Chazaq's Torah Talks #21: Rabbi Uri Lati - Happiness: What's The Secret Sauce?

welcome welcome welcome yet to another tuesday timely tour talks tonight we have a very special guest with us rabbi uri lottie renowned lecturer a man that inspires thousands of people all over the world robbie lottie welcome how you doing thank you thank you rabbi thank you for having me it is all our pleasure always exciting to see you and always uh you know spreading torah and always ready willing able to uh speak for kazakhstan we really really appreciate it and uh just seeing the smile on the rabbi's face we decided that the topic will be happiness uh what's the secret sauce so before we delve into tonight's exciting topic of simhav happiness uh rabbit could you just give our listeners a little bit of a background about yourself yes of course thank you robert first of all i'd like to thank robbie for organizing this event he always does an amazing job with hazaka the first time so he planned many events um thank you to hazak of course thank you torah anytime for streaming this um yeah sure i baruch hashem we've been giving classes for over 18 years um in arabic and in english um it goes forever i say that again you said arabic yes in arabic and in english okay believe it or not not only for the syrian community it goes all over the world people that are not even jewish so baruch hashem that's amazing um i work for my brother during the day and it's a big it's it's it's a big hazuk which means it's a big uh it's great to work for my brother because it gives me time you know in the middle of work to prepare for the classes that i give in the night so um again i wanted to thank hazak or anytime it's like we're one big family right now about hashem thank god we're part of the tour anytime family hazak family and together we spread torah all over hashem okay rabbi so this week's topic as we said is happiness what's the secret sauce before one embarks on a journey you have to know what's the destination where you're going before we try to go on the voyage towards achieving happiness at tonight's event lecture program can you please explain how would you define the word happiness sure sure so us as yehudim as jews uh we have to always look to the torah that we have in order to answer any question that we have so i think if we look to rap sadaka kohen of lublin he has in many safari in paris and many others says any time in the torah that the word appears the first time that's the meaning of the word throughout anywhere you find in torah so we have to see where in the torah do we have the words happiness for the first time so i did a little research and i thought that the first time that the word happiness or samayah to be happy in the torah appears is by aharon we know the brother of moshe now hashem tells moshe when you're going to misrain when you're going down to egypt you'll meet your brother aharon and he'll see you and he says he'll be happy inside his heart but i mean he'll be happy inside his heart so the commentator says even though he might not look happy from the outside outwardly but from the inside it's internal somehow it's internal happiness so which means happiness has to be internal from the inside we really have to feel happy maybe from the outside we put on a facade many people can walk around as a facade as a show that they're happy but true happiness has to be on the inside now what does a harold teach us it's a very important lesson because you know aharon was the leader of the naysayer of the jews in egypt before she appeared on the scene he was with them way before now all of a sudden moshe comes on the scene he's going to be the head honcho hashem gives him all the authority he's the leader now how do we think ahead feels on the inside anyone by nature has to feel a little jealous uh you know somebody stepping on my toes or infringing trespassing but no no the pasuk says the verse says he's really happy on the inside internally he's happy on the inside so what does that mean look we're not perfect we have our ups and downs we have our days of sadness of happiness we have our days that we're very angry sometimes at our plot in life you know uh we don't understand where things are happening to us but at least we have a precedent at least we have someone as a harold to teach us that if you really want to be happy overlook everything that's going on your way because if you have it if hashem gave it to you that's the best thing for you if they give it to you he understands why he doesn't give it to you so i had always felt as as of now why should i be happy for my brother of course i'm happy because of hashem deemed that my brother moshe is going to be the leader of the jews instead of me that's the best thing that could happen to me so why am i not happy so that's internal happiness so again happiness true happiness is happiness on the inside internal happiness that's the meaning of happiness not outside wow powerful rabbi lottie amazing amazing amazing and as we know everyone has their own baggage of problems and they have stress whether it's financial whether it's physical whether it's spiritual everyone has their own baggage of problems how do we move on from our plot in life and get out of our problems in order to achieve happiness what do you say rabbi so i think rabbi in the question lies the answer because we know if if we look around the world everybody has their own peculiar everybody has their own package of problems and if we really delve into it we don't want to switch our problems to anybody else we'd always rather our own problems because we don't know again like i said earlier it's a facade