Coping with Corona from a Torah Perspective

thank you so so much thank you i appreciate the invitation i appreciate and uh i'm grateful for this opportunity and this privilege thank you to rabbi rabvoski schlitter the rabbi of young israel the spiritual leader of young israel of boca raton welcome to the entire community of young israel of boca it's really a great honor and i'm thrilled to be here with all of you and all of you who are joining us this evening from boca raton wherever you're joining us from the wide world thank you and welcome bruhim habayim to everybody and of course a very special thank you as we just heard to dr david and marisa levinson sponsoring this special evening of learning and growing together in memory of your father david professor harold levinson in honor of the art site and thus i thank you very much and i thank all of you for joining us here this evening as we explore this very loaded topic of coping with covert with the coronavirus from a jewish perspective from a torah perspective allow me to begin with a old jewish anecdote about this fellow who was he loved to worry he was enthralled by worrying he was just the warrior type always filled with worry and anxiety and everybody in the office knew it he was the boss he was the founder of a corporation of a business and he was always anxious always worrying one day he comes into the office serene and calm no worry anxiety free the manager comes over to tim and says yankel what happened how are you so calm and he says i saw in the newspaper that you can hire somebody for your company and that person's job is to worry and i hired this fellow comes with a good resume a lot of experience and he is going to be paid to worry i don't have to worry anymore he's going to worry about everything in our business so the manager says tell me how much are you paying him he says well the first year he takes 150 000 after that the fee goes up manager says a hundred and fifty thousand dollars i don't understand we are struggling here there are days that i think we're gonna go bankrupt how in the world are you gonna pay this fellow 150 000 and your ankle says well that's his first worry this is a time when people are anxious there is anxiety out there and inside of here there's stress there is fear there's a lot of insecurity people are worried about the future people have suffered great losses ailment losses of loved ones of community members of neighbors of teachers i come from the i'm in new york living in new york the pandemic struck very hard here as it has in other places and all of us know somebody sometimes very close people who have lost their lives sometimes at a relatively young age and these tragedies are devastating there is the financial worry the financial devastation to many people somebody said in the beginning of the coronavirus you know march we're all in the same boat and i said that's not exactly true we're all experiencing the same storm but we're not in all the same boat some people put on their crocs and their t-shirts and they're happy to retire at home they have got enough money and enough food enough to worry they could be at home for a long time other people are struggling financially some people are in a very you know tiny space with a lot of children it's not easy there's also a great toll that has this test has taken on the youth teenagers boys and girls or children who were quarantined for months only with screens this has taken quite a great toll as i know from personal experience and communication and conversation there's of course the psychological stress the emotional stress the spiritual stress the financial stress the physical stress there is worry and i find that a lot of people are really very anxious this is even without anything else coupled with the riots in america and upheavals coupled with a very very confusing election whichever whoever you voted for but these last few weeks were quite intense a lot of polarization a lot of accusation a lot of negativity a lot of toxicity with uncertainty of the corona and the politics and the different sides it creates a lot of confusion and a lot of chaos in people's hearts now there are those people who know it all you know they'll tell you how it began how it's going to end this doctor is right no that doctor is right this scientist knows what he's talking about no that scientist knows what he's talking about i think a little humility is in order i think we have all come to learn how ignorant we are there was once a great master who said in ignorance we are all wealthy we lesson number one in 2020 we have come to a point where we all felt that we have become masters of the universe the famous israeli uh historian and scientist professor of oxford university yuval harari who wrote the book sapiens followed it up with a second book called homos dias which basically means man replaces god man becomes god in the book he predicts from a scientific point of view he's not the greatest believer to put it mildly that very shortly scientists are planning to double the lifespan just as we double the lifespan in the last half a century from 40 to 80 70 80. they're gonna double it again from 80 to 150 to 160 which is great news it also means that your mother-in-law lives to 160 years old it also means that you have 100 years of being retired so we have to figure that out but in any case then he talks about the fact that scientists i'm not talking from a religious perspective because i know they are talking about eternal life people who will live eternally which is very fascinating because this is part of our tradition of thousands of years ago but in any case his theory is that at this point the human being is coming close to take over god and here a little tiny a little little tiny coronavirus the size of 125 nanometers which means you could fit a hundred hundreds of millions hundreds of millions or billions of these viruses on the eraser of a pencil okay one of these one of these changed the whole world literally transformed the world it reminds me of the story in talmud interacted with that titus titus who was the russian the roman general son of espajian this beijing was the emperor and he sent he dispatched titus to be the general the commander-in-chief to destroy the second temple in the year 70 after the common era and titus decided that he will at last defeat and destroy god almighty and god says i'll take the smallest creature a tiny little mosquito and that's how you will see that you're a frail mortal human being and for two years titus suffered with this little flea or mosquito that went into his head went into his brain and would not allow him a moment of serenity as the talmud tells the story and shrek did giten in our case it's not a mosquito it's not a flea it's something that we can't even see with the naked eye we need microscopic instruments which is why for thousands of years we didn't know that viruses existed and one such little virus literally put the world on lockdown so that's lesson number one a lesson in humility a lesson in how ridiculous hubris is not just from a religious point of view from a scientific point of view from a medical point of view when people become arrogant our more base components come out and in such a time you know nobody has certainty nobody can predict the future we all hope and pray every single day that we should all be healthy our loved