Transcript
Okay, Boker Tov and good morning. Welcome back to Living with Emuna, our weekly group, support group, to grow together and to work on our sense of feeling awareness, mindfulness, that Hashem is not only in existence but he's in our lives, he's acutely aware of everything that is happening and going on, and that we are deeply appreciative to him and love him. I want to thank our specific sponsor for this morning's class, our beloved Linda Gordon, in commemoration of the first yahrtzeit of her husband Harvey Gordon. Harvey was an amazing man. He was devoted and loved Linda and our community, and was kind enough to share Linda with me for so many years that she worked together with me and continues to do so, and Harvey is sorely missed not only by Linda but by all who knew him and his neshama should have a big aliya. His neshama should have a big aliya. Also want to thank our weekly sponsors. I don't have anything printed out here today. I don't have my printer. We'll come back to that. But let's get started. Let's get started. Okay. So today, we're going to have a little bit of an abbreviated class. I gotta hit the road. We're heading back home finally, thank God, can't wait. Wish us well. Little update, sheitel has yet to be found. Continue to think about it. I share that with you not for your sympathy, so that you know that every Emuna story that I share, whenever I tell you hashgacha pratis stories, they don't always have the great ending. It's not like, can you believe this almost, that was about to, this was going to, and look how it worked out beautifully and perfectly in the end, all's well that lives well and they lived happily ever after. It's not always that they lived happily ever after. So, still missing, still no response, still no clue where it is, but that too is by design, that too is the way that it is meant to be, and Baruch Hashem for that. That's okay. Hashgacha pratis is not always when it works out well. Everything's hashgacha pratis. Sometimes the answer is yes, sometimes the answer is no. Sometimes Hashem clears a path and sometimes he stands in our way and reroutes us and redirects us in a way that will be so much better. So you can't only celebrate, you can't always be happy, you can't always accept and be grateful when you can see the way it works out. By definition it works out, that's what we spent the last several years learning together, is to get ourselves, to get our minds, to get our hearts to a place where we know that by definition it's always working out, even when it doesn't seem to go in our favor, even when the result seems to be inconsistent or incongruent with the way that we draw it up or the way that we would want it, Hakadosh Baruch Hu is in charge and therefore by definition it is always going in our favor. There's a book on Emuna that was popular several years ago. I won't tell you which, but it begins with a story. It's a great Breslover teacher who wrote it and it was translated by another popular teacher and the book opens with a story of a person who was in traffic and delayed getting to a plane, to a flight they meant to be on. And they missed that flight and the whole time that they were delayed and frustrated in traffic, they were frustrated, why would Hashem do this to me? Now I'm going to be late and I'm going to miss this important event, this important simcha, this important meeting. And they were furious, they were frustrated, they were really upset and disappointed. And then of course as it turns out, the plane went down. There was a terrible accident. Now the person understood, oh, such hashgacha pratis. And that's how the book began with that story of as we go through our lives there are times where we're terribly disappointed but Hashem always has a plan. So I went to go meet with the author of the sefer, the author of the book, a great tzaddik in Yerushalayim with no challenge against him, chas v'shalom, but trying to understand. And I said to him, that's an easy story. The story where you see the way it worked out in the end for you and you therefore are overwhelmed and feeling with gratitude, that's easy. What about the person who was waitlisted on the plane? What about the person who did not have a seat right away, but when the other one was stuck in traffic, a seat opened up and that person then got their seat assignment and they went down? How about that for a hashgacha pratis story? They really weren't supposed to get a seat on the plane. They really didn't have enough room. They really were only on the waiting, but a seat opened up and lo and behold, the seat opened up on a very plane that went down, lost their life, left the children orphans and the wife a widow. Is that hashgacha pratis story too? And the answer is yes, it's painful, unbearably painful. Hashgacha pratis means divine providence, it means Hashem is involved in our lives, not always when the answer is yes, not always when the answer is what's good. Did Esther Waxman not teach us when her son Nachshon was kidnapped and the IDF on a rescue mission went in to get him and he was murdered, and