Transcript
Good morning Boker Tov, welcome back to Living with Emuna. Want to thank our generous sponsors of the series for the year. Always grateful to Dr. Zavi and Bella Morgan in memory of Rabbi Dr. Brian Gabbat, thank you, and Dr. Ellen Shanzer and Bella's mother, Dr. Ellen Shanzer. Big thank you to the Morgans also this morning's shiur is dedicated anonymously for the refuah sheleima of הרש חנוך בן שרה. Should hear good news, speedy, painless and complete refuah sheleima. And seems almost our weekly sponsor Carol Wold for the refuah sheleima of Yvette Caplow which we should continue to hear of her refuah sheleima. She's Baruch Hashem doing well, she should continue to do well and be back at the Emuna shiur soon. Okay, we are continuing in Tiv HaEmuna, Rav Gamliel Rabinowitz's wonderful sefer dealing with Emuna. How can we grow, how can we live, how can we exercise? We've given so many meshalim, so many metaphors for Emuna. Is emuna a muscle that you exercise and work out and grow, and if you don't engage and employ emuna, then it will atrophy and then it will die? Did you bring your own coffee? What, a snob? Our coffee's not good enough? Oy, that's my wife, in case anyone's watching. I'm going to get a letter: you were so rude to one of the women in the Emuna shiur. Don't worry, it's just my wife. It's okay, it's just my wife. No, just joking, just joking, only the best for her, the best coffee, only the best, only the best milkshake. Where was I? Oh, so is emuna a muscle? Is it a muscle that we have to work out and exercise, otherwise it will atrophy and die? Or maybe emuna, the greater metaphor we've been giving the example, maybe emuna are the glasses that we wear? They are the goggles through which we view and engage and interpret and experience the world. You could look at the world and all you see is what's on the surface or you could put emuna glasses and you see Hashem everywhere. You see Hashem behind every leaf and every bug and every ray of sunshine. You see Hashem through every experience, every red light, every open parking spot, you see Hashem through the good, the bad, the pleasurable, the painful. Do you wear the emuna glasses and see Hashem? And we gave the metaphor: for some people, they wear glasses, sometimes they're wearing them, sometimes they're not. For others, they put in their lenses, they sleep in them, they wear them for a week at a time. And yet for others, they get Lasik surgery, corrective surgery so that you now permanently see properly, you see straight with emuna. Even then, I had Lasik many years ago, even then when you get older you need the reading glasses. So even then your emuna is never a given. It always needs work. You need the reading glasses to be able to see up close with emuna no matter what stage of life you are, you are in. So it's never done. You never have emuna, you never finished with emuna, you never acquired emuna. It is a way of life, it's a way of being, it's a way that you engage the world. And that's what Rav Gamliel was telling us. We last left off last week, he was describing based on the pasuk in Malachi that כי שפתי כהן ישמרו דעת ותורה יבקשו מפיהו. Our mission, our ambition are to be like malachim, like angels. Angels have no doubt, no uncertainty, angels don't live in this world where they're trying to navigate and figure it out and find Hashem, they live with an absolute confidence, they live with an absolute certainty, they live with a clarity, they see Hashem all around them and that's our mission to live that way as well. אין שום תכלית בעולם הזה אלא לעולם הבא. This world is just, it's so temporary, it's so fleeting, it's so finite, we are mere mortals, we're literally just passing through. Enjoy it, engage it, but don't confuse, don't confuse eternity with it. אין באלה די בידי האדם אלא צריך להשיב על הלב בעבודה התבוננות וחשבון הנפש בהתמדה לחזור ולשנן תמיד מה חובתי בעולמי. We're up to that line. And here Rav Gamliel who's a contemporary, זאל זיין געזונט און שטארק, still alive in Yerushalayim today, he is borrowing a phrase from the opening of Mesillas Yesharim, and you've heard me speak about this many times, one of my favorite expressions in all of Torah literature, where the Ramchal says that יסוד היסודות ושורש העבודה. What is the core? The core of everything. I gave a talk last week to the women of the Chizuk Mission who were down here from around the country and we spoke about this: finding your mission. You could find it online if you want, finding your mission. The Ramchal begins his magnificent magnum opus and he says, the source and the foundation of all existence, the root of all meaning and purpose is to ask yourself, not what can I get but what can I give. Not what are my rights and entitlements, what are my duties and obligations. Not okay, I'm in this world God, what do