Transcript
Okay good morning boker tov welcome back to the Living with Emunah shiur thank you for your flexibility Baruch Hashem for a good reason we'll be traveling back from a wedding so can't do the shiur Wednesday morning appreciate everyone's flexibility moving it to this morning and it's great to see those in person and those who are only able to watch online wherever they are we wish them lots of bracha v'hatzlacha the Emunah shiur this morning is generously sponsored by Doctors Avi and Bella Morgan in memory of Rabbi Dr. Brian Galbut in memory of Bella's mother Dr. Ellen Schanz we remain very very grateful to the Morgans for their generosity okay we got a lot to a lot to cover a lot to learn Baruch Hashem the emails have been flowing in I love when people share their Emunah story it is able to take our learning and to apply it to manifest it into action and to inspire and elevate all of us to do the same that the Emunah is not just theoretical or abstract or conceptual it's not just academic there's a God we can study the evidence here's the proof here's the much trying to make the argument for His existence but how can we know it in our kishkes how can we feel it how can we express it how do we talk to Him how do we hear Him talking to us how do we live with Hashem on a regular basis I want to share with you this morning got a lot of emails to catch up we're not going to read them all today but I want to share one from one of our members and our friend and I believe he says we could use his name so this was written a long time ago I always wondered when people say Gam zu letovah the simple translation is this too is good I always thought that the English translation of it is for the best was equally strange it seems like an expression to help rationalize or explain that you didn't get something that you wanted like a child who asks for their favorite red lollipop and is given a yellow or green one instead or you lose a bid for a house you wanted or you didn't get the promotion you thought you wanted and you were in contention for so Gam zu letovah you reluctantly accept you resign yourself you hide your potential disappointment you know what I mean it happens to everyone many times in life you read many stories of people often gedolim for which an incident happened and it changed their life in some way and you wonder about it I'm a God-fearing Orthodox Jew but also a scientist rational human being who needs to have things proven to him I'm going to tell you a real story writes the author a story someone you know someone who's a believer in Gam zu letovah as well as personal God oversight hashgacha pratis I'll also give you my name but I'm not going to read it because I don't have total confirmation to use it story begins at the end of March 2015 before Pesach I'd caught a cold and I had a small pain in my side I went to the doctor who prescribed antibiotics for the cold and after looking at my side noticed a rash and quickly diagnosed it as shingles but I complained I had taken the shingles shot three years ago it's not 100 percent effective said the doctor it looks like a mild case should be done within three to four weeks he prescribed an anti-viral pill told me to take Aleve and Motrin for the pain and said he'd add to the regimen if it got worse over the next few days it got progressively and exceedingly worse I couldn't lie down for any long period of time without pain I called the doctor and he prescribed a heavy-duty painkiller and another drug to soothe the nerves that had been inflamed by the shingles the seders were difficult as I would stand and walk around frequently just to ease the pain the pain was getting worse I called the doctor again after Pesach and he told me to increase the frequency in which I take the painkiller I asked if there was any possibility there was another problem that was causing the pain his reply was the chances of another problem in the exact same area was one in a million the pain will start to decrease soon he promised two weeks later I called the doctor again since I saw no relief and the pain was as bad as ever I sounded like I was a kvetcher a complainer the doctor saw me a few days later and said it was clear to him it was shingles there was no other organ near where I was complaining about the pain he reiterated that the chances of another issue were slim now saying it was one in 10 million however given how long the pain had persisted and how I felt the doctor relented he scheduled a CAT scan for the following week to make sure he was not overlooking anything doctor called me four hours later after the scan was completed and told me good news and bad news the good news is there's nothing near where I'm complaining about the pain but the bad news is there is a tumor on one of my kidneys I should see a urological surgeon as soon as possible thank you for the sound effects very helpful the urologist said it's an incidental or accidental finding a tumor so I say what is an incidental finding he says it's something that we find only accidentally there's no blood test or other standard test that would uncover it it can be a killer tumor that grows very slowly it is nearly always malignant and 99 percent of the time does not spread to other organs nodes bones or anything else until it's much larger mine was small at this time he was surprised that the pain encouraged the doctor to order the CAT scan but said the urologist I was very lucky tumors contained relatively small can be easily removed so why did Hashem make me suffer with shingles pain for weeks the answer Gam zu letovah if I hadn't suffered I would have never gotten the CAT scan the tumor would have never been uncovered do I believe that absolutely the pain dramatically decreased within two days after the scan was taken it had done its job warning me was the shingles pain for the best unfortunately I must say yes so how am I no surgery is minor no surgery is pain-free mine was no exception. The tumor the size of a quarter was removed. I had my share of ups and downs. I'm writing this note three weeks after the surgery, this was written a long time ago. With the tumor gone, I'm doing the things I used to do, certain activities still cause me pain but the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel is there, like any other medical issue the doctor will monitor me over time but there are no other treatment plans or expected. I think back over this episode and I'm grateful. At the end of Shemonah Esrei on Rosh Hashanah we say, may You cleanse us with abundant mercy, but not through suffering or serious illness. No question I had some suffering. But