ones should be healthy our communities our people our brothers and sisters in israel and the whole world should ultimately be able to recover and enjoy peace and tranquility and brotherhood and sister brotherly love and sisterly love but this is really a time of humility it's a time of vulnerability it's a time we have to be here for each other support each other so as the rabbi said very well we're not prophets but we learn torah and we try to live with torah we try to internalize the values of tyra so i want to articulate here a few ideas and a few feelings of how we cope how we confront how we deal with coronavirus with the pandemic with covet 19 from a torah perspective point number one i just stated it's a time for humility it's a time when we have all learned that we're not in control we were never in control but we have a delusion of control we love feeling that we're in control of our life we love feeling that everything is predictable but really nothing is predictable and when we can surrender to god's embrace rather than feel that i'm in control of everything life becomes much more serene and much more tranquil they tell an old story about a uh people were on on a plane and the plane the the trip was very turbulent and there was this eight-year-old child who was sitting on the chair and he was playing you remember those game boys and he was playing he was very calm but the plane was really really making a lot of trouble extremely turbulent and there were drops and people were terrified and they were screaming and hollering and this one was praying and the son was doing other things and holding on to the chair this one was writing their final will and testament and the son is calling their loved ones telling them i love you you know those feelings when a plane is very turbulent and this eight-year-old boy is as calm as it gets he is serene no anxiety so this elderly fellow turns to him and says why are you so calm why aren't why aren't you anxious he says because the pilot is my father and i know that he's going to protect me so i'm completely calm and it reminded me of an old anecdote where there was this uh opera singer who did a rendition of psalm 23. miss marla david hashem roy layexer the lord is my shepherd i shall not want and it was a beautiful rendition exquisite something unique and special he got a standing ovation for two minutes afterwards an old yiddish shabba an old jewish grandmother gets up and says can i do my rendition of psalm 23 the lord is my shepherd and the opera singer says of course you can and she begins her rendition the problem is she couldn't carry a tune to save her life she barely knew the words there was no rhyme or reason or certainly no musical resonance but her nurshammer her soul came out and as she goes through this psalm of tahilam the lord is my shepherd everybody in the audience finds themselves wiping tears away she finishes the opera singer looks at her and says man you have to explain this to me i delivered a most exquisite beautiful rendition i did not see anybody shed a tear i received a very nice applause but nobody was crying you got up and with all due respect your rendition was horrible it lacked elegance beauty resonance exquisiteness everybody was crying why my psalm was exceptional it was impeccable she looked at him and she says my dear opera singer you may know the psalm but i know the shepherd and that makes all the difference this is a time when we are challenged to get to know the shepherd to develop a very deep and intimate and personal relationship with god there's a very big difference between religion and a relationship with god to be blunt there are people who you may call very religious but do they have a relationship a person a relationship with god people tell me openly we go through the mitzvos we follow the routine yes i pray in the morning i pray in the evening i wrap fill in i keep shabbos i make kiddish i do the things i shake a lullaby sukas i blow a shovel sunlight hanukkah but the personal intimate relationship with god is sometimes missing the prophet isaiah speaks about mitzvas anashima lamada doing mitzvos in a fashion that is routine and monotonous i brush my teeth in the morning i don't give much thought to brushing my teeth in the morning i just want to clear my breath so other people do some jewish rituals in the morning but the question is is it really internal is it really transformative is it really personal there are moments like these in history when we're given this gift this opportunity not only to know the song but also to really be able to know the shepherd so when we have when we confront such a situation where there is humility when we learn to be able to give up control in a in a healthy way in a good way we don't have to be in control of everything about our life we can surrender and be vulnerable and learn the art of trust and faith in god because the truth is every moment is a miracle we take sunrise for granted sunset for granted we take the fact that there are 70 trillion cells functioning in our body creating a living organism that is magical and incredible we take it for granted it happened yesterday it's going to happen today too but every single moment is a new miracle the balsamic said the difference between nature and miracles is just how frequent it happens he said nature is just a miracle that has perpetuated every moment so these types of meditations during these times can help us celebrate our vulnerability knowing that every single moment we are in the hands of a god who loves us infinitely unconditionally and absolutely even more than a father and a mother love a child about shempty said that god's love to every single one of us exceeds infinitely the love of parents to a child even a child who was born when they were older and they did not have any hope that to have a child anymore the zohar says in the portion of shemos rabsheman says if a person would be aware of how ferocious and how intense god's love is to him or her we would run after hashem we would run after god with more strength and alacrity than a lioness runs after her prey very interesting expression in zohar we say every morning in davaning or avas olam whatever whatever version you don't have an ashkenazo but the concept is the same every morning we say you love us with tremendous love and we finish the blessing but when was the last time i stopped and i took a few breaths i breathed it in and i tried to meditate and breathe in that love breathe in that trust breathe in that awareness that god is in love with you creating you every single moment caring for you and orchestrating every aspect of your life yes i have to do what i have to do we were charged to create our destiny not just to be passive observers but to remember that we are partners and ambassadors of the rebel initiative of god which now brings me to another i think very powerful and important point and i want to share a teaching that i heard from the late great rabbi lord jonathan sachs of blessed memory who was sadly taken from us last shabbos shabbas parasha's vayara the twentieth of kashman five seven eighty one and as you know rabbi sachs the former chief rabbi of great britain and the united kingdom was a towering figure a towering mind a towering soul and a towering pen and voice for the jewish people not only for the jewish community but also for the larger non-jewish