Chesed of Gevurah - Counting the Omer - "Say NO from Love..." - Rabbi Alon Anava

[Music] we are going to be counting the love that comes in the power of severity the way to term it or to title it is to say know but from Love and that's something that is hard to us to necessarily relate to but B will explain it now very quickly our sages explain that the right side it pulls you towards you and small left is the one that pushes pushes away meaning that the right side which is like I told you before love that has the power to bring closer left which is gor has the power to push away okay now how to relate with it is that you can't say yes to everything if you say yes to everything at some point you suffer and also the person you say yes to will suffer has to be sometimes that you say yes sometimes you say no has to be a good a good medium said will be the one that will say yes gor will be the one that says no so the power of gor is the power to negate or to deny to say no and the no doesn't mean that it's negative by the way if you have a box of chocolates in front of you you have one piece you have another piece if you had already 22 pieces that's not good after the third piece has to be has to be no I had already the other day we had a a chocolate bar on the table so of course the kids they come like ants you know they they like ante eaters they just inhale it they don't even chew it so after three pieces one of the kid already with the hand was already with a claw and I was like no enough you had already enough so is that mean or bad no you had enough two pieces three pieces enough you don't have to have the whole box so gor is the power to cut or the right way the right word in Hebrew is called l means to take away in English I think uh two words that are appropriate one will be negate one will be to deny but it's to say no for what's not good for you if it's good for you that's a whole different thing but if I know that something is not good for you and I tell you no then it's a very positive thing it's not a negative thing now why is it a positive thing not only because it's not good to you because it will do better better for you this is what's called in Hebrew if I now stop you from doing something that is not good from you that not only that I'm stopping you from doing something that is bad for you it will after benefit you right so the here is not something negative rather something positive to stop you from doing something that is bad for you but ultimately something that it will be good for you and will benefit you so after a week that we went through the entire week of love of now we're taking a whole 180 detour and we're going to a week of G of severity of De of judgment now we're starting with it means love and but this is the love that will motivate me to stop something that is not so good sometimes it's hard to say no you love somebody you love the kid you love your wife or whatever it is you want to be large and generous and well of course but nevertheless sometimes we have in a Shabbat people we love our guests and we want to spoil our guests so we put a lot of wine on the table but if I'm not going to say no at some point then I'm going to be dragging people out of here like a bar so am I doing something bad to them no I'm doing them a favor had one cup have two cups that's it y take the wine back to the wine cabinet you don't have to have 2 and A2 bottles then you're going to be crawling out out of here not only you're going to get a hangover you're going to embarrass yourself but tomorrow you're not going to show up to the prayer cuz you're going to be a lush so I'm taking something away from you that ultimately is good for you and it will actually benefit to you so is the motive so to say what is the engine that will allow me to do such a thing cuz sometimes it's very easy to let go and to and to to do whatever you want now I'm giving an example with me and my kids or me and another person you know the ultimate is with me and myself it's very easy to come and say I have kids I need to educate them it's not good to eat too much chocolate it's not good to be too much in front of the computer that's between me and another person but we want to take it to the next level how about me and myself when there's nobody around me I can eat that whole box of cookies where's the where's the restriction has to be some to say I had to this is not good for me it's not healthy for me I'll gain weight I'll have a stomach ache I'll ruin my teeth whatever it is so again is the Power of Love That motivates me to say no now if you know how to nourish this Mida you'll be able to control all your urges and you'll be able to control all the things that you desire because you know when to cut when to say no I had enough I don't need another one I'll wait another day so this is a very powerful Mitzvah very powerful SP that we want to not only to refine it to nourish it because most people that's the the the reality I'm not trying to make fun of anybody most people they don't know how to say no to themselves they they don't know how to control their their desire and it can be something small like food or something like that you on Facebook for 3 and a half hours and you already saw all the same posts you saw all the videos you saw the same thing and you're still there and you still you know you very few people know to say enough that's it I read the news I saw the cats dancing I saw everything now it's time to go so is something that we want to