CHAZAQ's Torah Talks #200 Rabbi Gavriel Friedman - The Purpose of it All

Any time in life you've ever felt satisfaction is when you were involved in things that you felt that were meaningful. That that that's not esoteric. That's just think of any time you did something anytime you had a longlasting feeling of satisfaction and pleasure and joy and happiness was when there was you were involved in furthering that. Be involved with meaningful things. focus on that and you feel that incredible sense of accomplishment and that inner peace and joy that everyone's [Music] like welcome to Torah Talks Kazak's program with special guests. We have with us once again a very special guest our dear friend Ravgav all the way from Erat from Israel Barab. Welcome RV. How you doing? Amazing. Ah phenomenal and great. So exciting to have the RV be episode number 200. That's right. It's it's so hard for me to believe this but we've done already 200 episodes of Kazak Torah Talks. Uh that means we've had 199 special guests, different guests, but this is our first repeat guest of God Freiedman and uh we really appreciate the rabbi for joining us. How you doing? How's everything? Everything's great. Hashem, we're doing well. Good lord. Amazing. Amazing. Phenomenal. Great. So, we're going to be speaking on the topic of the purpose of it all, the purpose of life. And uh very exciting topic. This is a question that we at Kazak were constantly dealing with uh you know kids in public schools and uh you know people that are not affiliated yet and many times they they ask these questions. So we're very excited to have this topic with Gav and uh we'll start by asking uh how do we not get caught on the rape rat race of life you know everyone's just running and doing and this and that. How does one uh catch himself rev? Well, I mean we I think we skipped a little bit, right? You know, why not get caught in the rat race if you don't have any purpose. So, I think it's uh if you don't have any purpose in life, you absolutely should get caught up in the rat race and spend as much time as you can doing that because it's better to be doing something than being nothing. So I think the the question before that would be punto as they say in your country right what is the point that's the what's the purpose so we we'll jump to what the purpose is then we'll get back to that yeah yeah okay so let's just start off like this the uh in one word although I don't remember what we spoke about last time did we talk about this last time I don't know if we did but okay worst case scenario we'll talk about it again but uh basically this is the question this is the question that everybody either does ask or should be asking and that is what is the point now now before we even get into what it is which is incredibly annoying because you know like when you like a clickbait you know I was like oh let me see the answer I don't know if you do this also when you read an article a headline you're like it cost more than you can imagine and then like okay click let me see how much it is and there's like 25 paragraphs it doesn't talk about it you anyway but uh okay let's just let's just understand something. This I'm going to quote to you right now is a quote from a great great sage by the name of Mosh which we we all are familiar yeah in wrote a number of books but one became very well known as the path of the just highly recommend this book highly recommend this book um I will tell you just before the age of 40 it was really hard for me but after 40 it's Gishmak now now even before it's gushmak it's just it's you have to really be you have to be in the game because it's like a step-by-step guide of El Punto, right? What's the point? And essentially starts out by saying that that so many people are so busy not asking this question that they end up never asking this question and whatever that means and that is like what are we doing here? What is the point? So you'll have to interject whenever you like because I have a tendency just to keep talking until you interject. We've got that we love you. You just do your thing. Okay, let's just do it then. I guess I would start by just if I would ask you, don't answer right away, but because I imagine you know the answer, and if not, then we'll roast you, but I imagine you're going to get the answer. What is every single person in the world looking for? Everybody. I don't care who you are, your man, woman, child, Jew or non-Jew, it doesn't matter. Everybody's looking. Don't say it yet because let the audience think for a second, but you know, the millions of people that are listening to this. Um, but uh just like what what is everyone looking for? Again, you could be Jewish or not, religious or not, 55, 10 or 100. By the way, if you hear background noise with my kids, it is what it is. It is what it is. Um, so what's everybody looking for? Happiness. Rabbi, that's it. The whole world wants to be happy. That's everybody's looking for, right? We know that everybody wants to be happy. The question is, what's going to bring about what we would call long-term happiness as opposed to some