When Blessings Fall and We Don’t Notice | Rabbi Yaniv Meirov | Tisha B'Av

[clears throat] Thank you Rabbi for everyone involved uh with putting this whole marathon together all these the years and the simpleton's blessings that we should stop doing this we should have ga we should have redemption we should have mashia we should have beta mikdash special thank you to the shrill year after year hosting this along with many other uh shirim programs and k and learning special thank you to anytime for streaming it live around the world The feedback is unbelievable. And once again, we should be live stream the redemption. [clears throat] Ladies and gentlemen, 1,957 years since the destruction of the holy temple of the beta mikdash. All the issues, the problems, trials, tribulations, sickness, death, you name it. Is why? Because we don't have gula. We don't have redemption. We don't have Msiah. We don't have the bet mikdash. That is why we have all the issues, all the problems, everything is because of this. What do we have to do? We need to shake the heavens. We need to tell God Almighty enough with our suffering. There's so much suffering going on. There's a concept in Judaism and that concept is that what does that mean? That we need to do we need to do the commandments for the sake of no ulterior motives for the sake of but sometimes it's difficult. We're human beings. We need to be motivated. So the tell us that you know what do the mitzvah with ulterior motives do it just do it just doz you know why eventually going to become for the sake of after the actions the heart's going to come as well says after the actions you continuously do an action then the heart is going to follow as Well, so as I mentioned, there's a lot of issues, there's a lot of problems, a lot of difficulties and maybe it's hard for us all these years has a min here. It's hard for some to connect. So maybe we'll be able to say over a few a few stories or situations, real stories that maybe he could shed a tear or two. And it says that whoever mourns for your shalim, for the beta mikdash, for the holy temple will be will merit to see its rebuilding. So maybe we could try right now. We're still sitting on the floor. We're still mourning. Maybe we're going to try to hopefully steer us into a little bit of a sad mood. S wake us up, awaken us up. So I want to start off [snorts] with a story that happened not too long ago, not thousands of years ago, not dozens, a few months ago. And that story is as follows. That barem started my day, learning, teaching, shim, office classes, whatever it was. And the day finishes very very fast, very very active, a lot going on. and it's time to go home and help out with the kids coming back from school and you know with homework and with lunch and with this and with that very very active placem a lot of little ones running around and that day it happens to be that one of our sons his name is Ara was a little bit under the weather this story by the way I've never said publicly and uh follow along And what happens is that he was very very cranky, very very sad, crying, whining. I want this, I want that. He's only one one and a half years old, more or less at the time. And we put him on the high chair, we give him some food, and the next thing you know, I hear my wife screaming, "Oh my gosh." >> [clears throat] >> And she quickly quickly takes him off the high chair and he's completely pale and she tells me, "Yene, he's dead." As a father, you could just imagine what's going through your mind. Your son you love so much, so cute, so lively usually, and he's on the floor. I don't even remember what color it was. It wasn't regular. And your wife is frantic. The other kids are there. They're all shocked. They're usually upbeat and they're all frozen. Frozen. One of my other sons of runs to the porch and I see him tearing and dabbing. I quickly called Hats Salah and At Salah before they even able to get there, my wife pours some water onto him, try some CPR. He's gagging. Food is coming out of him. And the next thing you know, he actually was revived. He was revived. We went to the hospital. We were there overnight. It was the scariest thing. It was so so scary. So so scary. And God Almighty in essence did somewhat of the next thing you know I spoke to the tele members spoke to the hospital to the doctors and everyone it's actually a common occurrence when you have a child has a fever goes all the way up he has something called a fervor seizure and it looks like he's uh completely uh gone but uh he gets back into it or something along those lines but the message is very very very simple that life is so fragile Within a moment a person is here and the next thing you know shalom we should never know he cannot be here. It reminds me of a different story that initi during the war not too long ago the soldiers all young individuals going out to the battlefield to the front lines and unfortunately the parents are also in war. Why? Because when your kid, your son is in the forefronts, your mind is not settled. You can't sleep normally at nights. And unfortunately, the fact is that there's so many of these young soldiers have passed away. And to call them and to tell them that your son passed away is not the right thing to do. It will be a terrible thing to get a phone call over the phone to tell to them. So what's the protocol with what I understand? What do they do in the army? Whenever there is sad news, you have individuals from the army coming, they knock on your door, they knock on the door, they sit down with you and they slowly but surely break the