community and i once heard an insight from him that touched me very deeply and he said and it's actually the torah portions that are that we focus on during these weeks told us and then the confrontation between jacob and esau and the confrontation begins this week it will continue next week it will continue and come to some type of closure the week afterwards and that night that fateful night before jacob is going to encounter his brother esau expecting conflict and war there was a mysterious battle a battle that continues all night by eva jacob remains alone in the middle of the night and a man some mysterious man wrestles with him till dawn break who this man is is the subject of speculation among the commentators from days of your till this very day who is this mysterious individual who was quarreling with jacob and tries to defeat him ultimately causes him to limp by dislocating his sciatic nerve and wounding his sciatica but there is a moment rabbi sac said at the end of this faithful night when this mysterious man sees that he can't defeat jacob and dawn breaks and he tells jacob he says send me home i have to go because dawn broke it's day time i cannot stay here anymore and jacob responds and he says lo asha i will not send you away before you do not bless me and i ask you a question if god forbid you're attacked in the middle of the night in a dark alley by a gangster who's trying to kill you and you're fighting him for many hours and then finally he's about to leave do you say well wait don't go anywhere until i get a broken until i get a blessing really i would call 9-1-1 i would try to punch him in the nose and run away scream whatever i would do the last thing i would want to do is ask him for a bracha ask him for a blessing what did he become your rebbe or your or your spiritual coach what is this that yaakov is asking him for a blessing and rabbi jonathan sacks sichuan olive said something so moving so profound and so acute and i think it would be true to say that this perhaps encapsulates and captures one of the most powerful themes of jewish history and may be the ultimate secret of our resilience throughout millennia through thick and thin enduring difficult and sometimes excruciatingly difficult circumstances jacob is battling an adversary the battle is about to end jacob says it's not it would be insufficient for me to just let go and move on lo ashalekha i have learned in my home i have learned from my father for my grandfather for my mother for my grandmother that when you encounter a challenge in life it is not your duty only to try to dispose of the challenge to get rid of it and to move on rather it is your duty responsibility and opportunity to come out of this challenging moment more blessed more aware more genuine more authentic and it's essential to jewish faith because if the entire objective of the challenge was just for me to try to emancipate myself and liberate myself from this experience the question would be why would god the source and essence of goodness put me into this position in the first place why would i have to face these challenging and difficult circumstances in the first place if the only objective is to get rid of them thus jacob says i know that the objective of the challenge is not only to get rid of it and move on and go back to the same situation i was in prior to the challenge i know that when i face adversity when i face circumstances that may be overwhelming when i face toxic forces that try to derail me and put me into a very difficult situation it's not enough just to try to get rid of it but rather to say i will not let you go until you do not bless me i know that the ultimate purpose of this challenge was to empower me to invigorate me to bring out the best and the deepest and the greatest from me and therefore i will not let you go until i make sure that i not only get rid of the darkness but i transform the darkness into light once heard a great insight from the legendary rabbi yoshi ravage of dave haley salvatrix who once shared that the talmud says in shraktek page 29b base about rebbe akiva and the expression of the talmud is i'll say it in the original and then translate i'll call kits the kites literally it means that rebbe akiva that greatest of talmudic sages who lived in the second century after the common era and the period at the end and post the second destruction of the second temple during the time of titus who we mentioned earlier rabbi akiva i'll call keithsvikitz on every little line there are seven letters in a torah scroll upon which there are little tagging little kites and they look like little thorns like little zions on each one of those lines he would expound mounds upon mounds of jewish law in other words was that great scholar who can study the most intricate nuances of the torah scroll and find meaning and significance in them but rabbi shalom joshua salvation saul said then the expression the talmud uses is not i'll call tag vitag i'll call coits for kites literally means on every thorn every thorn he would find mounds and mounds of why the thorn the answer is because these little lines look like little thorns they look like tiny thin thorns rambam calls them little zions and hillchrome rav salvatrik said but there is also a homoletical insight here a homolytical spin that he gave it rabi akiva was a person who witnessed the greatest calamity in jewish history till the holocaust the destruction of the second temple was not only the end of the second commonwealth but it saw the tragic destruction of jerusalem of judea of the land of israel of torah and of scores and scores of jews men women and children the roman empire tried to completely decimate an uproar root the last vestige of judaism and there was one individual responsible for the perpetuation of judaism and his name was robbie aqui with the talmud says in sanhedrin the entire oral tradition that we have today comes from even after 24 000 students died in a pandemic akiva lost his entire his entire following twenty four thousand scholars he lost and what did he do the talmud says in yavamos page 62 he went to the south he found five jewish students and he started all over again how did rabi akiva do this where did he develop this mentality the talmud says i'll call koitsuva every thorn that the romans perforated akiva with every thorn that they plunged into the body of arabic we know the talmud says in bracha 61. how the romans flayed the skin of rabbi akiva tortured him terribly until his death says rabbi sol of the talmud is intimating i'll call kaitsvikaitz for every thorn with which they perforated rabbi akiva with which they perforated claudius the jewish people with which they perforated jewish existence and jewish life what was his response he saw every thorn as an invitation as a catalyst as an opportunity as a springboard to create yet a rejuvenation rejuvenation as in jew a renaissance for every thorn he said we're going to rebuild mountains and mountains of jewish life and jewish learning and jewish observance where did ruby akiva get this attitude from akiva says darizal has the letters of yaakov because he was a reincarnation his soul was a spark of the soul of the first yaakov he also married his wife rachel who was a spark of rahul who was yaakov's wife that's the subject in kabbalistic literature yaakov told his adversary that night we will not only get out