Transcript
Good morning Boker Tov. So great to be back, living with emuna. The microphone was requested, so hopefully you can hear better in the back with it. Loud enough? Good. Fantastic. I'm so happy you're all here. Love learning emuna together and growing and reminding ourselves what we already know. I say every week, I'm still shocked that you keep coming back, because I just say the same thing every single week, mostly for myself. I'm glad that you come to hear it as well, which is our weekly emuna support group, working out our emuna muscle to be able to instinctively react with emuna when we need it. When our anxiety kicks in, our envy kicks in, our arrogance kicks in, our anger kicks in, to dig deep and to remind ourselves, stay calm, cool and collect. Let go and let G-d. Everything is for a reason. Everything is by design. Everything is meant to be. There's nothing, therefore, to grow anxious about. There's nothing to be envious of. There's nothing to get angry over, and there's certainly no reason to get arrogant because we are not in control, we are not in charge of absolutely anything. I want to thank as always, I want to begin with our attitude of gratitude, which is such a core prerequisite to emuna, to be capable of feeling gratitude, the humility to feel gratitude. The emuna series is generously sponsored by doctors Avi and Bella Morgen in memory of Rabbi Dr. Brian Gavit, zichrono livracha, and in memory of Bella's mother Dr. Ella Shanzar alah hashalom. A life of service to the Jewish community and to chesed. Thank you so much. Also this morning's emuna shiur is sponsored by Ron Golan in honor of his recent engagement to Pam Cohn. Big Mazel Tov and we're so, so excited and looking forward to welcoming Ron to our community more fully and to celebrating that simcha together. Also this morning co-sponsored by Bailey Smith for the refuah sheleimah of her son, אריה לייב בן ביילא רחל, a wonderful young man. We wish him a refuah sheleimah, should have good health and happiness, should give his parents and grandparents and Klal Yisrael lots of nachas, and he should go on to achieve the greatness that he is poised and positioned to do. So I want to start with an emuna story. Every week, I always tell the listeners, those who are watching, those who come in person, should have mentioned you first, you are the primary audience, but I always say, send in your emuna stories because there's no greater, better way to grow. There's nothing that more reinforces our sense of emuna than those stories that make it come alive and put it in practice. So this is a great emuna story because it happened last week at the emuna shiur. So last week, I don't know why, for no good reason at all, I started telling you about Rav Machlis, great tzadik of Yerushalayim. His wife, alah hashalom, who was an extraordinary tzadikes. How many people, how many ordered the book? There you go. I don't even get a cut. I should have sent you like a special code on Amazon, I'd get a cut for the shul. But Rebbetzin Machlis was one of a kind. There was simply nobody like her. She was just an extraordinary, extraordinary person. You got the book, you read the book. We talked about reading biographies is the best genre of growth, not self-help, but said Tal Ben-Shahar, the famous happiness guru, professor at Harvard, don't read self-help books, read biographies. Biographies inspire us the most. I hope you read her biography. So for whatever reason, I was moved last week to mention that I tried to get Rav Machlis to come behind the bimah. He is so humble and so real and so genuine and so special that he said, why in the world would I be on a show about inspiration? If I read to you these texts, you wouldn't even believe it. He said, "If I ever become inspiring, I will let you know, but right now I don't qualify to be on that show. You should go get someone who is inspiring." Back and forth and back and forth, my groveling, my begging, my pleading, and the answer was no. The end of shiur last week, Stephanie Gross, who should have good health and happiness and success and vibrancy and that we think of and wish the best for, Stephanie's father's first yahrtzeit is coming up and she said, you know, Rav Machlis went to school with my father and loved my father. I bet if I reach out and ask him to come on to speak about my father and dedicate the episode in memory of my father, I bet he would do it. Fast forward, next week's guest behind the bimah, Rabbi Machlis. So I don't know what motivated me to talk about it last week, but then Stephanie happened to be here last week and she says it happens to be that next week is my father's yahrtzeit and they happen to have gone to school together and I bet Rav Machlis would respond to that. And now that I've announced it for sure he can't back out. So next week, im yirtzeh Hashem, on behind the bimah, that is our emuna story of the day. These stories, I just want to clarify something very, very important. Very important. These stories are not the reason to believe. These stories are not the reason to believe. When someone tells you this incredible story, and I was running late and it turns out, I would have been in the car accident and the plane went down, I would have been on the plane, these are not the reason to believe. Because someone wrote a story and it made you cry and it tugged on your heartstrings and you saw that video and you said, "Wow, that's Hashem and it came to be and it just worked out, that's amazing." They reinforce our emuna, they're lovely, they give us goosebumps or bring tears to our eyes, put a smile on our face. They're well worth it. I like them and share them as much as you do. But let's be very clear, they are not the reason for emuna. Because for every one of those stories, we don't forward the video that says, "We davened really hard but my loved one died anyway." You know, they were delayed, they left, and then they got in a car accident, which had they gone on time, they never would have had. We don't share those stories. Those stories