Transcript
Okay, good morning, Boker Tov, welcome back to Living with Emuna. I want to thank our generous Emuna sponsors for the year, Dr. Zavi and Bella Morgan in memory of Rabbi Dr. Brian Galbut and in memory of Bella's mother, Dr. Ellen Chanzer. We're enormously grateful to the Morgans. Zavi shared with me a tremendous Emuna story, which I'm going to share next week because this week I already have an Emuna story. So stay tuned, Morgans, for next week. We'll share your story, which is really tremendous. This morning's shiur is also sponsored by Essie Barry in commemoration of the yahrtzeit of her beloved mother, בתיה בת רב נחמן, her brother, דב בן ברוך מרדכי, and in loving memory of אסתר טילא בת רב גבריאל פנחס, and for the refuah sheleima of ברוך מרדכי בן אסתר חיה. Essie, thank you so much for your generosity. And by Zeldy and Benji Henner for the refuah sheleima of גולדה בת פערל רחל. She should have a speedy and a painless and a complete refuah sheleima and be back at the Emuna shiur, please God, in no time. And I add my own also. Our learning is l'ilui nishmas אסתר טילא בת רב גבריאל פנחס. Of course, the Moskowitzes are very, very much on our minds, in our hearts, in our tefillos as our whole community continues to feel their pain and daven for their comfort. Okay, so got this email. I feel like I'm Rabbi Eli Stefansky. I'm a wannabe, starting out with the emails. Today in your Emuna shiur, you read someone's Emuna story about missing her flight. You encouraged other stories, so here is mine. And I continue to encourage the stories. There's nothing as inspiring as hearing people who apply Emuna, not just theory, not just in a sefer, not just in the abstract, not just conceptual, but the people who in difficult circumstances are able to dig deep and apply Emuna, and that should be an inspiration to each of us when we find ourselves in those difficult moments. So the person writes the following: I've been treating, I've been having treatment for colon cancer for the last seven years. Treatments are every three weeks with a scan every three months. I have my ups and downs and I've learned that there was no predicting whether the results of the scan will be positive or negative. Right now I'm in a positive wave, Baruch Hashem. My doctor in Sloan is head of his department. This means that on the day I come in to hear the results of the scan, there can be quite a wait. I usually spend the time davening and saying Tehillim. However, when my name is called to go into the doctor's office, I close my siddur. I now revert to my Emuna muscle, as you call it. I put myself in Hashem's hands and repeat a phrase I've learned from you, Ein Od Milvado. I continuously repeat this phrase until the doctor enters the room. I say I will accept whatever Hashem decrees for me, and this happens every three months. So far I'm still here and I'm very, very grateful. So first of all, whatever you have on tap for today, if it doesn't include having to go wait in a room to hear the fate of your health and life, it's a good day, whatever else is on tap today, number one. But number two, how amazing. Ein Od Milvado. Ein Od Milvado. Hashem, ki atah imadi. You're with me. You're with me. Right, that was our phrase, Ein Od Milvado. It's not our phrase, the Nefesh HaChaim, Rav Chaim Volozhiner, and others. Ein Od Milvado. There's no sound apparently. Oops. Ein Od Milvado. Ein Od Milvado. That there is no one and nothing but Hashem. Ein Od Milvado. And also, ki atah imadi. Tehillim chaf-gimmel. We say in Tehillim chaf-gimmel, ki atah imadi, Ribbono Shel Olam, גם כי אלך בגיא צלמות. Wherever I walk through, whatever I have to endure, whatever I have to overcome, ki atah imadi, if You are with me, if You are alongside me, if I lean on You, if I know that You feel my pain as I am enduring pain, You feel my pain and You share my pain, ki atah imadi. Someone sent me a beautiful, they took the expression ki atah imadi against a beautiful background, they sent me in a beautiful lucite frame and it now sits on my desk. Ki atah imadi. But we should do something with it. It should be a phone case or a home screen or a bumper sticker or on the dashboard or in our kitchen, a magnet. Ki atah imadi. Wherever you have to go. You're in that doctor's office, you're waiting for your turn, you're waiting to be called, you're waiting to find out the result. Ki atah imadi. Ein Od Milvado. Hashem, You're with me. You're with me. What's the alternative? The alternative is to sit and to wait and to hear those results without Him? The alternative is to think that everything's random and chance, not by design? That there's no meaning and order and purpose to what we go through? What's the alternative? There is Hashem, He exists, He loves us, even though sometimes it doesn't feel like it. Sometimes it's hard to feel that love. But He loves us, which brings us back to Rav Gamliel Rabinovich at the bottom of page ayin-dalet in his Tiv HaEmuna. Krias Shema. Today we're going to talk about the mitzvah of Krias Shema. בקריאת שמע אנו אומרים ואהבת את ה' אלקיך. In Shema we say we have a mitzvah to love Hashem. Love Him. We have a mitzvah to love Hashem. יש לדעת שלימוד ועבודה בנושא אמונה הוא חשוב יותר מכל הלימודים והעבודות האחרות. We have to know that learning and working on the topic of Emuna is more important than all other learning and