of this we will get out of this stronger and more powerful i want to show you something phenomenal about jewish history and that is if you look at jewish history you will see something unique and very inspiring and that is after every tremendous crisis there was an unprecedented explosion of creativity and jewish life and jewish learning if you look for example after the destruction of the first temple which was a horrible calamity in jewish life in jewish history instead of jews surrendering to the spear the prophet jehaschel ezekiel introduced a new concept it's called a mikdash a miniature sanctuary and this became what we know as the shul the base acness the basamadrash we take today the shoal for granted well now we don't take it for granted since corona but for many years we took the shoal for granted this was a fascinating idea god dwelled in one place in jerusalem came ezekiel and said no the central bay samitos was destroyed wherever jews go they will create spaces where they will gather together to learn to pray to connect to each other to grow together and to unite and that will become a mini basamignation any sanctuary where the shrine will live and thus the best one temple was destroyed and in lieu of that how many were built wherever there is a minion wherever there are jews gathering together a little base amikta share and there and then the talmud says at the end of megillah that all of them are going to go back to eretz israel and become part of the third base amitar magillah page 29 the end of tractate megillah if you look afterwards the jewish people come back after a very very difficult crisis they were exiled to babylonia they went through the near destruction of genocide of haman during the time of purim but a whole new era of jewish tradition of jewish scholarship developed during the second temple and then the second temple was destroyed this i told you besides the holocaust this was an extraordinary calamity if you're familiar with the history from josephus and our own sources of the history of the second temple and after that there was an explosion of jewish creativity the creation of the mishnah the creation of the gemara talmud yerushalmi talmud bhavli the creation of all of the midrash of the creation of the zoa the creation of the main bodies of turish about the oral tradition happened during the few centuries after the destruction of the second temple you look at the era of the crusades which wiped out complete communities in western europe spire vermeizer mine spire and worms and mines germany and france the expulsions of england all those countries in western europe and it created following that there was such a creativity that was created of the reshanam they were showing him you had rashi and the house of rashford the grandchildren of rashi the bali hatosvos for the next few hundred years such an explosion of torah learning of torah dedication of the greatest leaders of ashkenazic jury there was the spanish expulsion of 1492 following more than a century of a horrible horrible inquisition and persecution of spanish jury and what happens after that the whole explosion of jewish mysticism of kabbalah from the exiles of spain who come up to tsfas and compose the most beautiful liturgy including that song that we love and we sing every friday night like it looks like this beautiful hymn that was composed in serenity it was composed by benue al-kabats who himself was murdered by an arab and spouse brother-in-law ramosa cardavero but these were jews who came from spain where they lost everything they went up to tsma's they went to other parts of the world and a whole new explosion of kabbalah of jewish mysticism emerged after that calamity and you look after 1648-1649 massacres and then the shapzvid debacle in the 1660s where this false messiah converts to islam it is such a letdown for european jury who so many believed in him it's a strange story in and of itself and here comes the revolution and the revelation of the hasidic movement the balsh the holy bolshevistabal shamu was born in 1698 and his students there is the enlightenment the enlightenment which begins in germany and in england and in germany and france ultimately will travel to the east which really splits the jewish world and shakes up the jewish world to its core and as a response again you have the whole yeshiva movement from the lithuanian world you'll have the muslim movement and you'll have the hasidic movement in our times or just two mortgages ago a holocaust the greatest black hole in the history of humanity and the jewish people no words could describe and fathom the cruelty the sadism the barbarity the depth of the tragedy but you know what the greatness of the jewish people is the day they were liberated from auschwitz most of them decided that they are going to recreate jewish life with passion and gusto and single-minded idealism and commitment they went to they went up to recreate eretz israel to recreate israel and to recreate judaism and jewish communities the world over the greatest heroes of jewish history the survivors of the holocaust our fathers and mothers our zaiders and bubbas our great grandfathers and great-grandmothers with the scars and with the blemishes and with the trauma that most of them never ever recovered from most of them were committed to rebuild jewish families jewish life jewish communities jewish institutions what a testimony to the spirit of the jewish people it all comes back to that verse of jacob telling that angel i will not let you go i will not leave this fight scarred limping without coming out more blessed more genuine more authentic more aware more invigorated more empowered friends you know where i'm going with this not to compare this era to any previous era every era has its blessings and its challenges and in so many ways we all know that we are living in times that our grandparents and our great-grandparents could not even dream about in terms of prosperity in terms of 6.6 million jews living in our holy land in our homeland in our promised land in fact of the freedom that the jewish people have to live as jews in the united states of america and so many other countries despite despite the horrible the horrible toxicity of anti-semitism that has reared its ugly head in a very dramatic way in recent years despite other dangers that face the jewish people individually and collectively and despite this great tragedy of the pandemic and the lives it has claimed and the turmoil that it has created but our role today is not only to tell ourselves and pray when will this all end and life will go back to normal and the shoals will open up and get rid of the mask everybody will go back to school and we can open up the stores and you can go back to your bowling alleys to your malls to your stadiums to your theaters to your bars to your clubs traveling and all everything will come back to normal jacob says no i will not let you go till ki in berhtani we all want to come out of this more blessed judaism teaches that every single obstacle is a challenge and every challenge is an opportunity yes it's not a schmuck opportunity it's not always delightful it's not something i ask for but when it exists it is incumbent upon us to find the hidden sparks the hidden opportunities of growth that lay in this challenging moment and it's true about every challenge in our life when i face something