it was clearly through abundant mercy; without the shingles suffering, things could have been a lot worse. Yes, I plan to dance quite a bit at my daughter's upcoming wedding, mazel tov, which happened a few years ago. So when something annoying happens to you don't be too quick to ignore the message. Hashem is watching over you personally, gam zu letova. So it's quite an amazing story. Instead of why me, why me suffering the shingles, shingles pain was the best thing that ever happened. Had he not had the pain he wouldn't have insisted on the CAT scan, the CAT scan, the tumor had nothing to do with the shingles or the pain. They were totally unrelated. It was an incidental finding that was precipitated only by the pain of the shingles that brought about that discovery. And Baruch Hashem it did for that person. Again, our gam zu letova, our suffering, it doesn't always reveal itself in that moment. Four hours after his CAT scan it became very clear why he was in pain. We often can go four weeks, four months, four years, four decades or for lifetimes without knowing why we had to endure the pain that we endured. But that attitude or that perspective, the gam zu letova, the living with emunah is, I don't know why, I don't welcome it, I don't want it, but it's not random. Nothing is random. Everything is for a reason, it's all curated and choreographed from above, everything is carefully, carefully designed from Hashem and even the suffering. Not only the pleasure, but even the suffering is somehow, somehow for our best. Sometimes it's revealed to us why and most often it's not. But if we go through it with the attitude and the mentality of gam zu letova, Hashem this is Your ride, it's Your adventure, I'm just along and I can't wait to see and discover what's going to happen and maybe even understand one day why. But until then it can give us the courage and the faith and the fortitude and the resilience to get through and go through whatever we need to in life even as difficult as it is. Shall we read one more before we get into the okay, I know you don't even come for me, you don't even come for the Torah, you come for the stories. I'm basically just a conduit to share emunah stories each week. It's my greatest honor and pleasure. Okay, we'll read another one. I've been listening to your Emunah and Parsha shiurim for years, the weekly shiurim has really helped me at difficult blah blah blah blah blah. I want to share a story that hasn't yet come to the happy ending but that my husband and I have been working through. Tell me if I read this one last week, I don't remember or two weeks ago. After our third child we discovered we're both carriers of the same genetic mutation and realized we needed to do PGD for future pregnancies. I didn't read it. PGD is preimplantation genetic diagnosis. Thank God we live in miraculous times where when people are carriers even of a genetic disease we have the ability in a laboratory for conceived embryos to examine them and only implant the one or ones that don't carry that disease. So whereas previously I grew up I had a rabbi who had a rabbi growing up who unfortunately he and his wife were both Tay-Sachs carriers and the whole community suffered with them and felt their pain when several times they had Tay-Sachs babies that didn't make it. Which was tragic. Today fast forward Baruch Hashem, Baruch Hashem we have medical breakthrough with the gift of Hashem, PGD, preimplantation genetic diagnosis, a couple do IVF and they examine the embryos and they look for the healthy ones and they only implant the healthy ones eliminating the possibility of carrying one that has a genetic disease or a genetic mutation. Interesting, fascinating halachic questions arise because once you're examining them can you decide you're going to put in the boy or the girl? Can you decide you're going to put in the blond hair or the or the brunette? Can you decide to examine for athleticism, artistic ability or intelligence? How ethical to go through the embryos and not only choose when you're testing the genetics which one doesn't have the disease, once you're testing the genetics can you say this one's going to be six three, this one would be four foot nine? No judgment, I'm not even going to say which one you would want to put in. How's that for no judgment? But how far can you take once you have the genetic understanding? It's very interesting. So the author of this email writes that after the third child they are both carriers of the same genetic mutation. This past month we started the exhausting regimen of daily injections and driving every other day to the best hospital an hour and a half away. Simultaneously our semi-attached neighbor has been in the middle of a giant renovation and we've been working tremendously hard to be flexible with the inevitable challenges that occur when living on a construction site. When we returned from our egg retrieval procedure we discovered a wall between our properties that was not the type that we had agreed and signed upon. A wall that was built improperly on our side. Things started to escalate as we demanded the wall be rebuilt according to the plans yet we tried so hard to think of long-term relationship that we wanted to preserve post-renovation. Within the craziness my son had surgery Sunday morning which thank God ended up being less invasive than planned. While sitting in the waiting room we spoke about another couple that we had met at the hospital. Remember we spoke a few weeks ago, Rabbi D., that quote, if you'd pay a shiva call years later, don't sever the tie in the first place. Right? That there were friends he had online who they had stopped talking to one another during Corona because they had different views of the lockdown and shutdown, and they didn't talk. And then when three of his family members, his wife and two daughters, were murdered, those same friends now came to pay a shiva call. And one of the many, many incredible messages that Rabbi D. shared publicly during shiva and after is: If you'd pay a shiva call to someone if they lost a good part of their family to a terror event, then don't wait for that to happen to talk again. Don't not talk in the first place. That's a message. I went upstairs and my husband sat alone, working really hard to be mevater, to be forgiving, foregoing. When he told me he was ready to be mevater, I said to go back downstairs and daven for the other couple's success at PGD. Because when you are mevater or silent when you could hit back, it's a special time for tefillah. We have—I'm going to intersperse this email with some thoughts and sources—but the Gemara