people look like they're happy but if we really look down and see what's going on in their own personal life we'd rather our own problems than their problems even if i work in the shadow of death your staff your stick and your supporting cane they'll comfort me so the obvious question is i understand that a walking stick or a stick that that could support me comfort me but how does the staff comfort me a staff is a stick that somebody hits their dog with how does what does that mean hashem your stick that you hit me with is going to come from me so david is telling us a very important lesson in life because it's the stick that hashem you know quote unquote hits us with which is the problems in our life is the same exact thing does the same has the same outcome as a supporting stick why because what is what's the meaning of problems in life why does hashem send us problems because he wants us to get closer to him hashem doesn't actually you know waiting on to get us to zap us with the like no god forbid any time we have problems in life is because hashem wants us to come closer to him that's the meaning of problems so again the reason why hashem sometimes hits us with the stick is because he wants to support us to bring us close to him you know i saw an assassin i forgot the name of the sephirah but i know the author and he says i the true happiness in life is when you're learning torah and you look to the torah to all the answers like we said earlier and he says why is that the true happiness because i'll always make you happy whether you're rich whether you're poor whether you have problems whether you don't have problems so he interprets the word uh your stick that hits he says that's the problems in life the supporting stick the cane that i could support myself on is the torah which means anytime i have problems in my life with the stick that hashem is supposedly hitting me or you know it looks like he's hitting me with i looked to the torah and when i look at the torah i understand that the whole reason why hashem is sending me the problems is because he wants me to learn torah more to come closer to him so that's supporting me also we have to understand we have to understand that that's what it means it comforts me because if i know that hashem is not doing it as a spite hashem is not doing it because he hates me god for me he's not cruel he wants to always come for me always wants to support me that i overlook those problems and why would i be happy in life if i don't have a father in heaven that's oh that always loves me you know especially now we're in yes it's a morning it's a month where the destruction of both temples happened other challenges happened but what's the what's the name of the dish what's the name of the month and said who's hitting me my father's hitting me so my father is thinking it can't be my loving father my loving father hates me that he's hitting me now any father that loves his children he hits them you know as a part should call it hits because he wants to warn them don't do that again it's because i'm supporting you because i want to give you strength to overcome anything in life so you could come closer to me we have to also understand that anything that happens to us in life we shouldn't worry worry again worry is only if a person doesn't know who's hitting them where he only comes to a person that doesn't know who's sending him these problems we know deep down that it's god that's hashem sending us these problems why would we worry says there's a verse that we say it's in proverbs people think all day how am i going to achieve this how am i going to make more money because believe it or not most of our problems maybe 95 or more of our problems are how are we going to pay our bills where is the money going to come from my expenses how am i going keeps on thinking has a lot of thoughts but at the end of the day will happen so if i believe whatever hashem wants will happen why would i be why would i worry and why would i be happy so again i think that in life we have to always believe that no matter what's happening to me in life i could overlook it if i believe that hashem almighty that god almighty my abba and my father in heaven he is the one who will always take care of me and who is the one who always supports me so i always be happy i was i was going to tell you one story he tells a story he told the story of a person that survived the holocaust and he always came to sure and he always said initially he always had this verse he always repeated this verse and he said i always have to be happy no matter what i always have to be happy i always have to be happy so the rabbi came over to me says you know this is a great thing that you always repeat over and over where did you learn this he said i learned this by seeing somebody in the hollow post and no matter what the nazis did to him they beat him up they tortured him they they made him feel as if gehennam purgatory here in the world and no matter what he always said hashem is great i always have to be happy or was it to be happy so then ravyakov kaminsky asked this person do you know the name of this person that kept on saying this verse in the holocaust when he was being afflicted he said i don't know his you know his first and last name but all i can tell you is they called him the rebbe of poison and we know the rubbish of klosenberg in the holocaust the nazis they killed his wife his 11 children but he kept on saying repeating the verse you have to always be happy i have to always been happy now this is a very very hard thing to eternalize but again like at least we have a precedent of somebody that no matter what