difficult in my life there are two approaches one approach is how do i get out of this mess important and try to get out of this mess but that's insufficient i want to do something much deeper i want to embrace it for all that lay store in this there are treasures that you want to extract somebody once said that the reasons the chinese are around for so many millennia is because the same character that they have for crisis they also have for the word opportunity the same character but in judaism it's more profound the same word that we have for a breakdown is the same term that we use for birth of a new child and the word is majber the word mashber in modern hebrew means a breakdown majber comes in the word lisbor virat to break what's the word in tanakh that's used for a woman who's sitting on a birthing stool about to give birth to a new baby isha yoshevit alham she sits on the stone that they used to use a stone upon which women would sit before prior to giving birth to their child what is the connection of this because in the jewish imagination every majbere every time a window closes a new one opens one door closes but another one opens every time something breaks in my life it's not only that something broke an era ended but a new one began the old house caved in but it's really the beginning of renovation it's an opportunity to rediscover my life yes sometimes i cling to the old i don't want to let go i'm not ready to enter into a brave new world but sometimes destiny forces me into this brave new world and that's when i have to be able to open myself up to all the opportunities that exist today so friends the torah tells us when you are facing this these challenges of corona individually familiarly communally collectively as humans as americans as jews don't just so don't surrender to the spirit don't even just curse your faith and try to move on and hopefully we will all move on but ask yourself how am i going to come out from this much more blessed and there are so many ways in which we can do this my dearest friends and a few of them i will specify even though i think it's quite obvious but nonetheless i will specify a few of them number one is our marriages let's face it we have nowhere to run this is an opportunity to be able to cement our marriage to be able to work through differences that maybe we didn't have the mental space or the time to deal with everybody was stressed my life negate the fact is when a couple experiences a happy and a harmonious marriage there is no gift like the gift of a good marriage just like there's no curse as the curse of an anxious marriage filled with animosity and negative energy and fragmentation and divisiveness this is a time to be vulnerable to open ourselves up to look at those things that have caused us to drift away time to spend together much more to take walks without the phone to be able to bond to be able to converse to be able to communicate to be able to rediscover ourselves this is a gift don't let this coronavirus pass without your marriage experiencing a makeover a transformation and don't give up just because there are differences of course there are differences just because there are challenges of course there are challenges the only marriages that i know that are perfect are the marriages i don't know that's number one number two our relationship with our children we have all spent many nights i can't say all some people were alone during this time but many of us have spent time with our children that we didn't expect before we have seen things they have seen things we have come to learn about certain realities this is a time to face it and to try to cement your relationship with your children each and every single one of them and i know sometimes it's not easy children are also going through a lot and then there are the teenagers but this is the time where i have to look deep into myself and ask myself how i can be here for my children on a daily basis on a weekly basis on a monthly basis a continuous basis whether we live in the same house and then of course it's on a daily basis we don't live in the same house but to be able to really connect with your family in every possible way emotionally to be able to play with them and listen to them and bond with them and talk to them and realize we're connection is missing you know a lot of therapists talk about the four s's our children need to be seen they have to be seen and they have to be stu's soothed and they have to feel safe and they have to feel secure these are critical critical components because they are the antidote to the depression and to substance abuse and to a lot of this functionality that exists today various addictions various depressions we need to make sure that they feel seen and they feel soothed and they feel safe and they feel secure and that takes emotional time and emotional space and emotional energy and if not now when and if not you who think about this another great opportunity is to connect to yourself in new ways this is a time to reflect to be introspective to refocus our priorities to ask ourselves tough questions how am i spending my days how am i spending my nights what am i really doing with my life what are my priorities what is my focus why did my soul come into this world am i fulfilling the mission that god wants for me now nobody knows exactly what our mission is but nonetheless i have to ask myself how am i utilizing my days my nights my weeks the balshamptav one said a jew comes down to the world to do a one favor for another person you live 70 80 years he says to do a favor to a person materially and spiritually each and every one of us is an ambassador an ambassador of the reborn islam an ambassador of god an ambassador of love and light and hope and healing and wisdom and authenticity and redemption and i want to ask myself am i fulfilling my role as an ambassador of god to bring goodness and light to myself to my loved ones to my community to the world never underestimate your great potential the great light that has invested in you as a slick as an emissary of hashem of the creator of the world and finally it's a time to really cement and focus on our own inner relationship with god our prayers many of us have discovered the art of davening on our own privately i don't know exactly the situation in your community but this is also an opportunity it's not just a tragedy it's an opportunity for people to really talk to god face to face heart to heart with intimacy to really discover as i said in the beginning your own personal and very very deep relationship with hashem with god so my dearest friends i want to say to all of you to each and every one of you the greatest crisis the greatest challenge that we have during this time is our attitude of how we look at these situations this is a vulnerable time and whenever there is vulnerability in us and around us there's always two options option one is we close ourselves off even more we run away even more we escape reality even more option number two is we open ourselves up more we allow ourselves to embrace the reality and find meaning and purpose there we don't have answers to all the questions we can't eliminate all circumstances and we can't eliminate all pain what we can do however is embrace the moment find our purpose and our calling in this moment and maximize the potential that exists within it in order