tells us that a person, le'olam, a person should always be מן הנעלבים ואינן עולבים שומעים חרפתם ואינם משיבים. You should always be among those who, when insulted, just absorb it, just accept it, just receive it, and never lash out back. You got a nasty text, you got a strongly worded email, you got a harsh phone call, someone in a meeting or a public place unloaded on you. In that moment, you could go one of two ways. You could decide, yeah, you started with me? You have no idea who you're messing with. I'm going to punch back twice as hard. I'm going to escalate the entire thing. I'm going to write something even stronger. I'm going to bad-mouth you even worse. I'm going to scream even louder. I'm going to punch even harder. Or Chazal say, you can show you're really stronger than the other party. How do you show you're stronger than the other party? Scream louder? Punch harder? You show you're stronger than the other party when you have the capacity to just stay quiet. We say in our davening every day in Az Yashir, מי כמוכה באלים ה'. And the Gemara says, Mi chamocha, not ba'eilim Hashem—who is as strong as You—but Mi chamocha ba'ilmim. The word ileim means mute, silent. Who is as strong as You, God, that You remain silent? And nobody could punch back harder than God. When Titus Harasha, Titus the wicked general, entered the Beit HaMikdash and desecrated it, when he slept with a harlot on an open Sefer Torah in the Kodesh HaKodashim—whatever you could imagine is the worst sin a person could do as an affront to blaspheme the Almighty, he did that and more that Baruch Hashem your imagination can't go. And what did Hashem do in response? What did Hashem do in retaliation? What did Hashem do in revenge? Gornisht. Nothing. He was quiet. Until years later, when he had a little gnat crawl into the ear and ring in his ear incessantly, that ruined his life. We have a disease named for Titus today called tinnitus. There's an article in a medical journal that argues that the etymology, the origin of the name tinnitus, is from Titus, Titus Harasha, this gnat that God had crawl into his ear, because harbei sheluchim lamakom. God can take you down in many ways, including a little fly; a little gnat can be an agent of the Almighty. He can use whatever He wants as a medium. So the Gemara concludes that just like Hashem, Mi chamocha ba'eilim, Mi chamocha ba'ilmim, you're insulted, you just take it in stride. You don't have to lash out back. You don't have to respond. You don't have to respond. You know, I only learned recently that not every text or email deserves a response. I used to think I have—I pride myself in trying to get back to everyone, trying to get back to everyone. And there's so many mediums and things come through in so many ways. It's hard, but trying to get back to everyone. And then you realize, you know, only people who speak to you respectfully deserve a response. Not everything needs or deserves the response. Mi chamocha ba'ilmim. Nenalavim ve'einan ovim. The Chafetz Chaim quotes a tradition that if a person is insulted, if a person is offended, if a person is hyper-criticized unjustly, publicly, in an embarrassing way, and you don't answer, oh, there's no bigger segula in the world. That person is right then empowered with an incredible capacity to give a bracha. Go get a bracha from such a person in that moment. Nenalavim ve'einan ovim. You're insulted and you don't strike back. You just absorb it. It's fine. Someone hangs a post of you, someone writes something untrue online about you, somebody sends something nasty to you. Okay. Okay. Actually, today's Daf Yomi, today's Daf Yomi had an amazing story. It was talking about the humility of one of the great rabbis who said, I thought I was humble until I came across somebody else, and I realized what humility really is. And what was the story about the other party? The other party gave a shi'ur, and in the old days, they would give shi'ur and there was a meturgeman. Right next to them, there was a translator, a person who would make accessible the teaching to the masses. The meturgeman, the translator. So the wife of the maggid shi'ur and the... wife of the meturgeman are speaking. And the wife of the meturgeman, the translator, says to the wife of the one giving the shiur, says, you know, my husband is as smart, smarter than your husband. He doesn't really need to translate, he really knows it without your husband saying it, he just plays that role right now. So the other wife comes home and says, could you believe what she told me? Could you believe how she's insulting you? And you know what he answered? It's a great expression, I once wrote an article about this. She answered, what other people say about me and think about me is none of my business. What do we care lemai nafka mina? What's the difference? So he thinks that he knows the Torah as well, that he could give the shiur? Maybe he can. Who cares? What he thinks, what she thinks, is none of our business. What other people think about me is none of my business. Keep your head down, do your thing, you have to live with what the Almighty thinks. If you're married you have to live with what your spouse and family think, and that's who you should care about. When you look in the mirror, can you live with yourself? Can you live with Hashem, can you live with your loved ones? What the person who hung the poster, what the person who writes the nasty thing, what the person who sent the text, what they think about you, is none of your business. It's none of your business. Okay, back to our story, back to the email. So what's that, that's all the background that he had decided he would be mevater the neighbor. The neighbor did something unjust, built something improper, and he decided that he was going to be mevater. He'd let it go, just let it go. Don't pursue it. Let it go. And in the moment of letting it go was the moment to draw from the power of the beracha. He would daven for that other couple who need the PGD, the preimplantation genetic diagnosis. The next morning my husband dealt with more issues from the neighbor. Then I got a phone call from the hospital informing me that none of the embryos made it and there were no available appointments to meet with a doctor for another few months to even consider trying again. I sat there stunned. I said, how am I going to tell my husband? After last night's conversation. Remembering the example that you told almost every week, I called my husband and I said, you know how everyone loves hashgacha pratit story of the man who missed the airplane that ended up crashing, but no one tells the story of the man on standby