Rabbi Chanan Gordon - Making this Year the Best Year of Your Life

hopefully you guys will forgive me for the post shabbos schvitz us south africans and californians are not uh i suppose it's not really humid for you guys um but it's very interesting firstly i want to give two very sincere thank yous and shout outs posted in before sonia to our host here from queen's jury center robert bell i want to appreciate the kind words and behind me the logo for hazak organization that does terrific work all over all of america and we've certainly introduced them to la and you should continue to do your phenomenal work and ignite the souls of thousands of jews so it's very interesting when somebody introduces you which is true um as someone who's a former stand-up comic and here we are on you know before the ominou ryan says i ran in uh someone says rabbi gordon just make sure i know it's and it's l but you know don't make it too heavy so if people are used to my speaking style that's one thing you don't have to worry about i'm reminded of a very cute story a little seven-year-old kid moishi sitting in the front row of a big you know one of these big modern orthodox huge edifice and on the wall there's a memorial to the veterans beautiful uh israeli flag beautiful american flag the name's all in hebrew so the rabbi notices these little kids looking up at this memorial looking whimsical looking a little bit confused so he wants to make sure there's kids at ease he goes up to the kid and said you know what's your name he said my name is moishi he said she looks like you're a little bit confused as to you know what this uh what this is in the wall you want to know what this what this is so the little kid says yes please rabbi so rabbi says you know these are brave uh men and women you know that died during the services so little kid looks up at the rabbi and he says is that the friday night services or that the sharpest service so one thing i can guarantee you uh no one's gonna wipe out you but i've been involved in public speaking all of my life and i'll tell you one of the there's two important things in public speaking that of uh that is clear across the board firstly most people don't remember what the speaker says but they remember how they feel and in order to try and help a person to remember at least the main points all the research says that we can at best remember seven main points so in order to help us remember some ideas that speak to the topic of making sure that we're going to make this year the best year of our lives what i've done is i've taken the word hazak and we made it into a acronym and each one of these words will trigger a different idea that i'd like you to think about and i'd like you to hopefully embrace to behave hashem make the year ahead the greatest year of your life c-h-a-z-a-q let's start off with kazakh how many people do i speak to that say rabbi for you ahead i know i can see for can but is it going to happen is it really going to happen so i want to speak briefly to the difference between two emotions in order to have the greatest year we've got to remember that created every single human being as a hybrid between a body and a soul which triggers two very different emotions one is i feel like the other is i want so ravdesla says the following the voice that you hear in your head that's that that talks about felike comes from a more base animalistic place that's your goof that's your body i don't think there's anyone in this room that doesn't want to have a healthier that doesn't want to have a successful year so i spoke to many people that say rabbi we want to go through shas i want to i want to go through the holocaust four o'clock in the morning when your alarm clock goes off do you feel like waking up but what do you want so the the way the almighty created the conflict between the feelock and the what if you want to have a successful year between now as we start selectus and so we're standing before the almighty on the yom hadin figure out what you really want because i guarantee you in the year ahead it is going to be that internal conflict between what you feel like and what you want so often as your raw pointed out one my day job is we represent a number of very famous people in the nba and then they found various celebrities and it's crazy i've become their rabbi i often say to them especially when they come to a point where they're starting to retire from one of the teams is i want you to picture your 98th birthday [Music] your significant other's next to you your best friends your family there's a blue like that's going around [Music] what do you want them to say about you that's your legacy so in terms of what you want think now before you standing before a college barracuda in a week and a half from now what do you want to achieve in the year ahead and those things should be jotted down those things should be sketched in your mind's eye and just an idea i spoke in the sake of shabbos try and think of two things between yourself and hashem and not huge things something that's very palatable a very small idea and two things that you'd like to achieve in the year ahead between yourself and your fellow man man gender neutral so c is the difference between what you can do and what you're able to do it comes down according to repdesta between the dichotomy between what you feel like and what you want people who are going to navigate the year ahead and put a premium on what they want are likely to be successful h for kazakh it stands for hashem loves you so i've been involved in the speaking circle for many many many years and if i if i had to summarize probably the most common thing that happens after a talk or whatever it's something like this how can hashem love me you understand look what's going on in my life i've got this what that does is it places in your mind's eye a certain self-fulfilling prophecy and you miss the opportunity to create a clear which i'll explain so i'll tell you where i believe this comes from the secular world says that a happy life is a pain-free life there's nothing further from the truth there is nobody that you will ever meet in your life that has achieved any form of