are also emuna. They're a lot harder to see, a lot harder to get inside, and I want to tell you in this context there was a great article last week in Mishpacha Magazine. I do I don't get a cut of anything that I promote or share. There's no like product placement like Dunkin' Donuts right now. I don't get a I don't even get a free cup of coffee at Dunkin' Donuts. We don't even still have our kosher Dunkin'. I get nothing from Dunkin'. So but I'll I'll tell you there's a great article from a Rebbe of mine, Rav Irvein Leichter, who was a teacher who was a Rebbe of mine when I was in Israel after we were married and I was learning in kollel. Rav Leichter is a talmid of Rav Shlomo Wolbe, the Mashgiach of Yerushalayim, very close with Rav Wolbe. Rav Leichter is an incredibly special human being, big talmid chacham, Mashgiach himself. One of the reasons I love Rav Leichter, he actually visited us when I did the Ner Le'elef program in Israel way back when, way back when. So they would go out to the people who went out in the field and they would visit and check up. Do you remember Rav Leichter stayed with us one night? And he came, he taught my Judaism A to Z. I was in the kollel. I was in charge of outreach at the time. I had a class, did were any of you alive when that was happening? I had a class called Judaism A to Z, Judaism A to Z and he came in one week and he taught Judaism A to Z. So he has an amazing article last week and he's talking about—he said many years ago my friend's wife passed away leaving him with five young children to raise. When I went to the shiva I found him surrounded by friends and family and I felt a bit superfluous. But when I spoke with him he told me he was very happy I'd come because he elaborated, everyone else had tried to explain to him that his wife's passing was really a good thing. I was the first to acknowledge that something terrible had happened. So let's be very clear, living with emuna, being an extraordinary example of emuna does not mean whether for ourselves or trying to convince others that there's no such thing as a painful experience. It's all from Hashem so the fact that your loved one dropped dead leaving you all alone with these orphan children, it's amazing. Isn't it amazing? It's from Hashem. Smile, be happy, it's from—that's foolish. It is absurd. It is an absolute it's an injustice. It's a disservice. It's a disgrace. It's not what Hashem wants from us at all. Living with emuna and believing that he's here doesn't mean that things aren't painful. And I'll give you the metaphor that I think about all the time when the answer sometimes is no for us, which is with our own children. I always try to think you know the mystics Kabbala tells us that all the relationships that we have in this world, all the relationships that exist, marriage, romance of a husband and wife, intimacy, a parent and a child, the love, the devotion, the selflessness of a parent towards a child, hopefully reciprocated one day, a child to a parent. Every dimension, hold on one day, one day. No, it's here don't worry. I don't have to worry. None of my children listen so I can say one day. But and I'm not bitter at all about that. But one day. So all the relationships in our life, colleagues, employer, employee, friends, king and servant, master, these are all metaphors says Kabbala for the relationships with Hashem. Every one of them. There's an aspect and a dynamic with Hashem that we can relate to and experience only because we have a parallel in our relationships in this world. Of all the relationships by the way, of all the metaphors, which is the most aspirational in our relationship with Hashem? Which is the highest level? Which is the paradigm that if we're living our relationship with Hashem most fully, that's the model? Or that is what the the metaphor, the analogy we're following? Is it master and slave? Is it boss and employee? Is it friends? Is it parent and children? So the Mishnah in Keilim, Mishnah in Yadayim says that kol hashirim kodesh but Shir Hashirim is Kodesh Hakodashim. All the Shir, all of Tanach, all 24 books, all the Megillos, they're all holy in their own right and the books are filled with these metaphors, these examples, these comparisons, these analogies and they're all holy and they all have a service and they all have a purpose. But do you know which is the holiest says Rabbi Akiva? They're all holy but the holiest is Shir Hashirim. A husband and wife, a love affair, longing, yearning, desire, romance, energy, electricity, intimacy, that is the highest. The union of a husband and wife, Shir Hashirim begins Shlomo HaMelech describes yishakeini mineshikos pihu. He describes it as an intimate kiss. And Rashi, who sees all of Shir Hashirim as that metaphor, and that's the Artscroll translation methodology of Shir Hashirim, Rashi says yishakeini mineshikos pihu, Har Sinai. Har Sinai. An intimate kiss between a husband and wife, something reserved you know for people who are really in love. Even other acts of intimacy or boundaries that are violated with others, but that act is often protected and preserved as the ultimate intimacy of a husband and wife, of people who are really devoted to one another, yishakeini mineshikos pihu, the imagery, the intimacy of a kiss which as much as I'm blushing right now talking about this, it's one of the books of Tanach. It's Shlomo HaMelech. This is our sacred Torah. When we talk about it in the right context and the right way for the right reason, there's nothing to blush about. So what is the what is the image yishakeini mineshikos pihu, the kiss? It's Matan Torah, Har Sinai. When we Receive the Torah, when we connect with Hashem, when we submit and surrender to him, when we feel his presence in our lives, it's like a kiss. Do you not ever feel his kiss? When things work out, when things come together, when things came through, the thing you were panicked about or anxious about or worried about, and it worked out. When you got that good news of the miracle, of the blessing, of the good