who got the seat and died in the crash? Well once upon a time there was a couple who were mevater to their neighbors and who davened for another couple, but they still didn't get a perfect hashgacha pratit ending. And this is our emuna story and our emuna challenge and we're going to get through this together, she told her husband. We felt a hug from Hashem the next day when we realized how He plants people in your lives for when you need them most. Months ago our original intake nurse at the hospital had given me her cell phone number in case of an emergency. I called her and she managed to get me an appointment for next week instead of mid-summer. Our story doesn't have a perfect ending yet. But my husband said that of the three crises of the week, the fact that our son's surgery went perfectly without any complications is the most important beracha we could have ever had. Thank you for the weekly shiur and me'ein chizuk. I can't imagine how I would handle the rollercoaster of the past few weeks without the ideas and stories echoing in my head from years and years of learning with you. So you know what's amazing about the stories we're reading lately is the people are not sending in emuna stories of, and then I found $2,000 in the street. And then I got a call, we davened for the other, we let go with the neighbor, and we were pregnant. We're reading emuna stories that have a stinky ending. That hurt, that are miserable, that are painful. And listen to these people. I'm just giving the shiur. It's easy what I do. The people who are putting into practice, not with the good story, and let me tell you in the end they found the tumor and not, I'm not knocking the first story, it was also amazing gam zu letova. I suffered, it was miserable, but baruch Hashem they found the tumor and I'm well. That's a story that has a happy end, baruch Hashem. But also these emails and there's more, but I want to get into the text. There's more. The stories of the people who say it stinks, I'm in pain, I'm suffering, I davened, the answer was no, and it was no again, and even when I thought it would be yes, it was no again, but you know what? I'm not going anywhere. I'm leaning in, I'm doubling down, I'm digging in my heels because I need Him more than ever. And I know with confidence that there is a reason that I'll one day learn and the story is not over yet. It's also important to remember, our stories are not over yet. If we woke up this morning rabba emunatecha, Hashem has great faith in you and in me and our story is not over yet, yet. There are more chapters to be written, the book is not closed, our story's not over yet. And so we daven, we daven for these people they should have a baby, we daven for everyone they should be healthy, we daven, we daven and daven and daven for all these stories that they should have that end, that the next chapter should be filled with beracha and hatzlacha and simcha and mazal and parnassa and gezunt and shidduchim and children and everything, everything, everything good. But these stories are absolutely incredible. Back to Tifet HaEmuna. We're learning Rav Gamliel Rabinowitz's Tifet HaEmuna and we're in the middle of this perek on page peh. We're on amud peh, page 80. The Baal Shem Tov, וסרתם ועבדתם אלוהים אחרים we say in Shema, if you pivot, if you turn and you worship other gods. What do you mean? Now you know what the וסרתם ועבדתם אלהים אחרים is? What does it mean that you serve another god? Because vesartem, because you pivoted and you turned and you stopped thinking about Hashem. And no point in the day do you put him down. When you walk into the boardroom or the operating room, when you walk into the courtroom, when you walk into the gym or you walk into the supermarket, when you walk into the doctor's office, wherever you are he's by our side. We're talking to him and we're listening to him talk to us. We're protesting and objecting and we're also thanking him because we can find even the good of the three crises, at least the most important one came out. Hashem, wow! Not, why'd you make my son have to go through the surgery? but thank you, Hashem, that the surgery went well. We take him and we talk to him wherever we go, wherever we are at all times. שויתי ה' לנגדי תמיד. Shivisi, Hashem you're opposite me always. Last week we spoke about a mother is always thinking about her children. The maternal instinct, she could be on vacation, she could be on business trip, her children could be 80 and she's 105 and she still can't fall asleep till she knows they're safe, where are they, is everything okay? Because a mother is always thinking about her children. And similarly, lehavdil, we should always be thinking about Hashem. It's part of our identity. You can never tell a mother, right now you're not a mother, you're just on vacation with me, let go of the children, they're fine I'm sure. She says, what are you talking about? I'm always a mother. I can never ever be separated from that identity. It's part of who I am, it's part of who I am. Notice I'm giving the example of the mother, not the father. When he plays golf he has no clue he has children. When he's learning bechavrusa he has no clue he has children. When he's negotiating the business deal he never heard of his children. But the mother, baruch Hashem for mothers, baruch Hashem for mothers. So vesartem. You know when it's avadetem elohim acherim, when are you worshiping another god? Simply by turning away, simply by getting distracted, simply by thinking that there's some other source, some other power. Like we spoke about, Rav Gamliel told us, we learned in Tiv HaEmunah when we first started learning this. If someone were to say to you, where do you get your paycheck? Before we learned this I would have said, Boca Raton Synagogue, Dan Katske and Hami Tanenbaum. Where do I get my paycheck? Boca Raton Synagogue. Baruch Hashem, the beautiful membership, the congregation, Boca Raton Synagogue. That's wrong. Where do I get my paycheck? Hashem. He sends me my parnassah. Who did he choose to use to give me my parnassah? Boca Raton Synagogue. We have to intuit, we have to instinctively answer that way. Where do the, it's Hashem. Everything is Hashem. Hashem is amazing. Hashem is amazing. This weather, this last two weeks, we thought it was the summer, we thought it was all over. Every time you walk outside right now and you feel that breeze, Hashem is giving you a hug. Hashem is everywhere. Just keep, thank you Hashem, halevai vaiter, let it continue, this great weather, let it continue. We're not vesartem. So you're going for a walk outside and you notice it's not yet summer even though