CHAZAQ's Torah Talks #106 Rabbi Eliyahu Bergstein - Cleaving To God

[Music] foreign Tuesday night program with special guests tonight we are with us Rabbi Elli Albertsons about walking Rabbi what an honorable resolution of you having the rabbit come to our headquarters once again the khazar and tonight's topic is pleading to God cleaving to Hashem but before we do so Rabbi if you could give her a little bit of a background about the rabbi my background there's nothing to get excited about a very simple I grew up actually in Queens yeah yeah and I went to high school in I think I remember I've been telling her right I mentioned to you years ago yeah yeah yeah yeah and then I went to terrific dies in Brooklyn and got married and I was a Mohammed in a few yeshivas for a few years and I also afterwards became a computer programmer and even during all the years of computer programming I was involved with teaching with various organizations share foreign to be glued or attached and cleaving is the closest word in English that you could find for that it really means becoming and maintaining a closeness to Hashem this cleaving or the vehicles is sort of both a process and a goal that means you know the process is trying to get closer to a ship the goal is the ultimate complete closeness to Hashem as much as each person can get to it's not a just abstract idea in the air cleaving to Hashem there's actually a posse in the Toyota I wrote down the poster on my paper that you should be able to observe all the Mitzvahs and the verse ends with those who want to know it's invorim peric you would I'll live base Deuteronomy 11 22.cobo is cleaving to watch him that's the goal now in the New Age today you give a goal you have to cleave to Hashem you have to be attached to Hashem you know okay it sounds you know new age but what what does that mean exactly so instead of me saying it I wrote down a one little paragraph quote from the ramban in ahmadis who says that this means that person should remember Hashem God and his love for Russia at all times this connection and consciousness of Hashem should never leave him not when he's walking now when he's going all the time until it's to the point where the person can actually be speaking to other human beings this is what he says and really believe and his heart his attachment is not in his conversation to the other person but Hashem so it's not just when I'm talking to Hashem by davening by praying okay now I'm talking to God I'm cleaving to God but when I'm talking to you or somebody else I'm you know detached from that it's actually that I'm talking to you but in the back of my mind in still playing you're in front of Hashem you're with Hashem you're with Hashem you're with Hashem and that's the idea behind it cleaving to Hashem being aware of that all the time um I'd even say this to give a negative and a positive example on it there's a story about a famous Casey the grand by Rabbi isahar bearish van radishes that he was sukis busy all day with all kinds of things he didn't either have chance to eat all day um time it came at night he had virtually not eaten anything for 14 hours he came into hisokia and he had a bowl of potatoes and he made the brochure on the potatoes and he's sitting there and Soca eating his potatoes and he says to himself banish you're not in the sucker you're in your bowl of potatoes so he realized himself that he's missing that consciousness of Hashem while he's eating that now that's a negative mice story but well I'm already a positive story is better there was a famous it's I'm not from pronouncing it right he was one of the sons the grandsons of the famous rabbis Earl of region he was actually the rebbe the teacher of the famous uh Remy that was nifter here recently the rebby that's buried in Muncie um the remnants yes the remnants teacher the story is that he and his went outside on a matsulation on Saturday night to say the blessing on the moon unbeknown to them because the count was not warned about it the Romanian Army was conducting some military Maneuvers and training including firing shots and cannons and stuff like that maybe tanks if they had at that time the 1930s and while they were saying the broken the blessing on the kidney the huge loud boom started and firing and it's all the Sedum ran for all directions and the rabbi didn't even look up from his sitter didn't even look up for me said he was he was in the vehicles he was cleaving to Hashem while he was doing that Mitch but he didn't look up it wasn't just self-control he was fully focused that's the the Vegas so sorry is this like a requirement is this a Mitzvah is it a good thing to do is it like you know if you can't believe it or not I thought till yesterday that it's a good thing to do my ignorance I actually checked in the rambam safe rabbitfish and in the safer and it is actually a mitzvous I say the Eraser it's a Torah commandment actually it's not just a a suggestion I will say though something that the Torah commandment doesn't quite require every single person to be like that ready who is completely the total reliable yeah the toe requirement actually is pretty much more easily defined and the talmud itself defines it in two things you can't really be cleaving to Hashem Hashem is kidney cleave to fire or it's not possible if you cleave to Torah Scholars and wise people and role models that's considered having fulfilled this metric the one way the talmud also says that you can cleave to Hashem through his mid dose character traits meaning first of all the famous expression the way you are way he is merciful you should be merciful he is kind you should be kind he is