Transcript
Good morning, *boker tov*, welcome back to Living with *Emunah*. Please help yourselves to coffee in our wonderful caffeinate with *kavanah* cups. If you want to still purchase one of the permanent hot cups, you can go to the *shul* office right after class. There you go, thank you. Thank you, Vanna White. We have our permanent hot cups tumblers, I believe they are called. You can purchase one in the *shul* office right after the *shiur* if you like or enjoy a disposable one on us right now. Caffeinate with *kavanah*. First *brachah* of the day. Don't sip, don't simply sip and engage your first cup of coffee, which is a *techiyas hameisim*. It restores life in this world. Don't do it without *kavanah*. Don't just mumble or swallow a *brachah* faster than you swallow the coffee, but caffeinate with *kavanah*. Our *Emunah* series is sponsored generously by Dr. Zavi and Bella Morgan in memory of Rabbi Dr. Brian Galbut and in memory of Bella's mother, Dr. Ellen Shanzer. Very grateful to the Morgans. Also this morning's *shiur* is sponsored by Yonina and Gordon Haas in commemoration of her father's *yahrtzeit*, Hyman Lichtman, חיים בן אהרן פנחס הלוי. Where's Yonina? Where'd she go? On Friday, April 8th, *Nissan* 7. Thank you so much for your sponsorship. Okay, we are still learning about *simcha*. And even though we're now in the month of *Nissan*, *simcha* is something that's relevant all year round. *Purim* is now in the past. The two months of *Adar* are behind us. Whenever you happen to be living to this Living with *Emunah*, whenever you're living, listening, whenever and wherever, *simcha* is always relevant. *Simcha* is like that pilot light. We've quoted *Rav* Schwab. *Rav* Schwab said *simcha*'s like a pilot light. There are times that we turn it up, the month of *Adar*. There are times that we lower the flame, the month of *Av*. But it always has to be lit. Some of you have no idea what a pilot light is because you live in Florida. You live in Florida. If you had a gas stove, you would know what a pilot light is. And if you want to avoid *bishul akum*, there's a *halacha*, if a Jew lights the pilot light, everything that's lit from that pilot light then has the status of being cooked by a Jew. So *Rav* Schwab said *simcha*'s like a pilot light. It has to always be lit. There has to be some spark, some ember, some flame of *simcha* inside us. If it ever gets fully extinguished, that is the worst thing you can think about, of depression, despondency, hopelessness, helplessness. When the *simcha* gets entirely extinguished and a person is walking around, they're dead even while they're alive. They're a zombie. They're a corpse walking through life. There has to be some *simcha*. We have to give ourselves permission to feel *besimcha*. That doesn't mean that there aren't moments of hardship or pain. It doesn't mean that a person is not going through loss or grief. But it's okay to give yourself license to feel joy even with whatever one is struggling with. Feeling *besimcha*, being joyful or happy, feeling and attaching ourselves to the one who is complete, namely God, submitting and surrendering and believing that there is a higher purpose and meaning in order to the universe, that we're not simply subjects of randomness and chance, but all that happens, good, bad and ugly, is for a reason, whether we understand it or not. Allowing ourselves to feel that is not to dishonor or disrespect the person who's suffering or the issue that we are struggling with. It's not that, well, if you're willing to smile or laugh, you don't really miss the person who passed away or you don't really feel the pain of the person who's struggling or yourself. It's okay. One has license, one is obligated to feel *besimcha* even in that time as well. So we've been talking about one of the biggest deterrents or detriments to *simcha* was when a person feels inadequate. When we feel insecure, when we feel like a failure. When a person feels I've come up short and I can't accomplish my goals and I keep stumbling and falling. So how could I be *besimcha*? I'm a nothing, I'm a reject, I'm inadequate, I'm incapable. So how could I feel *besimcha*? You know when you feel *besimcha*? When you've broken through. Influencers are *besimcha*. They're not *besimcha*. They curate an image online of being *besimcha*. Many are *besimcha*, I'm sure, and I wish them tremendous *simcha*. But many are not *besimcha*. Many are not *besimcha*. Don't ever buy into the image that you see carefully curated online. Don't ever buy into that. You never know what a person's feeling. So that's not the source of *simcha*. It's not that if you're popular or famous or you've broken through or you're powerful or you're rich, then you'll be *besimcha*. *Simcha* is what you feel in your heart. *Simcha* is the satisfaction of knowing that you're not going at it alone. That *Hashem*, that the Almighty, is arm in arm, that the Almighty is walking together with you. And whatever you face and whatever you confront and