Transcript
Okay, good morning, good morning, Boker Tov. Welcome back to Living with Emuna. I want to thank our series sponsor, as always, our dear friends Avi and Bella Morgan, in memory of Rabbi Dr. Brian Galbut, in memory of Bella’s mother Dr. Ellen Schanzar. We're very grateful for their generosity. This morning's shiur is also sponsored by Rabbi George and Lisa Lintz in memory of her beloved father משה דב בן ירוחם פישל, Dr. Morris Loffman, and by Debbie Goren as a zechus for the refuah sheleimah of חנה בת אסתר מלכה and דבורה ביילא בת נחמה, by Meira and Jeffrey Gograb in memory of Meira’s mother whose 15th yahrtzeit, Leah bas Nassan, neshama she’tehei n’aleh, and how proud she is of you and your family, by Debbie Rozlimski to commemorate her father Natan ben Baruch’s first yahrtzeit today, his neshama she’tehei n’aleh as well. So thank you to all of our very, very generous sponsors. Okay, we have a lot of learning to do and a lot of emails and letters to catch up on, as always, which is I know the real reason that you come here. So just to share a couple with you quickly. Dear Rabbi Goldberg, for quite some time I've had to deal with a toxic relationship with a certain family member. Over the past few days things escalated considerably, leading them to lash out with an extremely angry and hurtful WhatsApp message that I am still struggling to process. This morning I thought to myself, perhaps one of your Living with Emuna shiurim might give me the boost I needed. I scrolled down and opened a random shiur. Those are my favorite words, random. A random shiur. It happened to be the one given before Pesach in which you spoke about anger and redemption. As I listened, I was astounded. It was as if you were speaking directly to me and my situation. You spoke of how if someone lashes out at you in anger, that is a reflection of their lack of emuna. That you should not respond to the text and that while it's necessary to deal with the relationship, ultimately we should attempt to do so from a place of pity for the other person rather than get caught up in their failings. You suggested to daven for them rather than react to them. Those words were exactly what I needed to hear. Of course, there are no quick fixes, it's an ongoing painful issue. Reframing the issue from the perspective of emuna gave me a huge amount of chizuk. So I share that for two reasons: number one, because it really reiterates the strategy that we shared then previously and reiterate now, that strategy of when somebody mistreats us or lashes out at us or acts inappropriately with us, to not absorb their negativity. You know, if we get caught up, as if we eliminate or erase Hashem from the equation. There is no God, there is no Hashem, it's just about us and that other person. Then we start to doubt ourselves, then we start to want to lash out or get even or revenge at them. But the moment that we can have a context and a perspective and we can realize there's a bigger story here and the way they're behaving is saying much more about them than it is about us. And of course, we have to constantly take stock of who we are and how we behave, of our middos, and can we with pride look in the mirror with how we interacted with that person. But if the answer is yes, we believe we did what was appropriate and right, that we haven't done anything wrong, then the fact that they are lashing out nonetheless says so much more about them than it does us. And the emuna, the leaning into the emuna, the leaning into realizing there's Hashem and there's a reason that we were meant to experience this. That WhatsApp message, that email, the way that person spoke to us in public or private, we were meant to hear. There's something for us to learn, there's a way we're meant to grow from it. Then we won't feel a need for revenge or to match or to elevate or escalate their lashing out because we can see it in that context. So I share it because it's a good opportunity to review that lesson, and mostly I'm reviewing it for myself. That when someone sends or speaks to you in that harsh way, to pause, to take that deep breath, and to say is there virtue or merit to the message even if I don't like the messaging and even if I don't like the messenger? I don't like the messenger and I don't like the messaging of the way they communicated, but maybe the message there's something I need to hear. Maybe there's something I need to take away. Maybe there's a way I need to grow from it. And even if we conclude no, I reject the message, the messaging, and the messenger, but you know what? I'm not going to have the rest of my day ruined or spoiled, that person is not going to have real estate in my head. I'm going to lean into emuna that there's a reason I needed to hear that, how can I grow or improve or change from it. But what I loved about this email is, and now we've received several like it, which has nothing to do with me or us, it has everything to do with Him, of people who said you know, I was feeling or experiencing this and I put on a random shiur. Mine or someone else’s. YouTube or the algorithm of the podcast player. Last week I got a voice note from somebody. I was going through something and I never heard of you, but on Spotify I happened to stumble across your Living with Emuna shiur and now I've listened to several in a row. Again, because the emails that we're reading and the Torah that we're simply transmitting from others. But nobody happens to hear something on Spotify. No playlist or algorithm randomly suggests something for