19 Weeks of Blessing - 9th Beracha with Rabbi Daniel Glatstein

uh is uh that kind of touches people's hearts in a certain sense it speaks to people's uh vulnerabilities in a major way something everybody can readily understand um as being a necessity you know maybe there are some of the earlier is the person that has to be more spiritually oriented to understand the necessity when it comes to this bracha this is the 9th hashem you should bless us please bless us with sustenance and um and with prosperity and so this uh this is a very special bracha and i wanted to start by thanking our sponsors for this evening um this uh this class is sponsored by michael and betsy senker and it's in memory of betsy's mother and grandmothers and their names are these names are recently refreshed uh the senkas went to visit the cemetery and actually updated the exact spelling and names and shows the connection they have with uh their uh their ancestors with their parents and grandparents i'm sure they're giving them amazing amounts of through themselves through their children and their names are mendel mindle mendel betsy if you want to correct me just on you please and there's mildred gerson [Music] thank you very much for that sponsorship and also sponsored by rabbi aron and getty golding in honor of gedalia schwartz kidalia schwartz i understand is very much responsible for helping the torah of our speaker our speaker this week is uh rabbi daniel gladstein and dalia schwartz has been instrumental in ensuring that the world can uh can get a taste of rabbi gladstein's unique um unique torah just a minute a word from our sponsor literally is the one that changed it okay yeah and speaking of mrs berkowitz i also just have to mention the amazing staff that that works behind the scenes tirelessly to make the whole show run and this program is included so thank you to mrs berkowitz to to leia lubell of course rabbi tendler um we all collaborate work together to make these amazing programs happen so anyway thank you to the sankers i thank you to the goldings for this sponsorship rabbi gladstein is about to come come to you live not or live in my computer um it's actually a wonderful recording it's it's both physically appealing because he used very high quality videos he's very well known uh for his torah anytime videos and that's the screen that you'll see he used the torah anytime camera so thank you for any time for that um and he has he always has like a a like unique angle that you've never heard of before and yet it's very solid and based on solid sources so uh that's that is uh what has become rabbit gladstone's um trademark and uh he does it for us here in this series so it's going to be an unusual presentation of this bracha but very very clear and will present to us a new way of thinking about this bracha and and the blessings in general so i'm going to display the video here for you all and then we'll reconvene in about 30 35 minutes and gosh just a second as i get the screen loaded okay can you see whatever glaston's image on the screen okay here we go welcome everyone to the special 19 weeks of blessing program it is uh my great fortune growing up as a kid one of my favorite books was tales out of shul i never would have imagined in my wildest dreams that i would have the privilege of giving a class from out of school so it's a really distinct privilege and pleasure to be speaking to the beth jacob community of atlanta and berchus rabbi feldman and rabbi foxbrunner thank you so much for giving me this uh sukhos and this great privilege to share with you some thoughts about the ninth bracha of shmona esri and let's begin by noting that this is the only bracha with the exception of the first bracha which of course begins baruch which begins with a blessing this is the only blessing of the 19 blessings that begins with the word barach with a word which is similar to the word baruch blessing so that certainly gives us a clue that of all the blessings of shema esri the ninth blessing is one that symbolizes blessing and bracha more than any other let's begin with the very interesting comments of the tour the son of the rash the tour of course codified the main corpus of halacha into four general categories of halacha and the laws of prayer the torah categorizes in what is called the section of the way of life and the tour says that the ninth blessing of shema esri has thirty words and the torah says what is the significance that this is the ninth blessing of shemonia estran the torah where the gemara says why is the ninth blessing of shema esri about sustenance parnassa it's interesting you know humorously people say that all of a sudden when it comes to the ninth blessing of shamanism everybody wakes up and people are davening and praying with great intent and great devotion because after all yes we won best and we want mashiach and we want but but we know we all want to make a buck people are interested and very concerned about their livelihood and the gemara asks why is this the ninth blessing of shema israel and the gemara says something quite amazing the gemara says that one's livelihood is very much dependent on the economy and whether prices are real or whether they're inflated and if you look in the ninth chapter of tehillim of psalms king david abraham prays that god should destroy those who jack up the prices what the gemara refers to as the mafia shah and those who cause inflation so since king david since abraham prays for the stability of the economy in the ninth paragraph in the ninth chapter of tehillim of psalms so too the ancient sagadola the men of the great assembly who formulated the shema esre they formulated that we pray for sustenance in the ninth blessing of shamanic and that's certainly of note who cares that david prayed for the downfall of those who jack up the prices in the ninth chapter of psalms why does that have to be connected to shema esri furthermore