to become the human beings that we are capable of becoming in order to give birth to take the majbere and to give birth to a new consciousness a new awareness a new depth a new reality sometimes we are surrounded by fakeness by falsehood by superficiality these are times that challenge us to shed the layers to open our hearts to each other and to become authentic human beings what we call in yiddish panimi is the convention internalized people without so much fanfare without so much drama without so much superficiality but really allowing ourselves to cry and laugh with our souls with our hearts to become sources of love and inspiration i bless you i bless myself i bless all of us that carpe diem we seize the day we seize the opportunity to be able to rise to the occasion on all levels and to be able to say to covet 19 i will not let you go until you bless me thank you very much [Music] i see a question that came in here so uh let me uh let me read the question here i am 15 year old okay i am a 15 year old girl she's listening to us and i would like to ask you i currently have a lot of struggles that i'm dealing with my parents are divorced i'm not to be i'm not able to be in a regular girls school as a result of my behavioral struggles how can you tell me that there will be an end to these struggles especially when i feel that life is so difficult why is god doing this to me and why is god giving me and so many others so much struggle you're asking the ultimate question and i have to be very frank and honest with you i don't know i don't know i don't think certainly i don't know but i don't know if anybody knows the answer of why people struggle so much why people have to go through so much pain i re i really really don't know what i could say is that i think a greater question in life is not why because i don't think we have an answer for that it's what we do with it how we deal with it if i could be here for you in any way i'm happy to be here for you but i would encourage you instead of asking why which always leaves us frustrated and empty try to ask the question how can i take on this reality and how can i turn on how can i turn my majber my challenges into an opportunity for new awareness and new growth next question i always enjoy listening to you there are many different opinions regarding masks social distancing within the community what are some practical ways of respecting another person's viewpoint when you vehemently disagree i think this can apply to the election and political tension as well yes it's a very very important idea i'm going to tell you something that i heard from rabbi israel mayor lao at the 75th anniversary of the auschwitz liberation january 27 i know it seems like eons ago but 45 heads of states prime ministers presidents came to israel to yad vashem to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the liberation of auschwitz and rabbi lao who was one of the youngest survivors he survived buchenwald spoke to all of these leaders including the leaders who fought together with america against hitler in the second world war the allies so you had the leader of russia and you had england etc and they were all there in yad vashem the vice president was there and rabbi israel may allow said something beautiful to all of these leaders and he said as follows i want to ask you a question you all know the story of the flood in genesis we have just read it two weeks ago three weeks three weeks ago and he says for a whole year noah had in the ark he had every conceivable type of mammal and beast domesticated animal undomesticated animal reptile bird insect they were all there in peace how did that happen how did the wolf coexist with the lamb how did the lioness coexist with the gazelle how did the cheetah coexist with the antelope how did they all live so peacefully for a whole year did you ever think about this question all the animals in the ark what happened and rabbi lao said to them i'll tell you the answer they knew that outside this ark outside of these walls there is a raging flood and if we will not get along inside of here and we will be separated and we will end up outside we will all perish we will all die they realized that if noah throws them out they have no hope inside these walls we have to get along because if we're going to fight we have nowhere to go and rabbi lao turned to all of these leaders and he said this is before corona he says we have so many problems out there why are we fighting inside of her and this is what i think is a very important sentiment to understand what unites us is always greater than what divides us we have disagreements that's fine let's take a marriage what do a husband and a wife do when they disagree they stop disagreeing couples disagree that's not the end of the world the problem is not to disagree with each other the problem is when we stop trusting each other when we stop supporting each other when we stop talking to each other and when we stop listening to each other we have to continue to listen to each other and to communicate with each other we have disagreements we have disagreements some people believe that masks is the most important thing some people think masks is a fraud other people some people think doctors here all the whole the lockdown is political and others say no the lockdown is saving lives some people believe that trump was the greatest thing that ever happened to the united states of america and some people think trump is the worst that ever happened to the united states of america so we disagree but outside there's a flood we're all affected by the coronavirus we're all affected by terrorism we're all affected by anti-semitism we're all affected by drug abuse by substance abuse we're all affected by teenage depression we're all affected by the breakdown of families we have enough what to connect with next question you know what else don't be petty don't be petty you have to be larger it's very easy to get petty to get personal to start hating people because they disagree with you about joe biden or donald j trump don't get petty don't be a small person be a large person don't be needy be a source of love be a source of empowerment be a source of moral clarity and focus you can do it if you put your head to it and if you meditate every morning and you remain anchored and centered next question how can each of us feel i'm reading from the chat of the young israel of boca raton zoom session how can every one of us feel that each of us is part of a larger picture i always feel that it's so difficult for each for us to respect other people and not only that i am told that the other is not really an other because we're all part of a cohesive whole how can i come and feel that it's a very good question and the answer to that and thank you for writing it in hebrew that's very refreshing and nice and the answer is yes it's counterintuitive our natural emotion and instinct is you are you and i am i and we are disconnected but if you follow a little bit the developments of science and physics during recent generations and most significantly during recent years you will see that cutting physics is coming closer and closer to the awareness that we're all one i read somebody he he considers himself an atheist but he says whatever you believe about the origin of the world you have to say that this world came about however way it came