she turned to a nation of Israel who had lit candles in his honor and who had prayed, many of whom had never moved their lips to utter a prayer before, and she said, don't think your prayers were in vain. Hashem heard all of our prayers, just sometimes the answer is no. And when a parent says no to a child, it's not because they don't love them. The no to the child is as much a reflection of the love of the child as the yes, as the yes. So, losing a sheitel in FedEx is inconsequential compared to the... But the point is that we can't only live our lives identifying and pointing and recording for our family Emunah WhatsApp group that Hashgacha Pratis when it all works out. Would you believe it, Hashgacha Pratis. What were our stories this week? Forgot to take the garbage out, went to take the garbage out and discovered that the car door had been left open by the kids. So Baruch Hashem, Hashgacha Pratis, little things every day that are Hashgacha Pratis. Not only when they work out, even or also or especially when they don't work out, they too are Hashgacha Pratis. Okay, as I said, we only have a few minutes together today and I want to just study one paragraph in the Abudraham. The Abudraham was the 14th century, Rav David Abudraham. And in Birchas HaShachar he has a, he has a paragraph, he has an insight. And that's what I want to study with you. You don't have a handout, I'm going to read it to you, please just listen. And the Abudraham answers what I think is a difficult question. A difficult, certainly grammatical question. But a question that if you're thoughtful and you say these 100 times a day the way we're meant to, the way we're asked to, then you can't help but be bothered by it. And that is, the formula for a Bracha. The formula for a Bracha, נשאלתי על עניין הברכות שבהתחלתן מדבר כלפי השם כאילו הוא כנגדו. When you start every Bracha that we recite, by the time this morning you've already said your Birchas HaShachar, maybe you've davened, you said an Asher Yatzar, Al Netilas Yadayim, you said a Shehakol on your cup of coffee, maybe a shtickel Mezonos, if you're not being careful with your weight. You've already made several Brachos and every Bracha begins the same way: Baruch Atah Hashem. Baruch means Baruch, blessed. What does blessed mean? Blessed or blessed? What does that mean, Baruch? Giving Hashem a Bracha? All of a sudden we're all Chassidishe Rebbes and we're giving Hashem a Bracha? What Bracha do you give the omnipotent, infinite, all-powerful when we are so finite and limited? So we're not giving Hashem a Bracha. What we're doing is acknowledging that He is the Mekor HaBracha. Hashem is the source of all Bracha. He is the source of all Bracha. Any blessing in our life: health, parnassah, children, nachas, whatever, Shalom Bayis, whatever it is in life that we want or whatever that we have, whatever that we deem or characterize a Bracha, He is the Mekor Bracha. Hashem is the source of all that Bracha. And that's what we're acknowledging: Baruch, the source of all Bracha is, Atah, you, Hashem. Baruch Atah Hashem. So every single Bracha we say, and we're asked to say 100 a day, no less than 100 a day, every Bracha that we say begins in the second person: you. Baruch Atah Hashem. The source of all blessing is you, second person, Hashem. And what do we do immediately? We all of a sudden pivot. Right away. So we start out כלפי השם כאילו הוא כנגדו. We talk to Hashem as if He's opposite me. Not as if, He is opposite me. You, you're in the room. I'm in a conversation with you and I want to tell you, I acknowledge you are the source of all Bracha. ובסופו כאילו אינו כנגדו. And then we pivot. Baruch Atah Hashem, the source of all blessing is you, second person, Hashem, Elokeinu, our God, Melech HaOlam, the King of the universe. So all of a sudden we pivot to third person. We go from second person, you, Atah, to Melech HaOlam, King of the universe, third person. We're now describing God like He's not in the room. Like He's not right before us. So what happened? What is this shift from second person to third person? From you are the source of all blessing to talking not to God, but talking about God. Says the Abudraham, במדרש טעם לכולם ממה שנאמר שיויתי השם לנגדי תמיד. The answer is based on this Pasuk. A Pasuk in Tehillim. Dovid HaMelech said, we spoke about this last night in another context, living our best selves, the final installment. The very first Rama in all of Shulchan Aruch says one should live their lives with this Pasuk, this verse, opposite them all the time. It's not that Hashem was in the shul or Hashem is in the Beis Medrash or Hashem is there when I'm listening to my Emunah class, but then I go on with my life. I go to the supermarket, I go to the gym, I go to work, I go to the kitchen, I go to... No, Hashem is Shivisi Hashem Lenegdi, He's with me when? Tamid. All the time. Consistently and constantly He's looking over my shoulder. He's with me. So if you wouldn't watch that in front of God, don't watch it. If you wouldn't say that or repeat that in front of God, don't say it or repeat it. If you