Deep Dive with Rabbi Buxbaum 11 5 23

thank you Danielle thank you project Inspire hi everyone this is exciting to be back hi hi and good to see people from Denver Colorado that's awesome and all across the world but I we have a special connection to Denver so this is fun to do this on a Sunday afternoon because I think when we've done it in the past it's been in the evening so we got America people but now we're literally worldwide so wow it's really really beautiful and what a way to be spending a Sunday afternoon even in or I don't know for some of you it might be like Tuesday already I don't know but uh but this is what we should be doing now because CLA I'm usel we're at War and it's a stressful time it's a time that has a lot of anxiety and on our end everyone says like what can I do what can we do in a time like this and if you are able to and you'd like to go and fight in the front lines go ahead most of us are not doing that we're not able to do that but as we know as our great G sadik are teaching us both past and present are teaching us that this is not only a physical War this is not only about a massacre it's not only about Hamas but this is a spiritual war and therefore every single one of us every single one of us we each have our own our own mission in this time as to what we should be doing and for some it's reaching out to family for some it's Saka for some it's sending packages for some for some it's just me your own mental health it's just caring for yourself but every single person has to be making strides during this time making spiritual strides because it is a spiritual war and wow I mean from what I see listen I sit in a little corner in Silver Spring Maryland so I don't know but at least the impression that you get is if we had a report card as to how we're doing spiritually what is our spiritual response I mean let's give Claus let's give amus an A+ for this I mean I mean what we are seeing is incredible I am in Jewish Outreach okay my my life is spent begging people to do something spiritually and they're knocking down the doors they're knocking down the doors give something right give me just listen is everyone you know changing their life on a dime no we don't want that but everyone is saying I want something how many women are lighting candles who haven't done that in a while how many people are sitting down and asking for a Partners in Torah or a project in Spire mate or whatever it is right so we're seeing the CL isel's awake unified Unity ER Isel those of you who are in Israel you know better than me right it seems like things were really like on the brink of like a civil war my gosh I mean we were shocked with and concerned and now suddenly Earth Israel like you guys know how to do like clol knows how to do like standing together so the spiritual response has been amazing we have to keep it up so things like this uh experiences like this learning like this this is what we have to be doing and I'll just share with you you because what we're going to be doing today is some learning about the Sha our Pledge of Allegiance our Declaration of Faith right it's Faith that's what's getting us through this time the fact that we know everybody here on this call my guest Maybe not maybe not but I'm sure that at least someplace in your mind the second that you heard that it was happening the second that you heard we're going to war right something terrible is happening immediately where did your mind go you're like Hashem is in charge something big is happening over here right maybe this is mhia maybe this is one step closer to mashiah right every you can not think that we know deep down we know in our kishkas that there's something big that is happening right now and um and therefore I the the to to see videos from the front line of soldiers from every stripe and every background and they're sitting there hugging themselves in right hugging each other in circles saying I mean this is this is it's it's it's frightening it's scary fearful times but these are magical magical times as well and before we go into our learning about the shama which is our Declaration of faith and really to Deep dive because you all say shma we say shma you know what it means you know the translation but because sha is such a profound statement because it's such a deep statement we constantly need to go deeper and deeper and analyze not only every word of the Sha but every letter of the Sha because it's packed with meaning but I just want to share with you one quick idea based on yesterday's Torah portion because I couldn't help it yesterday you know I live in Silver Spring Maryland but I happen to have been in Washington DC yesterday now you you see the news right you know what happened in Washington DC yesterday hundreds of thousands of pro Palestinian uh Pro Palestinians Pro Palestinians hundred of people that were rallying Pro Palestine were there and I wasn't at the White House I was 10 10 15 blocks away and I kind of thought like you know it's going to be calm what I don't don't need to be concerned about anything but we felt it in the streets I was there doing a shabbaton and in in a safe neighborhood but we felt it we felt it we locked the door we locked the door of our Center at one time because we saw people were passing and they were carrying the flags and they were carrying the whatever they're called right their their checkered scarves whatever they're called cfas or I don't know and they're holding their signs and the signs of saying all sorts of things and River to the Sea and genocide and you