CHAZAQ’s Torah Talks #24: Rabbi Eliezer Abish - Living with the Eye of Your Creator

tonight we have with us a very very special guest all the way from muncie rabbit lies welcome rabbi how are you doing well so much you're wonderful thanks for having me this uh just walk around the building was a small little organization realizes uh almost a global network going on here we want to spread torah all over the world just the beginning like we like to say and it's a pleasure to have a rabbi on the program tonight's topic is making your prayers real making our adopting our and we actually have the rabbi say for our book for traits of prayer stories of the siddur to bring your filot alive so we're really excited about tonight's talk but before we delve into tonight's topic rabbi can you please give us a little bit of a background a little bit about yourself to our broad audience sure okay um my name is abele zaravish i am uh reviewing teaneck i'm also a principal in the yeshiva dolo south muncie which is a high school muncie i've been doing that sounds crazy to say it but i've already passed the quarter of a century mark uh officially in a classroom so we're moving on to the next quarter this coming year with hashem um besides you're teaching in a classroom i do enjoy going around as you saw the let's say for the book on tv going around speaking uh about twilight other topics as well but feel something i'm passionate about because prayer is such a strong tool and it's wonderful people use it correctly so uh that's what we enjoy doing we write from other other publications etc but primarily enjoy being in the classroom okay amazing rabbi others so like was mentioned tonight's topic is making your prayers real it says do not make your prayers something automatic don't make it keva how do we upgrade our prayers from a conversation to a serious conversation to a sincere conversation with berlin with god almighty all right that's a very important question obviously you know tila is something that we do three times a day every day for our whole life and a trivia for very many many years so it'll be something that we should understand what we're doing if we're going to spend so much time and effort doing it um it's important as they say when someone is learning they say that hashem is talking to you but when you're davening you're talking to hashem and it's a direct conversation with hashem and that's what's so important to realize is that when we daven we are actually having a conversation having a conversation with hashem and if we remember that you know you think of hashem sometimes as like a busy executive and the phones are ringing and secretaries are coming in and these are coming in but all sorts of stuff and all of a sudden a phone rings like he's got a red phone on his desk everything stops i got gotta figure the phone what do you mean we got the deal going on it's my kid everything stops it picks up the phone you got to realize and you're standing whether you're in seoul in the synagogue you're at home in your car wherever you are you start talking you say a shot call you say whatever you're doing everything stops and it's just you and god in the whole universe don't worry that there's a million other people doubting it's just you and god and that's it everything stops because because my kid's talking to me so we realized that like wow what i say it actually means something it has it has an effect up there other people think you know they davin it's uh it's um it's important to know what you're saying it's important to know what you're saying and that's really what what what got me going many years ago i was visiting israel in boston i have a lot of family there and i happened to be my aunts and uncle's house and at that time one of my cousins was she was a little girl and i was talking to her and she was in third grade i was teaching third grade i said oh let's talk shop and i started to speak to her and i said what's your schedule and she starts to tell me hey darvin they learned this they learned that i said oh how many tsukama day do you learn in homicide and she says oh we learned about 35 sukim a day i said 35 sugar a day she was yeah how many do you do i said we do three maybe four so she said what do you do the whole time i said look you speak hebrew you think in hebrew so the sukim you just do it and then the rest of the time your teacher spends explaining it and and all them afar from explaining it by us a large portion of the time we spend is figuring out what do the words mean and and therefore that takes a lot of time so we only get through three or four sukim so this little third grader thinks for a second she goes so what do you do by daveney i said what do you mean she was well probably takes you like three or four hours to daven i said no she goes well how long does you spend for davening i said we spent maybe 35 minutes 45 minutes she was oh you'd probably just say like one or two things i said no we dive in the whole diamond she goes you're diving the whole domini in like 45 minutes but you have no idea what you're saying how do you do that and i had no answer for this little third grader so i thought to myself i'm going to come back to school and i'm going to tell the kids in my class we're going to start learning sidder there's going to be revolt say come on rabbi i got to know the hummus words the milan from hamish i got to know from mishnahs i got to know it from navi i got it from gomorrah enough so i realized that the only way is is is through stories and if you take a story and you relate it to a sentence or a phrase in the cedar and hopefully is when they're davening and they're speeding down that highway of diving as fast as they can they'll see these words they'll remember a story they'll slow down for a moment and they'll remember it and over time don't forget this is a life project you're going to live your whole life right that's right and