whatever you need to overcome, He's right there. He's right there and *imoch anochi betzarah*. He's right there and He's going through it together with us. He's feeling that pain or that grief with us even when He thinks it's the best thing that has to happen to us, He's still in pain with us. As parents, we've shared before, as parents... As parents, sometimes we have to punish, I don't like the word punish, but sometimes you have to restrict a child. So you can't go to that party, but everybody's at the please it's to be is going to be amazing you you hate me you're ruining my life. Yeah, but still you can't go to the party. And then you sit and you cry with the child the whole night and their loneliness and their misery and their feeling you don't love them because they're not allowed to go to the party. Immo Anochi Betzarah. I need to put you through this because I'm doing what I think is best for you, but I can still feel your pain as you go through it. We know that as parents all the time. You take the child to the doctor. You have to get your shots. But I don't want my shots. You have to get the cavity filled. I don't want a cavity filled. But I love you and you need the shot and you need your teeth and therefore I have to take you to the doctor. While you are crying in the chair I will hold your hand. I may cry with you. It's not a contradiction to be able to say I'm doing what's for your best and yet I can feel your pain. And Hakadosh Baruch Hu the Almighty is our Father in heaven and sometimes he sends us for shots. Sometimes he puts us into surgery. Sometimes we have to have spiritual cavities filled. Hakadosh Baruch Hu simultaneously can say I'm doing this for your best whether you see it and understand it now or not. Simultaneously I feel that pain with you. I'm sorry this is what's necessary for your best, but know that I'm right there with you at the same time. So people think that if only I broke through and was successful, if only I was an influencer or popular, if only I had all those followers or friends, if only I had the wealth or the fame then I'd be happy. And look how many people have all those things and they are among the most miserable, the most depressed, the most addicted, the most compulsive behavior, the most acting out and sometimes we get those headlines that they are found having taken the ultimate act. They have everything that we think that if we had we'd be happy. They have it and they're empty. Simcha is not external, it's not outside ourselves, it's not something you chase or pursue. In America, Simcha is you know the pursuit of happiness. You don't have to run after the cup of coffee the cup of coffee's right here. I don't have to run after it. Why don't I have to run after it? Because it's not running away. When do you have to run after something? When it's elusive, when it's running away from you. But our sense of Simcha is not something that runs away. It's not outside ourselves. You don't have to find it and you don't stumble upon it, but you have to be happy inside yourself. You have to spend time and close your eyes and take deep breaths and think about your life and to be happy with what you have and happy with who you are and happy with where you are. That doesn't mean again that you're not honoring or respecting the challenges or struggles that you have. Every one of us is incomplete some way or another. Every one of us has those issues or challenges. I was at the Shul dinner the other night. The comedian Modi performed and he talked about how every Corona form intake form is anti-Semitic because every form says in the last seven days have you had an ache, a pain, your stomach, your this, your that. He's like what Jew ever woke up and didn't check off half those things? So the whole form he said you know he had a whole routine is anti-Semitic. So who doesn't wake up every day, he does it better than I do apparently, who doesn't wake up every day and feel incomplete in one way or another? So what's the only way we can feel complete or compensate for that incompleteness is to attach ourselves to the only one who's whole says Reb Itche Meyer which is Hashem. That's why we wake up and we caffeinate with Kavanah. Shehakol Nihyeh Bidvaro. Everything here is with his word. There's nothing that's happening that he's not in charge, he's not in control, he hasn't willed and is not part of his master plan. Ah, why should it be part of his master plan these horrific innocent deaths in Ukraine? I don't know. I'm not God. If we were God we would know and to think that we are entitled to know means that we think we are God. Part of the belief of God, part of belief in God is the admission that I can't understand the world like God. To think I believe in God but also I demand to understand everything that's happening means you don't really believe in God. Implicit in the belief in Hashem, implicit in Emunah in Hashem is the concession that I believe in Hashem and therefore by definition there are things I don't and can't understand. If