happens in my life he has to overlook what's going on with him right at the moment because there's a bigger picture out there and we know what happened he survived the holocaust he built a great uh hospital where many people came but he overlooked his part of life what's going on right now and he said i always have to be happy i always have to be happy so that's how we overlook whatever is going on in our life and and overcome it powerful powerful powerful rabbi lottie amazing amazing so so the next question leads us to the next question which is uh we all want to achieve happiness overnight you know instant everything in in this generation is uh instant coffee and instant gratification and the fast food and uh you know the fastest cars so so but we know in life all great things it takes time for it to come to fruition and we actually see it from this past week's parashat parashat which uh you know it describes the 42 journeys of the jewish people in the in the desert and the commentaries explain that the reason is to teach us that in life for greatness for anything it takes time slowly but surely and uh how does patience and happiness correlate how do you connect the two oh that's a great question because all our ghetto lime all our great rabbis understood that they don't become great travelers overnight there's no such thing you mentioned rabbi is instant coffee there's fast food instant rice there's no such thing as instant traveling there's no such thing till today they didn't fashion anything that you put water and you become an instant rabbit overnight it takes time and i think one of our great drivers that we can learn at age 40 was an amma addis which means he did not understand anything alive but the alphabet he didn't understand but his wife pushed him and she said you can do it you can achieve it and you went to yeshiva he came back 24 years ago 12 and 12. you came back 24 years later with 24 000 students so it took him time to become the great chapter that he was but let's talk about the happiness that he had you know before he went to yeshiva before he became the ruby aquifer that he was he used to say oh just let me get my hands on the rabbi and i'll bite him like a donkey i want to bite all the rabbis like a donkey so i saw once in a sec in the book that rabia akiva didn't say this out of hatred to the rabbis no no we think that he said give me a rabbi to bite him like a donkey because he hated him no rabia akiva was really jealous of the happiness that he saw on the faces of the rabbis and he said i'm jealous of that happiness give me him i want to bite him because i'm so jealous of him and now we ask ourselves the question one second you're jealous of a rabbi that's in yeshiva all day that barely makes a living that could barely you know has money for his expenses because we see we see the life of the rabbis that that almost said in nephews that sacrificed their whole being their whole essence their whole life to perpetuate in islam and jewish people and abroad in the world and and everybody is is jealous of their happiness yes because he saw a rabbi no matter what happens he looks at the torah and like we said earlier he overcomes everything that comes his way by teaching the torah by learning the torah by looking at the torah and says i want that happiness i i'm jealous of that happiness i want it and guess what vibhiakiva went to yeshiva for 24 years to achieve that happiness he wasn't looking at people overnight it's also think as like we said instant rap boy he went to ishiba for 24 years to achieve that happiness you know we mentioned earlier we mentioned earlier the pasuk the verse says that there was once a person walking in the street and he came on the road and he came to a fork in the road either he goes left or he goes right he didn't know how to reach his destination but he saw an old man sitting over there by the crossroads so the old man told him look you could choose the left or you could choose the right i'll tell you the difference the left he tells him the beginning you have a very hard time you have thorns but in the end will be smooth sailing that's the left the right is in the beginning it's not sailing no bumps in the road but in the end you have a very hard time reaching the destination and i suggest old men and son again i suggest you take the left go with the road that in the beginning it's hard but in the end you're you'll reach your destination i'll be sure to be smooth sailing if we take what this old man told this person in the road what do you say the beginning is hard thorns problems but in the end it's michonne that's the acronym for takum we said hashem whatever hashem was will happen and guess what takum is the acronym in the beginning it's going to be very hard but at the end it's smooth sailing yes you want to achieve happiness it's not overnight you have to work on yourself work on yourself you have problems along the way you have tragedy nobody wishes it but you know no matter what it will happen you know hashem up there knows exactly what's best for us so problems will happen tragedies will happen in the world will happen obstacles will happen tesla tribulations will happen but at the end of the day we believe it's so full may show in the end of the day whatever hashem wants it'll be so again to answer your question i'll be like yes happiness and and patience correlate a lot if you want to achieve happiness oh you have to have you have to have a lot of patience you know also we see it in israel when the jewish people were mitzvahed in egypt being afflicted for over two hundred years hashem sends manchester united says i'm sending you because i saw