patient you should be patient 10 chapters in Tomah Devore in the famous book Tommy devorah on this kind of subject that's that's where it's at and determined in a different place actually also shows that regular mitzvos regular Commandments were fulfilled by Hashem when avraham Abraham was not well Hashem got himself we visited her yeah when Moshe Rabino needed to be buried God was the burial Society so these kind of things where Hashem does big visiting the Sick by reading the dead these kind of things are actually the way to fulfill the Torah commandment so really there's two levels here one level is doing the mitzvah and the level is through emulating Hashem and close to Taurus Scholars and then obviously what we tried to get is higher and higher that even not when you're doing the actual commandment even not just when you're praying even not just when you're in a high state but at all times you should be actually with that cognizance with their awareness even like talking one body one so I'm trying to be aware I'm talking to you I'm trying to be aware I'm trying you know I have to say a disclaimer really you know if you if you talk about a certain Mitzvah or a certain good character trait or something you know if I talk about okay we have to observe Shabbos so if I observe Shabbos I can talk about it when I talk about the duck about the cliff to Hashem who am I to say that I'm really cleaving to Hashem that I'm explaining what it is to you or to somebody you know but you know I'm trying to say what it says we're learning together we're growing together are there any particular tools or occasions where it's easier to cleave to God that's a great question actually that same ramban the idea that he said at the beginning when I started talking to you he actually mentions that only years later after the children of Israel went into the land of Israel at the end of yahushua Joshua's life successor of Moshe that Yeshua told them they should continue cleaving to Hashem as they did previously the ramban says that he added those words as you did previously because he's telling them the following previously before me in the desert there was one from the sky There Was You Know bread from Heaven the air the well goes along with you there's Clouds Of Glory the Miracles are all over the place you're claiming to Hashem young very good okay he's pretty easy right now says yahushua to them Joshua says to them you don't have any of that you don't see these open Miracles so cleaving to Hashem is more difficult but you should do it just like you did previously so you asked about tools or times clearly that it's all times but clearly there are easier times like when the Mana is falling from the sky although if somebody's really sharp they would understand it the same way it's a miracle when it falls from the sky it's a pretty big miracle when it comes out of the ground too yeah to just be aware of where yeah yeah but it's true that if somebody is Rosh Hashanah on the new year at the blowing of the chauffeur it's a little more easier that time to be cleaving to Hashem then it's Wednesday and I'm looking for a parking place in Kew Gardens Hills you know even though that's pretty pretty yeah it's a miracle too yes yes absolutely yeah so there are times that it's easier doing Mitzvahs when you when you if if somebody is standing with his to fill in on in the synagogue in the morning or a woman is blessing the candles Friday night uh you you'd have to be pretty detached not to me somehow cleaving to Hashem but the idea is to do it all the time and there are tools uh there's visual tools that the kabbalists sort of talk about like envisioning the letters of God's name with a hay and above and hey all right this is Advanced kind of idea but you know this person can even I sometimes don't know why I'm doing I Envision I'm standing at the hotel amaravia the Western World I'm really standing in New York I visionate uh or at Kevin or somewhere like that and there's also the idea you can verbalize things every time a person says uh Baruch Hashem thank you Hashem Hashem when hashem's help I will do this sometimes I say something I'll meet you in this afternoon and that person says to me by Hashem and then I realized hey I missed it ah I missed it I missed Hashem I've even taken to writing text messages where somebody says to me um could you come and meet me this this even though text messages everybody writes sure sure Ezra Hashem with a capital H I will try to be there at the end of the b h or sometimes yes I do and sometimes there's also you know an idea which I saw in holy books of an awareness that you can you know if if you're crossing the White Stone Bridge which I just did and you're over the water you see the water if somebody's cognizant it reminds them of Kris yamsov if you're a fisherman it reminds you hey I could go fishing right if you're something else if you're you like jet skiing you'd rise of a hall hey look maybe that's a good jet ski Port over there if you're a dove egg person if you're into this Mitzvah so yeah hey Cleveland to God that's look at the water that's like Chris yams of the splitting of the sea you go to the Bronx Zoo there's an animal with big horns oh it's almost Rosh Hashanah that horn is the shofar we're going to blow it this is a cognizance it shouldn't be done in a crazy way where everywhere you go you're telling people these things you know certain things are a little bit about us with a little bit of of of modesty and you don't have to everything I think about is God you know if he tried to do it and and be a normal balanced person with other people but behind it you you you you have Hashem