I still demand to understand, I want an explanation, I need it to make sense, I feel entitled, then I don't really believe in Hashem. I believe in me. To believe in Hashem, to submit to his to his omnipotence that he's infinite, that he's all-knowing, that he's all-controlling is to understand that there are things we cannot and will not understand in this life and don't get stuck on them. It's easier said than done. I don't mean to suggest it's simple. But as we've also quoted million times the Rav Hirsch don't get stuck on lamah but ask lemah. Not why but what. Not why did this happen but what am I meant to do now. That's it. I wake up every day, these are the facts, these are the cards that I'm dealt. Why was I dealt these cards? It's not fair, my neighbor was dealt such a better hand. My neighbor's got a full deck, my neighbor's got three of a kind, my neighbor's got a straight flush and I got a two and a four off-suit. Why do I have miserable cards and my neighbor's got the best cards? You could sit and you could wonder that or you could figure out what's the best way to play this hand. You could get stuck on why or you could ask what? What now? And then be-simcha with the what now? To be be-simcha, to choose to be be-simcha. So let's get back into the text, Rav Itcha Meir, Yitzchak Meir Morgenstern. Byam derech-echa. ובפרט כאשר אדם מרגיש שגרם לעצמו את ההפסד, when a person feels they want to beat themselves up, they want to knock themselves down, I can't believe I made that decision, I can't believe I said that thing, I can't believe I hurt that relationship, I can't believe I came up short, I can't believe I gained all that weight back. ונראה לו שאילו רק הייתי עושה כך וכך הייתי מקבל ועולם מצליח. If only I could turn back time, I'm filled with such regret and remorse and guilt and shame, if only I'd done things differently I'd be in a different position and place now. אזי האדם מרגיש מאוד רע מזה. You know all that does? It robs you of your happiness and your joy for life. All that does is make you stuck in the past. All that makes is you forfeit the present. There's nothing productive in that. U-v'frat b'dvarim ruchniyim, particularly when it comes to spiritual ambition and spiritual status. אם באמת שגג ועשה טעות והפסיד מה שהפסיד. Okay, you made a mistake good, yesterday was yesterday. Today's a daf chadash, today's a new day. It's a brand-new day and a brand-new start and we're working on our notebooks, for every one of us to keep our lists and take our notes and begin every day with a new page that says on top daf chadash. Turn the page, it's a new page, a blank slate every day. Sometimes you have to scribble over from yesterday, you didn't complete everything yesterday, sometimes you rewrite it on the new page, but you're rewriting it on a new page. You turn that page, it's a new day, it's a new day. והעצה לזה הוא לעשות תשובה. And the answer is to teshuvah, to give the answer, teshuvah. Teshuvah we normally translate as to repent. Teshuvah means to repent. We're about to turn the page, we're on kuf-nun-vav, 156. Teshuvah means to repent, to repair. But teshuvah actually means something else. What does teshuvah mean? Lashuv, to return, which is a fascinating I know now it's Nisan we're getting geared up for Pesach, not for Rosh Hashanah, but all year round you're allowed to do teshuvah. So where are you returning to? To return suggests that what? That you've been there before. That it's not new to you. If you're returning to something then you've been there before. You've been happy, you've been joyful, you felt successful, you felt Hashem's presence, you felt the infinite, you've made contact with the divine, you've felt pure, you've been there before. Get back to where you were in the best sense. But teshuvah also means something else. Teshuvah means something else. Many years ago I went to visit somebody in prison, who was falsely accused of rape, was exonerated in the end, but was in prison. And I remember sitting there, I walked through and the prisoners were behind bars and I still felt... anyway I met with him, the chaplain told me if anything happens, I knew the person and I was not afraid, but he said in the visitation room there's a little button under the desk, if anything happens just press the button and we'll be in there in a moment to get you out. Anyway I was sitting with this young man and he was filled with questions. Why did God do this to me? Why is this happening to me? Why do I deserve this? Why did this happen? What do I do now? And it occurred to me, remember it was during Elul that that visit happened. And I remember thinking to myself, I said to him, I don't know the answer. Only you through the way you'll live your life now can provide the answer to those questions. There are endless and countless questions in life. We give and we do teshuvah. The word teshuvah, teshuvah is an answer. We are the answer. In other words, if you get stuck on lama why, then all you have is a question. But if you ask le-ma for what, and then you