fortune, of the yes to yesterday's tefila, do you not feel like he just gave you the biggest kiss? He just gave you the biggest kiss. You feel so connected, you feel so loved, you feel so bonded together, you feel so attached. So that is the holiest. So we have all these metaphors. So that's the one we strive for. Unfortunately or realistically, often the one that we live with regularly is the parent and child. That's the one I think about all the time. So as parents, those who are not yet parents, we bless you. If you long to be parents, you should be zocha to have beautiful healthy children, to give you lots of nachas, grandchildren who give you tremendous nachas, many many many. Six million. Six million. When we were dating, I don't know how it came up, how many children do you want? True story, Yocheved? How many children did I say I wanted? Two? I wanted six million. But since I didn't carry the children, we didn't get there. We didn't even get to a million. But anyway, you should all be blessed with six million each. So parent and children, you know, we love our children. Does loving our children mean that the answer is always yes? The third grader says, "Can I have a phone with no filter in my room with internet all night?" and then cries and screams and has a tantrum, "You don't love me." Now fast forward and the eleventh grader says, "My friends are all going X and they're going to enjoy Y and they have no curfew to come home at Z. Can I go?" Are you out of your mind? Absolutely not. They have a tantrum, an older tantrum, but it's really, reduce it, it's the same tantrum. And in both cases, and now keep fast forwarding. And in all these cases, when the parent says no, is it because they don't love the child? When the parent says no, it's because they enormously love the child. It's the parent who has no boundaries and always says yes, that in fact doesn't love the child. They think they love the child, they really love themselves and don't want to have to deal with the tantrum of the child. And they're loving themselves and not wanting to deal with the tantrum, or not having the headspace or the energy or the time, and they love themselves more to not deal with the tantrum. You know, so in our home, it's been said sometimes when the answer is no and the tantrum ensues and says, "But my friend so and so and so and so and so and so are going, so and so and so and so and so and so have that device, get to watch that thing, get to experience that thing." I say, "I'm so sorry, I feel so bad their parents don't love them as much as I love you." Now, I feel a little guilty saying it, but not that guilty. I mean, I know them, I know their parents, I won't lie that I hope it doesn't get back to them. My kid's probably texting their friend right now, "My Abba says that your parents don't love you as much as he loves me," right? So if it gets back, I don't care it gets back because it's true. Because it's true. When you really love, then you put boundaries and you sometimes say no. And if you don't love as much, or you love yourself and your serenity and your sanity more than the expense and the cost and the effort of saying no, then you don't say no, you always say yes. But if you really love, then there are times that you say no. And you say that no not out of hate or spite, but only out of love. The kid who wants to run in the middle of the street, or the kid who wants to put their finger in the outlet, the little kid who want, the answer is no because I love you. Hashem sometimes says the answer's no. Now, when that child is crying hysterically or having that tantrum, you can say no and simultaneously hold them and coddle them and cuddle with them and tell them how much you love them and do another fun activity with them and say, "The answer is no, sorry you can't go, but I love you and I want you to know it and I respect the fact that this is frustrating, painful, that right now you say you hate me and you feel I hate you, but you're going to grow up and say thank you so so so much for not letting me go." Baruch Hashem, we've been zocha, and I bless all of you to get to a point where they grow up and they say, looking back, "Remember the thing and the fight and the yelling and the screaming and the hate and the tantrum and the drama? Thank you so much for not letting me go. Thank you so much for not letting me have that." So that's what Rav Luchter is saying. He paid the shiva call where everyone else foolishly and ridiculously, we're going to get to the sefer I hope, but foolishly and ridiculously said, "Your wife died, isn't Hashem amazing? You have these little orphans, isn't Hashem fantastic? Everything he does is for a reason, this is what's meant to be, you were so lucky to have her when you had her and God bless her." And Rav Luchter at a shiva call and he said, I'm going to paraphrase, he didn't say this, "This stinks. I'm so sorry. You must be in unbearable pain. It's from Hashem, he has his master reasons, master plan, one day maybe we'll find out why, but right now it hurts, it stings, it's unbearably painful, it's acutely painful, it's chronically painful, and I'm with you, and I'm with you." And he says everything, I love this article, that's why I'm sharing it with you, this is the sefer. First of all, we're learning Rav Wolbe. Rav Luchter is a talmid of Rav Wolbe, so we're learning Rav Wolbe by learning Rav Luchter. Life is like a voyage across the sea, most of the time the sailing is smooth, sometimes there's a stretch of choppy water, but once in a while there's a storm. At some point, most people experience a major crisis when it seems impossible to go on. The storms of life threaten to pull us out of our world into the narrow cell of our own emotions. Our ship is in danger of being swept away. We need an anchor to hold us in place. The emuna that everything Hashem does is for the good is vital to our lives as Jews, but it's a weak anchor. It won't save you from a raging storm, because the storm will always be stronger. And the reason is simple: we can't