someone. עין רואה ואוזן שומעת וכל מעשיך בספר נכתבים. If we're דע מה למעלה ממך, if we know what is above us, if we know that there is a choreographer, a curator above us, if we know that He’s carefully determining and picking the exact... perfect playlist for us. The playlist that we need to hear. Then we were meant to hear, we're meant to overhear, we're meant to see, we're meant to listen. I'm not suggesting that you should every day open a podcast player and try to randomly pick something. I think that we can still with a certain level of intention and intentionality make our own playlist in life literally and figuratively. We can still take responsibility and personal responsibility to curate our own playlist of what will inspire and be mechazek us, but know that when we don't or rely on what someone else does, that that too is from, that that too is from Hashem. So that is one email, I printed a few others and they're sitting in the printer in my office right now because I forgot to bring them, but Baruch Hashem I have the laptop in front of me so I could read them to you from here. So here is another one. Dear Rabbi Goldberg, I wrote you a couple months ago about my anger towards God for creating a very frustrated and seemingly unfair parnassa experience for me. I felt validated, I was allowed to tell God I was angry at him. After my anger and confusion subsided, I noticed that something interesting happened. Now why is this person saying that I felt validated? Because again we've discussed previously, none of these ideas are my own, we have much precedent for it. But the idea that not only is being frustrated or ke'ilu angry at Hashem not a breakdown or failure in emuna, in some ways it is a very high and lofty expression and manifestation of emuna, because you're not disappointed or frustrated or angry in people or things you don't believe in. You don't get angry at a figment of your imagination. You don't get angry at your make-believe made-up friend. You don't get angry at the doll sitting in the corner of the room. You don't get, you do when you stub your toe on it in the middle of the night, but you're more angry at whoever left it there than at the doll itself. But you don't get angry at when you're disappointed or frustrated, why? Because you say Avinu Shebashamayim, you're my Tatte in Himmel, you're my father. A father doesn't sit by and let somebody get hurt. A father doesn't passively be a spectator to the pain of a child when they could intervene and intercede. So where are you? And why are you letting this happen? And why are you allowing me to go through this pain? Where are you? I'm frustrated, I'm upset, I'm disappointed, I'm hurt. Where are you? Now that where are you and those feelings are not in fact as I said a breakdown of emuna, they are in many ways an incredible, sophisticated, profound expression of that emuna. And if you'll say Goldberg, where are you getting such kefira ideas from? Where are you spewing such heresy? Did Avraham Avinu when he heard when Hashem says can I keep from Avraham what I'm about to do to Sedom, I have to tell him. So he tells him. Does Avraham say well you're Hashem, I guess you know what's best, I guess you know what's right, so go for it, good luck? No. What does Avraham do? He says whoa whoa whoa, that doesn't seem righteous to me, that doesn't seem fair to me, I don't accept that. I'm going to protest, I'm going to object, I'm going to push back. If there are 50 righteous people, 45, 40 all the way down to 10, Avraham Avinu battles with God. He fights back with Hashem. So did Avraham have a breakdown of emuna in that moment? Avraham Avinu is the paradigm of emuna. He is the Av Hamon Goyim, Avraham Avinu is the father of our people, the father of monotheistic religion, ethical monotheism. He's the paradigm, the paragon of emuna. Because emuna doesn't mean that you passively, simply accept. Hakadosh Baruch Hu sometimes does and He says, nu, push back, nu, give me a counteroffer, nu, what do you think? It doesn't mean He's going to pivot to do it our way, but it means sometimes He's doing what He does because He's trying to call our attention, because He wants us to wake up, because He wants to engage us in a conversation, in a relationship, because He wants us to respond. So Avraham Avinu do you need a greater precedent than that? Well if you do you have Moshe Rabbeinu, who when Moshe Rabbeinu is frustrated with all the challenge and pain and crises and hurt that he sees among the people he loves, his flock that he dedicates and devotes his whole life to and cares about, and he says to Hashem למה הרעתה לעם הזה, what's with all the pain? Hare'osa, the word hare'osa is ra, why all these bad things for good people? I can't take it Hashem. Show me your face, show me your face, show me, help me understand why. Let me understand your reasons. Explain to me why bad things happen to good people, why good things happen to bad people. Give me a glimpse, give me a look, give me an insight. Is there a greater insider than me says Moshe Rabbeinu? Has anyone entered more than I have? If you really trust me bechol beisi ne'eman, then trust me and let me look through your glasses, let me see the world through your eyes, let me understand your matrix, your calculations. And what does Hashem say to him? You can see the back of my head but you can't see my face. You can understand after the fact, you could try to put the pieces together in retrospect, but you cannot prospectively interpret and understand life as as it's happening. It just doesn't