the affliction of the jew in messiah now affliction or problems is so so there which means it's very hard on us so then we have to we have to endure but it's funny because the word so which means is the same letters as which means hello patience so it means you want to have you want to have some high at the end of the day you have to surveil you have to have the problems at the beginning but through those followers because don't worry what ended up happening to the jews after 20 years they got out of messiah but they had to endure and they had captivation because at the end they left there they left their problems beautiful rabbit latte such such inspiration love it love it love it amazing amazing so so rabbi just sum all of the above to put it all together what is the secret sauce to achieving happiness to achieving simcha a secret sauce well a little bit of rosemary a little bit of garlic so yeah to sum it all up well let's see let's see you know the word happiness in hebrew there which means when he wanted to inaugurate the bitter mcdojo which means to inaugurate it or to like we have a hanukkah to bite in our own house when we buy a house we make advice we make a party we inaugurate the house but if we take the first letters of every single word it makes the word samha what does that mean which means you have to have if you want to inaugurate your own body if you want to clean out your own bite if you want to reach happiness yes if you want to be rich happiness what's the middle two letters in the words happiness the middle two letters you have to clear out your thoughts if you want to inaugurate your own house you want to have you want to have a good life you want to achieve happiness it starts in the morning what does that mean it starts in the morning it starts in your brains i think it means that we're too busy worrying about what other people think about us we're too busy pleasing other people and if we're too busy pleasing other people we'll never achieve happiness because we're always running after the new desire after the new gadget after the new car after the new house and we're always living for other people if we're living for other people we'll never be happy the only one being we should live for and aim to please we said it many times is god almighty is hashem so we have to train our mind our moa if we want if we want that happiness we have to train our brain to always believe or to internalize we're only pleasing god you know a person walks into issue a person walks into a show to to pray or to learn a shoemaker looks at him and a barber looks at him the barber the first thing he'll notice is his hair the shoemaker the first thing he'll notice is his shoes why is that because the shoe maker all day he's busy and he's thinking about shoes the barber all day is busy he's thinking about hair which means you only think about you only look about what you're thinking about all day which means if you're thinking about happiness all day and you're training your brain to be happy all day no matter what god throws at you and the trials and tribulations the obstacle courses that you run throughout the day but if you're always thinking about hashem you're always thinking about happiness if you're always thinking about him to please him you train your thoughts and you'll always be thinking about it all day so that's number one number two no matter what we have in life we always have to have gratitude the attitude of gratitude is so important because we look around in the world that we said earlier we look around the world everybody has their own package of problems we don't want their problems we have to be happy we have to have gratitude no matter what happens hashem is great hashem knows what's best for us the attitude that we should have is gratitude we should thank hashem for whatever he gives us which means you know the reason why people are upset assume is to be upset all day you know what people have said all day jesus is a hub because they're always thinking about money that's what people are upset like we said earlier if you're always thinking about money how am i going to get you know keep up with the joneses like they say i have to keep up with this guy and go with this guy no no no you have to keep up with anybody you have to be happy with what you have because if you're gonna like we said if you're gonna be thinking about the money all day you know what happens kiss if it's up i said ben you'll be you'll be upset so that's number two number three like we said don't worry about what you think about you maybe we said it number one you know it's all it's it's a secret sauce that's all together but but but don't worry about what people are thinking about thinking about you know there's a there's a there's a joke that they say but it's real life there was a person building his house he's there with the contract and he's telling the contractor put the window over here and i don't like it over here and i don't like it okay somebody's passing by the streets and he tells the owner of the house the door move it over there so the owner of the house tells him excuse me it's none of your business it's my it's my house he tells him not in my business what do you mean you're building the house for me aren't you he says i'm building the house for you because yeah you're building the house because i should look at it i should like it so you're not building it for yourself if you're really building it for yourself you would be happy with a one-story house with two bedrooms but you're building it for other people so i'm telling you i don't like where the window is i don't like the angle of the door i want