service. learning and practicing emunah is chashuv yoter, is more important than any other limud, right? To reinforce and to promote and to strengthen our knowledge that there is a Hashem, that He exists, that He loves us, that He's involved in us, He's intimately involved in our lives, that is the most important thing that we can learn and we can reinforce and we can promote. Too many people skip it altogether, and we memorize a bunch of facts and people and places and dates of Tanach and Halacha, all critically important, all critically important, but the foundation of it all is emunah. What's the point of memorizing all the people, places, and things in Tanach if the bottom line of all of them, if the common theme running through all of them is not there is a Hashem, He runs the world, there's meaning and purpose to the universe? What's the point of memorizing the details of Hilchos Shabbos, Lamed Tes Melachos, of being able to memorize all of the minutiae of Halacha if we don't understand that the foundation of it all is, this is how Hashem wants us to live, this is His prescription and His formula for His world? So a person has to be strong in their emunah. The foundation, the core of it all is emunah, to know He exists and to know all of us is to serve Him. That is why we are here. We work for Him, He doesn't work for us. This is His world, not ours. Everything that happens is not the way we want. We're not in control. It's not on demand. It's not when or how we want, but rather we submit and we surrender to Him. And that is the exercise over and over and over again. And each time we get confused. It's shocking that we can't learn this lesson ever permanently. We have to keep learning it over and over and over again. That all the things that we think that we can micromanage, all the things that we think that we can control, we can't. We have to let go. We have to let go and let God. We have to realize it's not up to us. We find ourselves in circumstances, sometimes they're the best, we're planning a vacation and things aren't falling into place, and sometimes they're the worst, we're saying goodbye to someone we love, and it's not happening in the timing that we want, or how we want, or where we want, or that we want at all. And we're used to controlling and micromanaging and organizing and planning everything. Everything. It's particularly hard for people who spend their lives organizing and planning and creating timelines and timetables. It's hard to let go. But we work for Him, He doesn't work for us. It's His world, not ours. We're guests here. And whatever He dictates and determines for us is by design. It's not always pleasurable, it's not pleasant, it's not pleasant. But that's the world that we live in. וכפי שראה בדברי הרמב"ם פירוש המשניות שאחר שביאר יסוד מסוים בעניין האמונה, מסיים הוא וכותב שהערך בעניין כי יקר בעיני ללמד עיקר מעיקרי הדת והאמונה יותר מכל אשר אלמדנו. The Rambam in his Peirush HaMishnayos. The Rambam published his commentary on the Mishnah when he was a young man. It's the first thing that he published and wrote. Sometimes he actually reverts, sometimes he actually disagrees with himself later in his Mishneh Torah, in his compendium of Halacha, encyclopedia of Halacha. The Rambam wrote the Peirush HaMishnayos as a young man. And his Peirush HaMishnayos on Berachos, he writes, when it comes to emunah, he says, ki yakar be-einai, it's precious in my eyes to teach עיקר מעיקרי הדת והאמונה. The most precious thing that I could do to teach, to share, to inspire, of all the things I teach and write are about emunah, mikol asher elamdenu, for everything I'll teach you, from everything I'll share, from all the insights and wisdom I'll transmit and communicate, the most precious, the most special, the most important, the most valuable is this foundation, this floor of emunah and bitachon. Without it, what do we have? Countless of us and countless in the next generation are walking around and walking away from a Yiddishkeit which is obsessed with details and minutiae and fear and punishment and never ever instilled the focus of emunah, of a relationship, that Hashem loves us, that we should love Him, that we should feel His presence, that we can lean on Him, that we should protest and object to Him, should disagree with Him, should disagree with Him. וכמובן שגם מה שזוכים אנו ללמוד מדברי הרמב"ם אינו אלא כטיפה מן הים. What we learn from the Rambam is ketipah min hayam, and Hashem invites that all. He wants not only the gratitude and love, He understands when we protest and object, when we're unhappy. Ultimately we have to yield, ultimately we have to surrender, but He understands. I didn't say it in Israel, but we had a huge struggle. The airport wasn't releasing Esti to be able to commence with the funeral. We had a very short timetable to turn around to get on the plane to come back. There was bureaucracy, there were five members of Knesset who got involved in making phone calls to get it done. Baruch Hashem incredible people who came to the Levaya. each on their cell phone, each using every contact that they had in the world, each getting it done. It was an expression of their love, it was an expression of their leadership, it was really special. They got to the bottom line, what happened? Half of the, half of the people in the airport in charge of