about and all living organisms were somehow using the same dictionary because we all are using the same language called dna i share 50 percent of dna with a banana and 98 of dna with a chimpanzee so all of us are so deeply connected there is such a balanced ecosystem where all of humanity all living organisms the entire planet and the entire universe are really very deeply connected with each other and you don't need to go far for this take a look at covet 19 okay forgive me for being graphic and dramatic but i want to describe to you the scene it happened not so long ago there was a short chinese man who decided to go out to a supermarket in wuhan china in order to buy a bat or a beetle or another insect for his family and he went to the marketplace of juan china short little guy regular chinese man probably not very affluent probably very poor and he went to the marketplace and he bought this insect or this animal from the marketplace my speculation is that if you would ask him are you a significant human being and part of the jigsaw puzzle of humanity part of a symphony he would laugh at you and say i'm just a simple china man trying to support my family and wuan and i went to buy some food in the supermarket an act that is as insignificant and as consequential as an act can be little did this china man know that at that moment single-handedly he changed the entire planet a few weeks or a few months later 7.7 billion people were on lockdown do you understand what i'm saying with the coronavirus we managed to see it vividly but this is true with every act in life maimonides writes in the laws of repentance chapter 3 that a person should consider himself and the whole world like a scale that's balanced and if i engage in one positive virtuous holy thought or word or deed i literally tipped the scale and brought salvation to the world it seems strange archaic weird come on what can one act accomplish but what did it take to start the first world war a 19 year old youngster gabrielle princip a 19 year old kid unleashed a bullet unleashed a bullet and the first world war began in the summer of 1914 and as a result of that the second world war began and human history was changed forever that's true in the negative it's certainly true in the positive as well so you have to be able to see yourself for who you really are when we take a microscope a physical one and a spiritual one we see that the universe is united the universe is synchronized that's why physicists are looking today for the string theory for the ultimate singular law that is responsible for all of the patterns of existence and they call it the string theory it's like a vibration of music so the closer and closer we come to goula to redemption the more and more we see the unity of the universe and ultimately what is meshiach when we will be able to look at the world from the lenses of the divine creator and we will see that everything is one we are all one because when the doors of perception are cleansed everything appears as is an extension of the infinite oneness of god rabbi do you have any tips for gaining an appreciation for gifts we take for granted before having them removed oh i was tonight by a chiropractor just before this class i needed an adjustment so this fellow who's a nice catholic man here in rockland county new york says to me do you celebrate thanksgiving because next week is thanksgiving so i say yes three times a day and he paused he stopped working on me and he said wow wow when i was young my parents taught me not to take something into my mouth without giving thanks but we forgot about this at least once a year we have a thanksgiving dinner to give thanks i said yes we do it three times a day we call it chakras and myref and i asked my son my little boy was there i said what do we do before we take a drink of water before we put something into our mouth and he said we make a bracha i said translate the word he says we make a blessing much of judaism are rituals that are there to invoke gratitude what is the first what are the first words a jew says when she or he wakes up in the morning what are the first words i don't know if you do this but if you don't it's a very very good thing to do it puts the day in focus you wake up before you check your phone no text no what's up no emails wait wait wait we say i thank you we start of moda i'm grateful to you for giving me back my soul my divine holy beautiful confident sacred divine soul for another day i'm grateful to you for giving for putting your trust in me for another day then we wash our hands and we begin the day we open our day with gratitude and if you know the jew if you know about the jewish prayer book you know that before we even pray there's a whole list of blessings that express our gratefulness for everything we take for granted we thank god every time we can go to the bathroom for our urinary system we thank for our respiratory system we thank for our digestive system don't take for granted the nine systems of your organism they're incredible they're abnormal they are stupendous they are magical we don't take anything for granted there's a whole list of blessings we say in the morning that are there to help us become more mindful and more aware of the miracle of life so if you engage in this and you engage it with intention with conscientiousness don't do it absent-mindedly you will find yourself cultivating the muscle of gratitude in your psyche rabbi i have another few questions should i continue okay next question i have i have committed quite a few sins in my life what happens to my sin after i do truva after i repent it's a wonderful question but you should not doubt what the torah says the torah says that when we apologize and we experience remorse and we confess and we make a resolution for the future the sin is wiped away you do not have to doubt that truth so realize that you are good we all make mistakes we fail as long as as long as we learn from them then as i said every failure becomes a springboard for new awareness next question you said in the beginning of the lecture that god loves us very deeply how do you know this how do you know this well i don't know if you know about the picture that nasa took in the 90s right i think it's called the the blue dot they from i think it was three or four billion light years away they took a picture of our planet you ever saw that picture it's a tiny tiny little dot almost invisible okay it looks like a speck of dust literally and that's the planet in which we live and where all the wars happen and which we take so seriously you look at this little tiny planet from outer space it literally looks like it doesn't exist literally like a pea less than a pea like like like a a mammoth a a grain of sand and even smaller and i and you are living in that space and now you come to this little dot and you see that the synchronization and the genius and the symmetry in this little dot that seems so insignificant is beyond imagination every living organism every tree every bush every human being every animal every fish every bird everything is made up of not millions not billions not trillions not zillions not even sections of atoms and each one functioning in perfect harmony and symmetry and that's just in our planet and you see all of this it's very clear that there is purpose there and there is design and somehow this comes from