grow, change, improve, act, transform, you've given the answer. You've given the answer, you are the teshuvah, you are the answer. So all he says, says Rav Itcha Meir, is teshuvah. You can't change yesterday and you can't go back in time and you can't reverse or revert a decision that you made or an act that you did or something that you said. You can't. All you can do is give the answer today. All you can do is turn the page. ואז להיכנס חזק לאמונת היחוד. And we're going to turn the page now, page kuf-nun-zayin, 157. Lizkor u-l'hamtin. There is a unity to Hashem's existence, He's everywhere all around us, and everything makes sense. He has a vision and a picture for the way the universe is organized and the order and it functions. And the more we submit and surrender to Him, the more we recognize and the more we feel His presence, then we can give and be that answer. דהיינו אחר שהאדם עשה תשובה וצריך להיכנס לביטול גמור ולדעת שהשם יתברך כל כך גדול שיכול לתקן הכל ומתוך הרע יצמיח הטוב ומתוך הרע יצמיח הטוב. This is a big Pesach theme. This is a big Pesach theme that I'm trying to decide which way to tell it to you because there's so many insights at the Seder table about this. This was Hillel. Hillel who was koreich matzah umaror and ate them together because the maror represents the bitterness and the matzah represents freedom that we left with alacrity and zeal, expeditiously we attained our freedom, we were liberated from the bondage of Mitzrayim. And we ate them separately, we fulfilled those mitzvot independently, and Hillel came along and he said: "Make a sandwich out of them." You know why? Because life is not about either matzah or maror. Often the matzah and the maror go together. Often the matzah and the maror go together. You know how many funerals I've done? You know how many terminally ill bedsides I've been next to where a family that was divided and apart found a way to come together? That horrific loss, that tragedy, which was unbearably painful, but ended up becoming the catalyst for a family reconciling and unifying and coming together. So is that moment matzah or maror? The answer is it's a sandwich. The answer is yes, both. Hillel understood that life is often both. It's not either or, it's not binary, it's both. It's often both at the same time. And it fluctuates. That's why Rabban Gamliel said you have to eat the Pesach and the matzah and the maror. Is that the right order? No. What order should we eat it in? Each of these are symbols. So Pesach, matzah, and maror. Pesach is the sacrifice. The sacrifice. Matzah represents freedom. Maror represents the bitterness of slavery. What order should you have eaten it in? Maror then matzah. Why do we eat it matzah and then maror? The answer is don't think in life that once you have matzah there's no more maror. Don't think in life that you've broken through. So you were single, you longed for companionship, and you finally, you waited too long, and you got married. So I had so much maror in my—not that being single needs to be defined by maror, that's a whole other topic, that's a whole other topic—but many people experience a bitterness in being alone and then they break through with companionship, "Oh, now it'll be smooth sailing." I didn't have children, I longed for children, now I had children, smooth sailing. Matzah and maror, they fluctuate and they—it's a roller coaster of ups and downs and back and forth. So the whole Pesach Seder is an exercise in emunah. The whole Pesach Seder is for 210 years nothing made sense in Egypt and then God came and took us out and redeemed us and made us a nation and brought us into Eretz Yisrael and now it all makes sense in retrospect. Now that we can zoom out a lens and we can see the whole picture with clarity, now it comes together and makes sense and we realize that life is matzah and maror mixed together. Life like Hillel taught us is a sandwich. It is a sandwich. So how do you get through those hard times? How do you get through the maror moments? By believing in the matzah. By having emunah. By knowing that there will come a point in this world or the next, hopefully in this world, where we'll zoom out a lens and see in whatever happened we'll see the matzah even within that maror. I also quoted years ago, we had a someone speak here, he used to run the Aish in London. I don't remember his name, but he was a rabbi to one of our members who brought him to speak, and his wife had passed away tragically young from cancer. Young guy, his wife had died very young, leaving him with many young children. And I'll never forget the talk that he gave that really only he, someone who went through what he went through, could give, where his talk was: "Bad things don't happen to good people, painful things happen to good people." And he distinguished between bad and painful. Painful means it hurts. Root canal hurts. Is it bad? No, it's good. It's going to restore and save your tooth, enable you to eat. It's painful, but it's not bad. A person works out or exercises. It's painful, it's