CHAZAQ's Torah Talks #67 Rabbi Ephraim Epstein - Davening Divine

Tuesday night program is special guests tonight we are with us Rabbi Ephraim Epstein all the way from Cherry Hill New Jersey Shalom Lake and Rabbi how you doing Alyssa Shalom Hashem well so nice to be with you of course our pleasure Rabbi Frank Epstein is going to be talking we're gonna be talking Torah on the topic of daviding divine which is uh the rabbis uh saving the rabbi's book and uh before we get to the topic we'll get a little bit of a background of the rabbi and the great work you're involved with again thank you for inviting me so uh I'm currently living in Southern New Jersey but my Beginnings were in northern New Jersey and in northern New Jersey after initial studies I learned by Roberto wine in Shari Torah in Muncie after marrying I went to Heritage soil learned in Colville and then had the great to help start up the center program of yeshivas or samayak which is still going until today until about 22 years ago my wife and I decided to come back to New Jersey and play a role in the rabbonics and for the last 21 years until this year I served as the rabbi and congregation sons of Israel in Cherry Hill where I also was able to build a Mikvah and help build up cautious and take care of the khabrakadisha ETC the a roof and now I serve as the scholar in residence for the Jewish community of Southern New Jersey a special position that has been innovated by the local Jewish Federation of Southern New Jersey where I have access to fifty thousand Jews on a regular basis as opposed to the smaller congregation wow yeah Victoria they're amazing Rabbi Epstein I'd like to give a shout out to your son also the Talisman The International Talisman who is uh has brought glory to the Mitzvah of citizens and to Talus I saw recently in the alley Shore that it said that the simcha that the khazonish had when he would tie his own cities it was a symphony I thought of the Talisman in the spirit of the khazonish the simcha that he gets helping people with the Mitzvah of Chichester shout out to your son is all that he does for college so amazing so uh let's jump into the dominant Divine so Rabbi um unfortunately uh you know I see this many times that you know we're we're in show we're in the synagogue and the guy who rushes in said mumbles or a few words whatever it is and then uh he's out and I think to myself what was that oh my gosh what's going on over here so the question is Rabbi Epstein why did it seem for some that davening is difficult what is it what inspiration can you give them with a device so I want to widen the question and ask why is dominating a challenge for everyone everyone on their own path again there are four matters that require strengthening one of them is Fila and hazal goes so far as to say that Fila is something that is in the Great uh or the Realms of the of the Realms of the heaven and people trample upon it they don't take advantage of it yep and so the good news is is that if you put in effort you will achieve more like anything and everything I also serve as a marriage and family therapist and although there are 50 different types of therapies that people can use the common denominator is when people put effort into their relationship it is going to get better Allah is expressing a relationship that we have with our creator and I don't know who is the one who said it but it's very wise failing to plan is planning to fail I love that one and I don't know if people plan enough what they want to accomplish when they go to David right my children think I'm a little bit funny when we go on a family trip and we're on the way to the zoo we're a Long Way to the aquarium I'll turn around in a red light and say guys what do you want to accomplish at the aquarium and they'll say Abba what do you want to accomplish oh look at the fish what do you want to accomplish I said come on we're going to a place we're paying an admission we're going to be in a place where there are thousands and thousands of species of fish what do you want to accomplish and they'll say well maybe I'd like to learn more about the octopus or maybe I'd like to learn more about you know the shark or oh okay so you go so I ask you I ask me I ask everyone when you wake up in the morning and you go to the school or you're diving what do you want to accomplish because if you don't know what you want to accomplish you won't accomplish it and so what is it that we want to accomplish I believe it's three ingredients we want to express praise we want to reckon with the greatness of the borealum and then it flow saborate the wonders of the world the wonders of creation all of suke the zimra is the opportunity to take a panoramic view you know nowadays I don't remember what it's called but when you go to certain tourist events you put on a mask you put on not a mask over your nose a mask over your eyes and you see a visual you could go to the old city and you'll go to a beautiful Center and they'll let you put on a vision and you'll see the most incredible uh what it was like in the times of the mesam English yeah right so 3D glasses so what are we trying to see when we're going into this city so okay the uhm the the Swarm talk about that every