the tour asks why are there thirty words in the bracha of barikaleno blessed upon us hashem our god this year yes and all the various types of produce for good this bracha has 30 words the same talon and give do and reign for blessing so if you add the words of the saint halimat to the brah as we do in the winter on the face of the earth the sabbath and satisfy us from your goodness and bless our years like the good years this of course is the one who blesses the years if you count up these number of words you have 30 words says the tour what is the significance of 30 words in this blessing of shema esri says the holy torah because in the humesh there are two sukim that speak about god's bounty and sustenance that he offers the jewish people in the world one is apostolic in devarim hashem god should open up for you his good story house is the heavens says to give the reign of that your land needs at its right time to bless all of your handiwork silva you will lend to the nations you will not have to borrow so this passage speaks about god opening up the heavens and giving us rain and giving us bounty this verse has 23 words furthermore the passage which we know as the quintessential passage describing god's sustenance to mankind paise god you open up your hand um and you satisfy to every living thing ratson their desire so this passage has seven words so throughout the tanakh the tube that describe god's sustenance and life-giving powers of livelihood to man they are summed up in a total of 30 words so since there are 30 words in the tanakh that describe god's sustenance to mankind therefore this bracha was formulated with 30 words and again you could ask why is it significant why is it important that the blessing with which we ask for sustenance should be paralleled after the number of words that describe god's ability to sustain the world in the tanakh why do the words why do the number of words have to be specific why why is it of relevance the number of words in the in the blessing so it's it's quite a remarkable thing we see that this blessing was paralleled in concept after the chapter of tehillim that speaks about the economy as well as the number of words in this blessing are paralleled after the number of words in the sukum of tanakh that speak about god giving us sustenance so i think this opens up for us a very important and fundamental idea about prayer in general shmona esri specifically this idea might be a little bit surprising especially in the context of this particular tefila program after all the function of this program the objective of this program which is uh i may say really a remarkable program is to try to enhance our kavanagh but i think we need to so to speak redefine what is the purpose of having added carvana in schmona esre and let's introduce this with a comment of a really fantastic safer a wondrous safer the name of the safer is magette mesharam magen meisham was written by the base yosef rabbi yosef karo rabbi joseph carroll the author of the shokanach and he records what he was taught by none other than his holy chavruza and who was the harusa of rabbi yosef karo rabbi yosef carol learned with a heavenly angel it's amazing a human being could study together with an angel and the angel told rabbi joseph karo be careful when you pray not to think extraneous thoughts don't even think about torah don't even think about torah subjects ki just focus on the words of prayer themselves now let us study these this teaching of the angel to rabbi yosef carol the angel taught rabbi yosef karo don't have extraneous thoughts when you pray just focus on the words themselves in his classic say foreign the first gate the thirteenth chapter the nefer rabbi khan valajnar says listen carefully to these words of the angel the angel did not tell rabbi yosef caro think about the meaning of the words but rather he said focus on the words themselves which means when you say the words of shmona esre the objective is to picture those words in your mind and just focus on unleashing those words the intent and the understanding of the meaning of the words are almost secondary to focusing on just unleashing those words themselves says do you know who composed schwann esri it was composed by the men of the great assembly we're talking about people who some of them were prophets mordechai ezra when these 120 men sat down to compose the prayer they were not using literary ability poetic license instead they were divinely inspired to compose those words that would effectuate in the heavens and all the various realms and worlds that which we are trying to accomplish they use the prophetic spirit to you to compose these specific words because they knew these words have the spiritual energy and power to unlock from shamayim that which we are asking for whether it's whether it's for healing they knew that these were combination of words these letters this system this uh paragraph requesting from god healing those words were then injected and laid in with spiritual nuclear energy to effectuate from heaven healing and in our braha the ancient sector understood that to gain sustenance from heaven for god almighty to send down from his throne of glory sustenance through the various spheros which are mystical realms and for that sustenance to emanate from on high and trickle down down down down down through the various spiritual channels until it materializes and concretizes in this world the way to access that is through the power of these divinely inspired words and that is one of the reasons why it is important if one is able to to make every attempt to pray in hebrew certainly if one is not doesn't understand the language at times we will allow one to recite the prayer in a language they understand for for more meaningful prayer however once a person is able to read the words of hebrew even if they don't understand it it almost doesn't matter whether you understand it