you owe me? But I'm in this world God, what do I owe your world? What have I been given, what position am I in, what talents, what skills, what blessings, what resources, what wisdom, what work, what can I give this world? Only the Ramchal doesn't say that. He doesn't say that and here Rav Gamliel quoting also doesn't say it. It doesn't say what's my duty, my obligation, my mission in the world, what does it say? Mah chovaso b'olamo. Translate the word olamo. Olamo means in your world, each and every one of us are our own world. world, we have our own world, we live in our own world. And some people are in their own world in a very narcissistic egocentric way and it's horrible. Some people are in their own world as if the whole world revolves around their world. So you could retreat into your own world in a very, very harmful, destructive, sometimes even abusive, manipulative way. However, even if one is not in the wrong way, we are all our own world in a positive sense. Do we not have our own world? Our own DNA, our own baggage, our own background, our own peckel, our own people, our own things that we're going through. We are each our own world. Our world exists on תורה עבודה וגמילות חסדים. What takes us out of our world are kinah, taivah, and kavod. When the Mishnayos in Pirkei Avos keep referring to what are the three things that hold up the world, what are the three things that remove us from the world, it's talking about our world, our world to wake up and make it through a day. We are each our own world and we're each trying to manage, navigate our world and we should stop competing and comparing our world with others. Stop comparing our marriage with someone else's marriage, our children with someone else's children, our resources with what other resources others have. It's not a competition, it's not a comparison. Lech lecha, go find out who you are and what you're all about. To try to live a life of avodah to serve Hashem in competition or comparison with others is what the Slonimer calls avodah zarah. Zarah means strange, zarah means unfamiliar, zarah means foreign. It's not your avodah, that's avodah zarah. To try to compete and compare, to keep up with others, that's an avodah which is zarah. Stop it. Look at your world. Sit and focus and contemplate and evaluate and reflect and have a self-awareness. What's my world? What stage of life am I in? Who are the people around me? What opportunities do I have? What are my strengths and what are my weaknesses? And now, mah hovasi be-olami, what's my, what's my obligation? וכן וכך קונה האדם קניין אמיתי בלבו לדעת מה חובתו בעולמו. Person has to make a kinyan. Now all that begins with the surrender that there is Hashem in the world. He created the world and He has a reason that He put me in it. I'm not here by chance, I'm not random, I'm not random. I don't want to get crude but there was a guy I went to yeshiva with whose nickname growing up, I only met him in yeshiva, his nickname growing up was Oops. His oldest sibling was many years older than him and nebach, you can imagine, you can imagine, it's not cute how horrible for a kid to grow up thinking he was an accident, he was unplanned. It's a terrible thing. Today's day and age, you know, he'd grow up, he'd write a book, he'd sue his parents, they'd be arrested, make a lot of money. But then, then when we were much less sensitive. I didn't give him that name, I didn't know him until he was an adult, I first met him after high school in yeshiva. But what a horrible thing, what a horrible thing because he's younger than his next oldest sibling and it was obvious to all including him that it was not a planned, it was not a planned existence. But the truth is every one of us is a planned existence. We wouldn't be here if it weren't the result of love and connection, if it weren't the result of Hashem's will. If Hashem didn't want that to yield a new neshamah in this world, they, we wouldn't be here. There is no one, there is no one who exists who's random. There's no one who exists who's chance. There's no one who exists who's not meant to be here and not meant to be here in the way that they are. I spoke last night on a Zoom to an amazing group called Chazkeinu of, it's a group of women who are navigating mental health challenges and they have an online support group and it's not recorded and it's private and they're an amazing group, those who organize it and host it and those who have the courage to attend it and to navigate it and I was blown away and inspired. But one of the things I spoke about, one of the things that became clear from them and I've heard from all who navigate a world of mental health, their world, is a complicated world. Their world is a world which is not spinning smoothly on its axis. It's a world that can be filled with