refine within us because if not I become my slave to my own desires now the way to look at it that if I really love somebody or something I need to know when to say no I need to know when when the line has to be drawn everything so even if you it's with you and yourself because you know just the other day we were eating something I don't remember what it was it's not so important but my son told me you know when you eat too much of it it's already becomes not tasty and I was like look at that this is an OB observation of a seven-year-old you have the first one the second one I don't remember what it was it's t tasty you already stuff your mouth with it and he told me after you have have a lot of it it's not tasty anymore I was like that's because you already passed the the the the limit of good taste so when I love something I need to know that sometimes it's very right and good to say no I need to know when to to do that and it's usually for the benefit for the person that you say no and again it can be between you and another person that you say no or for yourself I need to know when to say no to myself and it's only for the benefit for the one that you said no even though the no is yourself and this is exactly the that you know how to deny to stop to restrict but it's coming only from love it's not coming because you want to punish somebody or to to control somebody and the g here the severity is a result of love so the Restriction the denying the negating is only a reaction of Love Now another way of looking at it in Hebrew it's called that I put myself boundaries and restrictions if you don't put in your life to yourself boundaries life becomes a chaos that's why we see governments there are laws there's a rules there are cour houses in cities in municipalities in the home my home has rules I always tell my kids there's rules in the home you want to break the rules go somewhere else you can break the rules there's no rules no rules there'll be chaos so is also to know when to put boundaries and when to put restrictions and this is not restricting the Love by the way it's actually giving more love this is the abundance of love if I give with no restrictions then the love just comes like a waterfall like a dam opening and the water just destroys it doesn't benefit anything so the ultimate shefa the ultimate abundance of Love is when I know how to put a boundary and a border how does that do it because the boundary that I put it creates a vessel to hold the light of the shefa of the abundance that I get if I don't have a CLE to hold the shefa what good is it if I have now something that is producing energy or you know the cabalistic term to it is shefa shefa is an abundance I need a vessel so the boundaries that I do is the CLE The Vessel to receive the shefa if we look at it cabalistic saying in the beginning the kadh shined his ultimate light or off and it reached anywhere and everywhere infinite but nothing was holding it so what benefit did the Creations had from it they didn't so said I will create a world that will be created with borders and restrictions and that's how you can contain the light now you have benefit of it so I know in our in our world people like H collecting things some people collect uh whatever marbles or whatever it is but the ultimate love for what you want to collect is not to collect it a lot of people they buy beautiful animals exotic animals beautiful fish beautiful parrots you know that we wanted to do out here in the porch a huge cage and to bring beautiful birds to hear the whistling to see the beautiful birds and then I was like you know that's actually not nice but because I want to hear a bird whistling and to see a beautiful bird I have to now close a bird in a cage even though the cage would be the size of an entire room that's not nice that's not the right thing to do so we we decided not to do it but nevertheless what's the idea is that when I want to benefit from something it needs to be contained but here in this world we're doing it the wrong way the way the Kosh who created the system to contain the light is that there's some type of a vessel that I can contain it if not I see it but I don't benefit from it so why when I want to feel the abundance of love has to be a CLE a vessel to receive not only to receive it to hold it these are the boundaries and the borders that I put in my life now not only that in any type of Love relationship and again the love relationship can be between me and my wife and can be between me and the cookie any type of Love relationship here the power of gor will actually sharpen the power of love so the more restrictions you put in any type of Love relationship it will actually will make the love deeper sharper and greater that's how it works and this is called love of truth it's true love when there's true love there is borders and restrictions there's rules and regulations I know it sounds mechanical but we're talking here just in terms now to say practically each and every one of us I told you before has a a a surrounding around me where I am a Masia i i before I called it a kingdom or a little country but every person has a group of people around them that he is the one who is the giver and it can be the father he's The Giver to the family can be a boss can be a person in a group of people but nevertheless like I told you it can be a parent it can be an educator and so forth now you have to analyze a situation in this relationship and ask yourself do I always