success that has not had pain and by the way the rambam says if you have it's a very very scary sign in fact the gomorrah says very clearly if you go 30 days without any for some point of pain it's not such a good thing so the notion that a happy life means a pain-free life that you should extricate from your mind's eye so i want to just share a short idea so we can start building up tools to help us have the greatest year of our life if i were to if i were to ask you to picture the following scene you got little a little moishi again five-year-old kid playing with a soccer ball in the front lawn and like anyone would expect the soccer ball rolls out into the street and a car comes around the corner one foot away from our little hero the driver turns up the uh the window and gives this guy a little kid a club what are you doing don't you like any normal kid few minutes later it's a normal precocious kid kid starts playing with the ball again ball rolls out in the street next driver one foot away slams on brakes driver rolls up the window and gives this kid muscle like he's never heard before kid goes back to the front door roll ball rolls out in the middle of the street third driver comes to the moshi and this time the driver pulls up his handbrake stops the car and starts chasing our little hero and he chases him around the back of gardens over a fence finally comes to cul-de-sac and the driver of the third car grabs that little moishi and he gives him a punch who was the third driver sorry excellent excellent the third driver was his father the first two drivers didn't care enough so the notion that you have pain in your life is prove positive that your father in him who cares about you the notion that his indifference is the highest form of pain according to the rambam so the notion of how do i know hashem loves you unless you tell me that the last 30 days of your life have been a cakewalk hashem loves you so how do we take that into the new year is i want you to try and get out of your hand the notion that a happy life means a pain-free life and i want you to try and recalibrate into a way of thinking which is very difficult and that is we only see a keyhole what's going on behind the door is obviously we're not privitsu loves you more than you love your own children and just like the analogy of a gps we all know the very final destination sometimes when we recalculate because hashem loves us and sends certain things in our journey which are often painful in recalculating it's out of complete altruistic love so what i'd like you to start thinking about in the year ahead is that pain is not bad rather pain is the price that you're going to pay for greatness and pain is proved positive that hashem loves you see is what you can do and what's going to happen we spoke about the difference between what you feel like and what you want h is for hashem loves you a for hazak is attitude so i a few things number one we live in a very tough generation the proliferation of technology social media we're living the i generation it's probably one of the most narcissistic generations ever in fact three four years ago the oxford dictionary every year incorporates certain new words into the dictionary in 2013 the new word into the oxford dictionary was selfie that's the way the world is holding today and then you've got a computer company called apple where every single technology permutation starts with i itunes either this is the i generation the taurus says exactly the opposite nothing is coming to you you woke up this morning [Music] your soul was restored to you that's a gift and the first thing a jew says when we wake up in the morning is more dhani people focus on the more down knee but if you look at the last two words saying i have faith in you there were thousands of people that didn't wake up this morning the reason why you woke up this morning is your tough kid your mission in this world is far from over i believe in you then the number one thing in terms of attitude is having akara satov our religion being jewish comes from how do means come from comes from the concept of gratitude so if you can try and refocus and think of those things that you are blessed with instead of counting that person's car that person's wife count your blessings we are part of 0.02 of the world population the people sitting here tonight you people are part of at best 10 of the 0.2 percent and i've written a lot about jewish demography so in the eyes of akadeshwar every single person sitting in this hall is a diamond is a diamond you should know that we represent for sure some of the most famous people these are michigan that have no clue what the world is about and the whole world thinks that these are the idols clueless the people sitting in this room are absolute idols are absolute diamonds excuse me and this is akaddish bharati's is using every single one of you as a way to continue to hold the flame to the next generation so the the gratitude that we should we should be doing cartwheels at the notion that you're part of not only the chosen people but you some of the very few people on a mat shabbos that have taken the time to understand that rosh hashanah is going to affect your your entire year your entire decade your eternity now there are hundreds of thousands of jews out there that are partying right now they have no idea the average unfortunately the average jew has new year the under times square that the falafel ball drops that kiss the next person next time it's ridiculous the fact that you hear you've got to realize the gomorrah says very clearly is that while we make our decisions we have bakira that there are there are usually a certain key lack of police rail which really carries so to speak the mission of bakaraku so know how grateful we should all be it does not mean that that's impervious to pain we just said that pain doesn't mean something is bad pain means that the almighty is with you and directing you so he said c is for the difference between can i achieve certain things that i want we spoke about the dichotomy between what you feel like and what you want we said h but hazak stands for hashem loves you we said the there's a myth that a