not bad, it's good. It's good. Don't confuse bad and painful. So he said bad things don't happen to good people. How do I know that? Because if Hashem allowed it to happen, ordained it to happen, it's not bad. Because Rabbi Akiva taught us that כל מאן דעביד רחמנא לטב עביד. Everything Hashem does is for our best. Everything. It's letav, letov, it's good. It's not bad. Everything Hashem does is good. Even when you can't go to the party, young child. Even when you can't watch that movie, even when you can't attend that event, even when you can't eat that endless candy, even when you can't stay up past your bedtime. It's a painful thing happening to a good person, they think from their perspective, but it's not bad. And from our perspective, there are those things that happen to us that are painful, unbearably painful. I know I'm looking at people in this room who've experienced unbearable pain. The loss of people they love that can never be healed or replaced. It's unbearably painful. But as believing Jews, we submit and surrender, and we embrace that principle that it's painful but not bad, because if it were bad God wouldn't do it. And if it happened, then it may be painful, but it's not bad. This is a very high level, like I said, I'm not credible to tell you that. I have no credibility, but he did, that Rabbi from London. And he described, I'll never forget, how painful the loss of his wife was and still is. Yet, he then went on to list all the incredible things that came out of it. His own personal growth, the growth of his children, the bonding of his family, the... he said I would never do it again. I wouldn't want it. I'm not therefore happy that it happened. It was unbearably painful. But bad things don't happen to good people, painful things happen to good people. So what gets a person through a loss like that? What enables a person to smile again and to live life and to find the joy? What allows a Holocaust survivor to ever smile again? Holocaust survivors are beyond belief, they were angels in this world. If you want to see an angel, don't wait for the next life. Whatever hardship any one of us is going through, every Holocaust survivor went through that and a million others. And then some. Yeah. And they found the will and the ability to live life and to smile, to be joyful, and hopeful, and faithful. It all comes down to emuna. It comes down to belief and faith and to submit there's something bigger and there's something higher and there's something greater than ourselves. Something greater than ourselves. And to be mevattel ourselves to him. To nullify ourselves to him. To relinquish and give up, give up this unachievable goal or entitlement to understand, or that life needs to happen the way that we drew it up. That life has to happen the way that we want, the way that we've choreographed. Who says? Who says? And this is also an enormous Pesach theme because slavery, we are in bondage and we are enslaved to that entitlement. We are enslaved to bitterness. There are people who are enslaved to that sense of resentment. We're going to talk much more about this this Shabbos, Shabbos Hagadol, shameless plug. Moving back to Shabbos afternoon, but we're talking about the theme of our talk is from resentment to contentment, setting ourselves free. We're going to talk about our relationship with the Egyptians, our relationship with Germans, our relationship with Ukrainians, and then our relationship with each other. How do we go from resentment to contentment? How do you go from pain and still find a capacity to set yourself free by not bearing a grudge? Do we forget, do we forgive? Do we only forget, but do we only forgive but not forget? We'll talk all about that this Shabbos. But one of the themes of Pesach, when we talk about slavery and freedom, we are incredibly blessed in our time and our generation that we are not in a slave labor camp, that we are not slaves physically. We have all the freedom and liberty in the world physically that a person could want. We live in this great country, the great democracy, the great America, and it gives us incredible freedom, and yet we are living unbelievably enslaved. We're enslaved to technology, we're enslaved to consumerism, we're enslaved to social media, we're enslaved to pop culture, we're enslaved to whatever the addiction is of the moment. That's why we have the greatest freedom we've ever had, with the greatest mobility and choice and prosperity and pleasure than humanity ever had in the history of the world, and there's more mental illness and depression and anxiety than ever before. Right? A couple months ago we went through that whole routine from Rav Zilberstein, 200 years ago. It's not hard to figure out why. Hashem. The less faith you have, the more you think on your own you're in charge, you're in control, then the less happiness you're gonna have. And the more you let go and let God, and the more you live your life and say he's in charge, he's in control, the more you could be along for the ride and