or not the words themselves contain spiritual nuclear energy because they were not composed by poets and literary geniuses although they were it was composed by prophets and they knew these words are what it takes to access parnassa from heaven and now we understand part of their divine prophecy was trying to parallel the blessing after what chapter in tehillim where certainly david melech understood the workings of the heavens and he prayed for the economy in the ninth chapter of tehillim and therefore the way to access sustenance is in the ninth blessing of shema esri 30 words because that's the number of words in the tanakh in these scriptures about god's ability to sustain us the nefer shahim says more important than knowing the meaning of the words is just focus on saying the words i'll give you an analogy you don't have to know how a computer works for it to work if you're typing something and you need to type the word prayer p-r-a-y-e-r it's not really at all important to understand why when you press the letter p that the the letter p will appear on your screen you don't have to know the computer code or how it works in any way all you need to do is press the key accurately press that key tap it correctly tap it definitively give it the right amount of energy in the tap and that's all you really need to know and it will do what it needs to do because the computer programmer programmed it to do what it does and what it does best it's the same thing with prayer you don't have to know how prayer works you almost don't even have to know what the words mean and i'm reluctant to say this in a series about the translation and meaning of prayer but before we understand the meaning of prayer it is important to know the words themselves carry inherent value and meaning so even if you don't know what the words bless upon us hashem our god this year the first thing we need to know is the men of the great assembly already programmed that when those words are said correctly and accurately it will access paranosamina the great objective of learning the meaning of the words in a way it doesn't make the te fila more effective per se what it does is it makes the the more meaningful to us and our heartfelt intention and devotion will enhance the tfila but the thilo will do what it does almost regardless of whether we are thinking of the meaning of the words or not and as reluctant as i am to say that this is what requirement teaches us surely our enhanced kavanagh will enhance the efficacy but it will be effective regardless i'll give you an analogy from this week's parasha this week's parachutes parashat's valley and in partial memphis pastor dave chapter 49 verse 22 yaakov avinu tells joseph and i have given to you an extra portion over your brothers and you know where i got this portion from i took it from the amorites with my sword of akashi and with my bow yaakov says i won this property fair and square with my sword and with my bow but if you look in the targum if you look in the aramaic translation of unclas he translates the word baharbi with my sword bitsaloisi with my prayer uvakashti and with my bow uv with my request so instead of translating the words that yaakov one shechem with physical brute strength yaakov was saying i gained shechem through my prayer but he uses two different terminologies of prayer his sword and his bow his standard prayer and his request rav mayor simchavdevinsk explains that there are two elements of prayer there is the standard prayer which was formulated by the men of the great assembly and that is the shmona estuary that we say every day and that is likened to a sword in halacha any sword which is metal if somebody kills somebody with it even with a small amount of force they are liable for murder because metal has the inherent ability to kill so too our standard prayers were already injected and laid in with all the force that they need we just need to unleash them and then of course we have our personal prayer when we have personal needs that we cry out to god from the depths of our heart in our own word and those prayers are only as meaningful as the sincerity and devotion that we put into them but we have to recognize there is an element of standard prayer and this this great series will enhance the meaning of the prayer to us but recognize that prayer is effective whether we understand it or not and that is because the words themselves carry incredible power because they were composed by the greatest of men namely the men of the great assembly the anse nasa sagdollah now let's come to barakaleno because this is a blessing for a request for sustenance and certainly in our times this has many levels of meaning because we don't just want corn and um and carrots and wheat and barley even though us in new york we think everyone in atlanta is a farmer you know sorry you know that's how just we think it's an agricultural to society but of course we know that most people are not working in the fields and people's livelihood depends on commerce and business and stocks and bonds and mutual funds and economy and that is certainly included in the words bless upon us this year not just our fields but our commerce bless our years like the good years we know there were years where the stock market really rose we know there were years where the economy was really booming and that is what we pray for every single day and the question is friends why do we need to pray daily for sustenance isn't one the one of the basic tenets of our emunah one of the basic tenets of our belief is that on rosh hashanah god decrees how much money a person is going to make that year and whether a person works more or works less they're gonna get what was predestined so the one thing it would seem not necessary to pray for a daily and certainly three times a day is sustenance hasn't it already been decided on rosh hashanah and this is a very fundamental question and it is