happy life means a pain free life hopefully we dispel that we then went on to a for attitude and the most important concept of an attitude of gratitude we said that that's in fact if you look at it from an etymology perspective that's how we get our name as jews let's talk about the z for hazak which is man time so i cannot tell you how many times i've spoken at pesach whatever at programs and someone comes to the podium afterwards and says rabbi this is amazing thank you very inspirational but you don't understand i'm 71 years old i i missed it well i mean it's fantastic but you meant what are you giving me a whole lot of his horrors it's a huge mistake so let me tell you a few things about time first let me give you a perspective purely from the secular world [Music] perhaps you people might have heard of a franchise a chicken company which was supposedly started by colonel sanders he was 56 years old when he started kentucky fried chicken perhaps you might have heard of a famous artist that is well known for doing the bastion of saint peter's in italy so michelangelo was 64 years old when he did the saint peter's bastion perhaps you might have heard of one of the most famous architects in the world andrew lloyd webber who did who finished the google home when he was 91 years old and perhaps you might have heard of a furniture store which is a assembly store of furniture ikea ikea was started by someone who's 92 years old the notion it's never ever too late to be the person that you're meant to be so i found a beautiful piece to illustrate this better than anything i've seen in a lot of writing in a while it was before my time but there was a famous column called dear abby so i see some people are familiar so the real abbey it wasn't a real name it was actually a jewish woman and in one of the columns the the person wrote in said abby i want to get your advice i want to get your thoughts i would love to go to medical school but i figured out if i go to medical school complete my internship and then start practicing it'll be seven years from now i'll be 43 years old [Music] so abby's answer is beautiful she says simply in seven years from now how old will you be if you don't go to medical school the time is going to get a pass either way so i always tell people and this is a very common thing the cop that could have would have should have um when's the best time to plant an oak tree oak tree takes a long time to to germinate and to develop when's the best time to plant an oak tree it's about 20 years ago when's the second best time to plant an oak tree right now one thing we absolutely know you rabbi spoke about chuva akash park gives us more than one chance the notion that it's too late is completely and utterly antithetical to a torah concept firstly it's never too late and secondly as a speaker you have no idea how rewarding and how what it makes me feel standing up on a mozai shabbos seeing a number of people and understanding that people realize why we're in this world for those of you came in little black we spoke about the fact that how do we how do we remember certain tools to make the year ahead the most successful year of our life we took the word hazak to make an acronym we said c is the difference between i can do something versus whether i will do something h is hashem loves you a is one's attitude z is stands for zman which is time the next a stands for something which we all face in this journey called life and that's adversity so one thing again i guarantee you there are very few guarantees in this world but i guarantee you in this journey called life every single person in this room will face vicissitudes so here's a question i'll give you i'm asked a lot why couldn't we every friday night we we give a bracha to our sons and daughters why couldn't we give a a broker you know i bless jennifer and lisa amazing girl she went to harvard she went on to marry the doctor from manhattan a white picker defense in the labrador what our imam us and our others our matrix and patriots went through a tremendously tremendously tough life so again in the time a lot of we can't really get into the reason for these things but we do know with the protege of our patriarchs and matrix and we in this world to actualize our potential in order to flex certain spiritual muscles by definition it's going to take a certain amount of adversity because there's certain things that don't grow unless there's friction so we know that things are lie dormant there's many machalim in in shas the example for example of of oil in an olive and until you squeeze the olive it doesn't come out the the analogy we know of wine certainly doesn't happen unless you squeeze the grape the pressure stones don't happen until you dig dig deep these are all pedagogical ways that we can understand why we have to go through certain things because it takes to pull out the potential that every single one of us has in our dna it takes a certain amount of vicissitudes so that one of the most beautiful stories which i want to share with you is the way i'd like you to think of the year ahead when you face adversity it's a beautiful story of a mother who knew that her young daughter had just broken up with her boyfriend she was in pain 14 year old girl she said to her daughter she wanted to teach her some life lessons about how to handle when the going gets tough when we have setbacks when we have adversity she said come into the kitchen and on the stove there were three pots and in each pot there was water she took the stove and she cranked on the gas on each underneath the stove so that the flame would ignite and said sweetheart i want you to come back in 20 minutes from now 20 minutes later her daughter comes back into the kitchen and lo and behold each of the pots has boiling water in pot number one she put a carrot in pot number two she placed an egg and in a pot number three she put some coffee beans she said my dear daughter [Music] every single person in this journey called life at some point is in boiling hot water here's the choice whether you're going to be a carrot an egg or a coffee bean allow me to explain some people when that the hot water eventually hits how