know all the things and um and it was you know I had a lot of explaining to do to my children over there who are like what like they didn't know such a thing you know so it was frightening times but here we are and we're reading in the Torah portion about ismaile literally right you couldn't you couldn't write a better script right here we are we're learning we're talking about is and it's happening right outside of our window so I turned to my my children and my students that we were there together and I said listen this week's para we have we have so if you want to know what what should be the attitude in response to is let's take a look at let's take a look at what represents we know that every single one of our Patriarchs right if we just look at their name their name itself tells us what are the traits of the Jewish people Abraham Abraham right is he is the father of the Nations Abraham is the great defender of anyone right defends sidom we defends whoever needs to be defended he loves isma right but we see from our Patriarchs what their what their dominant traits are and then we have yak and yak's name means laughter's name means laughter and what an unusual name for someone who doesn't seem to be laughing too much y has a very serious life and he's quite the serious personality but yet the laughter the the word means laughter the laughter of Y is a laughter that doesn't come despite the fact that he has a challenging life but it comes specifically because of that abam and Sarah think they'll never have children and then suddenly a miracle happens and so right they think they're the end of the line and now suddenly they find out that we're gonna have a child laughter you think everything you think you thought this was the end of the line this was just the beginning Y is hounded by Ish is wants to kill him is's chasing him but that's just the birth pains that's just the the The Growing Pains of what's necessary to become the defining moment of's life is when he's placed on the AA when he's placed when he's when he thinks okay for whatever reason this is what God wanted God just wanted me to be a a sacrifice end of the line and Y under goes in a spiritual sense even though the Torah says that that at the last moment the angel comes and says don't check don't Slaughter him cabala teaches that actually y underwent when y was sitting there when Isaac was there on top of the altar he underwent a spiritual transformation that is tant to a resurrection of the dead and therefore the Second Blessing of the yid which speaks about the resurrection of the Dead corresponds to Isaac so Y is the idea that every single time you think that something is terrible is happening you don't even realize that something new is being born I don't have time now to put it in the chat maybe somebody wants to help me over here but the actual letters of the name y if you jumble the letters a little bit you get two Hebrew words one is the word Kates Kates means the end and the second word that you get is K Kates k Kates whenever you think that there's an end just realize there's there's a new life there's new possibility there's new potential so when you're scrolling your social media you're seeing videos on WhatsApp or what wherever it is of the Jewish people saying what is that what does it mean that we're alive it is that rebirth we experienced a Kate a piece of CLA died on October 7th right we really the piece of us died we we experienced a Kates and now what we're seeing is a a rebirth of the Jewish people and it's happening not only not only through military but it's happening spiritually and we all want to be a part of that so we're going to learn right now about the shama our Declaration of Faith hopefully you can stay on I'll see you at the other end about 10 minutes to the end of the hour and we'll sort of wrap it up and maybe go a little bit deeper into the words of sha so have a good learning and remember that everything we do today should be a merit for the soldiers should be a merit for the hostages and should be a merit for am Isel yes we're all back safe and sound raise your hand if you got through the sources did you get through everything all right okay good so let's dive in let's dive in let's 14 minutes right now let's just try to get some insight and try to delve a little bit deeper you know I perhaps the most profound idea from kazal from our sages that we have on this topic is the idea that RAB AKA RAB AKA is taken by the Romans and we know this terrible story about RAB AKA who's murdered by the Romans and the the talet says a very interesting story he says his students come up to him as he's being tortured and he seems to be kind of okay with it you know he's kind of just you know rolling with it and they say like rebi what's what's the secret what's the secret sauce like how are you how you managing this and he looks at his students and he says you know my whole life there's a gar BR by the way tra Bros he says I've been waiting for this moment my whole life because it says in the Via it says you should love Hashem with all your heart with all your soul with all your might with all your soul Rashi say even if even even if God takes your soul and he says my whole life I've been waiting am I ever going to have the opportunity to give up my life to sanctify God's name and here's my moment this is my moment this is the big moment that I've been waiting for and he fully accepts it and the tal says that he dies with the word God is one on his lips and a voice emanates from heaven and proclaims Fortune are you