morning in chakras it's like taking an elevator up to heaven right there are four Worlds the ABIA right the the Russian of uh we're in the world of asea and then we go to yitzira then we go to Bria and then we go to artillas and so in in the zimra we're at level two we go up from Asia and we go to yatira right I'll show you all the words of and then when we go up to krishma in that area we're in Angel World we'll have deal like nobody goes to Disney World anymore you go to Angel world every morning you go to Angel world you're surrounded by the angels and then when you take three steps forward you're in the kodachi you're by the kise you're by the Throne of and so the first thing we're doing is praise second thing that we're doing is relationship right when uh kids are young and they have a friendship and they're having a problem sometimes they say to each other let's talk about us let's talk about us you know like I don't like the way but how how's your relationship or sometimes you meet a teenager or somebody who uh uh somebody on the younger adult side who's having problems with his parents how's your relationship with your mother how's your issue so I ask you how's your relationship with your creator how's your relationship with him how is you know what's your relationship like with your creator people look at you like whoever thinks about their own what do you mean you're talking every day every morning afternoon in the evening and the shop is how's your relationship with your creator it's number two number three is when you go to trilo you want to unlock blessing has a whole Storehouse of blessing waiting for every single person in the world but unless they make Fila Fila is the key to unlock the blessings so if you want to know how to plan to achieve in your trila that by the end of Dominic through zimra and krishman Amrita you want to a Express praise and recognition of the greatness of our creator be strengthen our connection and relationship with our creator and number three unlock the blessings that he is just waiting and interested to bestow to each and every one of us powerful amazing very very very practical three insights uh tips for every single one to take upon ourselves to make prayer meaningful amazing Rabbi Epstein I love it so as we all know tshaba have the ninth day of the month above which is the saddest day in the Jewish uh calendar year with the destruction of both holy temples bad to make Dash uh is around the corner and uh you know the regular prayers that we have every single day okay I hear we we have uh you know we have a familiarity within more or less when it comes to this uh that we're going to be the prayers are going to be saying uh it might also be difficult or challenging like they probably said what inside what you use what uh advice could you give for us uh for the teachable prayers so thank you for asking I think it's so important so first of all there's a certain excitement not excitement about Tish above but a certain newness a certain freshness that when we approach a yunt if it one day Tish above will be a yamctive so we know that we are introduced to a different avoda sayom a different service of the day the challenge with Tisha was that the Hebrew is kind of difficult the kinos of khalir the elegies they're not easy and it brings me to really an Insight that is applicable to alt Fila but how much more so to kinos and that is when we Daven what are we doing we're reading words do we understand what we're saying sometimes sometimes more sometimes less but prayer Fila is something very different than reading when you read a newspaper you're not praying when you read I hope you're not praying when you read well actually you should pray after you read the newspaper these days but you're not praying the words of the newspaper right it's three steps it's reading it's understanding and then it's aligning the understanding through prayer even if you want to ask Ray because think about it if you have the zahus of learning how much of learning Tanakh of learning kumara you're reading and your understanding you're not praying when you do trailer you're also reading understanding but you're also praying it's a very very different experience so the only way to be able to achieve is to take a few keynote a few Keynotes and learn them up carefully learn them up and practice saying them right people who wait until the Seder night to all of a sudden start going through all the mafarian to everybody else at the table right that's not the time to prepare for the Satan you have 30 days or more to prepare for the Seder there are seminaries in Israel they take the whole year to prepare for the Seder right and then when you come to the center you could do this later so you think you're going to go on Kenneth you're going to go on to shopahab and look at hard Hebrew words from the Middle Ages of poetry and alphabetized acrostics and all of a sudden oh yeah I'm gonna pray this so don't get me wrong um hears every supplication and whether you understand it or not if you say it with your heart and with your tears there is no question that in heaven no tears ever uh unanswered unseen and no prayer is not heard for us to be able to get anything out of it so it's