Pesach time we thought it was already. Don't be vesartem, don't turn away and say, huh, good weather, climate change, who knew it's still cool? Say, it's Hakadosh Baruch Hu, thank you Hashem, thank you Hashem. Shivisi Hashem. ואכן עבודה קשה היא מאד לקיים הדעת אלהי אביך ועבדהו. The message of Dovid Hamelech to Shlomo was da, know, that there is a God, da, know. Now we said in Sifsei Nefash last night, Sifsei Nefash and emunah come together. We daven in אתה חונן לאדם דעת. Nusach Sefard version is give us chochmah, binah, and daas. חננו מאתך חכמה בינה ודעת. ברוך אתה ה' חונן הדעת. Give us chochmah, binah, and daas. What's the difference between the three? Spoke about last night, but daas is to know God intimately. Not to know God theoretically or conceptually, not to know God as a piece of information, to know God in a way that leads to transformation. How do you know God? You just talk about him, he's theoretical? When you have to do Chumash homework with your kid, when it's time to daven you turn the pages and say God, God, God, blah, blah, blah, Hashem, God. Or do you know God? Do you know God when your car gets hit? Your brand new car, hit and run. Do you know God when the embryo news comes back disappointing? Do you know God when you're suffering with shingles? Do you know God when there's good news? Baruch Hashem incredible news and your first reaction is oh, amazing Hashem. To know God intimately, personally, in a connected way. שויתי ה' לנגדי תמיד כמו שכתב השלחן ערוך בהגה שויתי ה' לנגדי תמיד. The Rema writes the very beginning, the Code of Jewish Law begins, wake up in the morning and start your day by knowing you're a mother. You're a mother. Don't ever stop thinking I'm a mother, I'm a father, I'm a husband, whatever, whatever your identity, it's a core identity. It should be in the background, it should be animating and informing all you do and all your day. And similarly, and even beforehand, and even more importantly. You wake up in the morning you say, "Ah, this world is not random, there's no nature, this isn't chance, there's a Hashem." And Hashem, You're opposite me always today. I can't stop thinking about You today. I can't stop thinking about You. הוא כלל גדול בתורה ומעלת הצדיקים אשר הולכים לפני האלוקים. That's the Rama, Shulchan Aruch, the Code of Jewish Law begins: before Shabbos, before Yom Kippur, before keeping kosher, before Taharas Hamishpacha, before all the laws of Jewish law, the first Halacha of the day, and it's a Halacha. The same way you have to make a Bracha before you have pizza, the same way that you can't turn on a light on Shabbos, same way that you can't eat a cheeseburger, שויתי ה' לנגדי תמיד is a Halacha. You wake up in the morning and it is the first statement of Jewish law. אין ישיבת האדם ותנועותיו והתגברותו והוא לבדו בביתו כשישב ותנועותיו ועסקו והוא לפני מלך גדול. Because you're never sitting alone. You think about yourself in a room? You think you're sitting alone? You think in the car by yourself? You're never alone. You're never ever ever alone. He's by your side. ולא דיבורו והרחבת פיו כרצונו והוא עם אנשי ביתו וקרוביו כדיבורו במושב המלך. You would never ever watch or listen or speak or say or do or express judgment when you are by alone the same way you would in front of the King, in front of aristocracy, in front of royalty with the funny hat and the golden globe thing and the interesting rituals. You would never. You would never. So we need to know that we're sitting with the King all day every day. כשישים האדם אל ליבו שהמלך הגדול הקדוש ברוך הוא אשר מלא כל הארץ כבודו עומד עליו ורואה במעשיו. When you realize He's looking over your shoulder, He's checking out how you're going to react, how you're going to respond. Someone's cursing you out, somebody wrote a nasty text, somebody's being really unfair. And Hashem is right by your side and He's holding you. He's holding you. You know sometimes NBA playoffs are going on right now, they can get pretty heated and there's certain players who are the most reactionary, let's say have the most technical fouls in a season. And every time there's an interaction with a another player, you know, they start going at each other as if they're going to go in a fight and what do you see? The coach runs on the floor. He doesn't want this player to get thrown out, he doesn't want to be suspended. We're in the playoffs, we can't afford to lose him and what do they do? The coach runs on the floor and grabs the player and holds him back and starts pulling him back to the bench. Any of you know what I'm talking about? Yeah. Thank you. I see. So there's an altercation about to occur and the coach runs on the floor and grabs the player and pulls him away: don't respond, don't say a word, don't raise a fist. We can't afford to lose you, you can't afford to lose yourself. So that's the image I have. Somebody writes you something nasty, they say something strong, they treat you in an unfair way, they hang a poster outside their house about you, theoretically. Someone does something strong against you. Someone does something very strong against you. Hakadosh Baruch Hu runs onto the floor and He grabs your arms and He pulls you away and says: don't do it, you got this, it's okay, hold yourself back, control yourself, don't lose yourself. Let me take care of this. Don't worry. Hakadosh Baruch Hu holds us back. הנעלבים ואינם עולבים שומעים חרפתם ואינם משיבים. Don't answer. Just absorb the blow. What other people think about you is none of your business. He's in charge, He's in control. In my short life, yes I still consider myself young, in my short life, I don't know, every time I've done that, Hashem knows exactly what He's doing. Just get out of the way and let Him do His thing. You think you're going to get revenge? You're going to get even? You're going to show the other person? When you do that all you do is escalate things and you both lose. You both lose. Both parties lose. There's nothing worse than machlokes. I was just dealing, unfortunately I spend too much time mediating these fights, and I was just dealing with one. Of two people going at it and I said to one, I was like, what are you doing? You both have so much bracha in your life. They're fighting over another person, what's right, what's just, what's appropriate. You both Baruch Hashem happily married, beautiful healthy families, both are by society's definition materially wealthy. Your lives are filled with such bracha. You know what the number one thing that gets rid of bracha is? The number one kryptonite or contamination, the number one thing that compromises and corrupts bracha and kills a person is getting involved in machlokes. Is