hurricanes and earthquakes and tsunamis. It's a world which has all kinds of storms to it. Is that people feel in their world, they feel invisible. They feel inconsequential. They feel they don't matter. We talked about the role, they invited me to speak about the role of rabbanim, the role of community, what can rabbis and rebbetzins be doing on the issues of mental health, which for too long nobody spoke about and nobody addressed and nobody focused on, nobody validated and nobody created a safe space to come for help, for love, for support, nobody created a network and a chesed system the same way if somebody God forbid was struck with a physical illness we'd kick into high gear with all kinds of support. The same thing should be. People feel invisible, inconsequential. Why am I here? Why did He make me like this? Does anyone know? Does anyone even care? Do I even, do I even matter? And the answer is no, we have to know. There's no such thing, there's no one who's an oops. There's no such thing as random or chance. If you're here, if we woke up this morning, Rabba. Rabba emunatecha, Hashem, your faith in me is great. Hashem, your faith in me with my beauty and with my pimples and warts. Your faith in me with my strengths and with my weaknesses. Your faith in me at my highs and your faith in me even when you've seen my lows. If I woke up again today it's because you still believe in me, because I'm not done yet. It's because you have faith and you have faith, Rabba emunatecha, you have faith in me. My existence is not random or chance. I'm not invisible or inconsequential. Bishvili nivra haolam, the whole world exists for me. All of it. Everything in it. The billions of people on the globe and the breakthroughs of technology and the wonders of nature, all of it is just for me. Hashem, you created all of it and I woke up this morning, Rabba emunatecha, all of it, Bishvili nivra haolam, it's all for me. Not in a self-centered way it's all for me, everyone and everything is here to serve me, but it's all for me, that's how much you believe in me. That's how much you love me. That's how much you have faith in my future. And now, now that I believe that, let me look around at this magnificent world that you created. And now let me look at my world and my world with all of its wonderful opportunities, but my world also with all of its challenges. And now in my world, Mah chovasi beolami, why am I here, what difference am I meant to make? And I can tell you what the answers are not. What the answer is is different for every one of us. And as I said I spoke about it at length last week, I've spoken about it before and I'm still working on figuring it out for myself. That's why I keep speaking about it. I can't tell you what it is, it's different for each and every one of us. I can tell you what it's not. We are not in this world to accumulate and amass the most things. Because the best things in life are not things. Art Buchwald said the great best things in life are not things. So there's nothing wrong with things, have nice things, enjoy nice things, nothing wrong with it. Bishvili nivra haolam, He created those nice things for us. He created those nice things for us. A great steak, deliciously cooked steak, some good onions, that's for you to explore the beautiful nature of this world. We spoke in the Parsha class yesterday about the Tzadikim, the righteous people who would go to zoos to be able to see the animals and to take in the safaris and to see Hashem's creations and His world. He created it for us. Enjoy, enjoy the aromas and the fragrances, enjoy the tastes and the textures, enjoy, explore this world. Nothing wrong with it. Live within your means, don't go beyond it, but if your means enable you, enjoy the beauty of this world. But don't ever confuse that's why we're here. Those are means not ends, those are instruments and vehicles to pursue our agenda of why we're here. And we are not here to have the most things. The best things in life are not things. You can't take any of them with you. We are not here to have the most things. We are here to make the biggest difference. We are here to have the biggest impact. We are here to leave the greatest legacy. That's why we're here. But in order to do that, you have to know there's a Hashem. Because without Hashem, there's no afterlife, there's no world to come, there's no legacy, there is no immortality. Without Hashem, carpe diem, why not? Enjoy, take it all in, live that moment, seize the moment. It's when you believe in our immortality, when you believe that there is eternity, when you believe there is a forever and all of the here and now is temporary and fleeting and is just a platform to express our free will to make a difference, that's when we can really live life. That's when we can live life. So