Divine Unity: The 2nd Principle of Faith - Rabbi Lazer Brody

My Lord, it's from you my Lord. It's all good, my Lord. Oh Lord. >> So with Hashem's loving grace, we're about to learn the second principle of Muna, the principle of divine unity. Tonight's lesson entitled the infinite and only one. So we begin by reading my monities the Rambam's second principal. Second of 13 principles. Principle number two is I believe with complete belief that the creator blessed be he his name is one and there is no unity like him under any circumstances and he alone is our god past present and future. Last week when we learned the first principle of muna, we also learned that he he alone did, does and will do everything. Hashem alone. So now the second principle of muna stresses that uh it's not only that Hashem does everything but there's no help. People think well maybe he gets help from the angels and it's like saying that uh uh okay carpenter may have a carpenters's assistant but it's all the carpenter does the work. He plants it and does the work. Maybe somebody puts a gives him a piece of wood or hands him a tool. But he does this. Hashem is the master creator and Hashem has angels that serve him. They have angels in all over the world. But everything is from Hashem. Hashem controls everything. No entity in the world can make a decision to override Hashem. Heaven forbid or to do anything other than Hashem's will. So everything that happens in our life is Hashem's will. So who is that hashem that everything does in a will that everything is his will that he alone he alone now the first two principles correspond to the first two of the ten commandments the first principle that he alone is I am the lord your god that's the positive principle and the second principle that there there was no one other the second commanded uh that you shall have no other god before me this is the second principle of muna that there's no one other but hashem so we see some religions they believe in hashem but they have uh hem 's got uh got sons and cousins and relatives. No, we don't have any of that. He has shown like they say a monopoly that don't pass you don't collect $200. He alone that's that's it. Hashem alone. Shem alone. Okay. So this is our belief. Now one of the reasons that we devote everything to these first two principles of muna. We're not talking about Jewish faith. We're talking about humanity. We're talking about faith in the Almighty. This is for every person on earth. Every person on earth. And this is the first Noahide mitzvah. That the first Noah mitzvah is comprised of the first two commandments with the first two principles of Muna. In other words, our first two principles of mud, what we learned last week and this week that uh that Hashem's unity, this is boiled down into the first commandment of uh the the nohide commandments. people, we've got a new coin here on amuna hour. People some they say, you know, they prefer to be called amunahides. Okay, that's fine with me. Okay, they prefer to amunahide rather noahhide uh that's fine. Okay, so this is the belief. If you want to follow along with the principles of amuna, we're following the order principle of muna. If you have your copy of principle, you can follow along on page 41. That's where we're starting. Second principle, okay? And we elaborate as we go on. All right. So principle two I complete I I believe with complete faith that the creator blessed be he is one and there's no unity like him under any circumstances and he alone is our god past present and future when I clarify this notion there's no unity but him what does that mean this is the belief that the creator is one perfect inseparable whole with no co-deities in any way it's not like a heaven forbid Greek mythology where they've got all these deities they got master, the the big king deity, and then they got all this deity, the god of this and the god of that, and the god of music and the god of art and the god of football and the god of basketball and the god of uh ice hockey. Okay? No, none of that. None of that. Hashem alone is independent of everyone and everything. And he's perfectly unified. And that's why the most important prayer that we have is the Schma prayer. We say here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. That's from Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse4. So some of history's most brilliant minds. They say, "Wait a second. They might take history brilliant minds and and and they weren't necessarily amuna people. What's wrong with them?" Well, most history's brilliant minds, they've misconstrued the concept of one perfect hole that's perfectly unified. They don't understand that. They're talking about it's funny that uh even great scientists that that they understood secrets of physics. They understood the manifestations of the creator. But the manifestations of the creator teach us about the creator. We can't understand the creator because that's divine wisdom and we're not privy to divine wisdom. But his manifestations on the physical earth by observing the physical earth we can understand the creator. So the principle of divine uni once again it's universal. It's not Jewish. It is universal. The reason that the great minds and the great intellectuals, they frequently fail to understand the notion divine unity is because it defies intellect. Now, when you're professor emeritus at Harvard and everyone looks up to you and everyone bows down to you, uh you got to really be a humble person for not to stroke your ego. When everywhere you go by, people bow down to an ego. Okay? And when you're a world champion athlete, you walk down the street and people look at you and you're a sports idol. You have to really be humble. Okay? And when you're the US karate champion and with one shot you could finish and it's the second shot they got to callisha. There's no no second shot. The first your opponent is down. You got to really be humble. So here's the thing. Most people they're far from humility. When they go to such heights, it gets to their head. Apparently, the oxygen is thin. So that's why arrogance easily enters their brain. The only way to