smile. The more, the more you're good to go. אחר שהאדם עשה תשובה הוא צריך להיכנס לביטול גמור לדעת שהשם יתברך כל כך גדול שיכול לתקן הכל. Hakadosh Baruch Hu can fix everything. He's so great. ומתוך הרע יצמיח הטוב. And from that bitter, from that Mar, will emerge Matzah. Will come Matzah. Will come Matzah. You know, Matzah's an amazing food. I could give hours and it's an amazingly expensive food, it's amazingly difficult to digest food, there's a lot of amazing things about Matzah. A lot of amazing things about Matzah. But Matzah's called Lechem Oni. Why's it called Lechem Oni? We have two traditions. Lechem Oni is the bread of the poor person, which after you spend the money to buy a pound of the Matzah, you are then a poor person. So Lechem Oni. 200,000, I never knew this till this year, 200,000 pounds of hand Shmura Matzah are produced in Ukraine. And the last 20,000 pounds never got out because the day they were meant to leave a port of Odessa is when Russia invaded. So 10% of the Matzah in America didn't make it, which is why supply chain, there's a huge increase in the price, and Matzah's at an all-time high. I had someone say to me, because I was looking into it, how could it be it's over $40 a pound? That's for the most inexpensive hand Shmura Matzah. A pound. So someone answered supply chain. I says, I don't know, I turn on the faucet, the water's still flowing. Doesn't seem to be a supply issue of water coming out of the faucet. And is there a supply issue of the flour that we have? Doesn't seem to be a major issue. So what does it mean supply chain? So that was the answer: Ukraine. So Matzah's called Lechem Oni. It's the bread of the poor man. Why is it the bread of the poor man, Lechem Oni? Because Matzah has to last. If you break a fresh loaf of bread and you need it to last the whole week because you can't afford to bake a new loaf every day, you bake one loaf on Sunday, it's gotta last the whole week. Your loaf ain't gonna last the whole week because a fresh loaf with no preservatives, it's gonna be stale and moldy within a day. Matzah can last. So Matzah's the bread of the poor person. You make the cracker, the cracker can last forever. I just finally threw out, I'm one of those weirdos who eats Shmura Matzah the whole year, I love Shmura Matzah. It's so much less expensive right after Pesach, by the way. You know how inexpensive it is? You simply tell people if you have any leftover Shmura Matzah and they'll pay you to take it. That's how inexpensive it is. So we don't, we have the Minhag not to eat Matzah as of Purim, so there went the last of last year's. But I'll tell you a secret: if it weren't embarrassing, I would have just kept last year's Matzah to use this year because it doesn't go bad. Either because it tastes stale on day one or because it never tastes stale, depending how you see it, but it never goes bad. It never goes bad. So Matzah is the Lechem Oni, it never goes bad, the poor man needs it. But Lechem Oni also means something else. לחם שעונים עליו דברים הרבה. It is the bread that we say many things about. It's the Lechem, it's the bread of Emunah. It's the bread of Emunah also. And it has so many names because it represents and incorporates so many things. There's a bitterness to this Matzah because on the one hand it's the bread of the poor person, but it's also the bread of the rich because it's the bread of faith. And it's also the bread of Tshuva that Lechem she'onim alav we give a lot of answers. This bread as we eat it, we are giving answers. We're not getting stuck on Lama, but we're asking Lema. And we are the answer to that question. ומתוך הרע יצמיח הטוב. From the bad comes the good. It's Emunah. הכל בידיים של השם יתברך. Everything's in His hands. ורק הוא המנהל והשולט. He's in charge, He's in control. והוא מנהיג ומוביל את העולם לטוב הגמור וממילא מה שהיה ומה שיהיה הכל הוא רק לטוב גמור. What was, what is, what will be, if you begin with the assumption that it is good and will be good, so now okay, I hope it's not painful, but I know it will be good. We can always hope and ask and wish that it not be painful, but we know it will be good. כי הכל מנוהל בידיים הכי טובות. Because everything is done with Hashem's hands, which are the best, which are the best. He is the one in control. There was a plane. Plane ride of people, the plane hit incredible turbulence, the pilot came on and announced, everybody buckle up, sit down, be prepared for your oxygen masks to fall, and the plane was bouncing back and forth and left and right and up and down, the overhead was opening up and the suitcases were falling out, and the people were bouncing against each other, and there was a little girl sitting by herself, unaccompanied minor, and while all the adults around her were panicking and crying and screaming out and praying, she sat there perfectly content and serene and smiling. And everyone thought this was the end and whatever the way they could, they were contacting their loved ones to say goodbye for all that had happened, and this little girl