wouldn't look at it, if you wouldn't go there, if you wouldn't think... Hashem is always in the room, Shivisi Hashem Lenegdi when? Tamid. Hashem is always... that's the Rama says. You want to live your best life, you want to live your most virtuous life, then live life with Hashem always being in the room. Always being in the room. I said last night and I'll repeat it again, I don't know how many of you were there, that we had a wonderful, wise member of our executive board who used to say, there's an expression: if you can't do it in front of your spouse, it's cheating. If you can't do it in front of your spouse, it's cheating. If you wouldn't flirt like that or say that or text that or you wouldn't do that in front of your spouse, then it's cheating, don't do it. And she used to say on the executive board, if we wouldn't do it in front of the membership, then don't do it, don't make that decision. It's a great motto, it's a great metric for life. If you wouldn't do it in front of that person to whom you're accountable, then don't do it. So if you live that life that way, that your accountant can push the envelope, but only up to what they would do in front of the IRS agent during an audit. If you wouldn't do that in front of your spouse, don't do it. And if you wouldn't do that if Hashem were in the room, then don't do it, because He's always in the room. Shivisi Hashem lenegdi, I see Hashem opposite me, His guiding hand is on my shoulder. He's hugging me, He's holding my hand, He's walking me through, He's there with me in the difficult moments, in the lowest lows and the highest highs. I can lean on Him, I can thank Him, I can laugh with Him, I can cry with Him, I can yell at Him and protest Him. He's lenegdi, He's opposite with me, He's with me, tamid, always, always. That's the pasuk Dovid HaMelech said. That's how Dovid HaMelech lived his life. And if you think Dovid HaMelech had this blissful life, if you think Dovid HaMelech sat in the comfort of the palace and had his servants serving him and had his harem of women and was immersed in the study of Torah and holding a kumzitz all the time, that was not Dovid HaMelech's life. Dovid HaMelech had a son who rebelled against him and tried to kill him. He had a father-in-law who tried to kill him. Dovid HaMelech's best friend he had to depart from, Shaul HaMelech. Dovid HaMelech had a difficult, difficult life where he had to squash rebellion and he had to fight battle. Dovid HaMelech had it difficult, but in every situation and scenario, whether it was the challenges within his own family or within the Jewish people, shivisi Hashem lenegdi, he lived his life that Hashem is opposite me when? Tamid, always. He's lenegdi tamid, He's with me wherever I go, on the side of the highway or with a lost sheitel or with a loss of power or with a tent blowing away or walking down to the chuppah with the greatest smile and the biggest joy. Hashem is right there. He's right there. It's a beautiful image and it will literally elevate and propel and enrich and empower our lives. Dovid HaMelech said it. So says the Abudraham כי כשמזכיר את השם ואומר ברוך אתה השם הוא עומד לנגדו. So when we begin every bracha a hundred times a day, Baruch, the source of all bracha, is Atah, You, second person, Hashem, Hashem is right there. וכיוון שאומר אחר כך מלך העולם נמצא שאינו עומד נגדו שרוצה לומר אותו אלוקינו שהוא מלך העולם הוא קידשנו במצוותיו וציוונו לעשותם. So you know what the danger of Baruch Atah Hashem is? Says the Abudraham, the danger of an attitude, a mentality of Baruch Atah Hashem is, You're my buddy, we're sitting around, we're having a l'chaim, we're enjoying a coffee talk, You're my buddy, You're right here, You're right opposite me. It can breed and cultivate a very casual attitude, a very casual relationship. You can become very flippant in your relationship with Hashem because after all, Atah, you're on a second, you're on a Atah, You, you're on this first-name basis with Hashem, second person you talk to Him, Baruch Atah Hashem. So your Rebbe you talk to in third person. Does Rebbe want a cup of water? It's a wonderful to see Rebbe. How is Rebbe's family? Your Rebbe you talk to in third person and HaKadosh Baruch Hu you talk to You, second person, You, You, You, Baruch Atah Hashem. That can breed, says the Abudraham, you can become very casual, you can become very flippant. And that's why we pivot immediately, Elokeinu Melech HaOlam. On the one hand, He's right here, He's opposite me, He's wherever I let Him in, He's with me always, tamid. But on the other hand, I have to realize that He's transcendent, He's in the heavens, He's distant, I can't conceive, I can't comprehend, I can't understand Him. He's Elokeinu Melech HaOlam, He's the King of the whole universe. He transcends time and He transcends space and He's all-powerful and He's omnipotent and He's omniscient and He's every other fancy word you know. Says the Abudraham והריב"ה כתב שהטעם שתיקנו הברכה בלשון נוכח ונסתר, the reason we shift from second person to third person, שהקדוש ברוך הוא נגלה ונסתר. The language for second and third