this were on strike, on strike. And there was a signature missing and nobody wanted to get up from their desk to go to the other desk to get the signature from the other person, so a little girl waited to be buried. It was horrific, but it was meant to be. It was meant to be from Hashem. It wasn't the right time, it wasn't meant to be until an hour later, that was, that was the right time. You know, but I thought to myself, I didn't say it, I should have, I thought to myself, I'm not angry at them, we're not angry at them, it's not from me, because we're also on strike. We also didn't want to do this. We also didn't want to see it happen. They were on strike and we're on strike. Hashem, we're on strike, this is not something we want to do. We don't, we don't accept to do it. We're on strike. And Hashem says, okay, I understand, I love you, I understand, I accept it. Now you have to do it. But I understand where it comes from, I understand where it comes from, I understand where it comes from. ועל האדם לעשות חשבון הנפש מה מצבו באמונה. Person has to always be doing a Cheshbon Hanefesh. What is my Matzav and Emunah? Where am I holding? How am I doing? This is what we spoke about last week. Person has to not only go for an annual physical, person has to go for an annual or weekly or daily spiritual. And friends get together over a cup of coffee and don't just say, how are you? Which is a ridiculous question that no one ever, no one ever answers honestly. Usually you say it while passing each other in the supermarket without even pausing long enough to actually even hear the person not really respond. How are you? Good, all good, crazy busy, yeah. We don't really care about each other, we just offer platitudes like, how are you? Right? But if it's someone you really care about and you're sitting down to have a real conversation, you say, how are you doing today? How are you feeling? How are you doing? How are you managing? But we should ask more not only how are you doing, but how is your Neshamah? How is your Neshamah? How is your soul? How is your soul? Your body I care about, which doctors you go to, which medicines you're on, which appointments you waited for, what lab results you got, what gym you work out at, what food you tasted, which restaurant you... I, okay, all of that's lovely, that's small talk, that's the first five minutes of the coffee. But now let's get to the real you. And the real you is not the one who has to wait at doctors' offices and the real you is not the one who tried out the new restaurant in South Florida and the real you is not the one who came back from Yeshiva Week from some exotic location and the real you is not the one who just signed up for a Pesach program and the real you is not the one who's going to share this incredible recipe or menu for the Shabbos. That's not the real you, that's the physical material you that's temporary and fleeting. The real you is the Neshamah. The real you is the Neshamah. We're not a body that has a Neshamah, we're a Neshamah that has a body or a soul that has a body. The real us is the soul. So why do we neglect it? Why do we neglect it? Why do we fail to focus on it? Why do we not communicate with each other soul to soul? We communicate body to body. I love your outfit, I love your hair, where'd you get this, what are you eating, who are you hosting, where are you going, what did you do, how was the cruise? That's all body talk. Where's the soul talk? Where's the soul connection? How is your soul? Are you nourishing your soul, are you nurturing your soul, are you protecting your soul, how is your soul feeling? Is your soul distant and down and disconnected? Let's talk about it. Is your soul high and connected? What are you doing for your soul? What are you doing? Next week we're going on our annual Beis Medrash fly-in. Im Yirtzeh Hashem one day we'll have an equivalent for women, speak to your local Rebbetzin. We'll have it, no pressure. But you know, it's a trip which is grueling on the body. We go and we meet with countless Gedolei Yisrael, Roshei Yeshiva, Rabbonim, we make our way, and don't get me wrong, we eat well, we do fine for our body, but for the body it's grueling. Wake up early, end the day incredibly late at night, run from place to place to place, drive around New York, which is a very special kind of punishment. גם כי אלך בגיא צלמות לא אירא רע כי אתה עמדי. Having to go on some of those highways is a form of tremendous punishment. It's grueling on the body, but why do we go, why do we do it? Because it's two days, two and a half days this year of nourishing the soul. You walk away with goosebumps from those conversations, from those moments, from sitting at that Kumzitz. You walk away alive, your soul eats enough to stay full. Halevai it lasted the whole year. Halevai it lasted the whole year, but it's nourished for a little bit, the soul's full. So אדם לעשות חשבון הנפש מה מצבו באמונה. We have to ask ourselves: how's your Emunah doing? If it's not doing well, what are we doing to fix it, to nurture it, to nourish it? If it's doing well, why is it doing well? I'm not judging, this isn't a statement about Yekkes or people who struggle to be emotional, and everyone has the way that they were, that they were, that they grew up, everyone has their own genetics of where they come from. I'm not making