never lost her smile. The pilot was able to regain the plane, came out of the clouds, the turbulence, and it landed softly. And one of the older men can't help it, came up to this girl and asked her when they landed, how is it we all panicked and we prayed and you looked so happy and so serene, how could it be? So she said, the answer's very simple, my dad's the pilot, and I knew that he'd get us home safely. So when you know your father's the pilot, when you know the father's the pilot, no matter how much turbulence you may experience in your life, you know you're going to come home safe. The question is do you know your father's the pilot? That's the question. The pilot is your father, but do you have a relationship with him, do you know him? Do you know him? It doesn't mean that painful things won't happen in life, painful things will happen in life, there are maror moments, there are maror moments. It just means that they're painful but they're not bad. And when you go through life knowing that, you're much more emboldened and you'll have the courage and the faith and the fortitude to take on. Let's just finish this letter. ואף שהאדם אחראי על מעשיו. So you'll say, well won't this lead to an enormously passive, won't this lead to people who are spectators to their own life? God's in charge, God's in control, everything happens for a reason, everything happens for the best, I guess I'm just along for the ride, he's the pilot, so you're going to passively sit as spectators in the passenger seat? אם קלקול הוצרך לתקן מכל מקום אחר שהאדם עשה תשובה שהשי"ת קיבלו בחזרה הוא יתברך מכפר עון מתקן הכל מהפך הכל לטובה ועוד יצא מזה טובה גמורה כך שאחר התשובה כראוי אין מה להצטער על זה. The answer is we have to make our effort, we have to take our initiative, we have to do the best we can. We don't let go and let God before we even try. You don't let go and let God by sitting at home on the couch and waiting for him to deliver your livelihood. You don't let go and let God by hearing a diagnosis and then deciding God will miraculously make you better without going to a doctor or without taking medicine. You don't let go and let God in lieu of taking initiative and exerting and expressing our best effort. We have to make our best effort, we have to take our greatest initiative and then we let go and let God. All of this comes back to why are we talking about this here and now? Because Itche Meyer is talking about happiness and joy. So you made a mistake, so you came up short, so you experienced something painful, so you had a failure, you had a bad fail. Okay. Do what you need to do to learn and grow and repair and now move on because that was God's will. If God wanted to get you out of your own way he could have, he didn't, he let you fail. Now choose to fail forward. You could fail backward or you could fail forward. That choice is ours. Are you going to fail backwards or are you going to fail forward? You fail forward by learning from the mistake and then understanding and believing that that too was God's intent, that God was okay in orchestrating and that led you to where you are now and now the question is what will you do with this moment? Who will you be in the here and now? It's really Sheryl Sandberg's Option B which I haven't read yet, you should, that's the whole thesis of the book and that her friend Adam Grant with whom she co-wrote the book told her when after her husband Dave dropped dead, precipitously died out of nowhere tragically and for that whole year all she wanted was Dave by her side, every time she went to her kids' production at school she kept saying, I wish Dave were here, I wish Dave were here. And Adam Grant said to her, that was Option A but Option A was taken away from you, so it's time to pivot to Option B. Option B. You wish you had a different deck of cards or hand of cards, you don't. Now how do you want to play the cards that you do have? We go through unbearably painful moments and challenging times and now you wake up in the morning with a new page, a daf chadash, and what do you want to do with what you have? So there's someone who's no longer here and I don't say that lightly, but who is still here? And what do you want your life to look like with them? What is still here? And what do you want the rest of your life and legacy to look like with whatever you have? We can get stuck and we could perseverate and we could become paralyzed or we could break through. That's Pesach. Break out and break free and break through whatever we think is holding us back. Sadness, regret, remorse, shame, guilt. There are so many things that are holding us back but they are self-imposed. We could let go. We could let go. I'm telling you my best of stories from all my drashas right now. If you've recognized some of them. But I'll tell you one more, one more to close. One more to close. And we barely get through any text every week. I apologize for that but one more to close is the story of the, of the gorilla who's trapped. They put a banana, he puts his hand through, he