Alei Shur: How Can We Connect to the Torah? - Rabbi Guy Matalon

[Music] we are just about to finish the first part it's discussing the true potential of a human being we underestimate our power to do good and I think we also underestimate the power that we have to do evil you know somebody asked me once how come they the Messiah's gonna be able to do all these things that to make this world a better place how can one person do that they really the answer is if one person can ruin it just look at world war two one person can come up with this crazy idea and destroy the lives of millions and millions and millions of people not just Jews the same thing with somebody who has a great idea can sweep the world and make it a better place talked about for people hey Adam Murray Sean Avraham Avinu maschera Boehner and mushiya all of them are really connected to one another and they're connected to every Jew in the world we are not going to develop feelings of huge what's huge it's better we're not going to despair we do want to return to the time of Adam or Ishaan before the sin we long for the time that we can live on the madruga of Avril Michigan Yaakov we see ourselves as standing in our Cena with maschera Bay know and we're all looking and expecting the Messiah to reveal himself even today and then Ronnie will stay you can't go only flights in no flights out so in between the four figures from Adam to Avram Avram to Moshe the Moshe to the Miller Messiah there is a long line of people who have achieved moral perfection that the follow in the path of truth they carry the teachings of their forefathers and the most they keep the Torah of moisture beta from generation to generation at the time of the Saban Macallan one of the personalities that was most famous in the world was a guy named Darwin never heard of Darwin what did Darwin teach what does evolution boiled down to what is the origin of what is the origin of humanity what's the last entity before human beings so Darwin argued that the origin of the human being is from apes says Daly sure that according to Subba McCallum he said that Darwin could say that because he never met a human being he never met reverse rail cylinder if he would have met a researcher cylinder he would never ever would have thought human beings could ever come from apes when the modern world shrinks the human being more and more then it becomes easier and easier to see that maybe we didn't come from apes or to be more precise we came from a shared ancestor it's not that we're orangutangs what right do we have a shared ancestor but the idea is that if you really understand what a human being is the capabilities that we have the potential to connect to cutter's borrow clothes to be higher than angels then there is no way that we're any similar to animals so don't let modernity shrink you to believe that you are just an overgrown now we're going to talk about the Torah and our role in learning Torah kiyah mitzvahs are the Sharron ultimate event butts of the high yo-yo leaf net don't deflate okay this commandment that I command you today is not wondrous from you it's not far from you it's not in the heavens it's not over to cross the Seas it's something that is very very close to you in your mouth and in your heart to do that's what the preciousness of him and Rashi commentary so according to Rashi this these verses are talking about the Torah the Torah is not alien to you it's not far from you it's right there it's very close to you according to the RAM ban that parsha is talking about chuva the ability to return to hashem change your ways and become holy both of them are very close to us how close it says them to heal him that a Shem is very close to us the Ibanez races into helium he says Kellogg Mikolka of his closest do anything that is close to you God is even closer to the thing that is closer to you what's the closest thing to you the closest to you is you so according to even Ezra God is closer to us than we are to ourselves but what's the problem Joe what's the problem problem is we don't feel it correct Harry do you feel close to God God is close to you you don't feel it we feel to the world of Torah and knowing God and chuhwa is something that's very very far things would be a lot easier for us if we actually felt the closeness if you felt that every step you take as Shem is with you you would live a life that is very different than you're living now I think that sometimes if you've never eaten something that's disgusting right and you eat something that's disgusting you know right away like oh this is disgusting if you taste something that's really good you know Wow what is it I never had this before that is sometimes you have an experiences even though you didn't have the experience you know what that experience is you may not know exactly what the qualit but you know whether it's a good experience or not if you feel a sense of closeness you would feel it so let's try to figure out what is this closeness what is this distance that we feel where does it coming from and what can we do to bridge the gap how can we get closer and closer Gabrielle right that's what we want so listen to what their I'm Hal writes in Derek it's fine visit today and look at this matter quiche named him they are too but they have they've created with one characteristic man's intellect and the Torah that makes him wise the Torah was called as