anchor ourselves, we've learned this time again by Amuna, we everything comes from Hashem. So our successes come from Hashem and it doesn't make our arrogant and we have a setback. Okay, we lost the game. We flunk the test. We tried our best that come from Hashem. Why? Hashem wants us to do our best. You've often seen in the case of athletics when a champion he lost the championship out have the rematch he comes back their rematch he trains four times more difficult and because if he just won with the no opposition that doesn't make him work harder sometimes Hashem gives us a setback to make us work even harder to reach our full potential okay but the intellectuals don't understand that they like being up in the ivory tower and amuna is divine and wisdom. Here's the great thing and you can see this with everyone in our group and Bashem we've been together our group's been together going almost three years and see the difference in people that by plugging into a muna even what they do whatever they do they're doing it better they get so much joy to to see our members and and see their successes why because by amuna without them knowing it they're plugged into divine wisdom because to believe in Hashem it's not logical It's not logical if a person looks so well it is logical. Well, if you think that believing Hashem is logical than some person who could be more intelligent than you or on the prince that debate society, he could convince you maybe not. That's not the reason we hold on to we hold on to because of our tradition from Mount Si from Moses generation to generation. And when we hold on to amuna and when we plug into a muna we are privy to divine wisdom. Divine wisdom uplifts us and it gives us insight. Gives insight. I can look down the list and I can see all of you in respective say that that you've really really gone forward in life and and this is so gratifying when going forward. You don't even realize it because taking a look at the where people were three years ago and where people are now. It's a tremendous difference. They've plugged into amuna. They've plugged into divine intellect. And to do that they've put their intellect aside. So what's happened is they become more humble and by becoming more humble, more charismatic and more charismatic everybody loves them and what they do people gravitate toward them. You got that historiate toward them and and and they love them. So I'll tell you a poant story from the Gomorrah tract page 14b. It's a famous gamora albes four went into the orchard. Now this is the importance of learning amuna and despite one's predigious intellectual ability the guy may be okay he's professor meitus and he's got a 142 IQ and he knows nuclear physics like uh we know the way around the block. So however lofty their intellect might be that it doesn't help them until they believe in divine unity. If they think anything other than divine unity, then their intellect is going to it's like hanging from their own rope. So the story is much deeper than meets the eye. But we'll try to reveal with Hashem's help what lies beneath this allegory that the Gomorra tract tract has a lot of kabala in it. And it talks about this. So it says four people entered an orchard. The Gomorra is talking about the four greatest minds in the generation of the Mishnaic sages, the Tanahim. And they lived in the difficult times, the time of the Roman occupation after the destruction of the second holy temple. In between it was really so difficult right before the barba revolt and this was I don't know if there was a more difficult time in history. If you can imagine that the the Holocaust was difficult for Jewish people, this was more difficult than the Holocaust. the Roman occupation after the destruction of the second temple and the time of Barba's revolt and the gmori talks about barba's revolt that for two decades afterwards the farmers in the valleys below Jerusalem they didn't have to fertilize their fields because there was so much blood flowing in the river waddies the dry river beds that there were fields are f there's a lot of iron there's a lot of nutrients and blood the f the the the the fields were fertilized. Their arches were fertilized. Okay. So these four were Rebea Benazi called Shimon Benaz. Benazi he was single and he wasn't ordained as a Rebe but he was worthy of being a Rebe. But since he wasn't married they call him Benazi. Ben Zoma the same thing. Shimon Benzma and Alicia Benabuya. Now the orchard is a metaphor of the deepest coalistic wisdom and it's the secrets that are light years above human intellect. Okay. Partardes is a uh the the initials in Hebrew the pay is phat that's the simple meaning of Torah. The re the re is re that's the hint in the Torah. the that's the humbly and the is that's the secret esoteric Torah. So the part uh it's a numeric for the four phases of Torah. The revealed Torah, the indicative Torah, the secret Torah, and the homalytic Torah, what we call the midrash. Okay? So they went, the four men purified themselves and they made a sense of the soul. They wanted to go into the upper worlds by invoking the divine name. What they did? They did something really dangerous. They took spiritually enriched uranium and said Hashem's name that you're not supposed to say even you got to think about it in purity, but they said Hashem's name with after fasting and purifying themselves and and and mikvah ritual bath and they made a sense into the upper worlds. Well, Rebaka, he warned the others. He said, "When you get to the place of marble stones, don't say water, water." If you see marble in the sunlight, sometimes in marble, it looks like waves. It looks like water. This was one of the secrets in the holy temple. Wait a minute. >> There was marble and the holy temple. >> David, somebody's not muted. Okay. Make sure they're muted, please. All right. There was It looks like look like waves. So Rabbi Kea warned them you're going to see something that looks like marble and don't say water water. Don't say that. So this is a tremendous what what there was in the old temple. Once again there were marble walls, marble floors. They look like waves