a comment or statement about that, and I don't remember where I first saw this, but I found it profound then, maybe for obvious reasons. But I once read that tears are the sweat of the soul. What the sweat represents of the body: when you're sitting and you're stationary and you're stagnant, you don't sweat; you're just sitting doing nothing, you don't sweat. When you're active, when you're working out, when your muscles are engaged, when your heart is racing, is when you sweat, and tears are the equivalent of the soul. When the soul is asleep, it doesn't cry; when the soul is asleep, it doesn't feel, it doesn't emote; when the soul is asleep, when the soul's in a coma, when the soul is sedated, when the soul is unmoved and uninspired by anything happening around it, it doesn't cry, it doesn't feel. But tears, tears are the sweat of the soul. When the soul is exercised, when the soul is working out, when the soul is challenged, when the soul is growing, the soul cries. The tears are the sweat of the soul. So what's the cheshbon hanefesh? Mah matzavo be'emunah? What is the matzav? Nu, what's your matzav? How's your soul? How's your neshamah? Now I'm not suggesting you can do that with a mere acquaintance. I'm not saying when the, what do they call it, barista at Starbucks asks for your order, you start asking how's your soul? I'm not suggesting that you just do it lightly. But with someone that you can be vulnerable with and that you care about and that you want to have a deeper connection with beyond the body - there are body relationships, there are relationships just of the external, of the form, and there are soul relationships. There are soul relationships. We actually have this expression. We describe somebody that we're very close with and feel connected with as a yedid nefesh. A yedid nefesh. I have a few people in my life who are yedid nefesh. Yedid nefesh. Your ultimate yedid nefesh hopefully is your spouse, to whom you're the most vulnerable, you confide, you trust, and your soulmate, literally your soulmate. But there are other people, less so but also intensely, that they're yedid nefesh. They're yedid nefesh. You're vulnerable, you have late night conversations, you're real, you can take off the mask, you let them see the true you, you push each other and you, and you grow together, you challenge each other. Yedid nefesh. Who's the greatest yedid nefesh? We sing about him on Friday night and again at Shalosh Seudos. Who's the greatest yedid nefesh? ידיד נפש אב הרחמן. The greatest friend of the soul is our Father in Heaven. ידיד נפש אב הרחמן. ידיד נפש אב הרחמן. The greatest yedid nefesh, the greatest friend, the most non-judgmental friend, the most trusted reliable friend, the greatest friend we have that we can absolutely unburden ourselves, make ourselves vulnerable, confide, cry, yell, scream, protest, the greatest yedid nefesh is ידיד נפש אב הרחמן. We describe, we describe Hashem as our yedid nefesh. He's the best friend of the soul. The soul has, the body has all kinds of friends. The body has all, the manicurist and the chef and the maitre d' and the, the body has all kinds of good friends. But who is the best friends of the soul? Does your soul have any friends? Are you friends with your soul? Can your soul count on you, or is your soul screaming: hi, I'm here, don't forget about me, don't neglect me, don't starve me, don't dehydrate me! Hi, I'm here! I'm here! I want to cry a little bit. Wake me up! I'm here! Are we decent friends to our soul? עד כמה אני זוכר את השם בחיי היום יום? How much do we think about, how much do we remember Hashem in our daily life? On an average day, how much do we invoke, do we remember, do we surrender, do we think about Hashem? The email, the letter writer says every day, but certainly every three months waiting in the doctor's office, waiting long hours to be called in to find the results and her fate, she's thinking about Hashem. Ki atah imadi. Ein od milvado. Every day of treatment, ein od milvado. But every day while we're waiting, every day while we're longing, every day while we're experiencing incredible joy and happiness. כמה פעולות אני תולה בכוחות עצמי וכוחות של אנשים קרוצי חומר כמוני. Right, the opposite is: how much of the day do I spend in any given day not crediting Hashem, but crediting myself and other people. How much of my day? This person made me wait, I can't believe it! Instead of saying, this was Hashem's plan. This was Hashem's plan. They didn't have a kosher meal for me, I can't believe it! What's the matter with them? This was Hashem's plan. You gotta go to the backup stash. This was Hashem's plan. No Jew travels without a backup stash. You gotta go to the backup stash. So, oft- we spend the whole day getting frustrated by and angry with people instead of realizing this was the divine plan. Crediting and thanking and honoring instead of realizing they're just an agent and a shliach of Hashem. Now don't get me wrong, when someone does something wrong in their job we should hold them accountable. Human beings have free will, they make choices, we should also hold them accountable, but not at the expense of also realizing it's from Hashem. And when someone does something wonderful and great and gets something done, we should say thank you and we should honor what they did for us, but not at the