grabs the banana, and because he grabs the banana, now he can't get his hand through and that's how he's trapped. But the silly gorilla because the truth is he's not trapped at all. What does he need to do? Let go. All you have to do is let go of the banana and you're out. But the gorilla who thinks he can't let go of the banana is in a self-imposed trap. He's trapped in his own way. It's a trapping of his own making. So we have these thoughts and we think we have these emotions and feelings and we think we can't escape and we can't set ourselves free. That's why we experience Pesach. Go search for the chametz in your life. Not just the leaven, the inflated chametz, the grain, but the chametz in your emotional, spiritual life and purge it and obliterate and rid yourself of it and set yourself free. Live chametz free. It's weighing you down. Carbs weigh you down. Chametz weighs you down. Literally and figuratively. And the chametz thoughts and the chametz yetzer hara and those chametz... it's weighing us down. So get rid of the chametz and set yourself free. We don't have to be trapped. We could let go and let God. How do you do it? Emunah. How do you do it? Teshuvah. How do you do it? By caffeinating with kavanah. When the first thing you do in your day, not to suggest that drinking coffee is the first thing you do in your day, we do other things like Modeh Ani. You open your eyes and you say ah, ha, I guess I'm still here. Thank you. Thank you. What do you mean? But my mortgage bill is due, I don't know how I'm paying it, my loved one is sick, and my this is this. What do you mean thank you? The answer is, I guess I'm still here. Thank you. It all works, my feet, my heart. Thank you. Modeh Ani, thank you. Oh, I got more to say to you but for now, thank you. I'll get to my complaints and I'll get to my requests and I'll get to my protests but for now, Modeh Ani. Thankful am I. Raba emunatecha that you have faith in me that I got another day. We'll talk about what's not here, what's not going right, but I want to begin with thanking you for what is right. And what is here. And the first thing that's here is me. I'm here. I woke up. Modeh Ani. And each of those birchos hashachar, the first fifteen first brachos we say in the morning, if you go back and listen to the beginning of Siddur Snippets, we went through each of those brachos, birchos hashachar. They are fifteen steps of gratitude. Attitude of gratitude. Wake up in the morning. Pokeiach ivrim, I can see. Malbish arumim, I have clothing. Meichin tza'adei gaver, I can walk. I have shoes. These are things the rest of the world neglects. Who notices or says who says thank you for shoes every day? Do you know what your life would be with no shoes? Talk to a survivor who operated in a concentration camp and had to navigate the world with no shoes. You know what the world is if you can't walk? I was on a knee scooter for four months when I tore my Achilles. I couldn't carry my own cup of coffee from one side of the room to the other. I couldn't drive. You can't be mobile. You can't do anything. You know when you notice that? When you tear your Achilles. And every day that you could walk around, you don't notice. So we start our day fifteen thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for things that no one else notices but I refuse to neglect. Thank you, thank you, thank you. But you know what it takes? The mindfulness to be present and concentrate when you say the thank you. It's very hard. That's why you gotta have the cup because then you pour that cup of coffee cause you're half asleep and you're miserable and you can't be mindful. Cup of coffee often comes before the birchos hashachar and you're trying to jumpstart your life, defibrillate your soul. And how do you do it? Coffee is a great gift. I'm grateful for it every day. And that's why we made caffeinate with kavanah. Be mindful. Shehakol, the farmer, the coffee bean, the grinder, the trucker, the packager, the inventor of the Keurig, Nespresso, whatever you fine schmeckers drink. Whatever it is, Shehakol, that all of it, nihiye bidvaro. Thank you, it's unbelievable, Hashem. Techiyas hameisim, every day you give me the ability to come back to life. You just have to have kavana. Have to have kavana. So, this is the last class after Pesach, so wishing everyone a chag kasher v'sameach, set yourself free, experience freedom and liberty this year. Baruch Hashem, we're blessed physically to have freedom. Let's spiritually and emotionally have freedom. Let go of the bananas in life. Let go of the thoughts, let go of the ideas and the visions that haunt you and that hold you down. Turn that page and let go. 9:00 tonight behind the bimah, Coach Bruce Pearl, you may have seen his interview in the NCAA Final Four where, NCAA tournament, where he was asked about donating to Ukraine and he gave a whole history lesson about Purim, and his name is Mordechai. He's a proud Jew. He's our guest tonight 9 PM. Until next time, stay happy, stay healthy, and stay holy.