addressed by none other than the ram khaler of moshe lutzatto in his classic work darakasam and ramos sato speaks about the central role that prayer has to play in the in the life of a jew and he says that it is god's most basic desire and deepest desire to provide every jew and every human being with a bounty of livelihood not just for your basic necessities but to live in comfort and ample livelihood however god programmed the world that he only gives it if mankind attempts to come closer to him and that is the conduit through which god bestows parnassa and bounty on man so yes it was decreed that this year we should make 250 000 at least however we still have to pick up the check in other words just because the boss has the check waiting for you in his office you still got to go get it not every boss is direct deposit into your account and god does not do direct deposit god says yes i've decreed how much money you're going to earn this year but it's contingent upon you coming close to me i don't want you leaving anything in the escrow yes i decreed how much you're going to make this year but you got to come and get it and the way we come and get it is by coming closer to hashem that is the conduit and the channel through which god bestows upon us but then hashem shares with us and really bequeaths to the jewish people a gem of an idea the dark hashem teaches us that the way god's set up that we make a living is we go to work now going to work although it has a great advantage of earning a paycheck it has a great disadvantage because we cut become very involved and immersed in physicality and gash mia's kashmiris the physical world one could be working in an office and one gets carried away thinking this is all dependent on me my acumen my good ideas will earn me the paycheck and one begins to lose focus of god one could be in an office where the environment is uh less than worthy where perhaps people are speaking in a low manner perhaps people are dressed in an indecent manner going to work has a certain danger challenge and pitfall to it what could what what is our safety net that we don't get dragged down by making a living that the workplace that the environment that the immersion in our handiwork doesn't take us away from hashem and our safety net is right prayer because before we go to work during our work we're praying god help me out give me parnassa help me be successful so that what that does is it puts a framework that even if i'm at work now for the next nine hours i'm not going to get dragged down because i understand that whatever i'm about to do is dependent on god's good will so well how do i know that i'm aware of that well you prayed didn't you didn't you enunciate the concept that you believe that your success is dependent on god so when we go to work our work is now being framed in bahrain we're going to be careful now that we don't get carried away and think well this is all dependent on my own acumen my own handiwork i'm not going to get drawn after the physical environment of the workplace because i've already declared before i go to work after i go to work that this is not a physical activity this is a divinely assisted activity god is with me in the workplace says in the the ramhal prayer especially barikaleno will be our safety net to ensure that our that our working will not pull us away from the almighty i would not now like to present to you a um remarkable idea it's not my own idea this is the thesis of rav yeshua heller and i told rabbi fox bruner that perhaps my presentation will be a little out of the box and i hope you'll enjoy it and this was really eye-opening to me there is a comment in the usame the ishami was talking about various amaraim who had a difficult time focusing during the shema esri these comments of the usami could be found in yushami brahes paragbays shmuel said this is how i ensure that i have kavanaugh i count the birds don't we all right what in the world does mean that the way he has kavanagh is by counting the birds well rav yeshua heller wrote an entire compendium explaining this statement of shemoel that he counts the birds in order to facilitate his kavanagh and rabishua heller explains as follows if you look in parashas shemini that speak about the birds that you're allowed to eat the birds you know to eat so biblically we're allowed to eat any bird as long as it's not on the list of 19 or 20 birds that are mentioned in parashat shmini and respectively in fact in the list in one of the lists there are 21 birds in one list they're 20 birds however if you look in the gemara and khulan the gemara khulan teaches us and this gemara is found on that days the gemara says the ayah and the daya are all one bird gemara says further the aya they're all one bird knowing that if you then count the number of non-kosher birds mentioned in these parasitos you have 19 non-kosher birds says yeshua heller there is no question that everything in the physical world reflects the spiritual world the 19 non-kosher birds reflect 19 avenues of sustenance that mankind and the jewish people are dependent on god the 19 non-kosher birds correspond to the 19 blessings of shema esri and if you want to really understand each blessing of swansea you have to study the bird that corresponds to that particular blessing i'll give you an example and we'll come right away to the blessing of barikalino the first blessing listed in the first bird listed in parashashmini and pasha's rei is the nesha what is the defining characteristic of the nesha well rashi tells us now there is actually a dispute what is the nasher is it the eagle or is it the vulture let's go with the traditional interpretation that it's the ego the eagle is the highest flying bird and rashi tells us in pashas israel that all other birds carry their young in their arms because they're afraid of a predator coming down swooping down and taking their child away from them so they