the Hevre of the world, if you look around the world we're in, and I keep driving this point home because I believe it's an enormous challenge that we have to speak about, we're living in the most prosperous time ever and we're living in the most unhappy time ever. Because when a person thinks that the purpose of life is prosperity and pleasure, then it leads to unhappiness and misery and substance use and anxiety and mental health challenges. But when a person says the purpose of this life is not pleasure, it may be pleasure, but the greatest pleasure is to get high on God. The greatest pleasure is Lehisnaeg al Hashem. The greatest pleasure is nothing physical. It's nothing I smoke, nothing I inject, nothing I swallow, it's not an edible, nothing I drink. The greatest pleasure in the world is to know I'm here for a reason and to find out what that reason is and to fulfill that reason, to make that difference, to find that legacy, to leave that impact. So then, then life has meaning and purpose, then you can be joyful and happy and happy. ועל זה אמר הפסוק, that's the Passuk in Mishlei, תנה בני לבך לי כי יש בין הלב למוח דרך רחוקה מאוד. Shlomo HaMelech says to his son, turn your heart to me. Why does he ask for his heart, not his head? Why the heart, not the head? Isn't the head the place of wisdom? The head is the place of thought and thinking. The head is the place of analysis and conclusions. So turn your head to me. What do you mean your heart? The answer is כי יש בין הלב למוח דרך. How much do we know up here? Stop yelling and getting angry at your kids, it won't make anything better. Stop eating those things that are bad for us at the wrong times of night that we shouldn't be eating them. Don't get too little sleep, it's not good for you. Don't feel envy or jealousy. All the things that we know, we know up here. Do they make their way down here? So that's why, that's why it begins with v'yadata, we have to know, v'hashevota el levavecha. And that's why Shlomo HaMelech says תנה בני לבך לי, my son, turn your heart to me. Don't just know it in your head, let it filter down to your heart. וכרחוק מזרח ממערב כן ירחק הרגש הלב מידיעת השכל, as far as the east is from the west, as far as the farthest two points on the globe, is the distance between our intellect and our emotions. ובזה תלוי עיקר עבודה להשיב אל הלב ולהרגיש התכלית, and that's what the ikar avodah, the core of our avodah is to feel. Wake up and feel! There are so many intellectual Jews who know a lot, analyze a lot, learn a lot, memorize a lot. One might argue this is a big challenge in our Jewish educational system where we spend the entire time making them memorize, learn, study, memorize, spit back. What about feel? What about open your heart and feel? Maybe to get an A in my class you need to cry, not because of how hard the final was, but because of the kumzitz. I want to see you emote. I want to see something. Maybe in order to succeed and excel, maybe academic grades should not be how much did you memorize, but how much did you transform, how much did you grow, how much did you feel, how much did you experience, experiential learning. Not just only the head. So much of our education and so many shuls, their programming, it speaks only to the head. We gotta speak to the heart and we gotta speak to the soul 'cause the future of the Jewish people is also the head. You can't, you can't practice and you can't observe if you don't know. Of course, the centrality of Torah learning, Torah study, Torah knowledge. But all the knowledge in the world if you don't feel, how about inspiration? How about inspiration? Lehargish hatachlis, to feel the tachlis of life. To feel the tachlis of life. Why am I here and what's it all about and what mission do I wake up every morning feeling? You could know from heint tzu morgen, you could know everything is true and right, that won't make you do. You've got to feel. You've got to feel passion and enthusiasm and alacrity and love and awe and the whole range and gamut of emotions. You have to feel. What does a marriage look like when the person says, oh yes, intellectually I believe you check all the boxes of what I'm looking for and according to my calendar I said I love you three and a half weeks ago, I'm on schedule for how many times I'm supposed to recite I love you and intellectually, so all of that's nice. A little connection, a little energy, a little romance, a little electricity, a little longing, a little love, a little something. Not just all up here. Where's the heart? Where's the heart? And the Ribbono Shel Olam says the same thing. If you're going to pursue and fulfill the tachlis of why you're here, it doesn't just happen upstairs. It's got to happen, it's got to happen in the heart. I used to go to Skver a lot for Shabbos and for Yom Tov when