of water. And Rabaka knew that there was no physicality in the upper realm. And that the illusion of a partition between this was an illusion of a partition between the physical realm and the spiritual realm that they were going past the physical realm into the spiritual realm. And we have to go through this barrier that had an illusion that it was water like marble, but it was it was nothing. And this was an image of the marble that was used to construct the holy temple. And it was so glimmering that it looked like water. Well, Rebi Aka was very well prepared for what he saw. And he entered the upper realm peacefully. He went through the partition peacefully and he came back peacefully because he knew he prepared himself. He was a very high level. He went in with humility. He put aside intellect. I don't know anything. All I know is one thing. There is no image upstairs. Don't come back and don't think you could go up with your Nikon or your movie camera or your Panasonic smartphone camera or whatever because there's no range up there. And this is we'll learn this next week in the third principle of Amuna that Hashem defies any spirit any physicality. There's no physical image. But Rebea's three colleagues, they were three colleagues, they were not just colleagues, they were student colleagues. He was there at Rabbi. There's such a a concept in the Gomorrah of student colleague which means not just a a one generation below a student but it's a student who is on the level where he can argue with his teacher argue about the meanings but when it comes down they accepts the teacher right but these are Ben Ben Azai Ben Zisha Benabuya they were on this level okay but with one glimpse of the purely spiritual realm where godliness all of a sudden is not concealed Thank Hashem that godliness is concealed for us because we couldn't stand this. We couldn't stand this. They had to pray themselves so much. Once again, they fasted and they purified themselves and they purified them their brain the best way they could. Okay? So, Ben Azai, you can't imagine the Gomorrah says that Ben Azai, if you put all the scholars of Israel on one side of a scale, Ben Azai would outweigh them. And so the same thing about Ben Zoma that when Ben Zma died this that that that was the end of Torah scholarship the fantastic fantastic scholars. Okay. But Ben Aai when he went into the upper realm his soul said sorry boss I'm not going back down there. I'm clinging to the boss. So this soul right away cling to Hashem. Ben Azai's dead life was left lifeless. He couldn't he couldn't come back. That's another thing. You know, somebody deep sea dives. It's enough that to learn how to dive really deep and withstand the pressure. But it's a whole other story to come back up safely, get back safely because there's what's called the bends. Someone comes to comes too quick and the change in atmospheric pressure that below the water, you can't do it. So any diver knows that. And this like a spiritual dive. They went to dive rather than going down, they went up, but Benazi couldn't make it back. Sorry. Down there. my soul. So, Ben Azai was right away finished. Then came Benzma. He couldn't stand the divine light. He couldn't stand the divine light. He he made it out. But the divine light blinded him and made him insane. The light went to his physical brain and Benzma he finished his life insane. Finally that the the sages of Israel that they saw this Torah scholar, he was rendered insane and they asked mercy from Hashem. took him to. And now comes the third, Alicia Ben Abuya. Alishia Ben Abuya was an interesting character. Alicia Ben Abuya, he was the Rebe before Rebi Mayor Balines came to Rebea and to Rebi Ymo. Reba Rishmo were the two rebes of Rebi Mayor Balines. He learned by Alicia Benabuya. Alicia Benabuya's father loved the prestige that the Mishnic sages had. He wanted his son to be like that. So his reason in sending his son to learn Torah, we learned this also story in the Gomorrah was not altruistic. So the Torah went to Alicia Ben and Abuya as something to for selfisement. Okay. He did not have the purified character that the other sages had. So what he said when he saw two things, he saw the physical realm, the spiritual realm, and he said, "Heaven forbid, heaven forbid, oh, there's two different things. There's uh god god, there's a different god up here, and there's a different god up there." Because he saw the marble and he saw the water and he saw it looked like two different things. And this is different water that's what down here. So you can't have, heaven forbid, the same god of the water's up there, the water's down there. So he came back a total apostate. He became a heretic. So Rebecca went in peacefully and came out peacefully. Ben Azai went in and died. Got killed from the divine light. Benzma went in and came insane. Aer we call him, we don't use his name anywhere since he became an apostate. We call him the other one. We don't say Alicia Abuya. Aer. He went in and he became an apostate. So we see him subsequently he's riding a horse on Shabbat. He's breaking Shabbat. He's doing all the things. So we see Rebi Mayor is walking after talking to him and trying to make him douba. Hey Rebby, maybe you got to you know mind him and he says mayor go back. You can't walk along with me with this. So the s but reb mayor balaness what are you doing with him? So, Rabbi Mayor Bales, he says, "Well, I I ate the fruit and I threw away the peel." In other words, I take the wisdom that I learned from him and I I throw away the the the outer the outer portion. We don't do that today. We look for a spiritual guide that has inside and and the outside pure. But this is Rabbi Marabal. There's things we don't understand. So, I want to emphasize, don't think that we're talking about regular people. We're talking about Tano. We're talking about the Tanic sages, the sages of Mishna. And these that the Gomorrah tells the land sages of the Gomorrah, the Amorim, they say, "If the Tanim were angels, then we're people. And if they're people, then we're mules and we're not even the mules of Rabi." That was Rabbi Shai's father-in-law because he