quick, you know, uh, fake news? Yeah. Something that's not going to be ephemeral, not just going to fade away, uh, here today, gone today, but something that's going to be, you know, longlasting, everlasting. What's the type of thing that we can that we can that's going to be everlasting. And you know what? I actually never thought about this. I'd never said it like this. Well, the only thing that's everlasting is what's everlasting. That's essentially the answer to the question. What's everlasting? So, uh that's what we would call in Judaism what we would call God, the Lord Almighty. As uh as I was once I was playing piano in a in a lobby of a hotel. Uh this is not professional. I just happened to be sitting at the hotel piano. I don't think I was even allowed to be doing it, but I was doing it. And uh and a whole group of uh of people came in. I think maybe they're Christian, whatever. And they were like, "Play it. Play it and sing to Hashem. You got to sing to Hashem." So, it took me a minute to realize that they were saying Hashem. But, uh, that's the that that is the point is to sing to Hashem, right? Just to the eternal is Hashem is God, the Lord Almighty, right? That's that's the that's the eternal. If one wants to be connected with an eternal thing, they need to connect themselves with the eternal thing. Right? So, so essentially that would be uh there's a lot of pleasure in this world. A lot of momentary transient quick stuff which feels good. The question is whether it's going to be there for you when you continue on. And uh again, not even the next world even here in this world, right? So that that's what we say. It's like what's the point? What's the point ultimately? Well, you don't really have to ask anyone that question because everybody intrinsically knows that they're looking to feel a level of happiness and and long-term would be fulfillment, meaning purpose, depth, connection, reality, right? That's that's essentially what that what we're all looking for. So the question, what is it? That's that's that's the the the elusive question for some and for others it's not so elusive, right? And that's what so Judaism states is that the ultimate purpose is the ultimate purpose is to get close to God. That's the ultimate of what we're doing. And that's what we say. We're talking [Music] about Hold on. I'm going to go I'm going high, you know. Let's switch it to E [Music] minor. Hold on. Hold on. [Music] B minor seventh right the goal is by the way this a beautiful guitar if anyone's looking this is a beautiful guitar GK Studio Negra Cordoba highly highly recommended in any event brought to you by it rabbi on the on the program auction And if you call right now, okay, so that what we just saying is getting close to the Lord Almighty, getting close to Hashem, essentially attaching yourself to the eternal, attaching yourself to the infinite. When when a person can do such a thing, that's what everything's about. That's what everything that's everything. Okay. Then we have the rat race. Now there's a question about the rat race, right? There you go. That if that's really the goal, right? If that's the goal, to attach myself to meaning and purpose, how do you balance that with the rat race? It's I don't know. It's so much of a question of how do I, you know, not get sucked into the rat race because, well, that's just a a matter of focus and recognition of what's truth. I can know the truth and still get sucked into something. But you know that's like the Gar says a person doesn't do the wrong thing unless a level of silliness insanity you know enters into them. So so we just got to get a hold of yourself people. Get a hold of yourself as we say again in uh in the holy country of New York in focus. You got to focus a little. And if we get that focus then we'll be able to uh to do the right thing. It's just it's just a question of what's primary, what's secondary, what you know, what are we trying to accomplish? If anybody knows, we all know money doesn't buy happiness, right? Every that that's been said a million times. I mean, the truth is who says that? Those who don't have money. But anyway, anyway, the point is that that that money can take away a lot of things that will make you unhappy. That's for sure true. But it's not going to bring you that everlasting eternal fulfillment and depth and meaning, right? So, so then the question is, okay, so, uh, if that's not what it's about, then what is it about? So, he said connecting with the with the infinite. So, how do you how do you make sure that you get sucked into the rat race, right? We got to make sure that we put ourselves in the right environment, hang out with the right people, make sure that we're we're staying focused on what our what our mission is. You know, it's very I don't want to say laavio, but it's like it's like when a person wants to eat healthy. you want if you want to eat healthy, hang out with people that eat healthy and uh make sure you don't have with you in your home things that are incredibly unhealthy all the time. Okay, we follow we we have our ups and their downs, etc. But if