work that way. I think we must have quoted, but the example's been given countless times of the magnificent tapestry. That when you look on the threads on the back, they just look like loose threads randomly sown, doesn't come together any picture. It's ugly. It's messy. And when you turn it around, you see a perfect picture on the other side. So after the fact we get to see the perfect picture on the other side. Sometimes in this world, you didn't get that job, Baruch Hashem you got a much better job. It fell through with that person you desperately wanted to marry, Baruch Hashem it would have ended in misery. Sometimes in this world we see that when the door closed, we spoke about it yesterday. We just spoke about it Be'ezrat Hashem, I don't remember what Parsha we're up to. What did we read? Shabbat, Pinchas. No, we read which is Pinchas this coming week, Balak, yeah this Parsha. We read sometimes what feels like a Satan is the Malach shel Rachamim. Sometimes Hakadosh Baruch Hu puts something in the road and He's blocking our road. There's an obstacle. And we say where are You and why don't You love me and You've abandoned me? I really want to go there. That's the destination I want to be. That's the community I want to live, that's the house I'm trying to buy, that's the job I'm trying to get, that's the girl I want to marry. Where are You? What's with the obstacles? Why are You blocking the path? Lesatno, the Pasuk says Lesatno, it feels like the Satan, it feels like the Satan is blocking us. Zogt der Rashi, Satan, teitcht as Rashi the translation: Malach shel Rachamim. Hashem says you think I'm blocking your path? I sent an angel of compassion. I'm rerouting you, I'm redirecting you. I don't want you to sit in traffic, I don't want you to fall into the pothole, I don't want you to have a collision with another car. I'm rerouting you for your own good. It feels like the Satan in the moment but trust me it's a Malach shel Rachamim. Bilam doesn't feel it and he hits the donkey three times. And then he says חטאתי כי לא ידעתי. I've done a Chet because I didn't know. And we quoted the Sforno who says which is it? Is it Chatati, did he do a Chet? Was it a sin? Was it a mistake? Or lo yadati, or did he not see the angel? Which is it? And the Sforno says היה לי לחוש לזה. The angel was invisible. It's not Bilam's fault. He didn't see what was blocking the way. But he should have known there's something extraordinary happening here. There's a donkey that's talking. It's a talking animal. Animals don't talk. But he doesn't react. Rabbeinu Bechaye writes, he doesn't react and fall off the donkey and say whoa this is crazy what's happening. There must be a message from above. There's a Malach coming. He gets into a ridiculous dialogue and debate with the donkey. It's absurd. It's absurd because when we are so set on what we want and we've knocked Hashem out of the equation, when we're so determined to be able to get to the destination and the journey the way we planned it, that we take Hashem out of the GPS, then we'll end up talking to a donkey, acting ridiculous, because our determination is clouding our vision and our judgment. The Gra says the words Malach Hashem appear ten times in the Psukim because ten times Hashem said Hi, I'm here, I'm rerouting you, I'm redirecting you, I'm blocking this way because I want you to go that way for you. I've closed this door because we're opening that door for you. And ten times Bilam says I can't hear you, I can't hear you, I can't hear you. This is where I want to go, I don't want to hear it. And in our lives it feels like He's sometimes closing a door. Someone else bid on the house higher, they got the house that we thought was the perfect house for us. The person didn't want to continue dating us or didn't agree for the Shidduch to even go out with us. But on paper we thought this was going to be the one. That job, they passed us up for somebody else. Or things don't happen in the timeline that we want. Lesatno, it feels like the Satan but it's a Malach shel Rachamim. Hakadosh Baruch Hu is compassionately, compassionately taking care of us. But in those moments that it feels painful, it's okay to say Hashem, I trust You. And we're going to get to this more in a moment. But I trust You. I'm along for Your ride. I'm part of Your plan. I want to do it Your way. But I got to tell You this stinks. This is painful, it's frustrating, it's miserable, it's uncomfortable, it's inconvenient. You're not supposed to be whistling Dixie sitting in the hospital room or waiting for the biopsy results or being unemployed, waiting to get the job or trying to hopefully find that Shidduch, that companionship for the rest of your life. You're not supposed to, Emunah doesn't mean you're smiling and you're happy and you're whistling and you have a skip in your step because oh it's all from Hashem, He's rerouting me. Baruch Hashem it's not the Satan, it's a Malach shel Rachamim. This is amazing. It's okay in those moments to say I got it, I'm with You, I'm along for the ride, but it hurts. It hurts and where are You and why? Why this way? I'll go on the other route but what was wrong with the original plan? Why? Why? Anyway, all that back to the email. So the person said I felt validated, I was allowed, in quotation marks, to tell Hashem I was angry at Him. After my anger and confusion subsided I noticed something interesting happened. I began to say things to God like like, God you made this terrible situation happen. Now give me the clarity how I can make the most