you're going to dive in three times a day and in between hopefully you're always going to talk to hashem so if you know what you're talking about those words are very very special words that's really our our our job and our task powerful powerful arabic amazing amazing but rabbi the question is that we know that hashem that god knows our thoughts knows what we think and he knows what we want so what's the purpose of dominic that's such a great such important question because somebody you know would think look i you know i need a new bike does god know i need a new bike well obviously he knows everything he knows i need a new bike well i woke up this morning and there was no new bike in my garage so if he knows i need a new bike well he's not giving it to me so is my bugging him going to get me the bike is that it works because with our appearance it works though right you bug them you bug them you bug them you see who lasts longer and maybe they want to last longer wins right does it really mean that i bug hashem every day for a bike finally shoves enough take the bike is that what happens we have to understand that dominating tv diving to hashem doesn't change hashem but darving changes us the person i am before i dive in one say davin i'm a different person and hashem says you know that person at eight o'clock he didn't deserve a bike but the person at nine o'clock we just had the conversation he's a different person now and that that's you know the morale brings down that that davening prayer causes things to happen that's not considered a miracle that's considered nature when it says you can't rely on a miracle that doesn't mean you can't rely on fila because davening is part of nature and therefore davin causes things to happen hashem made the world with words baruch to teach us the world is created that's how the world functions with speech and therefore we create things when we darven so it's not that we're changing hashem but we diamond we're changing ourselves and we can always be changed for the better that's really what what what feel is amazing amazing amazing very very good stuff powerful stuff i i want to go run to daven right now but the rabbi everyone is looking for a good business opportunity that could help them in the long run uh when we are dominating we're speaking to our father in heaven to the creator of the world how does one take advantage of the opportunities of our daily te fila every single day shaharid and harvey three times a day that we're praying how do we take advantage of it maximize the potential you know it's such a also you answer good questions yeah i'll tell you the truth there's a fellow named ray harren ray ray heron ray haron used to work for a car company and he decided one time he's going to he was also a car racer and in the early 1900s i think it was 1910 1911 where they moved this race to the indianapolis 500. why was it called indianapolis 500 because they had to go around this around these uh laps they had to do i think it was 200 200 laps and there's about 500 miles each was two and a half whatever was around and when the king he came up with a great invention it was such a good invention and he kept it a secret to right before the race started now right before the race started he revealed the secret and as soon as he revealed the secret everybody else went crazy and they protested and they said he can't be in the race it can't happen it's dangerous and the judges had to make a decision and they made a rule and they said he can be in the race but his invention was so great that since then every single car has that invention and that was a rear view mirror until then you had a driver and he had what was called a mechanic a guy in the back his job was he thought i want to go to the rights he would look is anybody there otherwise you're going to smash against the car you're going to kill the guy anyone to my left so the guy in the back tells you he put on a rear view mirror now what was what was so good about that because the cars went the faster they they went how they go so fast depend on the weight so you have a guy 200 pounds in the back of your car your car went slower he got rid of the 200 pound guy he put on a one pound mirror he's able to go fast they said it's dangerous dangerous and they check the mirror the mirror works the other question and that is why did he take off that guy put on the mirror but he had something in his car weighing over 2 300 pounds you know what that was that was his engine why'd you take the engine off take the engine off you keep cargo much faster much less weight he obviously understood like we all understand no no without without the engine the car doesn't go anywhere i remember thinking about this you look in the hummus when it says eliezer was trying to find a wife for rifko so you look at apostate it says um and and he went fast and he ran vatarat and she ran and everyone's running everyone's running and she quickly ran to fill the thing and she ran again what's the rush where's everybody running so we know that it says when eliezer came there and says he came towards evening and he dived into hashem i want to find a wife for yitzhak today make it happen today hashem looks at his watch and says today hello the sun's almost setting darvin he really meant it so this was okay he got everything going everyone had to run lovin has to run to greet them she has to run he's but everyone's running there's only one problem if you look in the beginning when he was darving in this triple it says there's a vayomer with a chalce hello everybody's running and you're busy let's go let's go let's go get going the answer is he understood that you got to do what you got to do you got to rush you got to take care you can't just dive to a show and sit back but you can't take the engine out what makes everything go is the dominic so when it came to the daveny that took time he took his time with the