understand Hashem's plan. One day Hashem will open our eyes to see the reason for everything, but for the time being we don't have the ability to understand, so the experience remains a painful one. Shiva houses are full of well-mentioned visitors, well-meaning visitors who tell the mourner that a sudden tragedy may be a korban to save Klal Yisrael from a massive blow, or that the deceased received a tremendous zchus of rousing other people to teshuvah. It's all true, but it's not an anchor. Statements like those don't help a mourner cope with pain. They don't give tools to deal with experience, they simply dismiss it, as if to say, you've got it all wrong, really your reality's a pleasant one. It doesn't help a person in the middle of a crisis to sugarcoat his situation. Doing so might at most distract from the bitter reality, but at some point it will return in full force. And this is the story I wanted to tell you, this is Rav Wolbe. A certain Rosh Yeshiva once suffered a family tragedy. The whole shiva he told his visitors that everything Hashem does is for the good and we must accept his gzeros, his decrees, thank you, with simcha. It was amazing to see his emuna. But Rav Wolbe told me it won't last long. Can you imagine Rav Wolbe, the great Mashgiach, is sharing on his way out of a shiva house to his talmid about a Rosh Yeshiva, a Rosh Yeshiva who's carrying himself the whole shiva with great emuna, it's from Hashem, it's for a reason, I'm happy, we accept it, you have to have it with a full heart, we don't challenge Hashem, and Rav Wolbe walks out and tells his talmid, it's beautiful and it ain't gonna last. Enjoy it while you heard it, because this Rosh Yeshiva is going to crash. Unfortunately, he was right. Several weeks later the Rosh Yeshiva was totally unable to function. He wasn't a charlatan, his emuna was truly steadfast, but he had tried to use his emuna to bypass the pain. That doesn't help, because he experienced the pain but not the goodness of Hashem's plan, which only He can understand. A person going through a storm needs an anchor, not to try to convince himself that the storm doesn't exist. We need an anchor that deals with our experience rather than denying it. If we look deeply in the Torah we'll find lessons of emuna that can help us sailors survive even the strongest storm, and that's the rest of the article. I'll still make you spend some money on Mishpacha to read the rest of it. He then quotes the other sources in Torah, this notion. But my friends, what a powerful lesson, back to his sefer, Rav Wolbe, this too is the sefer, the story is from his talmid, it's also the life of Rav Wolbe. But what a powerful message, that we need an anchor, not to live in denial. Denial is not just a river in Egypt. Denial that says, everything's amazing and hunky-dory and, you never heard that, denial and hunky-dory and fantastic and wonderful. Isn't it amazing I got this diagnosis? Isn't it amazing my investment crashed and burned? Isn't it amazing I lost a loved one? Isn't it, that's just denial, and it can't last and it won't last. And mental health professionals will tell you that living in denial, which is one of the stages of grief, at first it's got to transition to an acceptance and to a closure and to being able to grieve, to mourn, but you need an anchor. To deny you're in the middle of a storm is not going to save you when you need an anchor. And the anchor is emuna. The anchor is emuna. That's why we meet on Wednesdays. This class is emuna, this class is an anchor. It's not enough on Wednesdays. Every morning with a bracha. That first bracha of the day, how are we doing on our homework? So-so, average, gotta set an alarm, we gotta produce our mugs, our coffee cups. We're going to get to it, בלי נדר אם ירצה השם. But every day you gotta start davening three times a day. We're in the middle of a storaging, storming, raging sea, so you stop and you daven three times a day and you drop your anchor and you remember, oh yeah, I forgot, You're here. I don't have to worry. I don't have to get anxious. I don't have to panic. Oh yeah, You're here. There's a reason, there's a purpose. Oh yeah, You're here. I don't have to be envious of what someone else has. I don't have to be jealous. So we drop that anchor. That is why we live with emuna, we practice emuna, we pray with emuna, that is why we talk about emuna, we're mindful of emuna, we need that anchor. Don't be in denial of the storm, drop the anchor, the strong anchor that'll keep us stable and keep us steady even when we, even when we. And I'll transition to something else that he said, which we began with. Many of our children go off in life to places where there are hurricane force winds. They're going to a secular university campus, there are category five winds that are blowing from the day they arrive. We who engage in and encounter and go out in the entire world, we are engaging category five winds every time we drive I-95 and its billboards. Every time we let the messages and the icons and the ideas and the ideals of the world around us, we let them in through what we're reading or watching or thinking, there are category five storms all around us. And the only way we will survive is if we have a strong anchor. And that anchor has to be a gishmak to be a Yid. A beauty of Yiddishkeit and Torah, a beauty of doing mitzvos, a beauty of what we have and we live with, a beauty of emuna, that there's a Hashem that he comes with us to the campus or our dormitory room, that Hakadosh Baruch Hu comes with us into the courtroom, the operating room, he comes with us in the boardroom, he comes with us to the supermarket, the gym, he's with us in our living room, he's with us in our kitchen, he's with us in our dining room, he's with us in parent teacher conferences, he's with us wherever we go he's with us. That is the anchor that stabilizes us and makes us able to withstand whatever storm comes our way. The storm again can be bad news, it could be a diagnosis, the storm can be pain, the storm can be whatever that