of it, how I can fix it completely. I NEED, in capital letters, you to fix this by sending me clarity. So interestingly the author of this email, I think very brilliantly, and I'm so grateful to her for it, says, in fact when you pivot and allow yourself to be frustrated or angry at Hashem, now instead of pretending you're not angry at Hashem just not being close to Hashem, you could use that to get closer. How? By saying Hashem this stinks and it's painful, it's uncomfortable, it's inconvenient, and I don't like it, and it's unfair. But I understand it's from you. I got it. But the same way it's from you, the solution's from you, so nu, let's get on it. What's the solution? Give me the clarity, help me understand what to do next, help me have that breakthrough. Let me... let's pray on it. Right? I told you, let's pray on it. The Starbucks women. Let's pray on it, let's pray on it. I went... we didn't have shiur last week because I went to Tennessee for three days with one of my daughters. We went just to find Hashem in nature and go hiking and experience the world and it was very beautiful. We also found Hashem on the way there and on the way back with a four-hour delay on the way there and a seven-hour delay on the way back. Baruch Hashem the emunah muscle kicked in and you know it was great because on the way there there was another prominent rabbi from South Florida, not another that I am but a prominent rabbi from South Florida who was in the airport on line and he said are you going or coming? I said I'm leaving, we're delayed, it's fine. He said I am also. The difference is he was on a 1:00 flight that was pushed to 6:00 p.m. which meant he would miss the wedding he was going for that night so he was canceling his flight. So I said to myself I'm... whatever time I get there I get there. I'm not missing a wedding, I'm not missing a simcha, I'm not missing... it's all good, it's all from Hashem, it's all amazing. But anyway, I was paying for the parking at a park that we were going to go on a hike in and what seemed like a teenage girl who was taking my money at the end said have a blessed day. I loved that expression. I said thank you so much, you too. Have a blessed day. Not have a great day, have a good day. Have a blessed day. Just felt like such a different expression. Have a blessed day. But anyway, so whatever Hashem I accept that this is from you. The flight delay, the Satan is blocking my path towards whatever goal or destination I'm trying to make my way towards, significant or insignificant, consequential or inconsequential. I trust and I believe it's from you. Good. But now I also rely on you to figure a way out. So Hashem give me the clarity. Help me know what to do next. Send the messenger or the malach who's going to unblock the path. You close this door, show me the open door. You block this direction, open another direction. I need you to fix this. Back to the email. I actually had this whole conversation with God while I was unloading my dishwasher Shabbos morning, cleaning up my house for our seudah and I thought about how you always mention the importance of talking to God even when you're engaged in the mundane. Not just observing our tefillah time for the standard fixed davening time from the siddur. So I poured out my heart to Hashem while I was engaged in this task and something divine happened. I actually received tremendous clarity from God and I felt I had a way to handle the situation as best as possible. The next week I went back to my boss and explained to him that I was willing to do something that I had previously not wanted to do but I'd really like as much of my salary to be restored if possible. An amazing thing happened. My boss actually said he'll give me back my entire salary. I actually was so stunned at the turn of events that never would have happened if I hadn't received the clarity from Hashem that I needed to make a minor sacrifice. While I'm still... while I'm still compromised by doing something I thought I didn't want to do, it was so obvious to me that this compromise was something that Hashem wanted from me. What's amazing to me about this story is that had I turned away from Hashem when I was angry, I wouldn't have stayed close enough to feel I could begin demanding from him to send me the clarity I needed. The anger I expressed to Hashem kept the lines of communication open. Without the open lines, I never would have felt it was appropriate to ask Hashem for clarity. Thank you for enabling the experience of emunah, blah blah blah blah. My faith allowed me to see Hashem's hand in a very obvious way and see how he helped me through the struggle to come out on the other side with my parnassah restored and more importantly with my connection to God stronger than before. Basically I don't give the emunah shiur, I just read the emails of the people who give the emunah shiur. Because this email is a shiur. This email is a living shiur because it's a living example, not just conceptual or theoretical. And what this author of the email is saying is, had my anger made me turn away, I'm not davening, I'm not saying Tehillim, I'm not baking challah, I'm not doing the things, I don't know if she bakes challah, I'm not doing the things that I used to do that made me feel a connection to Hashem because I'm angry. He ruined my parnassah, he hurt me in this way that way the other way, I'm done, I'm out. Then not only would she have lost the relationship with Hashem but would have lost the ability through the relationship with Hashem to ask for