carry their child on their arms however the nesha is the highest flying bird it has no worries that a bird will swoop down upon it what it is worried about is maybe a human being will shoot from below a missile or projectile and hit their young so the nesh or the highest flying bird flies with its young on its wings and it says i don't have to worry about anyone flying above me i only have to worry about the projectile that might hit my young better the projectile hit me and i will be what for my young i will be a shield for my young i will take i will take it on the chin i will take the bullet in me to protect my young you want to conjure up an image of what god means when he when we say mugen avraham you want to understand what it means that god is the shield of abraham and the shield of the jewish people conjure up the image of the nesha the eagle who's willing to take a bullet in it and protect its young god also says when i took you out of egypt i carried you like on the wings of the eagle like i took you in my ananya covered my clouds of glory and when the egyptians were shooting projectiles i said better it should hit me and i will protect you so if you want it the imagery of magen avraham think about the nesha the eagle and you'll understand what it means that god is a shield of abraham we are now in the ninth blessing and therefore the ninth bird mentioned in parashat's shemini is none other than the nates and the nates is the sparrow hawk and if you really and truly want to understand the blessing of barclay and if you ask what do you mean i looked in pasha shmini that's not the ninth bird remember what i told you the ayah the daya the ra they're all one bird and in fact the ninth bird then is the nate's the sparrow hawk and the sparrow hawk if we could study this bird for a few brief moments we will gain a deeper appreciation and a fuller imagery of what we should think when we say the bracha of baricaleno the issue is that we don't exactly know what a nate's is we for convenience purposes translated as sparrowhawk and of course if we want to understand what this bird is we have to go to a very mysterious gemara so i invite you to join me for some bird study in a gemara in baba basra and kafei the gemara says that four winds blow every day the north sorry the real cliffhanger i'm just going to open up the second file that he sent they were supposed to have been stitched together but it didn't work uh just one minute hold that thought okay i apologize for the technical difficulties um i don't i can't find the second file um so what we're going to do is i contacted the office they're uh looking for it now um if if the new the second file appear they're very large files you can see the quality is very clear sort of a glass can sent two fly two files they're supposed to be stitched together so they can place uh seamlessly but apparently only the first one was uploaded so oh one second here they are okay they can't access the second file um so what we're going to do is we'll pause this year here at that cliffhanger um we will we will uh wrap up for tonight then i'll send out an email with a link to the second half of this year that you can all access um yourselves um and i welcome any further uh comments on this year so far the two the two ideas that uh i found to be very fascinating i'm sure you did too just to recap the first idea was uh i guess sort of iconoclastic in the sense that this program is all about understanding the brahmos the gladstein brought some pretty interesting primary sources that indicate that in addition to understanding the words of the bracha which obviously draws us in obviously creates that connection but just saying the words themselves have such incredible potential that the words themselves are glowing with meaning and with depth and with spiritual power that's something that on one hand one might recoil at the idea you know just saying words i don't understand how is that supposed to mean anything but on the other hand to recognize that hashem embedded into the world spiritual power that's available to us by accessing it through torah and through dominic is a um is an exhilarating concept so that's uh that's the first idea that one of my takeaway ideas from this year that we've heard half of so far and uh the second idea very uh unusual this is really very gladstone-esque of uh connecting the ninth bracha to the ninth non-kosher bird presented in the excuse me the ninth bird presented in the torah and to learn about that bird and thereby drawing us into understanding the bracha is another idea that i'm looking i'm looking forward to seeing the second half of this video so without further ado because you have to get some sleep so that you can see the next video tomorrow night i'm going to let you all go i'm going to wish once again to thank our sponsors wish all of you here um a uh a week full of bounty and sustenance by number one taking the time to invest tonight in understanding this bracha and number two as the gemara says that uh there's a saying in the gemara that sometimes you receive reward for uh for action and sometimes you receive reward for inaction so in this sense we have an inaction and that we can't get to the end of the of the video right now but that desire to reach it should also be part of this class desire to learn more desire to strive desire to go beyond our current understanding so that's what i'm getting also from this little intermission that we're sharing together so um thank you very very much for tuning in um i will be sending out an email to the death shakable list with a link to the second half of the class and we'll also upload it to our youtube channel so that it can be readily accessed by anybody thank you very very much i apologize for i apologize for that technical uh glitch but i think there's what we learned from it and uh thank you for learning together have a great night and a wonderful week you