storm is, we need that anchor, it stabilizes. That anchor's what's going to be able to hold us up. Mai Amein? We're on page Peh Vav. Let's get in at least a little bit of the text. ברוך אתה ה' אלוהינו מלך העולם שהכל נהיה בדברו. Amen. We're on page Peh Vav, Os Yud Aleph. Rav Wolbe, Ha'arot. Mai Amein? We've been talking about העונה אמן בכל כחו. The Amein groups. Amein, Kel Melech Ne'eman. Amein, ditto, what they said. Someone made a bracha, breicha, the flow of blessing coming from above. Everything about this coffee which I've told you a billion times already, the growth of the coffee bean, the manufacture, the distribution, every gift of this, everything about life, make a bracha, breicha, there's a flow of blessing that comes down. Wow. The air we if you live here, you walked outside, it's unbelievable the weather we live in, this is it, this is why you're here. Combine that with no state income tax, it's unbelievable. Unbelievable. The gashmius is unbelievable. The ruchnius hopefully is not bad. We all belong in Eretz Yisrael, this is the best stop on the way there. That's what I tell everybody. On the way, it's a little detour, this is the greatest stop in the world on the way there. But you walk outside, how could you live in Boca Raton, how could you live in Florida in November and not walk outside every morning and say, thank you Hashem. It's unbelievable. Clear blue sky, the cool breeze while you feel the warmth of the sun on your neck, the birds are chirping and the lizards and iguanas are crawling, and you say it's unbelievable. There's no winter coat, there's no gloves, there's no shovel, there's no boots. Say thank you Hashem. Wow. What a way to start the day. I'm losing friends right now watching elsewhere, but what a way, that's alright, they should come down now. What a way to start the day. Thank you Hashem. And then when you make that first bracha, the shehakol. Many people's first bracha is on the mug that they're spilling on the way to the car, to the carpool, to the late to work, to the so you have an opportunity. You have the opportunity. Walk outside. First of all, you understand that the greatest classroom that your children will ever sit in is the carpool, is the car. It could be a place of great tension and strife and fighting, of being late, or it could be the biggest classroom of their entire childhood. The curriculum of what you talk about and what you do on the way. There's a holy Jew in the Lower East Side of New York who owns a sefarim store, up in the mountains, and he told me that even though busing was available in New York, he never put his kids on the bus. He always drove them to school. And I know many of you are thinking what's wrong with him, because what we would give for while we have so much here in Florida, there's a price to pay for the no state income tax, we do not have busing for our kids. I grew up with busing, we had busing. He said, you know, some of the worst things that kids learn in the world, they learned on the bus on the way to school. And on the opposite side, if you have the chance to spend a few extra minutes every day, every morning and every afternoon with your children, to give them the right message on their way into school and to embrace them and welcome and connect with them right as they come out of school, who would pass up that opportunity? And that's why I encourage Yocheved every day, drive carpool. I pitch in a few times a year. Anyway, it's but what a—the curriculum. Imagine for a moment, imagine for a moment that the kids get in the car every day, and they'll get sick and tired of hearing this, but every day they get in the car you make the children stop and look outside and lift their hands and take a deep breath and say, wow, where we live it's unbelievable. Unbelievable. And then they hear the mother, the father, whoever's driving the carpool, the neighbor, make a bracha on their cup of coffee that they quickly put together on the way to the car, they're running late for the carpool, and they say, kinderlach, my shehakol on the cup of coffee's not on the cup of coffee. It's on all this. It's the fact that Hashem invented minivans. Where would the Jewish people be without minivans? Who remembers the station wagon? My head is still spinning from having to sit in the last row looking backwards at outside. I've had vertigo my whole life from that. Who's ever who's recovered from sitting in the back seat of the station wagon driving the wrong direction making faces at the car behind you? Who's ever recovered from that? It's enough to put you in therapy the rest of your life. We have minivans. With the push of a button, the side doors open, the trunk opens, three rows, it collapses, is that not enough to say a shehakol? The minivan. Honda's saying shehakol on that. Honda's... Saying Hatov Vehameitiv on that. The minivan industry, that's enough to make a person imagine kinderlach, we have a minivan. Do you know what it meant to have to climb through and fight over who has to sit in what seat? You have a minivan. Kinderlach, look outside at this weather. Look that you have a mommy or an abba or someone to drive you to school. Look at the zocha to go to a Jewish school. So when I'm gonna say the shehakol kinderlach, it's on everything. It's not on shehakol, shehakol, everything. Everything about your morning. Now you probably get some grunts, some rolling eyeballs, some resistance, some resentment. But you know what? They're gonna grow up. My first cousin passed away last year, tragically young, very, very special woman, Missy Stein, Melissa Stein, Mesuka Sara, very special. And do you know what one of her daughters said at her funeral many, many years later? They remembered that she used to sometimes driving them to school, Philadelphia, where they grew up. She would sometimes pull over because she saw something that she couldn't contain herself. And she would get out of the car. She loved taking pictures. She was a photographer, amateur, just for herself. And she would see a scene, the sun in that