I was younger and not to romanticize, no community's perfect, but there's a lot of energy and a lot of passion and a lot of experiential Yiddishkeit there that I used to be renewed, recharged with. You talk to the Chassidim, they wear the gartel. A gartel separates between the upper body, the lower body, the heart, the erva, the quest for holiness, which is the base part of the human being that can bring a person down. So one of the Chassidim once said to me, you Litvaks—I guess then I was a Litvak, now I'm a Chassid, nobody accuses me anymore of being a Litvak—said, you Litvaks, you wear a tie. You know why? You're separating between the head and the heart. We separate between the heart and the erva. You wear the tie around your neck, you're separating between the head and the heart. Okay, Chassidim don't wear a tie. Instead of wearing the tie around the neck, they wear the gartel around the waist. And you could wear both. And believe me, if I could get rid of the tie, I'd get rid of the tie. I'm not wearing the tie because I want to, the gartel of the neck, the, you know, the noose around, around, around the neck. But you can't separate the head and the heart. They have to talk to each other. That's why the Torah says, who do you send home from war? Hayarei verach halevav, somebody who's faint of heart, you send home from war. Chazal, our rabbis tell us, who is this? השח בין תפילין לתפילין. A person who speaks—I understand I'm speaking to a room full of women, but when men put on tfillin, they're forbidden to speak or interrupt between putting on the tfillin of the arm and the tfillin of the head. Tfillin shel yad and tfillin shel rosh. You can't speak. speak or interrupt. It's gotta be done all in one motion without interruption. You speak before, you can speak when you're done, you can't speak in between. That's a person you send home from war? That's so egregious, that's so terrible, that's who you send home from war? Not mechallel Shabbos b'farhesia, not someone who eats on Yom Kippur, not somebody who cheats and steals in business. That's who you send home from war? The person who couldn't help but their friend walked in and they said something in between the tefillin shel yad and tefillin shel rosh. So I once suggested that maybe it means a person who speaks between the the head and the heart. Tefillin shel yad is opposite the heart, tefillin shel rosh is on the head. So a person who speaks in between is separating the head and the heart. Someone who lives with a separation between head and heart, head and the heart, we can't afford for them to be a soldier in our army and to go to war. What happens when their superior says, this is the plan, this is what we have to do, they heard it up here but it didn't make it over here. That's not who you want to be giving you cover. That's not who you want to be fighting in the front lines with. That's who you sent home from war. If we can't live where the head and the heart talk to each other, where they're syncing one with the other, then we're in trouble. That's who we send home. That's who we send home. So says Rav Gamliel that a person has to תלוי עיקר עבודה להשיב אל הלב ולהרגיש התכלית לאחוז בחיים כאלו שהאיברים מרגישים האדם לא נברא אלא להתענג על השם. We have to live with our whole being. The whole idea of shuckling. Person when they davven they shuckle, they get into it. The whole idea of shuckling is kol atzmosai tomarnah. Hashem, all of my being is screaming out, not I'm sitting back on the couch, lying down while I'm davvening, while I'm saying the Tehillim, let me just check, let me just get rid of this obligation, let me just be done with this, let me just say I did it. That's not kol atzmosai tomarnah. Kol atzmosai tomarnah is my whole being is so excited, so excited. Yocheved's Bubby and Zeidy when we used to visit them in Rego Park, aleichem hashalom. If they knew we were coming, they were outside on the street waiting. They were so excited. They weren't in the apartment, you knock on the door then they're there, right? Up by the elevator. They were they were waiting. They were waiting. Kol atzmosai. It wasn't like, yeah, the door's open, come in, but The Price is Right is on, I'm not getting up. Come in. Jeopardy's on, I'm not getting up. Come in. Or I'm learning the daf, I'm not getting up. Kol atzmosai tomarnah. We signal and we communicate with kol atzmosai like come here, give me a big hug! Come here! So excited! My whole being is in this relationship. It's not just up here intellectually. You're here, let yourself in, I duly acknowledge your existence and your presence. Kol atzmosai... atzmosai. I'm my whole... I'm giving you the biggest bear hug. I'm going to squeeze you and break you in half. I'm so excited. I'm going to walk you out. Then we walk you back because we're worried, and then