taking a side, escalating, sending texts, trying to recruit people. Machlokes destroys! What are you doing? What are you doing? End the machlokes. You have a move to fight for justice so intervene in a way which is going to settle and solve, not which is going to escalate and make worse. End it. So when a person has mistreated you, when there's something unjust to you, I'm not talking about financially, if somebody stolen from you or damaged you, you're entitled to compensation. But even then don't lose yourself emotionally. Don't write or say nasty things, just do what you're entitled to do legally to recover what's coming to you. If someone slammed your car, somebody borrowed money and didn't return it, someone was dishonest with your investment in business, you're entitled to get your money back. But at that time even so don't talk to anyone about it, don't say anything about it, don't call the person... Hashem has incredible ways of working. When you get involved you're just getting in his way. So who would you rather take care of it? The infinite omnipotent all powerful God who sees and knows all or you, pathetic lowly oisvorf, emotional, can't control yourself, has bad judgment, makes terrible mistakes, mere mortal, finite. Who should, who would you rather take it? Just let the coach hold you back. Walk away. Just walk away, take a few deep breaths, catch yourself because שויתי ה' לנגדי תמיד. Just picture, just picture that scene. Hashem's grabbing you, he's pulling you away from the altercation, he's holding you back, he says come back to the bench. Come back to the bench. I got this. Just stay out of it. I'll take care of it. I got this. I got this. כי כשישים אדם על ליבו שהמלך הגדול הקדוש ברוך הוא when a person puts in their heart that Hashem who fills the whole world with his glory עומד עליו ורואה במעשיו so you're right when you feel like I'm on my own, there are people like that. There are people like that who say you know I'm a survivor, from when I was a little kid I had to fight for myself. There are many people who have very difficult complicated upbringings and backgrounds and they had to fight for themselves from they were very young. And they say you know, they use that very language, they say you know, I've had to fend for myself since as far back as I can remember. Since as long as I can remember I had to fend and fight for myself. And such a person understandably is scrappy and is a fighter. But you have to remind them you were never ever alone. Maybe there were a lot of people who abandoned you who failed you and for that our heart goes out and you deserved so much better. But you were never ever ever alone because a Yid is never alone, a Jew is never alone. Hashem sees and he cares and he knows and he's been by your side, he's got you to this point and he's going to take you to the next one. So don't ever think there's no one you could trust because people who went through that have that background struggle to trust anyone in their life. People who've been abandoned struggle to trust that the next person won't abandon them. They struggle to have meaningful relationships in marriage and parenting and friendship and partnership because they struggle. But you need to know that there is someone who's never abandoned you, who never would and never will. HaKadosh Baruch Hu is always by our side as the pasuk says in Yirmiyahu. מיד יגיע אליו היראה והכנעה בפחד השם יתברך ובושתו ממנו תמיד. A person would then live with the awareness and the knowledge and the shame and the resilience and the strength and the courage and the confidence and the faith. Hashem is always by my side whatever I have to encounter, whatever the bad news or the good news, whatever the simcha I'm waiting for or whatever I need to navigate that's complicated in my life to know that everything is for a reason. וכשמתבוננים בזה הרבה ביישוב הדעת וחיים עם זה ממש and when a person thinks about this, contemplates this. Now it's very very hard to do. It's very very hard to do this. Another email writer wrote to me saying I had the privilege of tuning into your living with emunah shiur blah blah blah thank you blah blah blah regardless of the topic, having set time to focus and cultivating emunah reminding myself the concepts you focus on is exactly what I need midweek to keep me mindful and calm no matter what the week might look like. It's not midweek this week I feel bad. It's the beginning of the week. It's good at the beginning of the week too. When you get the chance I was wondering if you had any suggestions how to work on being mindful in the sense of being present, not necessarily in regard to being mindful or intentional in different things we might do, but focused on the here and now. I find it could be challenging to stay rooted in all the bracha of the moment and not let my mind wander to the unknowns or doubts of big picture life experiences, dreams, expectations, even if I'm able to mekabel Hashem's ratzon in smaller more concrete moments when things do or do not go the way I hope. I am familiar with secular psychological mindfulness, but in a non-meditative or clinical sense I was wondering if you have any suggestions. So basically great shiur and in this shiur I'm with you, I'm right there 100%. Whatever's going on in my life, it's all from you, I'm able to absorb it, I'm able to integrate it, I'm able to process it. But then in the moment you go back to life and now something frustrating happens. The kid leaves the room a mess, the doctor comes back with not such great news, you got stuck at the red light, you missed a flight, all the things that life throws your way. All the things that life throws your way, somebody hits your car, hit and run. So in those moment how do you be mindful? How do you be mindful even not in that moment when you're cooking for Shabbos or you're sitting at your computer answering email and your mind is racing to dreams, hopes, your mind is racing to disappointments, failures. How do you remain mindful of emunah to integrate it in a meaningful way? So first of all that's what exactly what we've been learning, שויתי ה' לנגדי תמיד to practice shivisi. Hashem is opposite me always. Our Shabbos Shuva drasha I think this last year we incorporated this wonderful book. I'll post it bli neder in the in the WhatsApp group. Hishtavus how to practice shivisi, hishtavus in life and the benefit of it and we shared many. excerpts from an incredible book that has approbations from both the greatest rabbis of our generation and Deepak Chopra. Not a lot of great books have such diverse haskamas. This one does, very diverse haskamas. I'll share it in a very