better I believe if we understand what we're saying and we're able to pray it don't just say it trades amazing beautiful beautiful we have to prepare ourselves you have to get ready we shouldn't run into it like oh my gosh okay what are we doing where is it what's happening okay 100 very very powerful we appreciate it okay so uh right before we did the tour talk uh we started this tour talking about Epstein uh Robbie about from Kazakh who is the man really involved with all the Sheeran events lectures he's the director of the events programs uh show me a a book of the rabbi it's actually called the opening Divine which is our topic that we're talking about tonight and I realized that under the topic it mentioned in it Focus we don't understand correct me if I'm wrong the book is about the the fill out the prayers of Shabbat is is that right where am I absolutely so why did you specifically choose the prayers of Shabbat as opposed to the weekly prayers or any other prayers for your savior so really the safer is a collection of weekly essays that I wrote over the course of 10 12 years that actually originally were seen on the Orthodox Union website it was originally called Fila tips it's interesting use the language tips before but Rabbi yaakov Faber who is the uh the the CEO of Mosaic of press he said tips are really for stocks and believe me we all need tips for stocks today right he says tips are not for Dominic he says let's change it to davening Divine so I chose Shabbos because it's the place the time when most Jews go to shore especially Shabbos morning right hopefully Jews going to show every single day but women don't necessarily go every day in fact a lot of women don't even go on the Shabbat they go on the holidays or the like but the biggest con the biggest congregational swell is always over the Shabbat and therefore I figured if I wanted a book on Fila to be successful and have an impact better choose the material that when people use it most as my rebby Rabbi wine likes to quote Yogi Berra if you want to see the animals you got to go to the zoo right so if you want people to learn about Fila do the filos that they say most often together not to compare Claudius throw in any way shape or form to going to the zoo that's a good thing for collinoid okay okay very very very interesting so that's uh very how does one get a hold of the book Divine uh dominating Divine Rabbi so you can Google it you could find it at dominicdivine.com you could go to uh mosaica I think you could even go to Amazon right Dominic Divine would you like it if I shared with you a type of insight from the site yeah yeah definitely we'll love to okay so the same way that I said before uh failing to plan is planning to fail right what's the difference between going to shore on Shabbos and darwining than going to shul and darwining during the rest of the week you know it's the same our own kotish we even read the same Parsha on Monday Thursday in Shabbos it's the first Aliyah we do a lot of the same things it's the same Beamer it's the same as what's the difference it's a little bit longer it is a little bit longer but it's also a little bit shorter right the amida is only seven blessings and not 18 19. so what's that all about good question what it's all about is that during the week we're struggling through the toil of trying to work in the imperfect world that we live in to try to pierce through the walls of barriers between us and who because we live in an Olam hanister we live in a in in a dark world we live in a world of golus a Shabbos it all changes like we sing in this mirrors if we pay attention to this mirrors Shabbos is tantamount to the next world one third Rabbi tats say over a class I Believe In The Name Of Motion Shapiro zatzal that says there's a reason why we wear white you ever go to the coastal and you see the the tamani the beautiful all white robes that they wear and all of us wear white shirts well many of us wear white shirts white talesium what's doing with the white well there's another time that we wear white when a person goes to the next world they're wearing all white in the shrouds there's a halacha a person has to wash part of yadav person has to take care you know it's an amazing thing I was talking to somebody this week in 1348 there was the Bubonic plague the terrible plague in Europe that wiped out so many millions of people more than covet and what happened was the Jews weren't as affected why weren't the Jews so affected so they said oh the Jews you know they caused it it's not the reason why it's because they showered for Chavez the French never showered for Shabbos that's why they made perfume right they just put on more and more perfume right so why do we wash before Shabbos it's like we wash a body when they go to the next world the tahara every week we prepare to go to the next World we take an elevator into heaven so therefore Bravia of emden brings we have six to heal him representing the six days of the week and then we have lechado Di right and with the honorable representing the the names of the big name of 4200 name of and when we get to lechado D so everybody's standing there some people were dancing and clapping and jumping I don't know if people know