expense of realizing that who gave them, הוא הנותן לך כח לעשות חיל, who gave them the wisdom, the strength, the skill, the talent to get done what they did? Hashem. It's not either-or, it's not a binary choice. We can and should both hold accountable and thank people in this world for what they do, but also simultaneously and much more importantly and much more loudly and vociferously recognize and thank Hashem. So there's two ways to live your life. You can go through every day where Hashem is everywhere, or you can go through your day where Hashem is nowhere. And the answer to that is not determined by your Shacharis, Mincha, and Maariv. That's a given and that's easy. It's easy to sit with the siddur and find Hashem in those words. What happens when you close the siddur and you go to work, or the gym, or the supermarket? You close the siddur and you then go into the dining room or living room or playroom or bedroom. Does Hashem come with you? Is he part of the conversation? Is he remain a Yedid Nefesh by your side? That needs a cheshbon hanefesh, a daily check-in. So when it comes to your body, once a year is good enough for a physical. Many don't even do that, but you have to. You have to do your screening, you have to do your testing, you never know what one's going to find, you want to find it early, everyone has to. You have to. One of the challenges of Corona where how many people didn't die or suffer from Corona, but in the two or three years that they delayed and didn't get their testing they needed, something terrible happened. It's one of the things that's not being spoken about, about Corona. With all the fear that we instilled and distancing and staying away and what could happen, and I'm not saying it was wrong, at the time it seemed like the best, people pushed off or cancelled their annual testing that was needed in all kinds of things and didn't catch things early and were not on top of themselves and you need to be. You need to be. Ad kan public service announcement. So, once a year is good enough for a physical. Once a year. But a spiritual? Once an hour, once a day, once a week, month, but you need a spiritual much much more often, a cheshbon hanefesh. Where am I and how am I doing and how am I feeling and what am I going to do about it? Cause that's what matters and that's the real me. That is the real me, that's who I am, that's what my life is about. I say before every funeral that I have the privilege and honor to officiate at, and I say that because Hashem has given me the greatest gift and the greatest job and as difficult and challenging as it is, the most rewarding. And I learn this from my own mentors, I don't take the credit for it myself, but I say to every family member, including the most recent one and the young people who had to hear it, I say: what we're about to do is the hardest thing in your whole life, but you need to know that your mother or father or spouse or God forbid child, they didn't die, their body died. They didn't die. Their body that was sick and struggling, their body that was temporary, their body gave out, their body died. They, she, he, I use their name, did not die. And what we're about to do, there's no sound worse in the entire world than the first earth of shovel on top of a casket or no casket, it's the worst sound that exists in the world. And I say: you need to know that we're about to bury their body, we're not burying them. We're burying their body, we're not burying them. And all the rules and all the laws that surround that moment of yetzias haneshama, there is no word for death in the Talmud. Judaism, we don't talk about misa, we don't talk about death. Our rabbis have a different expression, a different term, they talk about instead yetzias haneshama, the extraction of the soul. The soul is housed in that body for, Dovid HaMelech said if we're lucky seventy years, eighty years, the average lifespan today and tragically, tragically as our community right now knows too well much shorter than that, but all of it is a blip in the screen, all of that is tremendously finite and fleeting in the span of eternity. Our soul has existed since the first days of creation and will exist forever, and it's housed with the body for a very short time, and when Hashem determines it's right, yetzias haneshama he takes it out. And the neshama lives forever through us and through our memories and through our ideas. And in fact, two weeks ago's parsha the Zohar says souls came down at Matan Torah, a description that the souls came down and were present. And we have a tradition that whenever we make a simcha our loved ones, this is not some like rabbinic hyperbole, rabbinic exaggeration, the rabbi needs something to say under the chuppah so he says even those who are not physically here their presence is felt today, blah blah blah, go to speech number 103. It's not just a rabbinic, you know, speech, press whatever, press here. The Zohar says that that soul which is immortal and lives forever, that left this earth when it was extracted from the body, comes down and pays visits. When? At a simcha. That's why we have a tradition some have that we leave an invitation to a simcha on the top of a matzeiva. I've been to visit my grandparents' matzeiva and found my cousin's invitation to their children's wedding on top of the matzeiva. You