person is nochach venistar. He's opposite me, He's hidden from me. So we formulate every bracha, it begins with He's opposite me and the bracha pivots to He's hidden from me. Why would I confuse things? Why would I be inconsistent in the bracha? The answer is because Hashem is both simultaneously. This is what it means to live with emunah u'bitachon. It means that as much as I feel that relationship, as much as I feel and perceive His love, as much as I can lean on Him and love Him back, He's also not my buddy, He's not accessible, He's not understandable, He's categorically different. And therefore nochach venistar, nigleh venistar. He's opposite me but hidden from me in my bracha and in reality. נגלה מצד מעשיו ונסתר מצד מהותו. On the one hand, through the way He interacts with me, He's revealed. He's revealed in His presence in my life. He's revealed on our family, recently we were all together and we experienced some hashgacha pratis thing, and I took out the phone to record it. My kids said, we're all here, who are you recording that for? And I said, because someday you're going to go back in this WhatsApp group and we're going to listen. Or if you're having a hard day and you wonder whether Hashem exists or whether He cares, you can go back and you can listen. That all of us... My wife and I and our children record whenever something happens that we say, oh, isn't Hashem amazing? Hashgacha Pratis, look how that worked out. Isn't that incredible? For good or for bad Hashgacha Pratis, they still haven't found the sheitel. That's also Hashgacha Pratis. FedEx doesn't answer, doesn't care, doesn't get back to us, has no clue where it is. That's also Hashgacha Pratis. It's meant to be. Maybe she'd be allergic to the sheitel, maybe she'd break out in hives from the sheitel, maybe the sheitel, ich veis, who knows? Who knows? It's also Hashgacha Pratis. It's also Hashgacha Pratis. Someone as I said have learned to live without hair, so should live to learn without hair. It's okay. Just joking, there's plenty of other sheitels. So Hashgacha Pratis, so why do we record it if we're all there when it happened? For posterity, to be able to go back and to listen to it. So how do we know Hashem bema'asav? When we look at our lives and we say, oh, I have two feet and they work. I have two eyes and they work. I have a heart beating in my chest and it works. My lungs are filling up, I'm able to breathe. It works. Wow, there's a Hashem, lefi ma'asav, according to his actions and deeds, I see him and I perceive him and he's very real in my life. But at the same time, when I try to describe him, if I'm trying to describe him nistar mitzad mahuso, he's hidden when it comes to his existence. וגם הנשמה נראית ונעלמת ומכך נשמה מברכת בנוכח ונסתר. Our soul is the same way; our soul on the one hand perceives him, he's very real, he's ever present, and on the other hand, I'm on a journey to find him, to search for him, to discover him. ברכי נפשי את ה' וכל קרבי שם קדשו. ברכי נפשי את ה' ה' אלהי גדלת מאד and so on and so forth. והברכה היא בדיבור הפה ומחשבת הלב. So the bracha is, I utter it, I articulate it with my mouth, but I'm mindful of it, I'm moved by it, in my heart. Halev ne'elam, the heart is hidden, vehakol nishma, but the mouth, the sound is heard. האדם מורכב מגוף ונשמה, the human being is made up of a soul and a body. וראוי היה לו לדבק בקונו ולעמוד נוכחו תמיד מצד נשמתו. My neshama, which is a חלק אלוה ממעל ממש, which is a piece of God literally, my neshama deserves to be opposite God all the time. אלא שאינו יכול מצד גופו, but my body is so physical and corporal, it can't. It's blocking that. לכן ברכותיו נוכח ונסתר וזה הטעם נכון היותר מן הראשון. So says the Abudraham, this is the reason. So every bracha we recite, and we're meant to say a hundred of them a day, a hundred brachos every day. Every bracha that we recite, lashon nokhach venistar, second person to third person. Baruch Atah Hashem. On the one hand, casual, comfortable, on the one hand Hashem is here and he's present, on the one hand I can talk to him, he's my best friend, he's right before me, he's my spouse, my confidant, my lover, he's right there, I can tell him anything, lean on him, depend on him, rely on him, yell at him, I can tell him anything, he's nokhach, Baruch Atah Hashem, You. But immediately I pivot, immediately I recoil, immediately I have to recognize he's also Melech Haolam, he's the king of the whole universe. He's accessible through the good things he does for me, but he's hidden in being able to describe who he is. And just as that's true about Hashem, it's also equally true about us. We have our body, which is our physical manifestation of who we are, but it's not really who we are. The real us is the neshama, is the soul, the חלק אלוה ממעל ממש, that piece of God that he breathed into us literally. That's who we really are. We are a soul. We are a soul and we have a body. We're not a body and we have a soul. We are a soul, that's who we are. So the words, we move our lips, they're part of the physical world, but the intent, the mindfulness, the movement of it is in