CHAZAQ's Torah Talks #186 Rabbi Elazar Bergman - Hitbodedut Personal Prayer VIDEO

rman said that should one should talk to Hashem as he would to a true good friend part of that is just as a true good friend you can unburden yourself openly and you're unafraid you may be embarrassed to say what you want to say but you're unafraid to do so because you know your friend will accept you nonetheless afterwards he voted it as well it's not only personal prayer it's developing this connection this relationship with Hashem [Music] today's episode is sponsored by Boris M Tax planning and advisory schedule your free tax strategy session online and get started now call us at 212 430 6881 to learn more and welcome to Tor kazak's program with special guests we have with us all the way from Eres from Israel al Bergman how are you so late at night and the rabbi agreed to do a tour talk with us it means so much and we're gonna be speaking about but before we do the exciting topic we get a little bit background about the rabbi the great I'll try to make this as brief as possible I was born in Brooklyn I was raised in Long Island I went to a modern Orthodox Day School modern Orthodox High School School a non-jewish uh University and I met the Boston from Boston while I was in university through one of my professors who now teaches and I came to in February 78 where I've been living ever since and I was mcar I became came close to the to bre to the teachings of RAB nakan of bre even while I was still in Boston and I you know became a full-fledged wrestler let's say uh if I may dare call myself such while I living here in ER and I've been living here like I said since February 78 and wow and what I've been doing been teaching I taught I was an editor at the wrestler Research Institute and helped to edit the English translation translation ofan and learning and ding along the way keep keeping Mitzvah raising a family's tremendous and unending kindness amazing phenomenal great scenario can understand the topic for some reason it's always associated with it's like as if it's one and the same many have been talking about the topic of so if you can tell us a little bit more about and import well okay why it's so identified with RAB is in part because R said a person should do every day now first of all it's important to Define what is hit hit which some people will call if they speak with an ashkanazi pronunciation is basically taking some time every day to be alone with and talking to Hashem in your own language without any script as it were but whatever you want to speak to Hashem with about you want to speak you want to speak about the the quality of your observance of maybe your it needs to be strengthened maybe your is needs to be strengthened maybe some other area of needs to be strengthened so you can talk about that if you're having personal problems you need to sh you need to educate your child so he comes out to be a good Jew a respectable human being somebody needs a special Ru in their family it's a particular tight time or whatever May may be you want to thank Hashem for all his kindness you know or want to focus on a spefic specific area of uh of hashem's kindness that you want to show gratitude for you want to work on one of your character traits you get angry too easily you're too easily seduced by chocolate cake whatever it is you want to talk about to Hashem about something that you can't necessarily find the words in the established for us you talk to in your own language at your own pace whenever you can but it's important to realize that it's a uh it should be the way reab presents it it should be a daily uh practice and it's something you should you know something be something so important to you that before you go to sleep tonight you know where and when you're going to do it tomorrow that's basically what it what this is there are challenges in actually doing it but we will get there right 100% so one hears this says you know this is amazing I uh I do my prayer but it's it's in the books as they say I I follow the script and uh over here the rabbi is encouraging everyone to not just DAV but to also do I think uh a good English translation is personal prayer because it's personal I guess um for a lack of better words correct me if I'm wrong and um the question is so so so this could be done while driving could it be done while a person is having hard time falling asleep uh does it have to be done at any specific time or day or place very good question so first of all uh uh this is this is not uh this was unintended for those who are just tuning in but I actually did write a guide on how to do it but called where Earth and Heaven kiss right you can find it at the.org website or amazon.com uh and I address this question of doing H do while driving and the answer is no because it's dangerous uh you can start you know get so involved in talking to hem you might forget uh where where you are and what you're doing and that would be very dangerous and since personally since my brother was killed in a car crash so I'm very M I'm very strict about making sure people want do it when they're driving now that said it does not have to be done in any particular place although obviously uh you should do it you must do it in a place where you won't be disturbed nobody's going to walk in on you so you'll feel comfortable talking to Hashem now this to answer the question I just want to emphasize that r said that should one should talk to hem as he would to a true good friend and part of that is just as a true good friend you can unburden yourself openly and you're unafraid you may be embarrassed to say what you want to say but you're unafraid to do so because you know your friend will accept you nonetheless afterwards so Ved voted as well it's not only personal prayer it's developing this connection this relationship with Hashem right that you're unafraid which is why you want to do it in a place where somebody's where nobody's going to barge in and all of a sudden you know ruin the mood and ruin and ruin your train of thought and your and your feelings right so that's one thing but other than that it should be in a clean place you know know that smells okay just like all the other all the laws of where respectable Place uh actually doing it at night under the covers is actually what D did right and and turned into and