want to say yes here so this relationship with a husband and wife I understand you don't all don't always want to say yes to the husband or the wife with a parent and a child you don't always want to say yes to the child I say a lot more no to my children and then yes but it's their benefit but even as an educator sometimes somebody come and say I want to learn 10 hours a day no learn one hour a day 10 hours will not benefit just the other day somebody who's learning here told me I want to learn all day long I said learn maybe two hours a day that's it two hours a day the you reach the max you're not going to get anything it's not going to benefit you just stick with the two hours so even as an educator you need to know when to say no this is not the time all you know how many times we re sitting here and people were question after question after question listen you're distracting the the class it's disturbing stop the questions right now it's not benefiting you because you know why cuz you're confusing me so I'm not going to be able to give you over what I want to deliver right your question down I will answer the question at the end so again I'm just trying to paint the ideas how and what situations you want to you want to pull the know out so any person practic saying to the homework that we want to apply you need to find out in your surrounding when you pull out the no card but when it's going to be done in a benefit not coming from anger or not coming from frustration when is it coming to from a a place of benefit and do I want to say yes in this situation or do I want to say no in this situation and this will allow me to start differentiating when is the right time that I have to say know and that's how I'm able to build a much healthier relationship between me and my wife me and my kids me and my students me and my co-workers and so forth is the time of the life some people they just don't know how to say no and then Shalom they get taken advantage or they they misuse and so forth so again practically saying find a relationship in your life that you feel that you constantly saying yes yes yes yes yes and saying okay where do I pull out the no in this relationship but not because I feel frustrated because it's the right time to say right now no we had enough no it has to finish right now and it's healthy for both sides and will benefit the person you say no take it to the next level even if you can't find somebody in your life that you need to pull that no card then you turn the homework on yourself when do you say no to yourself and you'll find a time of the day that you're letting yourself go too much where you have to say no I slept already 12 hours I need to get out of bed no I had already four cookies that's enough I don't have to have another cookie so the pulling out the no card is not only with somebody in your life is also for yourself and needless to say when you know how to uh not only apply it but to really bring this Mida to to to the surface you are able to fight most of your desires and your inclinations and you're able to become a much more self-controlled individual which needless to say makes you a much more happy and successful and healthy individual I can tell you that 18 years ago before I was observant there was no borders in my life in any anything that you would think of there was never borders anything that I did was with no borders till you drop and then I became observant three years into my observance life was not to put a yakon and to go to ISA only three years after I became observant I went to ISA and the first two years was just to refine my midot and one of the first things that I was working on that took the most effort is how to no stop this is where you stop so just as the start I had to quit all these things that were Bann for me drinking smoking all these things that was no restrictions I would smoke on an average day three packs of cigarettes malro Red like this every 2 minutes a cigarette in my mouth why no restrictions there was no boundaries now I knew that with my personality it can go from two three packs of cigarettes to two packs it has to cut no more so but why am I telling you this because I was so to say working on the muscle of stop right now it's good for you stop right now from eating drinking smoking whatever it is cuz it's good for you it wasn't an easy thing to do I would make myself all these tricks how am I controlling these little urges and then of course it came with mitzvot because one of the first things that I wanted to do is to observe Shabbat how do you observe Shabbat you want to jump out of your own skin when the the first two years when you're observing Shabbat so I would observe Shabbat in increments I would say from 7 to 11 we're observing Shabbat so 7 to 11 Shabbat 11:01 I'm already outside driving but 7 to 11 no I was like a machine so yes I would desecrate Shabbat after 11 but the 7 to 11 you wait till I learned I taught myself to you wait patience you can hold your desire you can hold your your uh this pool and this is again the love the power the Mo of love that will put a stop a a restriction why only because at the end of the day it will benefit you it will be good for you but it will benefit you so this is a good way of investing you're saying now I'm going to suffer so to say later on will be I will benefit from it so again you want to really not only polish the M but also to bring it up to the surface to be able to pull this power of love to say no [Music]