infinity someone who is beyond matter and beyond space and beyond time who can create all of this the one place that supports life and that allows us to function and you have to ask the question why why are so many people opposed to reach the normal conclusion that if there's a book it has an author and if there's a symphony there's a composer and if there's a play there must be a writer of a play and if there's a mansion there must be an architect and a contractor and the universe is far more complex because if we believe that this universe has a designer we have to ask the next question what is the purpose but one thing is clear that in this little little little dot that seems so insignificant this is where the drama of life exists which must bring us to the conclusion that god is really invested in us there's something he loves he loves and cherishes and that's why the torah repeats this so many times i have to ask him god says i love you we say every morning a lot of teenagers a lot of teenagers and young adults seem not to have any delight in judaism we don't have a geshmaq do you have advice or some words of strength to offer that would give us a sense of delightful happiness in serving god and in learning torah and finally what is your opinion about moving to israel okay let me answer these two questions briefly so the first question about people not having a delight in judaism there is of course a lot to say about this but i think i would give i would give three pieces of fast advice number one today it's very possible find yourself a teacher a mentor a writer an author anywhere in the world who speaks to you today with the internet we have the ability the blessing to be able to become a disciple of any rebbe in the world it could be in israel could be an america could be in europe wherever this person is i'm sure there's one person two people three people that do speak to you you respect their words their brains their souls their passion their feelings their emotions become their students learn from them speak to them maybe facetime zoom or read their articles or follow their showroom or follow their classes if they speak to your soul they are your tools for inspiration learn torah through them that's number one number two it's important in order to appreciate judaism it's extremely important to be able to allow yourself to become spiritually vulnerable the more you get to know yourself the more you will get to know god the more you will be able to be honest with who you are and really search for ultimate self-actualization and have the readiness to confront all your pain and all your trauma you will find in that your deepest spiritual core and meaning which will suddenly give you a whole new appreciation of what judaism is here for judaism will satisfy your deepest quests your deepest yearnings your spirituality but for that you have to be able to face yourself face your demons in a very profound way and the third thing i would suggest to you is open yourself up to information judaism is very vast it's infinite many of us have a very limited education some people learn gomorrah a whole day some people learn other subjects but there is something in torah for everybody torah is infinite allow yourself to explore all aspects of judaism and you will find those things that will trigger you and will inspire you and will stimulate you and finally i would encourage you to become a leader when we give to others we give to ourselves when we inspire others we inspire ourselves so if you can dedicate time every day to be an ambassador of love even as a youngster to be there for other people you will find new meaning and inspiration in your judaism and in your life and i would also say this is i guess number five when you pray take a few minutes to pray in your own language to god speak to god about yourself in terms of israel in terms of israel i will i will say this i heard this from rabbi i was in the airport we were coming back from los angeles this is before corona we did a shabbaton there and in jfk airport in kennedy i met the former chief rabbi of israel whom i mentioned earlier rabbi israel mayor lao shlita and he told me something that he heard from the second chief rabbi of israel isaac allevi herzog who said this in the name of the first chief rabbi of palestine that was before israel rabbi avraham yitzhak and this is what he said the navi says in yeshaya the prophet says in isaiah chapter 40. when meshiach comes the prophet says we're going to look up and say me who are all these jews who flew back to israel like the cloud and like doves coming back to the duff coat astra of cook why the redundancy of two metaphors jews coming back to israel like the clouds moving and drifting in the wind coming back to israel and like doves coming back to their nests their dove coats why this redundancies rav cook said there's a difference between a cloud moving and a and a dove traveling a cloud moves involuntarily the wind comes and it pushes the cloud the cloud itself doesn't choose to move and relocate it's the wind that forces it to go the dove is not forced to go back to the duff coat the dove longs to go back to the duff coat because it wants to be united with its mate and with its young it has to leave the nest in order to bring food but ultimately the dove wants to go home cedraf cook there are two types of jews who travel territo israel there are jews who travel to the holy land like clouds that are pushed by the wind and there are jews who travel territorial like doves who are going back home and rabbi lao told me he says i went to israel in 1946 like a cloud there was a holocaust my parents were killed siblings were killed pietro cove was decimated i had no home i had nowhere to go the winds pushed me territorial of two fenna but there's another way of coming like doves coming back home they want to go back home they want to go back to the home of the jewish people and i would say that there are two types of jews there are jews who become aware that they're jewish because of anti-semitism because of the wind that forces them and compels them to wake up and smell the coffee but we want jews who embrace their judaism like doves who want to go home this is my home this is my organic place so the point is as follows our connection to israel to seoul is organic it's innate it's intrinsic the answer for each individual whether to move to the land of israel how to move to the land of israel when to move to the land of israel this is not i don't have the authority and the wisdom and the clarity to be able to give a a global answer to the jewish world this is a decision that people have to make figuring out the pros and the cons their family situation their responsibility in the united states of america their positions of leadership how it's going to affect other people we can only think about ourselves we also have to think about our environment but one thing we have to remember that our relationship to israel should never be like a cloud that sometimes ends up drifting away there but like a dove that always yearns to return to its dove higher coat for ourselves thank you and thank you for this host for the privileged opportunity to address the beautiful and amazing community of young israel of boca thank you so much rabbi rabbowski schlitter thank you so much david and thank you to all of you who have joined us good night