and to find the clarity for how to navigate the very circumstance that's pushing her away from Hashem. So the answer and the antidote is not don't ever feel angry or frustrated or uncomfortable or wish it were different. It's okay. We're validating, validating, validating. We're a group validating one another. It's okay to feel those things. But don't use those things as the excuse, as the cop-out to walk away or to distance, use them as the propeller to lean in. Hashem, I'm frustrated, I'm annoyed, I can't believe you did this, but you could also get me out of this. So now give me the clarity. Where do I go, what do I do next, who are you sending my way, what's the next step, how are we fixing this? How are we fixing this? There are things that can't be undone. There are losses and tragedies and pain that cannot be undone. We're all davening today for the family of the soldier who was killed yesterday in Jenin and the funeral that's taking place right now. It's beautiful. You see the pictures of these young victims of terror, soldiers, pure, sweet, good, all you can see it all just from a picture. That pain, somebody left his family just to go fight for the Jewish people and didn't come home. Some things can't be undone. Some things can't be fixed. But we can ask Hashem for the strength to nonetheless find our way through them. How to not move on but how to move forward and to ask Hashem for that strength to figure out how to do that. You took away someone I love or you created a situation that can't be undone that's so hurtful, but the same way that pain was introduced, you can give me the strength. You can give me the perseverance. You can give me the will. You can give me the comfort. You can give me the next. What do I do next that's going to help me find meaning for what I'm going through? So this email is a Mussar Shmuz. Thank you, if you're watching, for sending it. This email is a Mussar Shmuz to not, not, not get angry. Right, remember we read the story of Rav Wolbe? Rav Lichter was on the way home from the shiva call and he said this Rosh Yeshiva who during shiva, everything's from Hashem and I'm happy and I'm just grateful for the time I had my wife. He said, no, no, he's going to, he's going to collapse. He's going to collapse. We can't hold ourselves to a standard that's not only not realistic, it's not expected of us. It's not righteous. There's nothing wrong. Avraham Avinu, Moshe Rabbeinu, and there's a long list I can give you that well beyond throughout our history are precedent for being disappointed and hurt and finding our way to navigate nonetheless. So that was the second email I'm going to share. Before we get back into a text, I want to share with you a third email because these emails stimulate discussions, they are the shiur of Emunah. And this one is a tough one. This one's a tough one. And I'd love to hear your impact, your input, your insight on it. We'll skip the part, blah, blah, blah. I listen to many of your shiurim in general, many of the living with Emunah specifically. I'm reaching out because lately I've been struggling deeply with my Emunah and hoping you have some advice or perspective. It's been most recently related to dating, but it's relevant to how I relate to Hashem all around. And here is the context. I'm not going to read the whole background and the specific details, but here is the question: In most of the relationships, this is in dating, I have been in, I was the one to call it all off. That's a lot of responsibility. How can I say it was Hashem's plan that the relationship didn't work out when I'm the one who chose to end it? I try so hard to make the best decisions that I can, one decision at a time, from saying yes or no to a suggestion to go on another date or to ending things. I try so hard to make my bechira chofshis seriously, put in effort, do whatever I can in a given situation to make it work or navigate it properly. And I take full ownership for my decisions. But when I reflect back on my relationships, when I'm down and struggling with dating, I want to give up control and trust that Hashem is running the world and my world with a plan. But it's hard to do so when I seem to have so much control over what happens. I decided this relationship should end. I decided to walk away. That feeling of responsibility feels like it's holding me back from trusting Hashem. And then gives a specific example of having ended a particular relationship and was that me or was that Hashem? Do we look back and say Hashem got me here to this place or no, this is a result of my initiative and my bechira and therefore don't blame Hashem or don't attribute to Hashem when it's really a result of me? So this is not the first time I've ended a relationship like this. I feel like the person from that story when there's a man drowning in a flood and a boat, helicopter, all come to save him, but he says he's waiting for Hashem to save him and only at the end does he realize Hashem was saving him by sending those messengers the whole time. In my life are these amazing guys helicopters from Hashem? Are my decisions to reject them causing me to block, causing me to look back when I am older and say, silly so-and-so, Hashem sent you so many great people and you passed up and you found excuses to end each one of them? So do you look back and say it was all from Hashem and that's why I'm here or it was all me and my decisions and my responsibility and my bechira? And that's why I'm here. There are certain things in life where it's easy to make the