he wouldn't eat hay that didn't wasn't micered. And he wouldn't eat hay that was stolen. We could see that he the thieves stole Rebi Pasar's mule his donkey and he came back. They saw he was about to dive starvation. So they let him go and he came back and rebar the donkey's back. He said the poor thing she's starving cuz she won't eat the forage of uh of thieves. Now it's stolen. She won't eat stolen food. She won't she won't even take eat food that's not taking a micer off. You don't have to take a tithe off of of uh of cattle fodder. But uh she but they they said that she was she was mockmeir. She was stringing with herself. This is Rabbi Pasar is the dunkey the dunkey of Rabbi Sham's father-in-law. So this what the says we're talking about people. If they're people we're not even donkeys. Okay. So Alicia Benabuya was the rever teacher Rabbi Barber Malines and that as we said before he became a t pupil of Rabbi Ishmo and Rabbi Aka and we saw one lost his life rabbi one came back peacefully and Ben Azai lost his life Benzma lost his mind and Aer Alishia Ben Abu lost his faith so what's going on here let's let's look at this from amuna eyes. If you don't look at this, people think they understand this gamor. If they don't learn through amunam eyes, they don't understand at all. Reba studied under the tutelage of the greatest scholars of the generation. The two greatest scholars generation, Rabbi Yeshua benhorinus and re rabbish benady and rebel benhorinus called Elazar the great. Okay. The entire backbone of the Talmud and all of religious law stems from these two. And it comes down through Rebaka and Rebaka's five students after his 24,000 students died during the Omr. Then his five students that were left. It would rail Rebeazar and Rabiosi uh and Rab Shimai. These are the five students that continued the whole Torah. Now, Rebi left his two rabbis that were the backbone of the entire Gomorrah and of today's religious law to learn by Nakomesh Gamu. Now, Nakamish Gamu was a giant of Amuna. And Nakumish Gamu lived the 13 principles of Amuna 10 centuries before Mymones compiled them. He lived them. Nakamish Gamu taught Rabbi Amuna and he knew that well Rebeeka spent the Gmoran tells us the Rebaka spent 22 years learning amuna 22 years. So what that you know Rabbi 22 years learning amuna Rabbi knew that without his Torah learning it would be incomplete his is his his academic learning would be incomplete and not engraved on the fibers of his soul. He also knew that if he relied on intellect, he would not be able to comprehend the wisdom of Torah and its secrets. You have to remember Rabi Aaka is the Rebe of Rabbi Shimon Boai who brought us down the esoteric Torah. So where'd he get it from? He didn't dream it up. He was 13 years in in and solitary confinement with his son in a cave when the Romans were chasing him and he went on a very high high level. But his basis in Kabala his basis he got from Rabbi Kea Rabaka also had the secrets of Torah that got generation from generation from Moses and that's why the Gmoran track calls Rebaka the Moses of his generation. So Rebaka was better prepared in amuna than any of his contemporaries and casting intellect aside. He knew that for him to go in peacefully and to come out peacefully from the upper realm got to put a moon got to put intellect aside. Oh yes have very sharp intellect. Rebe had tremendously sharp intellect but not now when it comes to the upper realm and comes with godliness where there's no intellect and we're talking about the in the intellect divine intellect. Rabbi Kea knew that his flesh and blood intellect had to be cast aside. So all he did, what was his secret? He focused on the second principle of amuna, the oneness of Hashem. He says, "Whatever I see, doesn't matter. Hashem is one. And if they show me a sound and light show upstairs and I see waves and breathe and sound of light, it's all one. It's all Hashem. It's all Hashem." So he closed his physical eyes tight and he says, "It's all Hashem. It's all Hashem. It's all Hashem unity." And that is the truth of Hashem's unity. So he focused that. So uh this true he believes so much in the unity of Hashem that he sacrificed his life for it. We're going to see that right away. This Reba know who Rebea is. Rebeeka is our role model for the belief in the unity of Hashem because wherever people deny the oneness the creator or his existence at all heaven forbid the world is a dark place as we see and everything going around us today. Look what's going on. You look at Iran at the Ayatollas. What's the god they believe in? Look at the the god of kamas. Who do they believe in? And then even uh even our secular leaders I don't know who they believe in either but uh even after it's all around that's just anybody that is not into ammuna amuna pure amuna is missing the boat. Okay. So the fasis one of the first rebies of gore he writes in his famous book a commentary on Torah that when the light of Torah is revealed in the world darkness is dispersed and the oneness of Hashem divine unity becomes apparent. That's what it means when we were one of divine light with divine light that we all see what Rabaka saw that Hashem is one. So divine unity emanates a splendid illumination of the world. This is not a physical light that's metered in so many watts or angstroms or nanometers, but it's spiritual light. We're talking about spiritual lights. What are spiritual lights? It's abundance. It's blessings. Spiritual lights. That's all types of abundance in the world. That's why I love to bless people that Hashem should fill your life with material and spiritual abundance. That's light. That's light. That's Hashem's light because darkness that's the current the darkness is is there's lack. If there's darkness in a person's soul, then something something's going to be wrong. You can see when imagine imagine the heart that wherever blood reaches it's like illuminated. If you look under a echo cardiogram, you can see it's illuminated where the blood is. Where the blood doesn't reach is dark. You can see because the blood going into the heart that is uh that's divine. That's divine abundance. And you can