actually says that is one of the places a person can do it do it in in your bed at night if that's if that works a lot of people of course fall asleep so that's not going to be counterproductive but if anywhere you can go which is like I said you'll be uninterrupted for the time that you that you're able to give to this talking to Hashem is is fine and be it can be morning noon or night whatever works through your schedule especially for most of us when we you know we hear about H for the first time and we're interested in doing it so we already have a life with things that we do so you're going to have to give h the place at the table so now that's that's part of the challenge where can I you know what time of the day can I do it which is which is why I said previously if you want to do it know before you go to sleep where and when you will do it tomorrow re recommends the ideal is to do early early in the morning when the world is still asleep and also to do in place where people don't uh frequent during uh during the day or the night for that matter and he gives a very interesting reason for this I mean there are many reasons for it but you know what we can relate to more directly is that we know that you when people let's say in an office building or let's say a store people are going in and in and out of the supermarket all day so they're interested buying toilet paper buying steak buying naai and drinks so the energy in the store is a place of Commerce and when people are thinking about what what they want for their stomachs and for even if it's the shame Shabbat right and also the time of the day when when it's 11:00 12:00 amm and then noon so everybody's running around and people are you know selling and buying and and doing whatever they're doing but there very few people at that time of the day are focused on Hashem there you know maybe a few people here and there right so both the energy of the hour of the day and the energy of the place will have an impact on a person therefore ideally this an ideal right is to do it at night time when the world is quiet and a place where the energy is open that way the communication that you want to have with is is less um less interfered with by the static of people running after this world wow very very very very interesting uh one is listening to this and they could think to themselves very interesting uh is there specific time allotted towards this could it just be a quick personal prayer please God please Hashem help me out with this situation help me out today help me out tomorrow help me out with this that that or is there like a set amount of time that's preferred how does that work okay so again the the ideal there's really two ideals the ideal time the ideal amount of time would be 60 Minutes That's What rabman suggests but of course that's that's a big ask that's very difficult again especially if for somebody who wants to set a place at the table for it that's very big ass plus people are unaccustomed especially in our age where we're so used to immediate um communication and Bre communication through WhatsApp and what's not and all sorts of things right so to actually sit down and talk to to someone for 60 minutes to talk to K for 60 minutes is uh for most people an impossibility at the beginning so what a person is capable of doing five minutes or 10 minutes right as I said before if not going to suggest talk to Hashem as you would to a true good friend so you can talk to a true good friend for 10 minutes over a cup of coffee or something like that so you can talk to Hashem for 10 minutes you don't have 10 minutes in your day you're too busy five minutes and even for one minute you can say you can tell hem thank you and you can ask Hashem for something for yourself you can ask Hashem for something for cloud is world for the Jewish people and then you see maybe you'll maybe you'll get some traction and you'll find you have a little bit more time and you can keep going saying thank you and and please and help out and this side and the other or you say that's all have time for to hasem but please let's meet again tomorrow and speak again you know just the two of us like that amazing amazing re Bergman so we have a minhag we have a custom kak Tor talks is one final message for our broad audience one final message is okay the message is please do is this you cannot imagine right you cannot imagine how important this is to you how important this is to the Jewish people it's you know people feel so so not necessarily cut off but they feel that there's no there's no place for spontaneity there's no space for personal personalized talking to Hashem points out that the r at the beginning of in Miss Torah describes how was initially before and the rest of part of the and what basically the ra is describing is a person talking to in one's own language or whatever he the person feels needs to talk about and I give all our Watchers and our listeners ra they should succeed in all areas of yish and life in general amen amen amazing pH we want to thank the rabbi for joining us all the way from from Israel for the beautiful words of inspiration of personal prayer every single one should take it upon themselves do as much as you can start small and then go bigger G build that relationship with God Almighty the best feeling in the world to have a connection to have a relationship with boram God Almighty is the most amazing thing in the world so everyone is encourage to do so thank you very much Rabbi want to thank all of our listeners B out the feedback has been unbelievable it's been amazing and a special thank you to the over 4,000 people that have contributed to the kazak global campaign that we had this past week the the last week and we really really appreciate that and we're going to be able to inspire many more people throughout the world and uh we want to remind you to send us the feedback and the suggestions for future guests and speakers in kazak Tor talks info kazak at chq.org special than to our friends at Daily giving our friends at T time and all the other podcast players and and platforms that host kak Tor talks it's amazing so many so many people everywhere I go people are like oh I just heard this one I just heard that one I just got inspired by this one I just for that one and able to do many more great things we only complete redemp amen [Music]