we're going to pay the bills we've just been through and we're going through a most horrific pandemic people have lost their lives people not well when people face these facilities here are the three choices you can become the carrot when a carrot is thrown into burning hot water it breaks up it fragments and it falls to pieces so option one you can fall to pieces [Music] option two is when you put an egg in boiling hot water the egg becomes hard it boils so option number two sweetheart is when you inevitably land up in hot water in your life you can become very stoic you can become cold you can become cynical you can shut down to the world but my advice to you is that when the boiling hot water lands up in your life that you become the coffee bean the coffee bean takes the situation and takes the normal water and changes into a beautiful aroma a tasteful beautiful cup of coffee when not if when the tough times arrive in the year ahead it's some of the things we've discussed it's about our attitude it's about not thinking god's out to get you he's not out to get your pain is gonna is the price pain is not bad if you embrace the idea of i'm going to take the situation and i'm going to make this into coffee we'll be able to take the stumbling blocks and turn them into stepping stones so for people who came in late we going through the acronym to think of the tools to take them to the next year to make it the best year of our life c stands for can we can do certain things we've got huge potential but will we that's the dichotomy between whether it's going to be on a shimmer or our body which is going to be the overriding force in the year ahead whether we feel like something being your goof your body or whether you want something h and know that hashem loves you we spoke about the fact that a happy life does not mean a pain free a life in fact the rambam says that pain indifference is the highest form of pain we know that by the way from the nakhash in the time of ghanaian number three we spoke about an attitude the most important thing about having an attitude of gratitude in the world of entitlement out there if you look at all the research on the most the most peace peaceful and happy people are people who have gratitude we spoke then about zman zee for hazak the notion of it's never too late uh to be the person that you were meant to be the let this the penultimate letter the second a was adversity and how to respond when the hot water lands up in our life we can either become a carrot and fall apart we can become like the egg and become hard and stoic or we can take the lemon lemon and make it into a lemonade the cue for hazak is i want you to stop quit quit living in limbo let me explain to you what i mean by this in my many years of speaking at many different events he has a very common thing that i that i hear rabbi this is great the idea of going to israel to study i love it but you don't understand rabbi i've got a storm going on in my life you see i have to first finish college and then after college i got to work i'd love to do this rabbi but you don't understand i i've got a storm in my life i'm i'm still single i have to first find the right person and then rabbi you don't understand i love your ideas but i've got a storm going in my life i am married to a macho shaver i first have to get rid of her and then rabbi you don't understand i visit so let me tell you something as someone who's been speaking for many many years and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of i don't know how many thousands of people at this point in my life everyone has a storm you want to make the year ahead a successful year allow me to tell you we're not in this world to wait for that storm to subside it's an optical illusion you're waiting for this nirvana when you've got money in the bank everything's calm you're watching this it's never going to happen that's not why we're in this world we're not in this world to wait for the storm to subside we're in this world to dance in the rain that's why you want to have a successful year i guarantee you that there's going to be some things in your head that i don't want to happen to you that the almighty in his benevolence knows what's right for us and if we're going to say one second i can't start living the life that i really want to live because this is not you don't say i've got a peckle i hope everyone in this show has a pickle we're not here to wait until this perfect moment that we're here to dance in the rain i want to end with it with a story as we're going to slicketh and the reason why we're here the reason why we recite slithers and something that i'd like you to take with you into rosh hashanah there's a reason why from a halachi perspective you have to say stickers a minimum according to ashkenazim of four days before rosh hashanah what's the reason by the way the fact that you're saying on sunday night is because if rosh hashanah falls on monday and tuesday so you said the sunday before but you can never say you have to have at least four days before why because as your rabbi points out this is an unbelievable gift hashem's giving you a gift of recognizing that rosh hashanah is not about this that's not rosh hashanah it's the wrong holiday is recognizing that we've got a king that loves us right and then we've got the biggest gift 10 days later of yom kippur the four days before is because in the times of the base of macdash one of the process of saying sorry if you will part of the visa was corbonas and before we offered up a carbon sarcasm any blemish on the animal and were given four days to really check if you wanna really appreciate what that means for us here in the year 2021 is between now and rosh hashanah it's a time to really check take stock and the most important thing about rosh hashanah which people are i think most people don't understand the big the biggest gift of rosh is that khalsh baarhu is firstly your father it's not some judge that's trying to give you a parking ticket and he's judging you as you stand there not what you did three weeks before what do you mean there's one major nakuta and i don't think that people they share this enough hakadosh brother