moment, the building, the reflection, she saw something she would pull over, get out of the car and she would say מה רבו מעשיך השם. She would say, wow Hashem, I just saw you. I just caught you. I just captured you. Hashem, I just got a little glimpse. I just saw a little window of you. And this that's what one of her daughters remembered all the years later that when she grew up now I'm sure when she was in the car she's like, ma, get back in the car, we're late to school, enough with your camera, enough with your מה רבו מעשיך השם, enough, get in the car. I'm sure as a kid, I'm sure she didn't mention that part of the funeral, but I'm sure she rolled her eyes, get back in the car, we're late to school, and yet fast forward those years later, is there a greater classroom? Is there a better curriculum when they see a parent who believes shehakol nihiya bidvaro? That it's really Hashem. So we yell at our kids, did you davven, did you davven, you're late for davven, come to siddur, you go to shul, did you davven, did you davven, did you davven? But the greatest lesson is not yelling at them did you davven, did you open the siddur, it's the way they hear our shehakol. The way they hear that we make a shehakol on the sun and on the minivan and on the clean air that we're breathing and on the cup of coffee and all of that. הבה נלמד בזה למעשה. Sorry, lost the place. Mah amein? Amar Rabbi Chanina, Keil Melech Neeman. Hashem, Keil is Hashem שם של מידת חסדו יתברך אשר עולם חסד יבנה. So this name Keil, alef-lamed, we pronounce Keil, it's one of the holy names of God that we cannot say casually or lightly. So this name Keil, this name Keil, is the name of God that reflects his chesed. When we perceive the loving-kindness of God. You know, just like people are complex, they don't have multiple personality as in the disorder, but people are complex and sometimes you see the professional side, sometimes you see the personal side, sometimes the private side, the public side, sometimes the person's gregarious and outgoing and warm and other times they're reserved and they're shy. Sometimes a person is in business mode, sometimes they're calm, cool, and relaxed. People are complex. Well the Ribbono Shel Olam also has multiple dimensions to him. There is the God what we perceive as the component of God of justice, the middas hadin of God, and there's the middas hachesed of God, the component of God of loving-kindness. There's the God who's a judge and we come before him, and there's the God who's our father. Avinu Malkeinu, the God who's the king. So this name Keil, alef-lamed, that amein, Keil Melech Neeman, is the God of chesed. Olam chesed yibaneh. God created a world on chesed. It only exists, it only spins on its axis, we only exist because of his chesed. Melech, second word. נהיה הקדוש ברוך הוא עלינו על ידי קבלת התורה. We have received, we've appointed, we've coronated God as our king. A moshel is a ruler. Moshel is a ruler. A ruler rules by force. If you live under the oppressive hand of that ruler, he is the moshel over you, you don't have a choice, you didn't elect him, you didn't coronate, you didn't inaugurate. Too bad, you live under the dominion, you are their subject, they are your moshel, your ruler. A melech is elected. A melech is appointed. Rosh Hashanah, Rosh Hashanah is all about being mamlich Hashem. אמרו לפני מלכויות כדי שתמליכוני עליכם. The Gemara we just learned in Rosh Hashanah, those learning the Daf, completed the Daf learned, that on Rosh Hashanah we recite the Malchuyos section, the section about kingship and monarchy, and that is the way that we coronate God. Rosh Hashanah, the Gra says we blow the shofar, the shofar is the trumpet at the coronation ceremonies, the inaugural ball of God. That is Rosh Hashanah. Rosh Hashanah's not a day to walk around scared and frightened and crying and worried. Rosh Hashanah's a day to walk around happy and joyous and how honored you got an invite to the inaugural ball of the King of Kings of the Almighty. He is a melech. We say in our davening, va'alu moshim... God is now a moshel on all the goyim, on the nations of the world, vehaysa Lashem hamelucha, and we long for the time he'll be a melech. Right now he's in control, he's in charge, they're his subjects, they don't recognize his. is rulership, they don't recognize his dominion, his providence, but we long for the day that everyone will. So melech, God is our king, he's our king, we submit, we surrender, we recognize he's our king. God says jump, we say how high. We work for him, he doesn't work for us. נאמן להביא את הגאולה להחיות מתים. The third word neeman. So Keil, Hashem's chesed, his lovingkindness. We don't feel his judgment right now, his justice right now, we only feel his love. You know like like we said there's different versions or dimensions to people. You know, there's like the vacation Abba. You know, there's the Abba who you didn't do your homework or clean your room, and then there's vacation Abba. You know, like the Abba at home sometimes is like, "Can I buy that?" "No, absolutely not. You have enough things. Don't buy, don't spend. I'm changing the Amazon password for the 4,000th time. Absolutely not." And then there's the Abba on vacation, it's like, "Okay, kids, who wants what? Souvenir drinks." And they're like, "Who is this guy? What what is...?" That's vacation Abba. You know, there's the middas hachesed of the Abba on vacation. Like once you already have to take out a mortgage to go to Disney, so what's another $25 Coke? Like, you know, vacation Abba. It's just another layer of the mortgage. It's fine to be able to go to Disney even as a resident. So so there's the vacation Ribono Shel Olam. The God of justice who's like, "You're accountable, there's consequences to what you did, I'm going to hold you accountable." But then there's the middas chesed, the vacation Ribono Shel Olam, who says, "I'm a father, I love you, kinderlach, I can forgive you, I can overlook, I'm flexible, I love you, I want you to be happy." That's the Keil. Keil means when we say