deep breaths and just smile. You're overwhelmed, this person I mentioned who is close to me, who I love, who tweaked their back and are laid up in bed and in enormous pain, started laughing. So what are you laughing? Said I can't believe this happened on top of several other things and challenges. It just you have to if you don't laugh at it, you have two choices. You could either cry or you could laugh. So you might as well laugh because laughing is the best medicine. Laughter is the best medicine. Laughter is the best medicine. I'll be more autobiographical. I meet people all the time and they're like you never met me but I know you. Did you ever find your kid's sheitel, how's your son doing with this, what's happening with your wife? Because I'm so autobiographical in the shiur, I don't know if my family appreciates it, but everybody knows me. So I enjoy when I have to get in the car and drive, I love listening to comedy. I enjoy comedy. I put on comedy, particularly after I do a funeral or an unveiling, when I drive away I almost always, it wasn't like a decision I made, somehow it just happened, I have a list of clean comedians, some other comedians, but there are clean comedians you could listen to because laughter is the best medicine. It's the best medicine. Simcha restores your life. So I don't know, it's funny I spoke to a bunch of other rabbis and they told me similarly they'll leave funerals and they'll either always stop to get a drink, I don't mean alcoholic beverage but I mean like a 7-Eleven even if they're not thirsty, you need to do something to affirm life and restore life after you had contact with death. And the way you restore and affirm life after you had contact with death is to laugh and to be alive. Laughter makes you feel alive. It brings you back to life, it makes you feel alive. It's fantastic. I don't know if it's what the Baal Shem Tov and his einikel were talking about of ki ve-simcha seitzei'u, comedy and my kind of comedy, but it's comedy. It's it's atzvos never did anything. Sadness never solved any problem but happiness did, ki ve-simcha seitzei'u. Through joy and through happiness that you can get out of whatever you're in. So everyone get into simcha ונרמז הדבר בתורה שסופי תיבות והיית אך שמח הם חת"כ שהוא השר הגדול של פרנסה. That acronym, that name, ches tes chaf is an acronym that refers to the angel of parnassa, which are the last letters of ve-hayisa ach samei'ach. So what opens the gates of parnassa of livelihood? Being be-simcha. Again, I can explain it physically or metaphysically. How to explain it in the physical world is try. If you come to work with a smile, if you're happier, if you engage customers, if you network, if you try to drum up business and you have energy, you're high energy, like my holy friend Ben Isaacs, nobody has the energy of Ben Isaacs. You have this energy, every interaction, that Ben energy, early in the morning, late at night, you come with that energy. We'll translate even simcha here as energy. You could be low energy in life or you could be high energy. Well you'll say but I didn't get enough sleep and I'm miserable and I stepped on a Lego in the middle of the night and my kid fought with me to get out to carpool in the morning and I gotta make Pesach, well how do I have any energy? Energy is also a decision. It's a decision to live your life so you'll have energy. Get enough sleep, get an ice bath, drink enough coffee, do the right things that are going to give you the energy. You knew that was coming, but do enough things that are going to get you the energy. That's also a decision. But be high energy, live a life of high, be coming into a room with energy, come into a conversation, interact with the people around you, the ones you love. By the way, don't leave all your energy for when you leave the front door and then you come home depleted of energy. Home is where you're low energy and miserable and the rest of the world gets your high energy. If you have to make a choice between the two, be high energy and joy at home and low energy in the world, but don't make a choice. Be high energy everywhere. That doesn't mean that you don't need a minute in the driveway or before you come in the front door or even in the house excuse yourself to your bedroom for a couple minutes to say, I need to slump in a chair, low energy and miserable for a couple minutes. And then grow up, get it together, get out, and bring back your energy and your joy to interact with your family because that'll bring out the best in you and the people around you and that'll be your best life, והיית אך שמח כי בשמחה תצאון. Be besimcha, be besimcha. Joy, smile and release those endorphins and get that chemical rush that comes with it, ki besimcha seitzeiyun. But all of this starts with emuna. It starts with emuna. The first act of initiative we take is emuna. Now make the kugel. Now clean for Pesach. Now operate on the patient. Now negotiate in the boardroom. But before we do any of those things, the first initiative we ever take is the initiative of emuna. כי הוא הנתן לך כח לעשות חיל, because it's all on loan from Him but He gave it to us. So essentially before each time we use it, we're asking permission again or expressing gratitude again