Raba that yourish went out with the word so the T seems to be saying that there's something that is unique there's something special about this moment of having these words God is one on your lips at that moment that your soul ascends and there's an amazing amazing idea from revler and M which I saw a long time ago and he says that rabika was telling his students a very profound thing when he was telling them he said you know I've been waiting my whole life for this moment he wasn't simply saying like I wanted it to happen I want you know I want it to go this way I want it to you know die in in grandiose fashion what he was saying is do you realize that every single time I said these words Hashem I closed my eyes and say these words and every single time I felt so close so connected to God that my Nish my soul just wanted to jump out I wanted to have this massive outof body experience I just my soul wanted to jump back to the to the world of Truth to the world of souls he said I had to contain myself I had to downplay every single time I said these words I had to contain my soul in my body because my soul just wanted to return to its maker but now I know I have nothing left it's the end of the line for me so for the first time in my life I'll be able to say shma the way I really want to I'll be able to just let my soul do its thing I'll be able to just let go of my soul and allow it to return to its maker that's why in heaven it says a voice emanated and said right fortunate are you that every single time you said sh every single time you said this word you had this moment of absolute B absolute ego nullification absolute connection to God and the r RAB m he says in the he says that every time a person says sh we should actually have this in mind it's a frightening thought right but to have in mind as as we're closing our eyes and we're saying this these words to have in mind that if that moment came if I was ever called upon to give up my life to sanctify God I would be ready to do it and goes on to say that if we do that if we have that in mind then we should know that the power of our words that that all of the forces of evil in the world are weakening themselves under the forces of good just by us saying these words we have that power we have that power to minimize we know that Hashem does allow CLE US forces of evil to enter into the world and every single time we say Hashem with this Readiness to give up of our lives so what happens is we turn down the power on the forces of evil they weaken themselves what the ra says they weaken themselves under the forces of good so that's a really powerful experience of what we could have in mind you know there's some fascinating things just you know sometimes it's it's fun it gives a little bit of richness to the experience of when we know a little bit of some of the Torah that's behind the words and we have this word which is a beautiful beautiful word and um raise your hand can you visualize the word I know I know we have Jews of all backgrounds but raise your hand if you're comfortable you can sort of visualize it in your in your mind's eye all right good okay I don't see everyone on my screen but I'm imagining lots of you know it so just a simple one one simple idea so we know the word Al someone put it in the chat please you'll help me out over here Al is numerical value one the letter is numerical value eight is numerical value four so the word these three letters have the numerical value of 13 someone going to put it in the chat come on whoever did it last time you good the did a good job before all right it's coming up so there it is so is one is eight do is four and that is a numerical value of 13 13 is a very beautiful very beautiful Jewish number for all the bar mitzu boys out there right but besides for that we know that there's another word in the Hebrew language that also has numerical value 13 and that is the word AA Al if hey B he AA has 13 because AA means love because what is true love love is the ability to see the Oneness in a person if you look at a person as being fragmented hey I like this about you but I don't like that about you yeah I like your eyes I don't really like your nose I like you I like you when you're in a good mood I don't really like you when you're in a bad mood I don't like you that so much when you're cranky true love means full acceptance I accept you who you are and what you are whatever state you are and how does that relate to God because yes we experience yes someone is saying on theide 13 attributes of hem even the way we experience God we don't always experience the the the image of God the way we would like to write the script you know even when you look at Hashem the way Hashem presents himself in the Torah right we have this week an amazing moment of Abraham defending sidom taking God on abam versus God where AB seems to be the good guy Moshe battles God defending the Jewish people God sometimes puts forth an image which we're not comfortable with and we feel like we need to fight back against God Hashem is an understanding that hasem whatever you'll throw whatever you'll put in my direction I know that it's coming from Oneness and because of that I love you seeing the Oneness of someone or in this case God is the same thing as experiencing love for that thing you know if you take any three-dimensional object here so I'm holding over here a tissue box this session was not sponsored by Kleenex it could be any box that you have any three-dimensional object you see that if you count the edges the edges are there's