distinction between what I'm responsible for and what I'm not, right? When the flight's delayed, it's easy to say this has nothing to do with me. What about when you miss your flight? When you miss your flight, do you say, well, it wasn't meant to be from Hashem that I'd be on that plane? Enrique Wilson, Mariano Rivera saved the his save, saved a life, the greatest save of his career. So... When do you, when you miss the flight, do you say it wasn't meant to be from Hashem for me to be on that flight? I'm not going to get bent out of shape, I'm not going to get frustrated, I'm not going to get upset. It wasn't meant to be. I'll figure it out. And when do you say, hey Yatz, you you didn't wake up in time, you kept getting delayed, you always assume you have enough time to get there, you were running late, it's all on you. It's on you. You missed the flight. Take responsibility. When do you say which? When do you say which? Let's take illness for example, the author writes. While illness could be brought on someone's decisions in this world, let's say somebody smoked for sixty years and got lung cancer. Do they say the lung cancer's from Hashem? Or do they say what made you think that you could smoke for sixty years and not get lung cancer? Most people have not made a decision that led to that illness. Most people just get it out of the blue. So when someone gets sick it's easier to put my hands up and say this is part of Hashem's plan. I'm upset, I don't understand, but I know it's Hashem running the world. But dating is all about bechira chofshis. Everything about dating is should I say yes, should I say no, should we go out, should we continue, are we ready to get engaged, not get engaged? Everything about it is, I mean you could ask for signs and you could find some woman at Starbucks hold hands with him and pray on it, but in the end of the day it's all about the decisions you make. So it's hard to separate out those thoughts. Do you look at the results and where you are and say this is where Hashem wants me to be? Or do you say this is my bechira, my initiative, and this is how I got here? So don't blame it on Hashem, this is about my responsibility. Wow. That's a machlokes. Wow. That's a tough one, right? That's a machlokes. Tough one. Any thoughts? Yeah, I think that ultimately הכל בידי שמים חוץ מיראת שמים, but at the same time there has to be hishtadlus. So there's a balance between hishtadlus and and everything is from Hashem, emuna bitachon. We have to do initiative, that's for sure. Jewish people stood opposite the sea, the Egyptians were in pursuit, and what did they do? What we're told to do, which is davven. And what does Hashem say? Mah tiz'ak eilay? What are you doing? Close your tehillim, close your siddur. You think the flight's going to wait for you when you're going to leave fifteen minutes before the plane's supposed to leave? What are you doing? You're going to sit at home and say tehillim instead of driving to the airport and make your flight? Mah tiz'ak eilay? What are you doing? Close your siddur, close your tehillim, start acting, start taking initiative, do something. So we learn from there you have to take initiative. Initiative is a form of tefilla. We davven with our feet. We davven with our hands. We show Hashem we're partnering with him by doing what we need to do, by taking our initiative, by doing our part. So on the one hand, we have to take initiative. We have to take initiative. We have to do our part. We have to do our part. On the other hand, we've been taught you gotta have emuna. You can't do excessive initiative. Excessive initiative is to knock Hashem out of the equation. You're going to work twenty-three out of twenty-four hours a day? If Hashem wants you to make a parnassa, you can make it by working a reasonable amount. You're going to neglect your health, your spiritual health, your emotional health, your family, your life? You can't have excessive initiative either. Excessive initiative is a lack of emuna. It's all about the scales and the balance. The right of initiative, the right of bitachon, the right amount of bitachon and emuna. How do you find that? So it's very interesting. It's very interesting when it comes to the area of shidduchim in particular, and this is not a shiur on shidduchim, this is living with emuna. But when it comes to the area of shidduchim in general, Chazal tell us that what has Hashem been doing since he created the world? He's mezaveig zivugim. What's he been occupied and preoccupied with since creation? He is the ultimate shadchan, this is what he's doing. And therefore the Vilna Gaon writes famously, רב שלמה זלמן אויערבך quotes it and bemoans in our generation that we are excessively involved in shidduchim. The one area of life that we should be less involved and leave it more up to Hashem, we are excessively and overly involved and don't leave it enough up to Hashem. Other areas of life where we should get more involved, we are too little involved and we leave it too much up to Hashem. When it comes to parnassa, when it comes to taking care of ourselves, we say, I believe in Hashem, Hashem is amazing, Hashem will provide. Hey buddy, get to work. Hey buddy, get off the couch and go for a walk and take care of yourself, because yes, Hashem is part of the equation, but he wants to take initiative. So Rav Shlomo Zalman quotes this Gra and he bemoans and he says the areas that we should take more initiative and less bitachon, we have too much bitachon and too little initiative. And the area we should have more