they have that kind of awareness of course this is just a few ideas this kind of thing is something which each person should find their own tool and their own thing it works for them maybe yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah time wise too one person there are people that who get real excited an hour before Shabbos they're all they're coming into Shabbos but we're gonna have totes for Shabbos where to get aired on to the Shabbos that's their hour and maybe that's the start kick or so to speak for for more and more and like I said in the beginning that the way could this cleaving to Hashem is not just a goal and in fact it's probably more a program of progression because there's oh no end to you know how high a person can go and how close they can get to Hashem and how often and the fact that there are ups and downs is is normal and as realistic and no no we're a human being and nobody's gonna you know I used to think that if you hit maybe 50 then who knows what your brain is and what you're closest to us here maybe if you hit 70 this now I realize it doesn't really matter you can be even 70 plus it doesn't matter maybe 90 will do it I haven't gotten there yet but uh um it's it's each one according to what he can do and uh it's it's something that a person should be not unhappy when he doesn't have it but be happy when he has it and try to develop a cognizance of that kind of things it's very important for us to be observant Jews to be observing didn't realize and see different scenarios and try to use those scenarios to clean to God as much yes if you want to add also what the rabbi was saying about different tools is that uh that the name of God the yield and the hey and the verb and the hey uh is uh is how you Cleaves to God the thing you know having that in mind that's what the rabbi said but interestingly enough there is in Judaism there is which is basically the alphabet the Hebrew average is the first letter and and tough in the last letter and they're interchangeable then you have the letter bed which is the second letter and and is the second to last time the interchangeable as well so so the word uh of God's name the first letter is and that's interchangeable with the mem now the next letter is hey and that's interchangeable with its attic and unless two letters you keep the same love in hand that comes out the way to miss it keep the last two the same what this comes and shows that the way it Cleaves to God Is by doing the Mitzvah and Essence every time we do our Mitzvah we're doing UK welcome we're doing a chamber right we're cleaning to that the more we do mituism where we lean toward the more we do the more we pray there's a way that we're going to clean I mean because of that in other words when you're doing the midst of the first Hashem blessed are you Hashem all this is for Hashem okay you know that we're doing it amazingly Albertsons so many gems so many beautiful powerful messages uh we have a customer we mean you have behind that our Torah talks podcast a final message for uh our board audience for everyone out there in the world that's listing their conversation over here okay the final message which we'll keep it on this subject of yeah I guess so is that there is a second Posse in the Torah about cleaving it's a one or two chapters later past that possible um and it's one of the places says the other place says your voice in the back on the second one where the wording is a little different I famous commentator Middle Ages says that this is not a commandment the first one was a command the second one is not a commandment the second one's a promise it says there in that posit you should love Hashem and fear Hashem and do the mitzros and this and that the verse there and in the end it says you could read it as you should cleave to Russia he reads it as you will cleave to Hashem that if you do this your ultimate ultimate future world will be ubo sidbok leaving to Hashem which he actually says is cleaving to the radiance of Hashem which is beyond our Imaging abilities imagination right now 99 beyond that is the ultimate thing and what we're telling the person is you're trying to do it here you will be given it there so it may be a process here and a goal here it's going to be the reality there each person according to his or her efforts wow what a what an amazing message yeah and and bracha it's a brother every single one of us have to work in Cleveland to my doing so we will be in right right no no OCD just simple as happiness happiness each time you have that occasion that chance before I came with to speak with you I did what I do all the time I say Kim different verses to ask Hashem that I should be successful even in just a conversation you know I should be able to explain the ideas properly and everything like that and hopefully that that's a little bit I personally feel it amazing I'm sure everyone through the screens is feeling alone that's watching and listening I want to think you're at the Ellie Albertson for all that you do for college for all that all you do for the Jewish people for the amazing because of the inspiration that you give for college I want to remind everyone every single Tuesday night kazakhpur talks with a special guest boxing on cleaving to God amazing episode and we want to give a shout out to all of our platforms that are holding uh hosting our uh podcasts uh all the podcast players uh touring time shout out uh for hosting it as well daily giving a dollar a day goes very very far away everyone over here at the Kazakh headquarters amazing team that we have thank you very much 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