wants to know what you're what's your confinement what do you want in the year ahead why should he give you a one year extension of your contract i will tell you i'm speaking in an event straight after this it's a high school reunion i spoke to someone at the high school reunion it's a 40-year high school reunion so one of the guys at the high school union said well this is amazing it's wonderful to see you again i remember you from south africa he said you know i want you to know it's been 40 years but i'm the same old guy i don't think you realize what a tragedy that is if you're the same person as you were 40 years ago my friend you're a walking cadaver wants to know as you stand before the almighty a week and a half from now [Music] in order for you to get an extension of your contract what do you want to achieve in the year ahead that will help you grow as a human being help you grow as a yid between yourself and god and between your fellow person i want to end with a story which hopefully will tie this all together [Music] the reason why we're in this world something to think about in roshana and hopefully this will hit the spot [Music] we spoke about reunion the story goes like this it was a reunion 30 years after school they were having some kind of an event and one of the gentlemen in this co-ed school said to their headmaster looked across the hall and noticed a young lady and said to his headmaster you know i don't remember that young lady from high school just the way she carries herself she seems so refined she seems so idle do you mind if you give me her phone number so headmaster said i don't mind larry but i want you to remember jennifer the girl that she pointed out uh is blind larry said i want the phone number she seems terrific larry calls jennifer one date it leads to the x engaged boom they get married and he sees his larry's a terrific person and he sees and he feels the pain of jennifer that jennifer doesn't see a setting sun she doesn't see the beautiful colors of spring she's unable to see so much of what god has created and he and it's hurting him so much vicariously he starts to do research and he finds out that a cleveland clinic there's a retina operation it's a specific operation whereby if it's successful the god willing jennifer will see again comes back to their home in brooklyn and says jen you're not going to believe this i did some research there's a specific operation that if it's successful you'll be able to see again but there's only one catch there's a long line before this operation is highly specialized there's only one person in cleveland uh that does this it's a 25-year wait uh to get to this operation and he sees his beloved wife a tear a wells up in her eyes and he cannot stand the pain that he's looking at the woman that he's dedicated his life to the next day the hero of our story larry comes running up the stairs so to speak of their brooklyn place said jen you're not going to believe this i leapfrogged over everyone over the long line packed your bags we're going to cleveland we're next he said before we pack before we leave new york to go to cleveland for operation i need to tell you something jennifer if this operation is a success then in the post opera when they remove your bandage immediately you will be able to see and i want you to know jennifer then if god willing that this operation is a success you'll open your eyes and you'll see a man with dark glasses and a cane because jennifer i too am blind they get in the taxi the taxi goes to the airport they're live in cleveland operation they begin jennifer begins removing her bag her bandage and she looks and as warmed by her beloved husband larry she sees a man without glasses they make their way after the checkout back to new york this is unbelievable jennifer starts seeing the world she sees the blue skies she sees the sunset she sees a spring morning she wants to travel she wants to make up for lost time she says larry i need to see paris i need to see the western wall and and it's tough for larry and monthly to if yours and jennifer eventually comes home and says larry this is the hardest thing in the world but it's like a ball on a chain i i can't go through my life like this larry i i i have to get a divorce and larry being the altruistic beautiful person that he is says that that's the best thing for you jen and he calls his brothers to pick him up and as he's packing up his belongings he says to his soon-to-be ex-wife said i left an envelope for you on the pillow in the master bedroom please read it click larry leaves with his brother jen goes up and true to larry's word there's an envelope sitting on the pillow opens up the envelope and this is what the letter read my dearest jen i love you more than words can say i want you to have a great life i want you to have a happy life there is only one thing that i ask of you jennifer [Music] look after those eyes because jennifer they were my eyes and i can't sparkle before your nose comes down to the world blows so to speak a part of himself into each and every single one of us and says look after that the summer and after 120 years when we come back to shamayim that's going to be the test that we all get how did we look after that my friends in a week and a half we are we are going to be done we're going to be judged for a day that's going to affect every single one of our lives the decade it's going to affect us for eternity this is the time before we start think about the idea of look after that nishama think about two things that you can do in the year ahead in your journey in yiddish between yourself and god and think about two things between yourself and your relationship with other people make sure that when you're standing before the almighty masha hasham when he judges you then that you not hust for sean the same person as you were last year you're not just another year that make it so that almighty can understand that you want to grow that you want to refine yourself that you want to get an extension and as a shame if we take some of these ideas to mind you should all be benched by the year and only good things it's a pleasure pleasure to you all wish you a shanna