see this and really you learn to appreciate this more everything emuno everything you go uh and so people people asked me that did I did this test before the operation that's going to be next week had to do this this scary test this echo cardiogram with a they put a camera down your esophagus takes a better picture of your heart but you're not scared no what's going on there they put you to sleep so say you can't do it but you see after you see they see the pictures and they show the pictures it's illuminated where the blood reaches where the blood reaches it. It's really really interesting. We see Hashem everywhere wherever we have the the blessing and divine abundance because that's what King David says in Psalm 34. There is no deficiency for those who rever Hashem. Okay. So the holy language of biblical Hebrew, it's a gold mine of secrets. Not only that, but it's economical in words as well. King David says for those who awe him or for those who revere him. It's five words in biblical Hebrew. It's only one word. We say one word in Hebrew for those who rever him. That's to say English is a really poor spiritual language. English has a lot of word for money, a lot of words for banking. It doesn't have words to express spirituality. King David says in in one word takes five words to translate it. Okay. So by scrambling the letters le of it means le means I have light for one who a hashem one who fears hem one who reverses hashem turn the letters around play biblical Hebrew scrabble and you say I have light because when you have revere revere wow you open up your soul just the word revere I revere open my soul up you open your soul up what happens when you open the window the sunlight comes flooding through you open up your soul. Hashem's light comes right through. And that's what uh Rabbi said the that's at the happy light or that's what he called his book the we have for it's also named it's the happy light that's the happy light that floods into your soul when you open up your heart your soul to Hashem. So the concept of divine unity is what constitutes the purest form of monotheism. And as we're talking about monotheism, we're not talking about Judaism. We're talking about monotheism for all of humanity because it's mutually exclusive with any type of idolatry or paganism. What's more, the concept of divine unity rules out any type of partnership shu where a person believes in God but also believes in some additional I entity with powers that a holy magician or a holy ghost or a holy horseback rider whatever. No. No. Only Hashem. Only Hashem. So where do the idoltors make the mistake? What's going on with them? They can't they say but you can see you believe in in in a chunk of wood or you believe in a a chunk of stone or even you got a sports idol or you've got your sports idol and your sports idol next game he twists his ankle and he's out for the rest of the season and he's not a sports idol was injured or your movie idol your movie idol okay all of a sudden your movie idol uh has some type of uh psoriasis and gets their face breaks out looks like leprosy and appear in the films anymore. So what happens to that? What happened to that? So idolatry sounds like a sift term but any belief other than Hashem, we call it idolatry. And the major most of the people in the world were fiercely insulted. I'm an idol. If you believe in anything other than Hashem, yeah. The moment anyone attributes power to anything or anyone other than Shem, then he or she as a compromising divine unity and a compromise of divine unity, a 1% compromise of divine unity is a 100% uh idolatry. That's all. So this unity is 100%. I give you an example, true story. Remember the election 2020? There was a Trump got defeated by Biden. A lot of people said the election was this fixed not fixed this and that. Well, even if it were fixed, I mean, why get an LC? You know, if it was fixed and Hashem arranged it to be fixed cuz Hashem wanted Biden or for whatever reason Hashem has understand wanted Biden and then in in the office, okay, want him in the oval office. So, Hashem said, "Okay, Mr. Trump, you're going to go on semi-retirement for the next couple of years and we're putting Biden in there." So I was walking down the street Nash on the way home from from synagogue and a guy comes up to me in the street and he was really livid and he says this was the boy I think it was in November 5th. Uh he says remember the president lost the election when President Trump lost the election. What's going to be with Israel? His when the Biden and the Democrats and the liberals and we're in big trouble. How can the American government let the election be stolen by that? That's one of the people that was convinced that the the right in ballots they were stolen. Okay. He said, "This is terrible. How can this be? How can Hashem let this go?" So I looked at the guy was wearing like me, had a beard and he had a black coat and had a black hat and he called himself connected to a kidic group. And I said to him, I say, "My brother, do you believe in Hashem?" Oh, mother. Can't you see? He showed up his hat. Can't you see? Look like he's pointing to his clothes and his hat. You know, I could take uh any primate and dress him up in a kidic hat and a kidic coat. But that doesn't mean that that primate would believe in Hashem. So I asked the guy, I said, "Listen, my brother, do you believe that Hashem is some frail grandma up in an old age home in the sky and he's too weak to intervene in the American presidential election. Heaven forbid." Well, the man he was well maybe the guy was born into Torah learned in Shivana Shivana. I wasn't. I came in Torah. I was a newcomer at age 32. The guy was born into the born to the program. He says, "Well, answer me." He said, "Now he's got to stump this Baltua laser Brody." He says, "Oh, about free choice. Don't you ever learn about free choice? Hashem doesn't take away our free choice." Well, he had a good point, but sorry, Charlie, it wasn't good enough because you're it's a deficient amuna. I said, "You're correct, but only partially." 