bitachon and too little initiative, i.e., shidduchim, we take too much initiative and have too little bitachon. Rav Shlomo Zalman quotes the Gra. So on the one hand, this is an area of tremendous bitachon and and emuna. On the other, there is an enormous enormous bechira that we have to express, that we have to express. So how do we balance between the two? So I think there are a couple of approaches that we could have. And I give the disclaimer that this is very difficult and very complicated. I don't claim to have all the answers and there's not one way of looking at it. But with that said, I would suggest the following. I believe, not as a cop out, I think I I told the story in Living with Emunah, but we've been doing this for many years, so if I forgot, surely many of you have as well. But there was a summer that I was very into originally, first started working on this journey of learning more about and putting into practice emunah u'bitachon. It was a summer my family was in Eretz Yisrael and I read the book, I read the book Garden of Emunah, Rav Shalom Arush, and I decided to go visit him. I had some questions. So Yocheved and I packed into the car that we had rented that summer that didn't fit our kids, but we put them in anyway, and we made our way to go see Rav Shalom Arush. Now, the problem is that we were very low on gas and we were very late to this meeting. So she was saying, "You got to get gas. We're going to run out of gas and we're going to be on the side of a road in a bad neighborhood on the way in a heatwave. You got to get gas." To which I said, "Hashem will get us there." She's just read Living with Emunah, Living with the Garden of Emunah. "Like, what are you talking about? We're going to meet the author, the mechaber of the Garden of Emunah. Hashem will get us there. Don't worry. That little line, even though it's past that red little line, it's okay because Hashem can make that gas last one mile, He can make it last a thousand miles. So Hashem's going to get us there. So we're going to keep driving." That was really, really, really good for emunah, really, really, really not good for shalom bayit. But anyway, we got there with enough gas. But in our discussion, Yocheved thought that she would ask Rav Shalom Arush this question: If we ran out of gas and we were on the side of the road and we were late or missed the meeting altogether, and our kids were kvetching or were in danger because it was a busy highway and there was a heatwave and there was no one coming to bail us out or help us, was that Hashem's will that we would be going through it, or, she asked for confirmation, that her husband was a moron who when Hashem designed a gas tank that tells you when you're about to run out of gas, chose to ignore it and keep driving nonetheless? That was her question. She's a much better person than I am, so she did not ask it that way. Maybe that's just how I interpreted it and heard it. But Rav Arush, "Don't you agree my husband is a moron and you have to get gas to not run out of gas? You cannot blame Hashem for when you run out of gas." So what Rav Arush answered, not so simple, and this is a very deep Breslov sort of an extreme approach to the issue of emunah and initiative. He answered the following. He said, again, I'm paraphrasing, he didn't say it this way. But he said essentially, "Your husband was acting like a moron. But why would an otherwise rational, normal, intelligent person act like a moron? It must be for whatever reason Hashem in that moment put in his head to decide something so foolish and moronic so that when you're on the side of the road you look at yourself and say, 'You know, I acted like a moron and I need to learn a lesson, I need to take responsibility, I should have gotten gas and next time I'm going to listen to my wife,' and next time I don't have to wait. People don't know that you don't have to wait until the light comes on to get gas. You're allowed to get gas when you're at like half a tank, a quarter of a tank, a third of a tank, you're allowed. People don't know that. They think you have to wait until you're scrambling and sweating and wheezing, where's the closest gas station? They don't know you're allowed to. So in case you didn't know, you're allowed to get gas even before it's on empty." So yeah, you have to take responsibility and ownership and you have to learn a lesson from it and pledge and promise going forward you're going to improve with it. But in that moment, part of your processing what happened is to say, "I don't know why I acted so foolishly, I don't know why I was so moronic, but I think that it must be from Hashem that I acted this way even while I take responsibility and even while I will learn from it going forward." Hashem is part of that equation, Hashem is part of that conversation, Hashem is part of that result and part of that experience that we went through. That was his answer. That was his answer. May not be fully satisfying and it's not the one authoritative approach, there are different approaches, but that was his answer to that to that question. His answer to me on the general question of how to reconcile emunah u'bitachon and bechirah and initiative was, he said: "Meat, basar, is kosher. Milk, chalav, it's kosher. But when you mix them, basar b'chalav, it's not kosher. So learn about and work on bechirah chofshit and initiative and learn about and work on bitachon and emunah, but don't try to mix the two because when you do you get basar b'chalav." Now, again, not fully satisfying. To a certain