amen we are invoking and drawing down that dimension of Hashem. Hashem, let's go on vacation together. I want the vacation Hashem. Let's go on... I want the Hashem who's going to shower me with love and flexibility and patience and generosity and graciousness and understanding. Melech, and you're the king, and why should you be that way? Because I elected you, because I love you, because you don't have to rule over me with resistance from me. I've elected you, I've inaugurated you, I want you. Neeman, neeman, so that's the third word. נאמן להביא את הגאולה. God is trustworthy and reliable. How many people have broken their promises to us? How many people have we trusted and leaned in on and they broke their promises? They said they'd be there for us. They promised us all kinds of things. Friends, family members, bosses. How many people have made us promises and they failed? Hakadosh Baruch Hu neeman means trustworthy, reliable, dependable. Hakadosh Baruch Hu says, "I'll be there for you." His word is his bond, it's as good as take it to the bank. That's why Moshe Rabbeinu, who is the most loyal servant of Hashem, what does Hashem himself testify about Moshe? בכל ביתי נאמן הוא. In all of my home, in all of my world, says Hashem, Moshe is neeman. What do you mean he's neeman? Neeman means he's the most reliable, trustworthy, dependable. What do we wish a young couple who get married? Their whole sheva brachos. Every uncle, brother-in-law, mother, sister, niece who speaks all sheva brachos says, "May they build a בית נאמן בישראל אמן." Oh, cute, adorable. May they build a bayis neeman amen. What does it mean, a bayis neeman? What does it mean to build a bayis neeman? May this be a home that is built on the foundation of trustworthiness, reliability, dependability. May each one be able to trust the other. May their word be their bond, may it be reliable. I don't mean trust one another that you're not going to go have an extra-marital affair, although today that's a bracha we should give at every sheva brachos nebach, too. That's not what I mean by reliable, dependable. I mean that you entered this covenant with commitment to give, to care, to love, to protect. Be reliable and dependable, that you're not going to disappear, you're not going to become self-centered, you're not going to retreat, you're not going to change the rules, you're not going to lose the love and the romance and the commitment and the being prepared to be devoted and to give. So that's that word neeman. Neeman is reliable. So Keil, chesed. We are way over time, but I'm enjoying myself so give me a couple more minutes. Keil, the Hashem of chesed, loving, flowing chesed. I'm drawing down vacation vacation Abba, vacation dad, vacation Hashem. Nobody's ever described Hashem that way before in all of history. Vacation Hashem, don't don't quote that out of context please. Melech, right, so Keil, the chesed of Hashem, melech, God, you don't have to force yourself upon us, you don't have to rule over us, we elect you, we submit to you, we surrender to you, we are your loyal servants, and neeman, reliable, you're reliable to us, you're going to redeem us, and you could be reliable, depend on us. ועונה אמן בכל כוחו פותחין לו שערי גן עדן. So with the word amen you are revealing three aspects or components of Hashem. You're going through entire philosophy 101 course with the word amen. There's three letters. Someone made a bracha, I made a shehakol earlier and you all answered amen, and with that amen, philosophy 101, three credits, we're done. You invoked unbelievable theology, philosophy, ideas of Hashem in the three-letter word amen. העונה אמן בכל כוחו פותחין לו שערי גן עדן. And when you do that, you've opened the garden of Eden, you've opened Gan Eden. הוא מעביר מעצמו כל הסתר פנים. In that moment you've peeled back the covering. You've peeled back Hashem's hiddenness to reveal him. You said Amen, Kel Melech Ne'eman. Yeah, he's in my life. Wow, he's in the beautiful day outside, he's in the car that got me here, he's in the cup of coffee, he's in the air conditioning that's blazing. The beautiful בחיי עולם שבו רגלו השגחתו מלכותו גלויה ויחוד השם עומד ומתגלה כל רגע. He's everywhere, he's at all times, he's in everything. לפני העונה אמן על דרך זה נפתחים שערי גן עדן. So when you answer Amen in that way, my cousin Missy pulled over. You know why? Because she saw, she saw an opening to Gan Eden. Everyone else drove right by, nobody else noticed. Everybody else dismissed it as nature or isn't that cute, isn't that a nice scene? Let me put it on my Instagram so the whole world can see it. I didn't really ever experience it because I was just more concerned with capturing it. But she saw an opening to Gan Eden. She was screaming Amen. The sun is rising, Amen Hashem, I see you there. Unbelievable. There's a natural wildlife, there's some animal creeping and crawling. You walk around the lake here, you don't have to, you save money on Butterfly World. You don't have to go to Lion Country Safari. Just go for a walk around the lake. During Corona, I used to walk my grandchildren around the lake. I haven't gone for a walk since they left. But a walk around the lake. You know what you see around the lake? There's frogs, there's lizards, there's iguanas, there's fish, there's butterflies, there's birds, it's unbelievable. I posted a picture online because last week, I don't know if anybody saw it, an insane picture. A bird nearby caught a fish in its claws and the fish had a hook in its mouth, must have previously been caught. So the bird was flying with the fish in its claws with its hook in its mouth and the hook caught our Eruv and pulled it down. And somebody who was walking, who loves wildlife, saw this beautiful bird and saw the fish and took a picture and snapped a picture at the exact moment. If you see the picture you will see. It's Chad Gadya. A man took a picture of a bird, a bird caught a fish, a fish had a hook, the hook took down the Eruv, Chad Gadya, Chad Gadya. It's an unbelievable picture. It's an unbelievable picture. So