our hearts. So just like Hashem has a revealed and a hidden, we too have the revealed and the hidden, and our bracha corresponds and reflects with both of those things. I'll tell you just in closing, and I apologize again, we're a little abbreviated this week, but, and I reserve the right to say this in another context or maybe write it out, I think this pandemic, one of the messages of coronavirus, and I know you and I are both equally so sick of talking about this, but one of the messages of coronavirus is, coronavirus, COVID-19 is hidden. Can't see it, it's invisible to the naked eye. How do you know it's there? Lefi ma'asav, because when someone contracts it, when they, it's transmitted to them, chalila chalila they struggle to breathe, they cough, God forbid they need to be intubated, minimally they need to be in bed resting, they know it's there, this invisible virus is there. But when we try to understand it, the greatest experts in the world still have no clue what we're talking about. From one day to the next, our conjecture changes, from one day to the next, our conclusion we reverse, from one day to the next, we admit we're humbled by how little we know or are able to understand about it. And perhaps one of the messages is, there are things that are invisible, but they're very real. There are things that we can't fully understand, and it doesn't mean they're not true. And just like that's true about this virus, which has gripped the entire globe, in my lifetime and yours, and some would say in all of history, in an unprecedented manner, this has gripped the entire globe, every human being alive, the whole mother earth, everyone. Has anything done that? Ever? Hakadosh Baruch Hu has sent down to the world something we don't know why, we don't want it, we can't wait to get rid of it, we can't wait to overcome it. But he sent down something to the world that even though you can't see it, it's real. And even though we struggle to understand it, it has an impact. And that's a message for all of humanity and for all of us. The things aren't only real when you can see them. Even things that are invisible are as real, in some ways they're even more real. Hakadosh Baruch Hu is the most real. So on the one hand, lefi ma'asav, according to his impact, he can be felt and perceived. But when we try to come to describe him, to understand him, he's incomprehensible. We cannot. And that's all communicated in our bracha. So every bracha you're going to say for the rest of the day, I see someone sipping tea, I see someone having a cup of coffee, every bracha I'm sure you said your bracha already, l'chaim, enjoy. But every bracha you're going to say, Baruch, Hashem you are the mekor bracha, you're the source of all the bracha in my life. Atah, you, you're right here, lenegdi tamid, you're always in the room, you're always have your hand on my shoulder, you're always holding me up when I feel like I'm going to fall, you're always reliable and I can confide in you. Hashem, Baruch Atah, you're you, second person, casual, comfortable, you're here. Then all of a sudden, Melech Ha'olam. Whoa. One second. He's Melech Ha'olam. He's the king of the universe. The Abudraham doesn't write this here, but we do the same thing, give you a little siddur snippet preview for a long time from now, we do the same thing when we daven. Is the Amidah not 19 brachos of Baruch Atah, Atah, Atah chonen, you give me this, you give me that, you, you, you, you, you. What do we do right afterwards? Nefilat, whoa, we fall right on our arm and we say Tachanun. I just spent the last several minutes talking about you and you and you and making demands and you give me this and you give me that, you, you, you. What do I have to do immediately afterwards? I fall on my arm and I say Tachanun. A moment later I have to collapse on my arm and I have to say Hashem, I understand the difference between us. I understand that we're not equal. I understand that I can't begin to understand who you are. So today was just a little Abudraham, we'll pick up next week with a new text altogether, but this little paragraph in the Abudraham is so powerful. And without it, I don't think we've actually said an authentic bracha our entire life. So I bless you that as you say your blessings, I bless all of us that as we say our brachos, that we should be mindful and present with intention, we should be transformed, that we should שויתי ה' לנגדי תמיד, that he should be equal and opposite us always, feel his presence in every which way, in a way that will elevate us, in a way that will empower us, in a way that will comfort us, in a way that will strengthen us, and in a way that will hold us accountable. He should be opposite us all the time. And please God, we should all stay happy, stay healthy, stay holy. Tonight behind the bimah 9:00 PM from the road, special guest Rav Judah Mischel, always inspiring, my buddy Rav Judah, 9:00 PM tonight. Wishing everyone a great day. If you haven't yet, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. And as I said, stay happy, stay healthy, and stay holy.