news. One time there were older parents and they're scared for their life and it's hard to reach them. Many times their phones are not with them and they can't speak, they can't get in touch, you don't know what's happening. One time there [snorts] was an individual that was in his house with his wife and there was a knock on the door. The wife says it's over. And what was the knock on the door? They were so scared to open the door. The husband tells the wife, "You open the door." And oh, she says, "You open the door." There's back and forth. No, I don't want to open the door. And what happens is that the husband says, "Okay, I'll open the door." He opens the door and it was a guy that was collecting saddaka. The father says that he wanted to kill him at that moment. But there was another individual with a similar situation that they get the knock on the door. It was late at night. You open the door. The husband says to the wife, "No, you open the door. No, I don't want to open the door." And they open the door. And it was none other than their own son that came to surprise them and was able to leave the army. And the parents said, "You don't understand what a feeling it was that when your own son comes and surprises you and says, "I'm home." And the comparison is that every single one of us, we know that we're working your valu's thousands of Jewish kids in public schools and there's thousands of people that are not connected to Torah and mitzvot. And when we bring back one individual to meet not only in this community all over the world you bring someone back it's like a who gets a knock on the door and his child comes to him. How what a feeling that is. It's the best feeling in the entire world. And I had this feeling exactly like that. But unfortunately not all stories have such endings. We all know that there is millions of stories, endless amounts of stories of individuals that unfortunately passed away. And unfortunately there is the other day I was walking on Shabbat and there was a friend of mine that mentioned how a friend that I went to yeshiva with his wife was giving birth. This in Mam just the other day Haritz his wife was giving birth and there was complications and Diana passes away few months ago right over here in the sh there was another individual many people knew him the name was Mr. Shamay his son-in-law just spoke right before me. Rabino and he was out and about. People saw him. M Shabbad comes and he just passes away. My Rebi during CO walkin I was in touch with the Rebi. We were trying to figure out how to spread more Torah in the community. Obviously during CO people weren't with each other. We're trying to figure out this whole Zoom situation and what happens is that we speak one day about an online cheer that he the Rebi gave. Actually, it was a recording about and times of difficulty and we were in touch mama right over there right then whatever it was and that Thursday met the rebi passes away again I could go on and on and on about stories endless amounts of stories my uncle lively individual full of life always made always made happy occasions. Mot Shabbat comes after had a heart attack and just a few days later passes away. My cousin, she was young, very young, Ronid Badina Anna Ana. And what happens is that there is a boulevard over here not too far away from here. It's called Queens Boulevard. They used to nickname it as a boulevard of death. And unfortunately, she was walking and there was a car that came and unfortunately she passed away as well. Young, young, young young individual. Like I said, the amount of stories are endless, endless, endless, endless amounts of stories. And I see people tearing. And that was the point of it. Maybe to connect to the beta mikdash and all the crazy stories that we read in the keynote. crazy crazy situations of their that happened a long time ago. So you might say that doesn't apply to me but I I have news for you. The Talmud tells us that every single generation that the beta mikdash is not rebuilt. It's not because of their fault that they had seen they had basis hatred. What is it? It's us. It's our generation. That means it's as if it was destroyed. That means this hasn't been rectified. This hasn't been fixed. Dates are enough to our suffering. Why do we have to wait? By the way, all these stories, all these situations, it's what? It's wakeup calls and there's endless amounts. I could go on and on and on. There's not enough time in the day for it. But I think the point is very, very clear. Life is fragile. Life is fragile. Stop taking it for granted. Show me one person that has a guarantee for life that he's waking up the next day. No one has a contract. There is no such thing. What do we have to do? We have to shake the heavens as much as we can. God, please, please, please bring redemption. Bring Mashiach, bring the beta mikdash back there's not going to be any more issues or problems. We had wars in Israel. Endless amount of wars. So many wars. Not too long ago, the Simkat massacre, October 7th, the horrors that went over there. [snorts] Over here in America, it's not any better with anti-semitism. What's going on over here? It's absurd. It's crazy. It's beyond understanding. And these are not like just Joe's and schmos. These are individual that are quote unquote educated. These are individuals that are politicians and elected officials that are talking this way. They should be ashamed of themselves. It's crazy. see what's going on over here. September 11th, what happened over here? Not too long ago, the Holocaust, 6 million of our brothers and sisters were murdered