visit a matzeiva and you put the invitation. You're invited. Now the soul doesn't need the invitation. I don't know how you do it on an e-invite. I've no idea. Right, it's easier in the cloud. The e-invite is in the cloud, it's even easier. Even easier. So I don't know how you do it with an e-invite, but with a printed invitation, there are people who have the tradition you go to the cemetery and you put it on top of the matzeiva. You're invited, I know you will be there, and I will feel your presence there. The neshama, people don't die. Bodies die, people don't die. We need to know that and feel that and feel the connection with those souls which are not part of our memory, they're not part of history, they're part of our present. We're continuing to connect and speak to and talk to. They're part of our life. Why am I saying all that? Because it's important to sit, to share it now. But also because when we look and reflect on our own lives, when we're doing the cheshbon hanefesh of who are we, we're who we see in the mirror. Yes. We're who we see in the mirror. We're the body that needs the lab result, and needs to take care of itself physically, and needs to work out in the gym, that needs to keep up with the style and the fashion and look decent. We're all that, but that's not who we are. That's temporary, that's fleeting, and that one day will be worm food. The real us that is forever is the neshama inside. It's invisible. And do we spend even a fraction of the time nurturing and loving and thinking about the neshama that we do on the body? How much time do we spend on how we look and how we feel and how much we weigh and what we're going to eat and how much did we sleep and did we keep up with the fashion and when are we getting the next sheitel? How much do we spend on our body time and money and attention, and how much do we spend on our neshama? Because the body's only here temporary, the neshama will be forever. Are we thinking about our neshama? Are we invested in our neshama? Are we crediting Hashem? Az haneshama is speaking, עד כמה בוערת בי האמונה והרצון להתקרב אל השם יתברך, how much does it burn in me, the desire to come close and connect to Hashem? How much? Last night we held a dialogue, debate, a conversation about antisemitism with Ben Shapiro, Yair Rosenberg, went much longer than I anticipated. It was a four-hour conversation we had in two hours by the speed they spoke. But even two hours was a very long time. But before we went out, we're sitting in my office, I won't tell you how many people tried to get past security guards to take a picture with one of them, both of them, one of them, one of them, one of them. I thought to myself, everybody wants a picture, somebody's famous, someone's a celebrity. Do we take a picture with Hashem? You can take a picture with Hashem every day, every moment, whenever you want. There are no bodyguards, there's no security, you don't need credentials, you don't need a backstage pass. Every one of us can take a picture with Hashem any moment. Is it cool? Does it help? Is it a commodity? Does it help our credibility? Do we post it? Do we share it? Have you ever seen anyone write on social media, you'll never believe who I just met with? You'll never believe who I just spoke to? You'll never believe who I just got in with and spent time with? And then everyone would ask who, who, post it, what, where, show me! You write Hashem. Ah, I thought it was going to be someone cool. I thought it was going to be someone special. He's the creator of the universe, the source of all things, the arbiter of our destiny. Do we spend any time? Do we sneak in backstage? You don't have to sneak. Anytime, anywhere, in any moment, you have access. You can speak to Him. So do we have the tshuka, do we have the burning drive and burning desire? When we're far away, does it bother us and disturb us and do we want to fix it and connect? Some of us want to make this much money, some of us want to lose this much weight, some of us want to meet these many people, some of us want this many children in our family. We have ambition and drive. Is Hashem part of it? Is Hashem part of our she'ifos? Is he part of our aim and part of our goals? Rabbi Eli Sadan is the founder of the Yeshiva in Eli, the Mechina in Eli. So there once incredible stories coming out of Israel, the Sderoter, amazing stories of soldiers, Roy Klein, others who heroically jumped on grenades, who lost their lives protecting fellow soldiers, Jewish people, the crazy stories of heroism. And one thing I noticed in reading articles about them all, so many of them learned, studied in the Yeshiva and the Mechina in Eli. So I said to myself, I got to find out what's going on over there. There's something special happening. So on a trip in Israel, I went without an armored car to Eli and met with Rabbi Eli Sadan. Just wanted to find out what was going on. And he's an extraordinary person, he then came for a Shabbos here, some of you may remember, and the curriculum in Eli is all about these topics: emunah, bitachon, dveikus, mesiras nefesh, Am Yisrael. It's all about these topics. It permeates everything they learn and study: Chumash, Gemara, Halacha, Machshava, Chassidus. Everything's bottom line is what does that do for who we are, molding and shaping how we think, our character, how