now online there's all this discussion. It's an osprey, it's a whatever, what kind of bird is it? We live in Butterfly World. We live, Montecito Circle is Butterfly World. We live in Lion Country Safari. So you could walk all by and go "ew, disgusting" and "I hate it", "ugh, get it out of my house" and "out of my life". You be like Ribono Shel Olam you're everywhere. You're everywhere. It's unbelievable. My cousin Missy would have stopped and said "I can't stop taking pictures, I have to stop and look at each one and marvel, I have to look at each one and gaze and say Hakadosh Baruch Hu, there you are. I just saw, I just got a peek into Gan Eden. I just Amen, Amen to the lizard, Amen to the osprey, Amen to the frog, Amen to the fish, Amen to the cool breeze, Amen to the warmth of the sun on the back of my neck, Amen to the clear blue sky, Amen to the rain, Amen to the rain, Amen to everything." The world is screaming out. It's screaming out. Hashem is like "I'm everywhere. Hi! It's not hide and seek, he's not hiding." He's like "I'm here and seek. It's not hide and seek. I'm here and seek. Why aren't you seeking? Why aren't you seeking?" Ribono Shel Olam is in full view. But we have to stop and when you stop and say Amen to whatever he's showing us, so then you're getting a peek, you're getting a little glimpse, you're getting a window into Gan Eden. You're peeling back. Instead we walk around all the time with layers and covers. "Where is God? If Hashem was here, this wouldn't have happened, that news wouldn't have come, I wouldn't be experiencing this. There is no why Hashem." I saw a wifi there's no God. Internet's down in my house, Comcast is horrible, and there's no God. That's our generation's worst problems. First world problems they're called. The wifi is slow, I don't believe anymore, I lost my faith, crisis of faith. Or real problems, real, real problems. But we think Hashem is hidden, you can't find him, and he's in full view. He's everywhere. He's everywhere. Just stop and say Amen and look and see him and that is dropping the anchor. That is the anchor which will carry us in those moments when the winds are seeking to wash us away and to knock us over. דוד המלך מלאה הארץ קנינך. The simple teitch of the words דוד המלך מלאה הארץ קנינך the world is filled; kinyanecha means God, your acquisitions. You acquire, you own, you own the whole world. We are your subjects, this is your world. But the Sefarim say read it differently, Mala ha'aretz kinyanecha. The world is filled with opportunities to make a kinyan on you. The world is filled with opportunities and invitations for me to acquire you. For me to acquire you. I'll end with something I just said a few moments ago in the Mesillas Yesharim shiur which is, I just got this new sefer. A good buddy Mendy is responsible. It's costing me a lot of money because I just had to put in new bookcases because he's always sending me sefarim. Thank you Mendy. So there's a brand new book that came out. An amazing author, רב דב בער פינסון, who's a Chabadnik but very broad and invokes and pulls from everywhere, wrote this beautiful book that apparently was many years in the making called Illuminated Sound: The Baal Shem Tov on Prayer. Illuminated Sound: The Baal Shem Tov on Prayer. Illuminated Sound: The Baal Shem Tov on Prayer. I got it yesterday, just this morning I was going through it, I couldn't put it down. So beautiful, such beautiful ideas about who we are. The word daven in Yiddish is to dream, to yearn, to long, to reach, to connect to the infinite. The Hebrew word adam, human, is rooted in dimyon, imagination. We are created in the divine imagination, and we in turn create our reality through the prism of our own imagination. It's a very, very beautiful book, beautiful ideas. Why am I invoking it? To close with one more thought. He says in here from the Baal Shem Tov that, I haven't marked anything up in it already, but he says the pasuk tells us bechol derachecha da'ehu, that in all of our ways we're meant to know Hashem. bechol derachecha da'ehu. A pasuk in Mishlei, a pasuk in Mishlei Proverbs, פרק ג פסוק ו. bechol derachecha da'ehu. In all of your ways know him. In all of your ways know him. And he will straighten your paths. Simply put, we should internalize and live with the awareness of Hashem's presence at all times and everything we do. This will bring one to the ultimate clarity of meaning and direction in our lives. The word da'ehu, to know him, used in this all-important phrase, implies dveikus. The Torah uses the word da, know, as a euphemism for intimate relations. da'ehu means knowing him by passionately cleaving to and unifying with Hakadosh Baruch Hu. bechol derachecha da'ehu. אדם ידע את חוה אשתו. There is no biblical word for physical intimacy between a husband and wife. To biblically know one another is the act of intimacy, the ultimate vulnerability, the ultimate bond, the ultimate connection, the ultimate union. And we are meant to know God in that way. It means to ke'ilu have that intimacy, that bond, that connection, that vulnerability with Hashem. Said the Baal Shem Tov, bechol derachecha da'ehu, in all of your ways you can have an intimate moment with Hashem. In the car, in the carpool, in the supermarket, while making the kugel, while negotiating the deal, while in the shiur, while having the conversation. bechol derachecha, with whatever we're doing, da'ehu. Not just you could know him like, oh yeah Hashem, I know you. I know you cognitively, I know you academically, I know you in the abstract. bechol derachecha da'ehu. Wherever, whenever, with all that I'm doing, I could be having an intimate moment with you God. You are there. You are there with me whenever and wherever. Sorry we went overtime. Got a little excited today. Don't forget to drop your anchor, to protect you from the storms, to make your first shehakol, tonight behind the bema 9 PM, Dov Lichtnstein, next week please God Rav Machlis. Keep telling me your emunah stories. Till next time, stay happy, stay healthy, and stay holy.