if we put ourselves in the right environment with the right people, the right places, maybe the right schools, maybe the right mentors, you know, then that uh has a major impact as as the world says, show me your friends, you know, tell me who your friends are and I'll I'll I'll tell you who you are, right? You get to know who somebody is based off the people they're hanging out with. Which is why it's so so important in order to stay focused that we're hanging out with the with focused people. Rabbi, that very very very true. Uh close getting close to God is definitely uh an amazing feeling, the best thing in the world. Uh people always ask me how so okay that that sounds great, but how does one do that? So I always tell people this uh esoteric capitalistic deeper understanding that the way to get close to God is by doing more mitzvot by doing more good deeds of positive commandments and the word mitzvah. Follow along guys this this might be a little bit uh uh deep is that there's a concept which is basically the first letter of the olive olive and the last letter tough they intertwine. So uh bet the second letter and second to last letter etc etc. So the word mitzvah the letter me is the 10th to last letter. So the 10th letter is and then the letter which is the next letter of the word mitzvah is the fifth to last letter and the fifth letter is hey. So you have and then the rest of letters of the word mitzvah is v and which is god which is god's name. So in essence every time we do a mitzvah we're doing a y we're getting closer to hashem to god and the more mitzvah we do the closer we have a relationship with belam. Do you agree with God? What do you say? First of all, I've never heard that before. That was a really no You're joking. Never heard that before. Never heard that. That was beautiful. Very beautiful. I thought you were going to say something else. I thought you were going to say that was really nice. I thought you were going to say mitzvah from the word, you know, which means a point of connection, right? So, but it has to be understood that it's not so esoteric. There's a there's this thought process of like well if I you know kumbaya then all of a sudden no that's not that's actually not what it is at all. Any time in life you've ever felt satisfaction is when you were involved in things that you felt that were meaningful that that that's not esoteric. That's just think of anytime you did something anytime you had a longl lasting feeling of satisfaction and pleasure and joy and happiness was when there was you were involved in furthering that. So you were doing that. So the real question is trying to figure out like so what's the the only the real issue which which is a whole discussion of itself is so how do we know it's even true right that that's the real question right that people like like might grapple with and okay that's a discussion to be had and many books have been written on that and you know many many podcasts have been had and much ink has been spilt on the topic but rabb can you suggest one or two book people love when we suggest books and they go ahead and purchase books. Oh, sure. Yeah. I mean, one book for Yeah. Two two quick ones. It's easy to remember is uh is there's a book written by Rabbi Lee Kellerman at the time as Lawrence Kellerman. I mean, it's the same person just the author read Lawrence Kellerman. Permission to believe is one of them. And the other one's called Permission to Receive. Permission to believe discusses for rational approaches how we know that there's a God and permission to receive discusses how we understand the fact that that we actually received the Torah from God at Sinai and that we know that it's actually true. Uh that's just two right there. There are many others. Reach out reach out to I guess leave your email or whoever it is, you know. Kazak yeah reach out to Kazak info.org. We'll be more than happy to suggest other uh there are answers. There are answers. There are books. There are videos. There are articles, there are shiim classes, lectures, so much materials out there. I heard something today. I'll tell you something you heard today. And uh I don't know, forgive me if this is off the topic or don't forgive me, whatever. It's your choice. I'm just going to tell you I heard today from one of my one of my his name is Moshar aid a yid who's here in he told a story about his father. He said that his father grew up irreligious. He was not a religious Jew. He was Jewish but not secular. And the first time in his life that he heard Torah is he came I mean he probably heard here and there and left and right you know he's growing up in the world I think it was conservative or maybe reform or whatever it was he but he never heard of orthodox Judaism he thought he had it all he came to Israel he went to Asia and I think it was 1995 I heard the story this morning in 1995 and not like when his speaker was and I heard the story just this morning like I actually heard the story this morning. This is this is this is true. I don't know when you're airing this but I'll just let you know right now. I'm going