degree he was saying, don't think about it, which is not the Jewish way. We think about it, we ask questions about it, we're not afraid to try to tackle it and confront it and explore it. To a certain degree he was saying, don't think about it. Or maybe what he was saying is don't feel entitled to have an answer with it because you won't find it. It's difficult, complicated. So we'll explore it more going forward, but I'll just end today by saying to the author of that email, I think that you can't, you can't blame Hashem. We have to take responsibility because we are the ones making the decision in each moment. You say yes, say no, go out, continue, don't continue, lean in, or pull out of the relationship. We're making the decision, so ultimately it's up to us. But I think that part of making that decision is trying to have a conversation with Hashem that says, "Why am I making the decisions that I'm making?" and help me make the decisions that will get me through the door that You're opening, down the path that You've paved for me. Help me have a clarity of vision of what the right thing is for me, and help me explore what might be blocking me from walking down the road that You have opened up. Because I believe, and I don't want to be too descriptive, but I have a good friend who doesn't live here, I have a good friend who got married later in life, in his early 40s. Everything's relative, I don't mean to stigmatize, but relatively later. And he will tell you, and he went out with many, many girls, many of great girls, had many great relationships, and many of them could have gone great places, and for whatever reason, always ended it. Couldn't break through, couldn't make the commitment. And it was only at a point of his life when he was ready to tackle why, that he got the support and had the conversation with the trained people who could help him understand why was he struggling with commitment. And there were very real reasons in his life. The woman in his life who he loved very much died very suddenly out of nowhere, and he lost and it created tremendous trauma, and it was not fully explored. And that feeling was subconsciously blocking his ability to ever become fully vulnerable to someone else who could disappear on him again and cause that pain again. And when he was willing to go through that experience of exploring and working on and tackling that original trauma and pain and how it was manifesting itself now, Baruch Hashem he got married, and Baruch Hashem he's a beautiful family, and Baruch Hashem he's a beautiful, very inspiring person. So that means to say that part of in each moment exploring why am I saying yes, why am I, I have to take responsibility, it's on me, alay. I'm the one saying yes or saying no. I'm the one continuing it or ending it. It's on me. But Hashem help me, help me understand, help me have clarity, help me explore, help me heal, help me see the path that You're paving. Help me understand why You're not blocking it, maybe I'm putting impediments, I'm putting obstacles, maybe I'm blocking it. Help me pave that path and bulldoze that way, that way forward. So I don't know if we can truly reconcile and answer, you know, is it Hashem or is it you? It's both. First of all, you can apply Rav Arush's answer: Who's the one who put in your head to keep saying no or keep saying yes or keep doing it? It's Hashem. So look at where you are, don't beat yourself up, realize Hashem got you here and now just figure out what's next and what's forward. But I guess that's my takeaway and what I'm trying to communicate is, I don't know that bitachon and emunah demand that we do an evaluation in retrospect to unpack and understand how we got here. I think what we need to do is know this is where I am and what do I do next. Emunah and bitachon are all about what's next. I don't know that we're ever going to get clarity and the answers of how we got here. And I don't know that it'll make a difference. What's it going to solve? But I think what we need to do is figure out, okay, but now you're here. So what's next? How are you going to position yourself so that your dating is best going forward? That you're clear in what you're looking for and what you want, and whether you did the right thing or wrong thing by continuing, by ending, and so on. Are you doing what you need to do now for what's next, rather than spend your energy and time and emotions on trying to interpret and understand how you got here? What's next? And that's talking to Hashem and davenning and asking for the clarity and the confidence in making those next decisions. It's davenning to Hashem and asking for the healing and working through whatever might be going on subconsciously that's keeping you from getting on the helicopter or taking the rope or accepting the different rescue options that He's sending. So I think it's not about interpreting what happened or how you got here, but it's figuring out where you go and what's next. And we didn't fully tackle it, we'll continue this conversation with emunah. It's an unusual week, we didn't get into the text whatsoever, but the emails themselves were the emunah shiur. So grateful, keep them coming. We have more emails to share in the coming weeks. We tonight are going behind the bimah with Natan Sharansky, a person who lives with great emunah in order to endure what he did, the lessons of the Soviet Jewry movement for modern antisemitism today and many other conversations. That's tonight. And until next time, stay happy, stay healthy, and stay holy.