shellac everyone he takes his time but now it comes to happen everybody's rushing but you can't take the engine out you can take the mechanic put a mirror but you can't sometimes we go we dive and you know i gotta get to work i gotta run in gotta run out you're taking the engine out then you expect it to work it doesn't work you wanna cut corners and skip breakfast okay but to go and skip the avening that that's the engine that's the engine of the day every time we're down we got to realize this is what makes it happen you don't take away what makes it happen to get there faster it doesn't work that's really what what the whole tequila is amazing rabbi you got to tell you very big very big inspiration and uh we know uh in order to make our prayers real we need to understand what we are saying what tips would the rabbit give us for better concentration better kavanagh in prayer right well the first thing i would say is read read a book on tv that uh that explains the words now again again you're gonna be doing this your whole life it's worth to invest time you know we invest in everything else we do but the thing that we're going to live with and that helps us so much get a city with english translation but don't learn it during the albany german diamond is just for dominique spent five minutes before pick a phrase this is my phrase for the next three weeks you try to do the whole thing you'll get nothing it wasn't working i don't remember it you didn't do that a little thing and that's it i have time for a story let me tell you uh you keep this in mind and and it'll change your diving forever okay in 1941 by world war ii by the holocaust so the russians and the germans made an agreement and this way they won't attack each other and they can each unfortunately fight everybody else in the germans started something called operation barbarossa operation barbarossa was they turned their backs on the on the on the russians they stabbed them in the back and they attacked them and they were going through russia so fast that the killing groups of the nazis immaculate i think it's called the isis-stopping group the killing machines they couldn't keep up they were six weeks behind and as they're going deeper deeper into russia the the wehrmacht the german army would come and then a few weeks later the killers to come and round up the jews unfortunately would would come so as you were going through this one city there were about 60 000 jews there and when the germans came in 30 000 of them managed to flee but a lot of people were old or they had nowhere to go or they had their family they couldn't go they were stuck there the day came when the german killers imagined came in and they gave the order everyone had to come and gather in the botanical gardens so they had no choice they didn't know they just hoped that they wouldn't be so painful and they started to make their way to the botanical gardens all the way there there were a group of boys about 15-20 boys and they passed by a shoal and outside there were these russian police who had no problem uh going along with the nazis and they asked the police you know there's a synagogue here can we go inside and pray a little so you started to laugh you want to go inside to talk to your creator you'll see him in person in 15 minutes what's he said please let us in what do you humor us okay so they went inside they started to pray they died in minha and when they finished minha they came out and they heard it off to this place and unfortunately they were killing pits and they machined on everybody we know that people fell in not everyone was killed and later on they were to climb out one of these 15 boys got out and he survived and he would always say could you imagine that memphis that was the last minha i was ever gonna dive in and show sometimes you know the guy in front of us is sneezing and we think stop sneezing already or the guy next to me moving his chair the other guy is clicking his pant like stop it i'm trying to dive the guy's diving too fast the guy's diving too slow it's cold in here it's hot in here how do you think these 15 20 boys were thinking about when they were davening their minha they looked at it this is my last filo my last villa how do you think they felt but we say this in darwin every day could you imagine we're getting ready to say shishman yesterday we're getting ready to say shima what do we speak about the angels they dive in so nicely and they're so holy what do i care how the angels are dominant i'm not an angel what what the angels don't fight yay the angel very nice i don't know what their allowances i don't know what goes on with them why am i talking about how the angels and the answer to mark tells us is a frightening thing it says there's some angels that they have the opportunity to praise hashem once a day every day there are other angels that get to praise hashem once a week others only once a month others once a year others once every shmita every seven years others once every yovel every 50 years that's it once in their existence the words it says there's a group of they get to say kadosh once in their existence then they're gone every day one group of those says qadosh that are gone a next group comes and says qadosh and then they're gone a third group comes and says and then they're gone they don't exist anymore they're once in their existence we say those words so we can think to ourselves imagine this is your last one that's right how are you going to dive in him so this is it after the schweinsteiger never again how are you going to approach this one straight you can approach it every single word is going to count and i tell people remember we say the bracha once every 28 years do you think somebody woke up that morning said oh broken sakama where am i going to go say it everybody knew exactly where they're going to say it they had the teal already they knew their parking spot everything