to I'm going to bust your bubble now. June 9th. I'm sorry. Sorry if you're airing this other time. We're airing it tomorrow night. So So for all those June 9th and air now it's 9:02 p.m. Right. So that was I this morning from he has a he puts out a daily inspirational uh message which is really very good. Very good. And um anyway he said the first time in his life that he hears from his father he said when he was 31 he comes and he's like why did I not know about this? I'm looking all over the world for meaning and it's right in my backyard. This thing called Judaism. It's meaningful. It's it's it's it's it's relevant. It's not for the future. It's not for the next world. It's right here, right now. Not esoteric, very down to earth. Be involved with meaningful things. Focus on that and you feel that incredible sense of accomplishment and that inner peace and joy that everyone's looking for. 100%. Rev. Uh totally agree. Uh so one might ask, how does one find his or her personal mission in life? We all have missions. We have a reason we're put down here. Yeah. So there's there's a wonderful book called The Thinking Jewish Teenagers Guide to Life. I know that was a long title, but again, the thinking Jewish teenagers guide to life. I know that's an oxymoron, but the point is that uh there was a rabbi who wrote this is there is a rabbi, Rabbi Tats, Rabbi Dr. Aka Tats wrote this book, right? Rabbi Tats wrote this book many spoken for Khazak. He's great. Oh, I'm sure he's spoken for. Yeah, he spoke speaks all over the place. He's been around for thank the good Lord quite some time. He should be to many more years. God willing. Ahmed whoever he writes he writes in his book the thinking Jewish teenage guy life. And if you're not a teenager, it doesn't matter. Read the book. It's very good. Very very you know topics that are relevant to our life all the time. and he has a discussion about this and he asks this question like how does somebody figure out what their purpose is and and like we quoted before the other book we said path of the just so far we got four books on the table right path of the just like I said it's a heavy book heavy book it's actually quite light it's very small but I'm saying it's a heavy book and he writes over there that that the ultimate is to figure out what's your mission that's what we're trying to do figure out what your mission is so how do you do it how do you do He actually has another book how he answers the question. It's very small book it's called. Yeah. Which is like it's called right. So anyway it's anyway it's in the old versions of I don't mean like 1700 versions but maybe also but the older versions they have in the back. I'm not going to give his answer although he does give an answer if you want to read the book. Anyway so he uh says that essentially like this every one of us has what's known as a national mission. That's the Jewish people, part of the nation. And that's called Torah and mitzvos. That's the national mission. And then we have our individual mission. How does somebody figure out their individual [Music] mission? For those who don't speak Hebrew, and I just said, I'll translate. And that is to what is this compared? This is compared to a person who is dropped off at a work site, at a construction site. And in a construction site there is half of everything built. Half of the landscaping, half of the building, half of the mason work, half of electricity, half of the plumbing, etc. Not to be confused with etc. Which is not a word, etc. In any event, he goes, it's also not a word. It's two words. It's not even English. It's Latin. But the point is that you have all these things there. Now, imagine I drop you off at this work site and I say it's 10 in the morning. I'll pick you up at 10 at night. Good luck. Get to work. You never worked in a construction site. You don't know what you're supposed to be doing. You don't have Google with you. What are you? You don't have AI. You don't ch nothing. What do you do? The answer is depending, you know, some cry, some, you know, just sit there and some even try. Let me try this. Let me try that. Let me try the other. So, we're big tats. Well, what would be if I dropped you off at that work site? But this time, not alone by yourself. I actually dropped you off with a little box. It's called a toolbox. What's the very first thing you should do? Go ahead. Study the toolbox. Open it up. Figure it out. Right. Open what's in the toolbox. So when you open the toolbox and you see that there's a little screwdriver with a light on the inside of it and you see these wires there and then you see this like little gauge with other red and black, you realize, oh, I should probably be doing electricity. This is all electrical stuff, right? When a person starts to see, oh, it's all plumbing stuff. Probably I should work on the plumbing. Oh, it's all gardening tools. probably I should go swimming. That makes no sense. You should go gardening. That means to say, take a look at what's in the toolbox. Every one of us has a toolbox. There are things that we're drawn towards. We're drawn towards