50% correct is 100% wrong. though we have two mindsets and this the mindset that we learned last week and I told him then I said we have the mindset that before we do something we try our best okay you want the Republicans to win you go and vote you want the Democrats to win you go and vote we do our best but once it's done that's it that's your status that's our effort we have our free choice to vote who which we think but you know something we don't even have that Hashem knows what we're going to do and how many times have been in the ballot box and went to vote one thing and then Hashem All of a sudden, last minute it makes you pick up another thing. It's happened time and again, especially in the Israeli elections when you got 30 political parties to choose from. You think you're going to go in and you can choose one party, then you pick up another party. Now, do the best. The last thing you never considered it, but in the ballot box and you can see that's a shimmas, you can see it's all so I told him once it's done, the outcome is Hashem's will. If Hashem willed that the challenger should beat the incumbent, then it doesn't matter what people do or how they vote, the incumbent's not going to win. So I just above exchange of ideas, the narrative is a common example of how most people and despite their religiosity or even if they great Torah education, they never fully learned or understood the concept of amuna and Hashem's unity. That's only Hashem that runs the show. So the gentleman that approached me on the street, he believes with all his heart that the creator is good and does only good. Oh yeah, he believes that. No, no doubt. And he therefore suffers a big spiritual setback and subsequently if he has this spiritual setback and it's going to manifest itself in anxiety because now he's at odds with himself. He says, "Wait a second. Hashem should be good and only good. So why does Hashem do good bad things to good people?" In other words, the cont talks a great game in amuna. It's great. When he's making money, fine. When he's got good health, it's fine. What do you do, bro, when you're not feeling well? What do you do, bro, when you don't know where the next electric bill is going to be paid for? Okay. So, if without the amuna then and without the knowledge of Hashem's unity, that this is from the same Hashem, my same beloved father in heaven that loves me and does everything the best. why he's doing it doesn't understand. But by accepting what he's doing, nothing mitigates stern judgments like the simple amuna. So if a person can't hone in on the second principle of muna, the unity of Hashem, uh oh, it's depression, it's anxiety, it's frustration, uh, and it's anytime there's an unfavorable situation or phenomena, it's it's finished. So would you call a person like that? An adulterer got eats kosher food, keeps Shabbat, sends his kid to Torah schools. Okay, I'm going to leave that question open. Now let's go to a 15th century scholar named Rabsef Alu. He wrote Spanish scholar. He wrote a classic book called Sephel Karim. It's the book of principles. And he states that attributing any power to anything or anyone other than Hashem is tantamount to believing other gods. That's in and that's idolatry. That's he says that in chapter 18 of the third discourse. So safely in his book, it also refutes the philosophical notion that the creator created the world but no longer intervenes in daily functioning. A lot of people believe that. Heaven forbid. Such an attitude is a denial of divine direction and as well as divine unity. So continue with that line of thought. The sacred refers to the manner where a person makes a living and says that a person thinks that he or she can find abundance outside the framework of divine will. In other words, dependent on your prowess or your boss or the favors of someone, then it is tantamount to wrecking an idol. Once again, it's not my words, the words of Rabbi Yseph Alba. So, yeah, the guy with the address that he's worried about uh what's going on. I'm giving the definition, not my definition. I don't say anything on my own. Just anything by the sages. Just bring in the sages that we learned from our great sages. Now breastliff he mirrors the same concept. Rabbi Nakman says if he asked Rabbi Nakman Rabenu what is what did what did you mean when you say my fire will burn until Mashiach what's your fire said my fire that's my teachings and what are your teachings it's all a muna rabbi he is the master of amuna he's the master of prayer that's the master of prayer is one of his stories that we get we we'll get to that we uh foreseeable future because we're learning mas rebin's tales But the master of amuna amuna tells us in Torah Z tells us in his discourse number seven amuna is synonymous to prayer. Prayer and amuna the same thing. If you believe you pray. If you pray you believe. If you don't believe your prayer is going to be worth much. You're not going to want to pray. And as you can see a lot of people you can see in the synagogue that people looking at their watch. They look at their watch. You can't wait till it's over. What do you mean? If I give you an audience with the president or with the king and you can ask for whatever you want, you're going to look at your watch in front of the president, in front of the king, front of the prime minister. No. No. But that's when people they feel that they're speaking to Hashem. They have a muna. This is Rabbi Nakam's teachings. So he says that the pursuit of income. Now Rabbi Nag specifically talks about income in discourse 40, discourse 23, discourse 40. In discourse 40 says like this. He says when a person pursues income outside the framework of amunat it's self-defeating because it's going to cause deficiency. Why? It's an idolatry. There is a law that Jeremiah the prophet and Isaiah the prophet both teach us. They use the term machet a wobbly read to lean on. What's a wobbly read? Anytime we lean on anything other than Hashem, whether it's our ability, in other words, if you if a guy come in and say, "I'm the greatest the greatest uh boxing coach in the world, the great bar coach in the world. What do you mean? What are you going to do?" I said, "Well, the guy's going to