we live, feeling Hashem, feeling our responsibility to serve him, to work for him, our responsibility to Klal Yisrael. So he told me the following, I've shared it years ago, but I'll share it again. He told me on the first day, the new recruits, the new boys that come in, they sit down, there's a piece of paper and a pen on every desk, and he says to them, I want you to write where you picture yourself in five years. What's your dream, what's your goal, what's your aspiration? Jacob. What's your aspiration in five years from now? Who do you want to be, what do you want your life to look like? Write it down. They all write it down, they all scribble and write and they all hand it in. And then he takes it and he goes through it and he looks through it and he flips the pages. And then he responds. Every year it goes the same way. If you're planning on going to Mechina in Eli, don't listen, don't skip it, don't spoil it. Every year it goes the same way. What happens? Starts reading them, and he shares with the boys, you know, they all look the exact same way. I want to serve in the army and survive and get out and serve my people and I want it to be safe and I want I love my fine. Then they all write the same thing. I want to find an amazing wife who's beautiful and smart and charming and shares my values and I want a nice house with a white picket fence and I want this many children and I want a good job and I want right? In five years this is the life I want. And he hands it back to them and he says, what in this, your mission statement, your dreams, your aspirations, reflects that you believe in Hashem? What in this shows your years of Jewish education that you grew up in a Torah home? How is this different than the aspiration, the dreams, the goals of any secular kid anywhere? And his goal, he says, is by the time they graduate, they finish Eli and go into the army, that the dream and aspiration reads differently. I want to be married in a family and a white picket fence, but I want to be a leader in my community, making a difference to the vulnerable, I want to learn Torah and grow in my connection to Hashem, I want to be it has to reflect that we're molded and shaped by Torah values. Who are we? Who are we? Do our aspirations and dreams, do they look just like anybody else, or do they reflect that we're Torah personalities and we're Torah people, and that we live with emunah and we live with bitachon? עד כמה אני מקיים את המצווה התמידית של ואהבת את ה' אלוהיך? Are we really fulfilling this mitzvah of love Hashem? Love Hashem by talking to him, by spending time with him, love Hashem by seeing him, love Hashem by involving him, love Hashem by acknowledging him, love Hashem by being your soul, not just by being your body. I will just say in ending, he's talking about, he's talking about Shema and the self-awareness of Hashem and of our soul that has to do with Shema. So I'll tell you an incredible insight by the Klausenberger that I heard from Mori Ve-Rabbi Rav Asher Weiss from his Rebbe, the Klausenberger. When we say Shema, we cover our eyes. Why do we cover our eyes when we say Shema? So the classic understanding is because Shema's קבלת עול מלכות שמיים. It's accepting and yielding to the divine presence in our lives. קבלת עול מלכות שמיים. Accepting upon ourselves the yoke of heaven. Hashem is in charge, Hashem is in control, we work for him, he doesn't work for us. We submit, we surrender to him. קבלת עול מלכות שמיים Hashem, I accept you, I see you, I feel you, I have a relationship with you. קבלת עול מלכות שמיים. So why do we cover our eyes? Because that is so important and that is so critical, I can’t be distracted, I can’t be looking around, I can’t be seeing something else, focused exclusively on Hashem. So we cover our eyes and say Shma Yisrael, listen, hear, understand, Yisrael. Who’s the Jew I’m speaking to? I’m all alone in a room, who am I talking to? Who is the Yisrael? Me! The Pintele Yid, the soul in me. Shma the Yisrael is Shma, hey moron, loser, wake up! Shma listen already, wake up! Yisrael, the Pintele Yid in you. You, the soul that keeps going to sleep, wake up! You, body, get out of the way, I’m speaking to the soul right now. Shma not Yaakov, Shma Yisrael. Yaakov is the external, Yaakov is the guf, the body. Yaakov is the Akev, Yaakov is the heel. Not external. Body, get out of the way, body you go to sleep, body give us a moment, I want to talk to the soul. Shma not Yaakov, Shma Yisrael. Yisrael, neshama, soul, Pintele Yid, wake up! I have something to tell you. What do I want to tell you? Hashem, haya hoveh v’yiyeh, Elokeinu, God the source of all, God who’s in control of all, Elokeinu, He’s your God. He’s here for you. He’s involved in your life. And at the same time Hashem Echad. Everything you see and experience there’s a unity it all comes back together, there’s one Hashem. So that is so important, that exercise is so critical, beshokhbekha uvekumekha when we go to sleep and when we wake up it’s so important that we have to cover our eyes in order to focus when we say it. But the Kloisenberger who lost his wife and thirteen children in the Shoah, the Kloisenberger who then went on to build and rebuild a dynasty of Kloisenberger Chassidim in Union, New Jersey then later in Netanya and all over the world. Said the heilige Kloisenberger, you