was set up once every 28 years you think just because you get to daven three times a day every day do you know the ancestor the sanhedrin the the people who wrote the sitter in every single tuila has its job its task to accomplish and you don't get that opportunity every single it's not like again i just did a yesterday doing it tomorrow let me just this minha is today's minha you'll never get it back again imagine you approach it feel like that i'm moving it's it's so the two tips are number one is to have an english translation to study it beforehand a little bit a little bit you gotta speak of all amounts and number two is every village as if it's the last one because in essence everything i don't need to feel that there is for that thing i mean first looks it that way and and uh that's the thing we got a lot of on the topic of tv we could ask you for one final message for our broad audience on this topic is that hashem to give it the grand slam grand slam i'll tell you we get to make weddings and we get to go to many weddings and it's a beautiful beautiful thing called totally happy okay oh man all means beautiful but when you go to a wedding not everyone's the same that's right you have the people who are actually the family right hasta the parents now then you have family of relatives they and the guests and you have close friends and not such close friends how could you tell when you come to the wedding who's home who's how could you tell so you come and you look when does the khatan and the kala and their parents when do they arrive the constance calls for six o'clock when do they come they're there three o'clock four o'clock they're already right what about the you know the uncles and the first cousins so if it's called for six o'clock they're there by six o'clock good friends 6 15 6 6 15 there and they stay all the way to the very end acquaintances they come right before the chuppah and they'll leave right afterwards let's say or the comfort of dancing what about the guy in shoal who says oh there's a wedding tonight if he sees me tomorrow i go to this wedding i better show up he comes halfway through he stays for five minutes he says mazutov eats a piece of cocoa and then he leaves this is the same thing in seoul the people who are very close to hashem daveny starts at 7 30. the people are very close to hashem at 7 15 they're there that's filling is on they're saying what they're supposed to say they're ready to go they're still there they don't think they're filling off it after diving is over they say a little more then they slowly take it off okay you got to go to work you got to go to work those are the people they're very close then you have other people they're close 7 30 i'm here 7 30. i'm not late then i couldn't get put on my tv my towels could find my sitter but i was there on time and i don't leave early plenty of other people i got to go to show i got to go to shoal so they come in a little late little quickly put it on see what they have to say and then they have people only acquaintances they know hashem you know they come in i gotta be there they're right before baku they come in they're there they're out of breath they see what they gotta say before you turn around they're gone every person has to decide how are you related to hashem are you really really close are you really in the close family let's see when do you show up for hashem's wedding every single day three times a day when do you show up so you can tell yourself davin doesn't work no it's not that davin doesn't work are you working daveny if you go and you use the right it's beautiful it's beautiful and the most important thing people think hashem is a vending machine okay uh let's say i need a walkman well i'm dating myself i need i need an ipod uh that's tutvilus hey look at that that's fort kilos one of them with kavanagh but look how big it is i'll take that hashem is not a vending machine it doesn't work that way just end off with one thing there's a lady rabbits in tress she's an old lady a grandmother and her grandchildren used to love coming to visit her at one time one of her grandchildren said grandma bobby safta you dive in all day it doesn't take me that long double what are you doing for she says what do you mean first i darvin because i have to dab him then i dive in for the health of all my children then i dabbled for the health and success of all my grandchildren she was but that still doesn't take so much time i have great grandchildren i dive in for their health too yeah but then you still well then what are you dialing for she goes then then i dive in just to daven just to daven every word that we say you get to speak to hashem and that is something we have to think dominating hashem is not a vending machine there's nothing more important to hashem's day waiting all day sitting by his phone waiting for that phone to ring waiting for his child that's us waiting for his child to go and to to speak to him if you imagine every time we open our mouth hashem is running to hear what we have to say for those words of inspiration let's not forget the powerful uh inspiration that the rabbi gave about about prayer i can't wait to run to daven right now i'm really really really excited by the new insights in the future that the rabbit gave over and we want to remind our broad audience every single tuesday we have tuesdays timely torah talks special guests coming speaking about various different topics and inspiring all of us we're getting amazing feedback continue joining and spreading the word to all and i want to just thank rabbi alves one more time i just want to thank you for for all that you do for claudius roll and and just you know you come inside are other people out to come visit everyone's watching you have to have tours you got to see what's going on over here it's unbelievable changing the world changing the world one person at a time tremendously thank you