always 12 edges 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 there's always 12 edges to any three-dimensional object and we know that cabala always values whenever something is made of multiple different parts when they come together that adds a new dimension the number 13 represents all of the disparate Parts the 12 edges that are coming together to create something new a new Oneness of those 12 Parts is that 13 so 13 and one in cabala are always interchangeable because 13 is the number that shows that all of the different things which I see as fragmented can all come together and become one that's why we have so many twelves and ones right with have so many twelves and 13s we got 12 tribes but really it's 13 cuz yob kind of adds on another one at the end of his life we have 12 months of the year but there's really 13 because you have that second a right because 13 represents all of the different edges all of the different pieces of the Jewish people coming together and becoming one so that's part of the idea of loving God is reminding reminding ourselves that any side of God that we see we're happy with God we're not happy with God it's okay to be angry that's okay there's nothing wrong with that there's nothing you you're not missing at all in your amuna in your faith of God by saying Hashem I don't I don't understand this is you're you're being so hard on me I just what what what do you want I don't understand what is my mission and and I'm angry and I'm upset and I'm frustrated and hasm why did you do this to me there's something beautiful about that but we're still acknowledging the one of God and one last point before we go if you still thank you Sarah Rosen for uh putting that on the side but if you take a look at once again at these three letters the letter alif the letter the letter so we know that alif is numerical value one and alif represents the absolute Oneness of God we know that God in his Essence is absolutely Transcendent absolutely bigger than anything that we could see the Oneness of God is something that is beyond our grasp something that's beyond we can connect to that's why the Torah begins with the letter B because the AL is just so Transcendent the letter is numerical value eight and eight we know is the number of rising above right seven is all the natural order the natural order of the world seems to operate around the number seven like the seven days of the week but eight is something that's bigger than that and the letter itself which stands for like a canopy you ever see the way that the letter is shaped I'm doing it with my finger here it's kind of like a that shows that Hashem is surrounding the world Hashem is always hugging us the entire world is surrounded by God and then the letter doid which is numerical value four like the four corners of the world that's God expressing himself in the actual world in the four corners the four sides that surround us so if we think about when we're saying these words and we start and we meditate on the Al and we think about I'm reaching for something so much bigger something that I can't even understand and now I'm bringing God a little bit closer into the surrounding the world hugging me I'm allowing I'm allowing myself to feel the hug of God and then down into the dala down into the Four Corners everything that surrounds me the experience the physical embodied experience that I have around me that creates this feeling of deep deep deep connection when we speak about the Oneness of God we're not speaking about God being one and not two we're speaking about God being everything looking at another human being and saying I see that there's God bursting forth from you looking at everything looking at walking outside and looking at the flowers or looking at the plants or looking at a leaf for being able to look into a candle and see that everything is so alive with God there's Sparks of godliness that are busting out of everything and then at some point once we start looking at the world this way suddenly we find that the world itself transforms even the bad that happens everything transforms itself that's what the ra means that's what the means when it says that we should focus on this and all and all of the bad will fold itself will weaken itself under the good so here we are now again this is this is this is our moment this is the Jewish people's moment to shine we're here we're in the spiritual battle and every single one of us we need to have big enough shoulders to to know that we're doing our part to bring more good in the world because evil has reared its ugly head and like it says in the first day of creation God separated the good and the evil that means that when there's a tremendous force of evil surging into the world that also means there's this tremendous force of good the that is our weapon and if after today after this learning we could just turn it up a little bit more and every single time we say it have that in mind if any of these meditations help you but even as we're walking through the street if we can just look around and remind ourselves that Hashem is everywhere and in everything then that is our weapon to really unleash the tremendous tremendous good so these are major major moments and I want to thank everyone for taking the time to come on and may we be z may we Merit to take all of the lessons that we learned today this is the sh is the biggest the biggest possible idea possible for a Jew to learn to now go out into the world apply it and let's make the world a better place because that's what we need