practical way how to practice hishtavus. How to be present, how to be mindful, how to be able to live life daily where it's not that I panic or I fear or I cry or I'm anxious and then I go to shiur once a week that gets me back to neutral, and then I panic and I fear and I'm anxious and I'm worried and I'm excited and I'm exhilarated and then I go to the emuna shiur once a week and it brings me back to neutral. That's not a healthy way to live. How do I take the shiur, not the shiur, how do I take the substance, the Torah that we're learning so that it's not information but transformation? That it changes me the whole week as I'm living with whatever is coming my way, which includes by the way people in our life. How do we when people are disappointing us in the way they're acting and reacting that we are able to maintain our our composure in the way I'm not just talking ne'elavim ve'einam elovim when we absorb the people who insult us, I mean the people who are supposed to be closest to us. How are we mevater? How do we find the strength to be foregoing in that moment? How do we lean in with emuna that Hashem I thought this was going to go one way, Hashem had different plans and he chose my spouse or child to express his different plans of how it would go. How can I navigate that communication, that relationship, that conversation in a healthier way so believing in Hashem is enormously important in that. Dr. John Gottman who you've always heard me quote, the great authority on marriage in our day says that every fight there was a conversation that needed to happen but the fight happened instead. Every fight a couple have, you could expand it to every fight in general, every time there's a fight there was a conversation that needed to happen but the fight happened instead. Emuna, believe it or not, we'll get into this in the future, the role of emuna in improving shalom bayis. But emuna can help you avoid the fight and instead have the conversation. Have the healthy conversation instead of the unhealthy, the unhealthy sabotaging and destructive the damaging the damaging fight. So Shivisi, I'll I'll post the link to the book. It's a really worthwhile book. So Shivisi from the moment we wake up until the moment we go to sleep, we're constantly retraining our mind, muscle memory, the muscle memory of emuna. That my reaction is going to be one of emuna, my processing be with emuna, the filter will be with emuna, the glasses I'm wearing to see and interpret and view the world is emuna, is Hashem. I'm not alone, I'm not going out alone, nothing's random, nothing's chance, but I'm living it all with emuna. Now there are a few other tips I'll give you in closing today in responding to this email. One thing is our mind is always racing, we're always in movement. And if you want to be centered and grounded and mindful, sometimes we need to slow down. I know we need to slow down. We're always moving and running and racing. And this is damaging us in every which way, physically, emotionally and spiritually. Physically, physically, studies show today that people are our respiratory systems, our breathing is much too shallow for what it should be. Because we're literally running and racing and we're responding and we're going to the next thing and we're listening and we're talking and we're going and we're emailing and we're scrolling. There's even evidence that we're looking down so much now at our devices that the airway is not as open and free as it needs to be, we're supposed to be looking up and experiencing and seeing the whole world and taking deep breaths and breathing deeply and restoring our neshama and instead we're looking down and we're scrolling and we're typing and we're not breathing. It's very shallow breathing and that has enormous physical consequences to our health and well-being. So, there are all kinds of apps for this these days, I don't get one penny from promoting them. You could set reminders on your phone. That's the that's when you know that as much as we've made progress, we are really pathetic. That we need to download apps that will set reminders on our phone and you know what the reminder is? Breathe. Through history did people need to be reminded to breathe? You talked about talk about the auto whatever the word is system of the human body, right, the spontaneous the body knows to breathe on its own, you don't have to mindfully breathe until our generation that we're so distracted and so busy we need to set reminders on our phone, hey, brilliant one who invented ChatGPT and Waze and satellites and electric cars, brilliant people, don't forget to breathe. Don't forget to breathe. That's how pathetic we are, don't forget to breathe. But do it, set the reminder. Breathe. Several times a day stop. Do it right now. You'll feel how different you feel, you'll feel how alive you feel when you expand your lungs and you expand your chest and you take in that deep breath. Some of you just said I didn't sign up for this for the emuna shiur, I don't know what's happening right now. You know I didn't tell you sit on the floor. and criss-cross applesauce and hold your fingers and relax, we're not going crazy here. We could, we're not going crazy here. We're not going crazy, but deep breaths. Deep breath. I read a whole book a couple months ago called I think it was called Breath, Breathing. It's an entire book with this person who took on they were going to study and they went to all these centers and laboratories and experiments and all about breathing. How to breathe, how you could control yourself when your pulse is racing. I employ it, sometimes I'm in a situation where I'm speaking publicly and I get really nervous beforehand and my heart is like pounding out of my chest and you can actually control that through breathing, through breathing. You can control your pulse, which is also true when your husband or wife or child does something and also your heart is pounding out of your chest and your pulse is racing. Someone does something that disappoints you or frustrates you, there's news and you're about to, you could use breathing to restore your calm, to center yourself, to get back to baseline. Breathing. That's why, what's the Hebrew word for breath? neshima. What's the Hebrew word for soul? neshama. God put the soul in us through breath, He breathed into us, and we restore our soul when we breathe. So breathe, so set the reminder on your phone a few days, times a day to just stop, just stop and breathe. It's amazing how many days will go by and you don't do it, and you'll say you know why you didn't do it? What's the number one reason people say I didn't