come to me and ask me, how do I win the how do I win the belt?" I said, "Tell you what you're going to do before you you don't work out until right the the thing the hour before the bout or the hour before you warm up, you're going to pray to Hashem. Hashem, help me do what I know how to do." You're going to pray to Hashem. You invoke Hashem because Hashem is going to decide whether you're going to win or not. Now, if you go in with humility and you go in, you know that everything is for Hashem and that Hashem gives you the power to be a champion, you're going to be a champ. Who are you going to be a champ? But if you're going to go in with the attitude uh fly like a what they say fly like a butterfly sting like a bee that was a Ali Muhammad Ali. But he ended up getting knocked out. They ended up getting you can't it's not an ego trip. It's not ego trip. The Rabbi Ahmed tells us anytime same thing we learned from Jeremiah and from Isaiah bleeding on anything other than Hashem it's a wobbly cane and that cane breaks and that wobbly read not a wobbly read wobbly cane. If a person has an oak cane and it breaks, it'll break in half. But a wobbly reed, reads have these stickers. When it breaks, these stickers, they pierce a person's hand. You don't want to lean on a a reed cane that breaks cuz it's going to it's going to really injure a person. So, heaven forbid to depend on anything other than Hashem. Throughout our history, our ancestors preferred to sacrifice their lives rather than deny the principle of divine unity. They were even offered fabulous rewards of fame and fortune if they'd simply compromise divine unity and accept a religion that believes in the almighty but adds an additional code deity or two but no no compromise ever. So one of our most moving high holiday prayers it's called anatanf it was the result of Rabbi Amnon of Mains he was a 13th century Germany and he refused to compromise his faith or Rabbi Amnon he was a nobleman and he was an adviser to the Duke of Maine and back then the Germany was split into sifts ducts and there were little kings called a duke in every province. Well, in this particular province of Maine, Rabbi Amnon, the Jew, he was the number one adviser of the the Duke and the Duke loved him. So, the Duke uh with all time Amnan, if you really want to go higher and higher and higher and more, you'll be really my right-hand man, you've got to convert. You see, with we have the religion, we're we're the main religion and you're a minority. Well, why don't you convert? And he all the time the the Duke would ask him very nicely and said, look, you know, I would love I would love for my children to marry your children to marry and quality come and offered him great riches even more than he had. Rebnon he refused. So rather than exceed to the Duke's demands, the Duke started playing a hard ball and eventually uh the Duke gave an ultimatum and Rabbi Amnan said, "Let me think about it." He went into fasting for three days. What do you mean let me think about it? He didn't answer him categorically, no. He said, "Let me think about it." So after three days, he didn't go to the Duke. Duke says, "Where are you, Amnon?" Sent messengers. And he says, "Well, that uh I I I didn't speak properly." He says, "You The Duke says, "You did speak properly, but the fingers the the toes that didn't carry your feet to come see me, they're going to get cut off." He cut off his one by one, his toes and his fingers. And every time he cut off a toe or finger, he said, "You could change your mind." He said, "No, no, no." At an excruciating death, they lived one more day. This was the day before Yum Kipper. And they brought him on Yum Kipper. They brought him on a stretcher and in a cloth with salt they put his fingers and his toes. And he said it was the day, excuse me, it was the day before Rashon. And he asked to be taken to the synagogue and placed on a stretcher and with his toes and his fingers wrapped in a cloth and he asked permission to be placed in front of the holy ark with Torah scroll so he could sanctify Hashem's name. And he said, "He is our God. There is no other." And with his last ounce of strength right on yum kipper insh in front of the safer Torah he gave his soul back to the creator. And that is we say this this prayer Rabbi Amnan's prayer every year on Rashan Yam kipper that's called unatanana tok martyrs a martyrs from the Roman gallows to the holocaust j gas chambers a martyr what does this martyr say that we learn if whoever comes to write this uh brass tax before the end here oh Israel the lord our god the lord is one and This passage teaches the oneness of Hashem as we said and this is the greatest blessing where person uh dies in the sanctification of Hashem's name. The only greater blessing than to die in the sanctification of Hashem's name is to live in the sanctification of Hashem's name. That's even dies once said anybody get up that one time but to live day by day and to resist all the temptations of this world and to resist there people in your workplace or people that uh because I can know uh for example uh sanctification is name one of our students she is one of the only she's the only Jewish woman in the world that's a seventh degree black belt karate ambassador and one of 10 women in the world that got seventh degree. This Sunny Ley and in Tucson, Arizona, Sunonny Ley, she's also certified Amuna coach. Sunny Ley won the Panama Olympics and she had a slot guaranteed in the US Olympic team. They also signed her for a contract. They offered her a million-doll contract to be the Coca-Cola girl. she could jump and it and you know she turned down a slot in the Olympics and turned down a million dollar Coca-Cola contract and she had to be a McDonald's cheeseburger girl. Okay, her agent wanted to kill her because at that time her she lost her father and she made chuva. So she knew she couldn't advertise on on Shabbat and she couldn't advertise things that weren't kosher when they killed her. This is sanctification of Hashem's name. Can you imagine giving up a slot in the Olympic team? Okay, your Panama champ. Giving up a Hollywood contract. Who knows what her