things. Now, sometimes those things are not okay. Your personal mission can't go against the national mission. The national mission is the is the holy Torah, right? We have the Torah tells us how do we living our lives nationally? You can't say I have a really good aim. you know, I'm really quiet. I'll be a sharpshooter and I will, you know, be a hitman, right? He was like, no, you can't just stop and kill. Okay, maybe join an army. I don't know. You got to work that out. But my point is that it can't go against the national mission. So, as an individual, you got to look in your toolbox. How do you do that? You got to start looking in your life. What do you feel drawn towards? What's pulling you? Where' you feel seat, depth? Where'd you feel that? And then start trying to see, so how can I how can I work that out? and maybe go ahead and direct myself in such a path. Amazing, RVA. Very, very, very true. I would add also getting a mentor to getting a rabbi, a teacher that could help you guide you to the right path. Uh, Revg, every time we have you, we enjoy it so much to give over Torah in in such a positive way. I actually had a complaint. It wasn't when Rav spoke, a different speaker, I won't mention his name. He was so funny. and an elderly individual came to me after the event and he started complaining why is Kazak bringing in speakers instead of being inspiring their comedy show and they got upset at me. I'm like relax relax. I heard once a beautiful thing just like a child you try to give him some medicine and he's not opening his mouth and you try to do peekaboo and achu and try to distract him and then once his mouth opens up when he's laughing or smiling you throw in the medicine. So too when we have these amazing speakers they they're filled with happiness they want to give it over to others and at the same time they throw in some uh inspiration here and there and everywhere correct y the magnets yeah the mag yeah powerful so appreciate every single gem that you've been giving us we have a custom a final message for Torah talks so is that Now what do I do? Yeah, if you could you could you could give us uh you know bring it all together to Yeah, for sure. Okay. I'll just tell you one line that I that I heard from from Burkowitz who's the rashiva of ahat. He heads the the yeshiva in in Israel and Jerusalem. And Burkit said, I'm sure others say it as well, but I it just it rings in my mind in my head that he says never settle for mediocrity. Don't settle for mediocrity. Go for the gold. Go for the top. You know, sometimes in life, we we find ourselves saying like, "Ah, that's enough for me." We never say that for things that we think are valuable. We got to figure out what's the value, what's the worth of something. And when we know what it is, go for the gold. We got to go for the top of the top. I don't I wonder if he heard that from Noah Weinberg, who was our Shiva before him. There was a guy, I was in a restaurant in in Israel, and a guy comes over to me and he and he okay, he just introduced himself. He knew I was and whatever. And then he tells me that when when he was uh learning in yeshiva and he decided to go to work, he was going to be I think he was going to to law. He's becoming a lawyer. That nober when he heard he was going to law. He grabbed him by his lapels. And he said, "You're going to law. You're going to work. You're in yeshiva. You're going to work." And he said, "Yeah, yeah, I'm going to work." He goes, "You better be the best lawyer that ever was. Never settle. You want to go into law, go to law, but be the top of the top, right? You got to be pushing ourselves and making sure that we're maximizing our abilities, our capabilities. God gave us talents and, you know, for a reason and make sure that we're using those for the proper the proper things. And I would recommend maybe just making sure that it's aligned with a national mission, with a personal mission, and then give it your all of Freedman. So inspiring and so true. Very, very, very, very powerful. Give it all you got, whatever you can. Be on the top. Do the best that you can and with going to see we're going to see success in all of our endeavors. Want to thank for his time and all that he does for we really appreciate it. Special thank you to our various different platforms that host Kazak Torah Talks. Once again, this is so exciting. 200 episodes to many more. With God's help, we want to do a lot more. And we want to thank the various different platforms, our friends at Torah Anytime. Uh special thank you to daily giving. A dollar a day goes are very far away. We encourage everyone to become a daily giver. Please look into that. Special thank to the various different Kazak volunteers uh uh staff members, board members, supporters. We're forever grateful with behind the camera doing such an amazing job as a media director and we should all we should all merit to see the complete redemption. Would you go to your meet over there and have the midash redemption? Thank you. Pleasure. Uh where's the music? Rabbi, what do we what do we do? What do we do now? Alhamdulillah. [Music]