and massacred. And we could go on and on about almost every single country where we were expelled from and kicked out of and murdered and killed. The amount of tragedies and issues and problems is endless. And it's all what it's a wakeup call from Hashem, from God. So the tells why wait for the problems to come. Why wait for the problems to come? There are no difficulties without sin. So how do we remove the sin? We connect with Hashem when all is good. What happens is that a lot of people unfortunately when do they wake up? When there's an individual, a family member passes away and the guy was told dozens of times, "Come to Shu, come to Mian, come to learn Torah." He's like, "No, I'm busy. I'm good. I'm fine. Everything was good." And he never connected. Someone passes away. Oh, now I have to say kadesh. And you see the guy in shu all the time. Why wait for issues and problems to come? When things are good, look up to Hashem. Connect with Hashem. Things are good. Is a challenge. You should know that. People think that difficulties are challenges. Yes, they are. Difficulties are hard and they're challenging. But you should know when life is good, it's a challenge as well. It's a difficulty as well because you could think I'm the one that did all this. I'm the one that was successful. I'm the one that made the money. I'm the one that got the marriage and the children and this and that. It's a very very big big big big mistake and it's very very very dangerous. So there's a very well-known mashal parable of an individual that was doing very very well and unfortunately things went sour to the point that he used to be very very wealthy and the next thing you know he barely had the basics to to live with. He reached out to one of his good friends and he says Khabibi my friend I really need your help. I need a nice loan. He's like I trust you. I know you very well. I'm sure You're going to repay me back whenever need be. There's no pressure. You can pay me back whenever you want, but come to my office at 2:00. I'll give you $100,000 cash. Work with it, invest it, build it, start a business, do whatever you want. I trust you. The guy who was very, very, very appreciative. He gets to this individual, his friend's office at 2:00, goes to the 27th floor, let's say, and he goes and he gets a bag filled with cash. And he was very, very appreciative, very thankful. Now before he leaves the building, he tells himself, "Wow, look at this beautiful big skyscraper. Huge building." People sometimes pay money to get to the rooftop in order to see the nice view. Let me go around. Let me check the hallways. Let me go here. Let me go there. Let me go to the roof. And ladies and gentlemen, he goes up to the roof. And he's like, "Wow, what wondrous creations God has created." and he enjoys the view and he says, "Let me go and leave now. Let me go take care of whatever I have to take care of." He goes and he wants to leave, but what's the story? The door is locked. It's shut. You can't open it. He starts banging on the door and no one is opening. He takes out his phone, but to due to his lack of being responsible, he didn't charge it and the phone was dead. So Marabai, ladies and gentlemen, he's all the way up on this skyscraper on the 100th floor, let's say. He's all the way there all by himself. No phone working, no service, and he's screaming down, "Help, help, help." No one is listening. People are just walking back and forth. What does one do in such a situation? Has a bag of what? of cash and he has an idea. He says, "Uh, I'll take a $100 bill. I'll throw it down. Let it fall down. Let one of the individuals pick it up. Look up and save me." And that's what he does. He takes the first $100 bill and he's throwing it down and it's falling slowly but surely. It falls down. He sees an individual takes it and walks away. He's like, "O He's like, "This side is not good. let me go to the other side of the building. He takes another $100 bill and he throws it down again and it slowly but surely falls down. Another individual walks, takes it and walks away. The other side, another $100 bill, falls down. Another individual comes, takes it and walks away. The other side, he tries as well, throws it down, person picks it up, walks away. He's like, maybe $1 $100 bill is not working well. Maybe if there's two, three at a time, maybe people will realize he throws two here, three here, four, five. The next thing you know, make a long story short, $100,000 he throws down. And on no one is looking up. No one's looking up to help. And now he's sitting there bal depressed and sad. What do you do in such situation now? So many times people scream, "Oh, let him jump off. If he jumps off, he becomes a pancake." He's finished. So what does he do? He's sitting over there and he realizes I didn't realize before. I should have realized this before. There is pebbles on the floor. I should have taken a rock. What a waste of all that money. Okay, I didn't realize it is what it is. And he takes the pebble. He takes the rock from the floor and he throws it down and it almost hits an individual. If it would have hit the individual, he would have been done. And what happens is that the individual looks up and starts screaming and saying all these different things. What are you crazy? What do you want to kill me? And he the guy walks away. And the guy in the roof is thinking to himself, "At least someone looked up. At least they looked up. Maybe they could have saved me. Let me take take two. Try two." And he takes the next rock. This time he says, "This side was working. I'll do it again over here." And he throws it again and it almost it's another individual and the individual this time looks up and he does a screaming and are you crazy? What's wrong with you? LA goes on and on and on but he doesn't stop over there. He takes out his cell phone. The individual down there that almost got hit and he dials the famous three numbers 911. 