what they're saying but only the first two uh stanzas of the khadodi have to do with Shabbos some of us the second one then all of a sudden we get the big Dutch what does that have to do with Shabbos the answer is it's not about our weekly Shabbos it's about Yom shakulo Shabbos it's about the time that the world will be in a state of Shabbos and therefore when we come to Shula and Shabbos we literally Leave the World Behind because we're entering a new world okay now one more point on this that you'll find in the two uh the safer that I think is important which um and that is that all year long we say the same every single day yantuff we say the same there's only one time of the year that we say three different schmonassers and they're not sure is and that Shabbos Friday night and Shabbos afternoon how come on Shabbos we have three different amidas what happened and you could go you could be 70 years old to go to Shabbos diving in your whole life and never ever get a thought never take the time to think about this important thing it's worth it for us to do this little program right now for people to be able to even just think of the question there is because every Shabbat every Shabbos we commemorate and celebrate three famous shabasas in the history of the world Shabbos my sabracious creation Chavez matantora Revelation and Shabbos of the Shabbos of redemption right it's called the Franz rosenswag triangle it was a philosopher yeah and therefore on Friday night the body of the amida says is all about creation and Shabbos morning is harshini it's because revelation and when we will truly have actus by minha is inside and therefore every Shabbos we're celebrating the cycle of creation Revelation and Redemption found in our amida it's worth it to watch this show just to hear this five minutes this is all found in the Dublin Divine in your book newspaper it sure is amazing amazing insights love it love it very very much so many gems so many beautiful Rabbi epsteins that we have a minute we have a custom and power talks our program uh one final message for our broader audience rabbi the final message is no task is too large if you go at it in a small bite-sized way if you think you're going to improve your entire Dominic in the span of a day a week or a month then you're overshooting but if you take on I'm gonna do every week one brother essay that means in 19 weeks I'll have a schwannee that I never had before in my life right the same way if you think you're going to make all the kindness right I people think they're going to be marble cedra they're going to go with the mafarsham and they never went through it before so this week you'll do this year you'll do Reshawn the next year you'll do shady and the next year you'll do slushy Etc I'm not talking about I'm talking about going through it properly therefore and it's like that in everything if you have a child that's not doing well in school because we all have children but not we all many people have children not everybody does so well in every single thing so you're going to try to make them get an A and everything nope says her of Noah help them get an A in one subject because if they get an A in one subject they're going to taste what an a tastes like and they'll want to taste it and the other ones as well the same thing is true in marriage the same thing is true in Friendship the same thing is true in business take a small bit and chew on it and savor it and make it special and when you got it then it's time to move to the next one amazing final message where everybody thank you very very much for this Torah talk for this visit for this inspiration it was really inspiring it was very uplifting doubting Divine make sure everybody gets a copy of the book you can find it with what I understand online on the website on the Amazon Etc so I want to think about ABC once again thank you very very much thank you for all the good work that you do yeah there we have to do more we have to bring the Gula with hashems up we have to have the Final Redemption but a few uh quick and important thank yous of course everyone at the kazak organization all those that are involved we really appreciate it a special shout out to Torah anytime for uh being one of the many platforms that this Torah talk is on and you can find us in all the podcasts um I don't understand how this works but the apple and Spotify and all this stuff that are out there we encourage them into uh like and share and forward and follow Etc uh shout out to see meow me to your field cooperstein for suggesting and encouraging abstain to join us thank you Hill from Lakewood uh dailygiving.org a dollar a day goes a very very far away and uh that's that tallest man I want to give another shout out to your son to uh nasana uh Epstein and uh Robbie and the whole team over here at kazak thank you very much and uh please send us uh your feedback and suggestions for future uh programming uh info cjzaq.org dedications are also available uh please uh feel free to uh email us as well info at chazaq.org once again thank you Robert Epstein and we should all see each other it was a schlein here with the Google Assistant with the complete Redemption I've been spending our days I may environment