a different door because you're building it for me because that's our problem we've been too busy living life for other people living life for other people happy would be happy and on top of all that the main ingredient is we have to have a moon in everything in our life and true belief that no matter what happens it's the best for us like we said earlier if we have it it's the best for us if we don't have it that means god knows that it's not christian so all together with all that combined that's a secret sauce to happiness rabbi amazing unbelievable his inspiration just to add to what you're seeing rabbi we all know we're in the month of and uh the the rabbis tells me we have to lower our standards of happiness but it doesn't tell us not to be happy well it always has to be happy so i'm very very happy about this topic because it's very very very timely and this program is called tuesday timely torah talks maybe you could leave us with some closing inspiring remarks for our listeners which are especially timely one final message us another uh uh you know rizuka inspiration sure sure rabbi you know you mentioned uh you mentioned a jew should always be happy it doesn't say not to be happy at all just lessen your happiness because like we said there's tragedies and the problems of the destruction of the mcdowell's the first one second one are the other ones i saw in a sephiroth very holy sephiroth so he says what does that mean his brother sold him he was 17 years old what did he he not go through in egypt in mitzrayim people tried to stuff all over him in fact a lady tried to seduce him they put him in jail but with all that what does it say that he hashem at yourself no matter what happened with yourself he always succeeded in everything that he was doing how how could it be you're in egypt nobody even knows you nobody likes you your brother sold you you don't have you don't have a soul that knows who you are you don't have a person that loves you but with all that by ishmael you succeeded everything you're doing yes you know why because yourself understood one thing as much as i'm feeling pain you know who's feeling pain with me hashem hashem is also feeling pain in fact we say this pasuk and psalms the whole lotsa every time a jewish person goes through pain hashem goes to pain also so we have to know what does that mean so he brings over there that's the meaning of he says read it like this comes in you know how to bring down all those problems the month of all problems everything that happens to you in life how do you bring it down just like yourself yourself no matter what happened to him in mitzrayim no matter all the problems that he had in israel you know how he brought down all the tragedies and all the problems that he had in his life we know what happened with joseph he became the viceroy he became the second in command and look what happened with joseph and we have to know one thing already says he says to always be happy but if we open up the mitzvot there's no mizvah to always be happy so what does he says you cannot come to fulfill any of the commandments if you're not happy if i'm always upset i'm always downshotted i always have problems i'm not looking at the bigger picture i don't have any shame i don't believe that hashem does everything for the best why would i wake up for sure why would i put onto philly why would i do any of the commandments why would i learn why would i go to the prayer and learn to laugh so he says the root not the root if you want to fulfill all the commandments the biggest commandment you should do even though because all problems stem believe it or not from being upset all problems stem from being upset but you have to know one thing in this whole days in this month all the tragedies by understanding that hashem is with us understanding that hashem is with us like we said earlier right and our father that's commanding us to always be happy when when is he commanding us to always be happy in this month how could i be happy you know i had to always be happy understand i'm also upset like you i'm always with you i always have your back i'm always supporting like we said earlier believes the stick that hits me is the same supporting cane that supports me in my life he's always hand in hand always together so it's taska it's precisely in this month of hashem tells us i want you to be happy how could he be happy how could he bring down all your problems that's that's very timely you know it's very timely because it's right now it's happening right now that's right rabbi wow what what inspiration what wow i i just have to add i i always say this over the the word it says it a lot you know so many times the torah when it says the word happiness uses the terminology of besingha with happiness and i heard once a beautiful shot the beautiful insight is that uh how does one become business similar to what the rabbi said the letters are the mind you play around with the letters you have the word which is your thoughts as well wow like having positive thoughts by thinking good things you know you know uh then a person could always be happy and uh rabbi latte i gotta tell you that was a really really powerful inside shiur zook inspiration torah talk we really really it thank you very much and i'm sure everyone listening is going to have a different outlook on this uh this topic of happiness and beijing we should all take these lessons to heart and we should be okay we should marry to see the mother complete redemption i see the veteran behind the rabbi such a beautiful side the real one is going to be much bigger than this to see each other thank you very much for the honor