do it? I didn't have time. You don't have time to breathe? How long does it take to breathe? I'm not, set a reminder on your phone for 60 seconds, for 30 seconds. If you do it for 10 seconds there's value. Breathe in to count to five, this is a Navy SEAL technique according to that book, Navy SEALs. You breathe in for 5 seconds, you hold it for 5 seconds, and you breathe out for 5 seconds. There's a machlokes in through the nose, out through the mouth, or in through the nose, out through the nose, or in through the mouth, out through the mouth, it's a machlokes, but however you get it in and out, breathe in for 5 seconds, hold 5 seconds, breathe out for 5 seconds. azoi zugt the book, I think it's called Breath. I'll post it bli neder in the group as well. So breathe, neshama neshima. Chazal knew this, כל הנשמה תהלל קה, כל הנשימה תהלל קה. Not with all my soul but with every breath I praise you Hashem. With every breath, with all my soul. How do I praise you Hashem? By making time in my day to breathe. When I'm racing and running and going and doing and looking and scrolling and buzzing and beeping and I don't even have time to breathe and to restore and to re-center and to re-calibrate, I don't really love you, I'm not really praising you. So how do we achieve the mindfulness of shivisi? How do we get to that place I'm living with it? Just breathe, breathe. Several months ago I started, I'm not perfect, I'm far from perfect, but I'm much better than I thought I would be of every day trying to in the middle of the day go for a walk around the lake. I'm very blessed, I have an office that's right next to the lake. I could go off, it takes a couple minutes, walk around the lake, one lap and back. On good days I leave my phone in the office and I just go walk. And you know what I see? The lake has ripples, there's a fountain in the middle of it, and there's birds and iguanas and lizards and butterflies and there's grass and there's people and babies, nannies, usually and babies, and their mothers thinking about the nanny and baby somewhere else. And you walk one lap. It's a few minutes, I come back a new person. And whatever I had to process about a meeting or an upcoming difficult meeting or I need to formulate this drasha or the shiur is not coming to me or what should I write the article about? One lap, and all of a sudden you come to life. One lap and you're living again. And one lap Hashem in the leaf and in the branch and in the iguana and in the butterfly and the ripple of the lake, it's amazing. It's amazing. Right in the clouds. It's amazing. It's absolutely amazing. And the breeze on your neck. So if you want to, it's muscle memory. We have to train over and over and over again. There's a muscle memory to live with emunah. How to get to a place of how to react. We're going to be pro emunah people. This is another book that we once gave a Shabbos Shuva drasha about which was not The Art of War, but The War of Art. It's an amazing book, The War of Art. If you haven't read it, you have to read it. It's a book entirely about the Yetzer Hara and how to defeat, how to confront the Yetzer Hara. It's an incredible book by, I forgot his name, he's Jewish and I actually read the whole book and I said he just described the Yetzer Hara, calls it Resistance, how to overcome resistance in your life. And then I Googled online and I found because I looked up Yetzer Hara and his book, curious if anyone had made that connection, and you know who made the connection? The author, who's Jewish and wrote an article in a blog once that the resistance is really the Yetzer Hara. Anyway, amazing amazing book. So it's not The Art of War but The War of Art. How to overcome the resistance, the resistance in our life. How to overcome that resistance. How to restore our, how to restore our life. How to overcome it. There's that voice of self-sabotage. How do you overcome that resistance, that Yetzer Hara in our lives? It's the muscle memory. One of the themes of the book is, are you an amateur or are you going pro? What do you really care about? Are you going pro? You know the difference between a professional and amateur? The professional, professional golfer spends 6, 8, 10, 12 hours a day pounding golf balls? They hit the same shot over and over again for hours and hours. You know why? You know what they're building? They're building muscle memory. So Sunday at the Masters in the 72nd hole, when they have to hit this 170-yard shot in, or they have to hit this delicate chip, or they have to hit a bunker shot, they don't tense up and they don't panic, I don't know what to do, and there's millions of dollars on the line. You know what kicks in? Their muscle memory. I've done this a billion times. I've practiced this a billion hours. I don't even need to think about it, my muscle memory is going to kick in. Every time you drive, you know what's happening? Are you thinking about now I'm going to push on the pedal, now I push on the brake, now I should move the steering wheel, now I... Your muscle memory just kicks in. That's why we're able to talk on the phone or talk to the person next to us, or some people shave or apply makeup or do whatever else they're doing, eat lunch while driving. Why? Because you've done it so many, so many, so many times that muscle memory kicks in. And our goal is when it comes to emunah, stop being an amateur, it's time to turn pro. Muscle memory should kick in. So whatever you're confronting, whatever's going on in life, I don't have to navigate it or overcome it, all I need to do is the muscle memory kicks in. Okay, we went on way too long today, but tomorrow morning we're going to have before the Parsha Shiur the 10 minutes of Mesillat Yesharim. Parsha Shiur tomorrow is on schedule 9:30, then im yirtzeh Hashem going for the wedding, and Wednesday night Living, Wednesday night Behind the Bima, we're back on schedule, but pay attention to the WhatsApp group because baruch Hashem, baruch Hashem, there are so many simchas tonight, tomorrow Lag B'Omer. We didn't even talk about Lag B'Omer and Rabbi Akiva's next batch of students and how Rabbi Akiva didn't give up and he started again. And we have a bonfire and a concert tonight, everyone's welcome to join us for Lag B'Omer. But over the next couple of weeks with Lag B'Omer means the return of simchas, so I'm traveling baruch Hashem for many simchas, so pay attention on the WhatsApp group to the schedule because it's going to fluctuate over the next few weeks. If you're not yet in the WhatsApp group, you want to join it, rabbiefremgoldberg.org/whatsapp, and until next time, stay happy, stay healthy, and stay holy.