fire right so we see that really the Torah is this light that is given to the Jewish people that make us wise allow us to see and understand things that otherwise we couldn't and the Torah is holy and it's something that is sort of above us in the supernal realm in a sense and when human beings toil in the Torah the light of the Torah shines in our neshama and allows us to rise higher and higher and higher so the ali sher says that the torah in our intellect fit one another like a lock and a key a lock and a key and there our mouth says that the torah has many faces many interpretations and the number of interpretations correlate to the number of souls there are in the world so that each of your each of our souls right has a place a connection in the Torah now the way that the Torah describes the Oral Torah describes the words of Torah they're described as cold we ever like when you're done cooking and the coals are still like embers you know there's a good little tingle there right and how do you get it to you blow on it right he's not too hard this is just and all of a sudden the flame just that's how it is when you speak out the words of Torah speaking it out then we see that the fire grows and grows and grows and why was the Torah given this way why didn't I shall give the torez fire just fire so there I'm Kyle says it's because knowledge of truth strengthens the neshamah and distance is the itself and nothing weakens the neshamah in front of the Yetta imagine a teeter totter when you have a lack of knowledge if knowledge was clear and would be at the heart of human beings they would never sin and the yetzer would never be close to them and would never control them and since the Kaddish Barca wanted the human being to have a hit so that he could either be defeated or defeat the answer then he put the knowledge in them in such a way that it is bound like a coal that could ignite and become fire but it's up to you so our and the knowledge that we have in our mind and the knowledge is in the Torah is in the same state and it's only when you put the two together that process produces the fire and when you have the fire the yetzer Hara can get you okay but it's only when you don't know that the yetzer Hara can get you there's always a discussion whether angels have free will or not so on the side on the on the if we say that angels have free will so why don't they sin because they have a greater knowledge than us when they they know they see the cutters borrow there why would they sin that is their knowledge base makes their decision-making process much easier it's only through toil hard work that we can get the Torah to be ignited and when we ignite the Torah we get fired up and you feel it and it was done this way for one reason so that we have the hero because if it was it was given to us ignited we wouldn't have we would never choose to do any of this silly things you just stay and learn all day I guess a falafel for lunch forget it I'm just staying learning since the light was hidden in the Torah and in our mind is that maschera Boehner had to tell us that the Torah of the connection to Hashem the chuhwa is very very close to us because we don't really feel it but it's there so why aren't we feeling we believe in God we picked our path of Torah and mitzvot right this is not something that was a super imposed on us by others we're making the choice to sit here and learn we're making the choice to get up and leave also right we make the choices so why is it that we feel far from Hashem on our day to day basis there's we may feel sometimes there are days that we feel like we're very very you know very close to Hashem but other days you know go to minyan these breakfasts don't really feel if to remember that what makes us feel distant from a Shem has a name what's the name of it yet yet Liat Zahara functions in us and calls us to causes us to feel distant from Torah and from serving a chef but how does he do that how does it do that so listen to what the Gemara says in messiah chavez the person who tears his clothes and anger breaks his dishes in anger throws his money and anger you should look at him as if he is serving an idol okay so you're watching a guy who who just lost it he's having a temper tantrum he's screaming and yelling somebody took my detergent how dare any scrips the clothing right there watching this in this is the guy losing it and so here the Gemara says you should look at him as if he's serving idols why so the commercial Utah that's how the era works today it says go do this tomorrow just go to that and then the next day's gonna tell him to serve idols I'm our VIP Micah what's the puck that she tells you this this is low yeah but I kills that really kill nickel is awakened son she has big good fortune attack so the posix says don't you shall not have a false deity in you so the Chimera says what does that mean in you says that is called the answer the answer heart is going to start with something small and keep moving at higher and iron to a point where you're kissing some statue in the middle of India and not knowing why so that's how the hor works starts with little things and keeps adding them so the in Sahara is like a foreign deity in in US and his job is to bring us to serve idols what does that mean it means that the answer Hara is the feeling is a power that causes us to feel distant different and the yetzer Hara is