know why we cover our eyes when we say Shma? Because sometimes we look around at what’s going on and it’s hard to say קבלת עול מלכות שמיים. You come from the funeral of a nine-year-old girl and you read about, in your heartbreaks, the funeral of six and eight-year-old boys murdered by terrorists guilty only of the crime of being Jewish, whose father we daven from the bottom of our hearts for, who’s still hanging on by a thread, and you say how can I say Shma Yisrael, קבלת עול מלכות שמיים, where, Hashem, where are You? Where are You and what are You doing and why are You doing this and how, how dare You do this to people I love? So we have to cover our eyes. Sometimes to really, in those moments, practice emuna, in those moments to really see and feel His presence, we have to cover our eyes and not look around. In those moments you have to not see in order to be able to say the words שמע ישראל ה' אלוהינו ה' אחד, to have a קבלת עול מלכות שמיים. So as much as we have to do a cheshbon hanefesh, as much as we have to see and work and feel, even Hashem understands. You know that an onen, an onen is a person between death and burial. When one loses one of the seven relatives, mother, father, brother, sister, husband or wife, son or daughter, one of the seven relatives, person who will grieve and mourn formally, avelus, first becomes an onen between death and burial. An onen is not allowed to eat meat or drink wine and an onen is forbidden from doing mitzvos. An onen, for those who have been there, know how awkward it feels to not say a bracha, to not daven, to not put on tefillin. What do you mean you’ve been trained? You have to be reminded, you have to be reminded, you’re not allowed to. It’s a machlokes Rashi Tosafos in the third perek of Moed Katan, there’s a big discussion, but we pasken, it’s not simply that the onen is exempt, the onen is forbidden, not allowed, not allowed. Why not? So Tosafos says because the onen should be exclusively focused on the arrangements, the preparation, writing the hesped, what needs to get done. But then Tosafos also alludes you know why else why not? Because God said in that moment I’ve taken someone, something so precious, so irreplaceable from you, I don’t expect you to feel close to Me right now. So I’m going to give you a moment until that body’s in the ground and the neshama is able to come on high until you have that closure that you see that the body was just temporary. Going to bury the body, the body’s going to return to the dust from which it came, the earth of which it came, and you have the closure of the body going back into the ground and now the soul can flourish and blossom and fly unencumbered, not compromised, and the soul can now go back up where it belongs, then you’ll come back to Me, but until then between death and burial during aninus Hashem says I get it, I understand, I’m giving you your space. We cover our eyes sometimes because it’s hard to see the pain, to feel the pain, to look around at this world and say שמע ישראל ה' אלוהינו ה' אחד, but we have to say it nonetheless. We have to say it nonetheless, it’s all Hashem, it doesn’t get better. Just exactly because Hashem works in incredible ways, I got a book in the mail. Just last week. The author who I've met in the past, who please God we'll have, Rabbi Asher Resnick, who had a child who was diagnosed at a young age, was diagnosed at I think two and then passed away years later. She had leukemia. I don't know the dates. But he wrote a book about the experience. Happened back in 1999 called Pain is Reality, Suffering is a Choice. Pain is reality and suffering is a choice. And he tackles these topics and it's too soon. I'm not suggesting for us, let alone for the people who are literally suffering right now. He didn't write this during his shiva, he didn't write this during his shloshim, he didn't write this during the first year, he didn't write this during the first decade. One doesn't write such a book immediately. But what a gift from Hashem that someone writes such a book and gives us the vocabulary and the tools to help try to process. Right? The subtitle, Pain is Reality, Suffering is a Choice, and the subtitle is Grappling with Divine Justice. How do you say Shema Yisrael? How do you grapple with divine justice? Why does he do these things? It's on all of our minds and all of our hearts and we're struggling with it. But we struggle with it in conversation with our Yedid Nefesh. Sometimes a friend disappoints us, but if we cherish that friendship, we challenge the friend, and we lean into the friend, and we try to fix it with the friend instead of running away from the friend of our soul, the Yedid Nefesh. So we daven for strength for all of us, most of all for the people who are suffering and struggling the most, Hashem should provide the strength and the comfort to be able to make sense and get through. All are invited tonight at 8:00 PM. Dr. Fox, who's a world-renowned talmid chacham, incredible individual, but also a world-renowned specialist in trauma, who works with Chai Lifeline, he'll be speaking at 8:00 to help us process and give us some vocabulary and tools. All are invited, encouraged to come to help us and to help us help our children. That's at 8:00 tonight, and I hope to see you there. Until next time, stay happy, stay healthy, and stay holy.