for the hope that He's going to say, keep it. If you ever lent someone something and they were totally unappreciative, disrespectful, didn't even care, when it's time to get it back you say, give it back. But if somebody borrowed something and they say, thank you so much and this was amazing and you changed my life and I can't thank you enough, it meant so much and I'm so appreciative and it had such an impact, you say, keep it another week, keep it altogether, just keep it. So when we show Hashem that whatever talents and blessings and skills and gifts we have, the people in our life, the faculties of our life, the health in our life, the wealth in our life, whatever good that He's given us, when we say, thank you so much, it's really had an impact, it's really changed things, it's really been great, I'm so appreciative, I understand if you take it back because it was never mine, if you're taking away my speaking skill, if you're taking away my brainpower, if you're taking away my health and what, it was never mine, I'm not entitled to it, I understand if it's time to give it back, but thank you so much, it was great. You know what Hashem says? Keep it! Hold onto it. Use it a little more. So that's why it's the act of initiative. When we lean in with emuna and before anything and everything we do, we say, I understand I'm not entitled and feel free if it's time to take it back, take it back, I just want to thank you for it, it's been amazing. If we want our best bet of Hashem saying, keep it, hold onto it, take it a little bit longer, then that's the attitude that we have to bring to it. Thank you, I acknowledge, I recognize, I'm appreciative, I respect the fact that You gave it and I appreciate that I wasn't entitled to any of it. We're not entitled to anything. Who says? Who says you were entitled to wake up this morning and your eyes and your ears and your feet and your arms worked? Who says any day you shouldn't tweak your back? Why shouldn't every day? Do you know how many micro muscles you have in our entire system? Do you know how fragile the skeleton is? Do you know the miracle that our two feet are holding up our entire body? What is the weight of our feet, the power in our ankles to balance our body? Any day that you don't tweak your back landing you in bed is a miracle. It's a miracle. It's a miracle. Particularly if you're out of shape, never move, never work your muscles and so on. It's a miracle. What happens? Only on the day that we tweak our back we say, why God, why me, how could it be, where are You? Every day that you wake up and you say, oh everything's working, wow, it's so great. Car's working, computer's working, my mouth's working, my brain's working, it's all working. We don't say, why me, how could it be, why should it be? When it all works, we feel entitled to it, and if any of it stops working, we wonder, where are You? Who says we ever deserved it to begin with? But every day that we say, I'm not entitled, I'm appreciative, I'm grateful, wake up with an attitude of gratitude, the birchas hashachar, the modeh ani that begins and animates our day, so said the heilige Baal Shem quoted by Rav David Abuhatzeira, this is the first initiative, the first hishtadlus of the day is emuna. Recalibrate our compass. Okay, I'm finite, I'm mortal, I'm nothing, I'm not entitled to anything. You're the source of everything, You give me everything, thank you for everything. Now I'm ready to start my day. That's the first initiative of the day. The first initiative of the day, which is why when we open our eyes the first words on our lips are modeh ani. Thankful am I. That's the first thing that we do, it's the first initiative that we take. So im yirtzeh Hashem we should continue to take this initiative, the initiative of emuna before we get to the initiative of initiative, the initiative of emuna, and then halevai Hashem should continue to lend us all of His brachos in the surgeon's hands who's doing surgery today on Yardenah Sheva, have a positive outcome and good health and in everything that we have to do today. from big to small, from consequential to insignificant. No matter what we have to do today, let's take that first initiative and step of emunah, smile, do it with a smile. Do it with a smile. You have to take out the garbage, do it with a smile. Do it with a smile. You cleaning? Do it with a smile. Shopping for Pesach, earning the money to pay for a pound of matzah, that's a month paycheck. Do it with a smile. Because I'll tell you the pound the cost of matzah doesn't go down when you're miserable about it. And the house doesn't become clean because you were miserable about it. It's just not the way it works. What do you get from that? Gornisht. Nothing, nothing. So ki besimcha taitzei'u. May we get out of whatever's holding us back. It's a season of freedom. May we be set free and liberated from the shackles often self-imposed that are holding us back to taste the taste of freedom. And the way to do that, ki besimcha taitzei'u, is to be im yirtzeh Hashem besimcha. We'll pick up with the next chapter of this next Wednesday. Please remain for all of Tehillim. Take a booklet. If everyone takes a booklet it'll take five minutes we'll finish all of Sefer Tehillim.