911. The police are being called and the next thing you know the door is broken. Boom. They break into the door and they run after who? This individual on the roof. And what do they do over there? They go and they handcuff him. And he explains, "Listen, I was over here for all this long time. I had $100,000. I threw it down. This, oh, the police are like, it's in the news. Everyone's talking about how there's money flying in the air." And they let him go free. Moreover, I tell you, ladies and gentlemen, this is a mash. This is a parable. What's the name? Listen and listen very carefully. God Almighty is up there in Shamay in heaven and every single day for so many days and years of our lives, he's throwing us $100 bills which equals health and happiness and family and community and goodness and on and on and on. [clears throat] But what do most people do? They take it and they walk away. They don't even look up. So what is what does God need to do in order to make an individual look up to throw rocks which equals issues and problems and illness and health issues and parasite issues bite issues and children issues and this issue and that issues. The the rabbis tell us something very simple yet very very powerful. Why wait for the problems to come when things are good? Look up to heaven. Look up to shim. Look up and say thank you. That's why this whole movement of thank you is revolutionary. That's what we're all about. Connect with have that relationship with Hashem. And people always think but who am I? I'm one individual. I'm going to connect with Hashem, but that's going to bring you. And the answer is yes. If every single one of us, every single person has ga which means a personal redemption, you have the guah, you have freedom, you have no issues, you have no problems, you have no, you have no baseless hatred, you have shalom, you have peace, you have all that good things. You know what's going to happen? You know what's going to happen little by little to be the the complete redemption. I'm going to end off with one last story before we have the next speaker which is hopefully bring this all together and how each individual can make a very big effect. It's a very well-known one that there was an individual that was at home with his 5-year-old son and he would wanted some peace of mind. He wanted Shalva. He wanted some quiet. He just wanted to read the newspaper. But the 5-year-old son every few moments is like, "Aba, I need this. Aba, I need that. Aba, I want this. Aba, I want that." And he was driving him nuts and berserk. And the father had a great idea. He said in the newspaper there was a world map. There was a map of the whole world. For whatever reason, it was a whole page. He said, "I'll rip off this page. I'm going to rip the page into pieces. I'm going to give it to my son with some tape and I'm going to give him a puzzle to do. Let him be busy with this puzzle. It'll take him a long time. I'll have some shava. I'll have some peace of mind." He thought at least an hour. What does a 5-year-old know about the world map in the different countries? And after just a few minutes, the child comes, I'm done. And the father's like, "No." He's like, "Yeah, look." He shows him the whole world map. He's like, "How in the world do you know the world map? You're a 5-year-old little, you know." And the child says something very, very powerful. He said, "Aba, you're right that I don't know the world map. I don't know how to put it all together, but the other side of the page was a picture of a person. I know how to put together the eyes and the nose and the mouth and the ears and the hands and the feet. I put the person together and then the whole world came together as well. And that's the message to every single one of us. Everyone's looking to change the world. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that. Like do it. No problem at all. That's amazing. But you know where it starts from? You change yourself. We all change. Every single one of us. And you know what's going to happen? The whole world is going to be different. The whole world's going to be changed. Everything's going to be great. Everything be phenomenal. And that is the message of every single one of us for enough for our suffering, all the issues, all the problems because we don't have the beta mdash the holy temple. Shake the heavens grow change. Don't be the same person. The Rambam says if you're the same person before and after the fast, you miss the whole boat. The idea is to become different to change. Not just to say, "Oh, I fasted and was fast." That's not the idea. The idea is to take something upon yourself to become better. That's the whole idea of this whole marathon. And once again, we should we should be all married to see the complete redemption our days. Amen. Amen. I once again want to thank all the partners for tonight's amazing uh today's amazing marathon. uh to say amazing on Shabb is is not a perfect word but uh be honest with you the amount of toraniz that goes on over here is very very very impressive. So to all the members of Kazak and all the sponsors and donors and board members and volunteers and staff members bless you all to our friends at the show and to to any time all over the world. be.