we walk you back and walk you back. Yeah, kol atzmosai, all of my being. I'm so excited. I'm so excited. Very often at the end of a tish, this past week at the end of Shalosh Seudos... not every week at Shalosh Seudos, but this past Shalosh Seudos, depending on the mood. Shalosh Seudos ends, the singing is so geshmak, so gevaldig, everyone's so into it. That we spontaneously stood and locked arm in arm and danced in place and sing a fast niggun. And everybody's just kol atzmosai... I don't want this to end. Except for the people in the other room who are... can't wait for Shabbos to end. They're looking at the clock and judging us and I understand I'm in trouble now. I gotta... this week we gotta end on time. But the rest of us said time? What's time? There's no clock in a casino and there's no clock at Shalosh Seudos. There's no time. There are places and there are experiences where there is no time. There's no time. I'm not making that up. There's no clock in a casino because they don't want you to ever be aware of what time it is. Or a department store. There's no windows. Department stores also. Department stores, casinos, in places where they don't want you to be focused on what time it is or how long you've been there, there's no clocks. No clocks. We? Big clock in shul. Rabbi, you need to make sure you can see the clock while you're speaking. Chazzan, you gotta see the clock. We have big clocks. Casinos and department stores have no windows or clocks. We we live with the clock. Shalosh Seudos is lemala from the clock. There's no clock at Shalosh Seudos. Spontaneous kol atzmosai tomarnah. Everything about who I am. Have you ever been somewhere and music comes on and you just gotta get a little skip in your... you just can't help it? People there, they're not there, they think you're weird, they see you, they don't see you, the camera catches it, it doesn't. There's just... we gotta emote, we gotta feel. האדם לא נברא אלא להתענג על השם וכל מה שחוץ מעניין זה הוא הבל הבלים והבל ורוח רע. Anything outside of this, we wake up every day with an understanding and a focus on who am I? Why am I here? What am I meant to do? What am I meant to accomplish? What is my life meant to be about? What is my everything? What is my everything? Do we have that? Rav Mazuzman, the Rosh Yeshiva of Toras Moshe of Tomo. He talks about singular minded focus. His *talmidim* will tell you they just celebrated a major anniversary of their *yeshiva*. All of his *talmidim* spanning all the years, including Rabbi Brody, who learned there for a short time. Did you know that, Mrs. Brody? Your son learned in *Tomo* for a short time. So Rabbi Meiselman talks about single-minded focus. What is that? He said it comes from the *davening* ויחד לבבנו לאהבה וליראה שמך. *Viyached Levaveinu*. Single-minded focus means when I wake up in the morning there is no confusion who I am and what I'm all about. I'm giving these personal stories not to focus on ourselves but just because they're illustrations, but I picked on her before with her coffee so now I'll tell you something nice. Yocheved's email address tells you everything about her. Her email address and *im yirtzeh Hashem* those who are longing and want to have children should be blessed with children. Yocheved's email address, now you're going to get a lot of emails, is GoldbergMom@gmail.com. It's just, it's not by the way it's not GoldbergWife@gmail.com, you'll notice. The essence of her being. There's no confusion. Singular-minded focus. From when you wake up in the morning to you fall asleep at night, who am I? What makes me tick? What animates my day? What takes up my energy? What's my identity? What's my identity? Wake me up in the middle of the night, who am I? GoldbergMom@gmail.com. That's what it is. That's who I am. So ויחד לבבנו לאהבה וליראה שמך. *Viyached Levaveinu*. Single-minded focus. What's my mission? Why am I here? And that will inform everything. What I choose for a career, what I bring to the work that I do, how I interact at the gym or the supermarket, what mission and what mentality, what atmosphere I'm trying to raise my children, what does my *Shabbos* table look like? What are my priorities in shopping? Everything. Single-minded focus. ויחד לבבנו לאהבה וליראה שמך. Love and awe of you, advancing, perfecting your world, redeeming, repairing this world, giving. Not what can I take, what can I give. Not what are my rights and entitlements, what are my duties and obligations. *Mah chovasi b'olami*. Who am I and why am I here? I'm no oops, I'm no random, I'm no chance. I'm here for a reason and I'm here for a mission and now I have single-minded focus. I wake up in the morning. Why am I here? Why am I here? Why am I here? A soldier in the army wakes up, there's no confusion. Oh, what am I supposed to do today? Where do