has two parts to it there's the part that is for our benefit which is makes us go to work makes us have dreams they want to be successful we want to make money we want to have a house get married have children write all the things that we would call motivational we don't want to just sit and learn Torah for the rest of our life we want to succeed in life so there's an aspect of the answer are that is good but there's a part of the yetzer Hara that goes beyond these boundaries and it brings you to actually sin it takes over you such that you become a stranger to yourself and a stranger to Hashem and that's why it's called avodah Zarah like strange or because it made you a stranger to yourself and touch him that's what we're fighting against that's what we're trying to fight against we're not trying to fight against the positive motivation to become successful in life right that's not it there's no problem with that cut his bar who wants us to be successful he doesn't want us to all fail to become wannabes or almost wannabes right it's somebody who almost wanted to be something in he didn't so the idea is to battle this yet soon but it means that this type of quality makes us feel different strange distant from who we really are okay now the rush writes in his book time that a person should stay away from frivolity AG laughing not just you know normal life but party attitude what was that term that you use Doron hanging out hanging out hanging around laughing you know kidding around chillin oh that was a chilling chili and stay away from anger because it confuses the spirit and your mind that's what the answer Hara can do can cause you to be confused and if a person let's say is jealous and others what does jealousy mean you see the good in others we don't see the good in yourself that's the problem with jealous you look at others and you say they have this focus is wrong and so the person is estranged to himself because he doesn't recognize the good that he doesn't have to look at what this guy has or I wish I had his looks his money is this is you have it you have it you just feel estranged from yourself and you don't recognize all the positive things that you have there's a reason for you to look at the guy and try to be jealous of him you have it so you can get it you have it nobody is born legit Schley unsuccessful loser everybody has incredible potential they just don't recognize it or they miss recognize it they think they have a potential for X but it's really for Y and then their whole life is so the pursuit of money pleasure and honor cause a person to lose his mind and to reach a level that he is estranged from himself he's no longer who he really is and this is what this statement means that jealousy and desires and covered and honor take a man out of this world what world physical world now he's still here his the inside world of who he really is because he's pursuing things that don't lead him anywhere he causes an estrangement and an alienation for who he really is so it's only through bad moral characters that a person loses connection with himself and if you lose connection with yourself guess who else you lose connection with with us yeah and the only way to get back on track is by working on your moral qualities refocusing what's my goal what am I trying to do in this world to recognize also the good that you have in you it's a challenge it's very hard to project that you believe in yourself when you don't really believe in yourself this ability for us to become alienated from ourselves to feel estranged in our own body right without any feelings no understandings no connections no love it's there it's there and they could take over you just watch when you get angry you lose that's it doesn't matter you lose everything and it's a terrible terrible aspect of humanity now when a person learns Torah he has the ability to release the hold of this estrangement through his learning you believe that that's gonna happen so listen to what the Gemara says as a Gemara in human says a Buchanan said Cisco tubes a green ünzile which means what the POSIX says strange there and we read it they V 0 means crown so says aha nough said los cielos aha surah he may know if he merited the taurah becomes a crown he didn't merit it becomes a strange from him so listen to this if you married the Torah is a crown because part of you if you don't merit estranged so does Dora Dora study immediately make you connected and everything fixes everything according to this Gemara know it's dependent on the weather yours are not so hot if yours okay you get it if you're not you don't get it what determines whether yours okay or not so here's what he says a madam knows aha the words ha ha means Zak pure if a person is pure with his MoDOT with his moral virtues the taurah becomes a crown if you have bad moral qualities it's just going to stay alienated from you and that's it the Torah is the world of closeness and friendship to the cutters Borough Hall and if you don't have the right moral character you're not going to have a connection to the cutters borrow hole or the tarp so the prerequisite and it's something that we should work on is becoming better human beings and only if we become better human beings then we can actually learn the Torah and it'll be a crown for us and it'll do all the things that is supposed to do and with that we'll start [Music] [Applause]