I go today? Can I sleep in today? What am I today? A Navy Seal has a single-minded focus. An *Eved Hashem* wakes up with a single-minded focus. *Viyached Levaveinu*. Enable us to harness and focus our heart, a single-minded focus. Single-minded focus. אדם לא נברא אלא להתענג על ה'. I am here to get high on you, *Hashem*. I want to get high on you, I want to sing and dance, I want to burst into movement with all of my being. *Kol atzmosai tomarna*. I want to get high on you and I want to be a drug dealer and the drug that I am dispensing is getting high on *Hashem*. Nobody should clip that part of this and just promote that. But the drug I'm dispensing, you know I heard that there's a problem these days. Someone told me we should address it. But I heard, I haven't seen it, that people now on *Shabbos* morning are coming to *shul* high. Edibles, they bring edibles, they come high, that's how they get through *shul*. It used to be you had to like sneak out during *shul* or after *shul* or you sat down, lingered after *shul* and made a *l'chaim*, too many *l'chaims*. I understand now there's a big phenomenon of people, it's the most, you're replacing the most authentic high with the most counterfeit one. It's replacing the most authentic. *Shul* is the place of the most authentic high. *Shul* is the place that you come and you say I'm leaving all my problems or I'm bringing all my problems, but I can unload them, I'm burdening them, I connect with you. It's the place of *Kol atzmosai tomarna*. I'm part of a community of people who bring out the best in me, who don't judge me, who warmly welcome me, who we feel united and connected and supporting one another to get high on *Hashem*. Let's get high on God together. That's how *Shacharis*, *Mincha*, *Maariv* should begin every day. Someone should give a *klap* and say let's get high together. That's what it should be. That's what it should be. *Nebach* on us, not even judgment on the people who are coming the wrong way. What are we doing wrong that instead of coming to get the authentic high, someone needs to have a counterfeit high just to get through what should be the authentic high? What are we doing wrong? We need a sitting and love and listen and welcome and warmly embrace and make it a safe space, comfortable, welcoming, supportive space and it has to be the place that a person can't wait to go to get high on *Hashem*. It's a big problem. It's a big problem for so many reasons. It's a big problem for so many reasons, but one of them being that you're *davka*, it's a counterfeit high. The edibles and all the other things, they're numbing you to escape. Any of these highs are all designed... the alcohol or the drug or the gambling or the online, it's never about that. Those are vehicles for the person who's numbing themselves to escape a reality which is so painful. It's a reality which is so painful. And that could be because of abuse, because of neglect, because of failing relationships, because of low self-esteem, because of mental health. There's a million and one factors of why a person says my reality so painful, I need to not be in it as often and as long as possible. I need to be sleeping or if I have to be awake let me at least be escaping it using one of these agents. And the answer anyone in recovery will tell you is not to focus on the agent they're using to numb and to escape, it's to figure out how to make reality a place you want to be not to escape from. How to change that reality so the reality is a place that you want to live in not be numb to. Not be numb to. So if a person needs to use edibles or get high or be drunk in order to be in shul, in order to be in davening, what a reflection on how difficult that reality is for them. We need to change that reality because that's the reality that you should get high on Hashem. That's the place אדם לא נברא אלא להתענג על השם. That's the place to get high on God. And we can and we should. So what if we're not? What if it's hard? What if that reality we want to be numb? We've tried, we listen to the Emunah shiur, we learn, we're going through those motions, we had the cholent, we've had the chicken soup, we went to the tish, we didn't want to stand and dance, we did it to fit in. What do you do then? What do you do then? That's what we'll start with next week im yirtzeh Hashem. Even though it's Yeshiva week we're still here. If you're not here you could watch live, listen later, but we're going to have nonetheless, nonetheless Emunah shiur doesn't break for Yeshiva week. So we'll still be continuing. Yeah, get high on Yeshiva week. Get high on Yeshiva week. But you'll have to wait in line and can't get parking, but you could get high on Yeshiva week. We'll pick up with im yirtzeh till next time stay happy, stay healthy, stay holy, and stay high.