modeling career and acting career could have been giving up all that for Hashem. That is means living on Hashem's name. Today's today's day she spreads teaches all over United States. But this is the this is an example of a living on Hashem's name. Sanctify Hem's name. Rebea, he died for teaching Torah. He taught Torah in public which is a criminal act under the Romans and their evil decrees. So in the early evening hours now we are talking about Friday afternoon after sundown of Yom Kipper. This is the time where we say nidre yum kipper okay they put rebaka on the gallows. They didn't hang him, but the hangman took rakes of iron and scraped his flesh off in the most excruciating form of torture that not even the kamas or China know about that that more than a satan could improvise so quickly. He was losing his life force and rebika what did he do? The gummoras tells us about it. Brahas page 62 here. O Israel the lord of God lord is one and he called out one in a prolonged fashion. And as he said his soul left him and that's we say in the same way prolong fashion wound when we and we learn that's that's the reason we prolong it. That's what Rabbi Kea did on the gallows. So like the guy that approached me on the street who was upset about the election results. People find it really difficult in attributing that everything comes from Hashem. Now since the first people the first principle of muna is not firmly engaged in their psyche their brain then that everything comes from hashem past present and future it's impossible for them to believe in divine unity because subconsciously or even consciously they ask themselves how could a loving father be abusive heaven forbid to his children why does he enable evil in the world can a creator be one gets so many stories about that so many stories that just One quick one. A family in Beth Shemesh. A family in Rammont. Be bes. They bought a brand new family vehicle. This eight they had husband and wife and seven sons that maybe seats nine they for the family. And on Sunday they took that vehicle out for the first drive. First drive. And they went out from Beamesh. They went on to the Sheamish Tel Aviv Road. Then went on to to highway six. Highway 6 takes you all the way up the north from south to north. As they come on the highway six, an 18-wheeler sideswipes them and they do a double roll down into a ditch. The car becomes totaled, but the airbags work. The airbags came off and everybody in the family came out not injured except for the seven-year-old boy in the back seat. He suffered a concussion. They took that seven-year-old boy uh to an ambulance. I think it was to Petikva to Bellinsson. And what do they do? They want to check his they give him a a brain scan, see he's got a concussion. What do they do? They found out that this little boy, he's got a malignant tumor on his brain. They finally deliver. Who would ever think little boy was fine, happy, this and that? Think I'm going to take their take their their son for a brain scan. would routine take our sites for a brain scan with with sneezed up wrong. Hashem made this accident, total their car. It looks terrible. Okay. And and their son got a concussion. Oh, Hashem, look at the brand new car and it cost him so much maybe in Israel. I don't know how many how much cars cost, but it's they're talking about well over $100,000. And that's a lot of money here. And the car is totaled. But the little boy's life was saved. They did emergency surgery on him. and said and they took out the tumor and his life was saved. Had they not had that accident, another two weeks, the neurosurgeon said that his it would have been eyes, his sight would have been blurry and by that time the tumor would have gotten big and in four weeks there would be nothing new about it. Nothing at all to do about it. So you could see Hashem does things we don't understand. The family did not understand at the time what Hashem is doing. But whatever Hashem does is for the very best, absolute very best. So uh Hashem answers the question himself. The people that say well how can a a loving father do something like this? Hashem's like this. I form Hashem says in the words of Isaiah Isaiah talking in Hashem's name. I form the light and create darkness. I make peace and create evil. I am Hashem that does all these things. So this is Hashem's oneness. It's inherent creation for the very first day when Hashem created the opposite powers of light and darkness. It's the first day of creation. Shem right away says, "Okay, created the Shem created the darkness." The darkness, not just the absence of light. He created darkness. And this what Isaiah says. Hashem says, "I created evil." Why does she create evil? Rashi answers that question. What do we need evil in the world for? Because if we didn't have evil and Rashi says that the souls of the righteous, they're few and far between. What does says go into a dark room and light a match. He says, "A tiny little light chases away lot of darkness." And that's why a soul of a sadic, a soul of a righteous person, it it you can't see how beautiful is without the darkness around because if you'd like that match in in 12:00 in the afternoon outside under land of Israel's sun, you're not going to see the match. You didn't see it. It's in a place for the whole world where it's sadikim, you wouldn't see the righteousness. So this is the concept of divine unity with a limit of our sorely uh limited intellects. We have to realize that where amuna uh begins that's where intellect land ends. Where intellect ends that's where bua begins and sometimes we have to understand and believe not sometimes all the times that any pain and suffering it's all a divine gift. So, a soldier in elite unit, he understands his training is going to be tough and his commanders will be tough and they're seemingly insensitive, but he also knows that a commander's worst nightmare is to bring him home in a body bag. And there's a one worse nightmare than that where he's got to be the one that knock on the parents door. No worse nightmare than that. Anything is better than that. So that soldier, he's willing to suffer all types of difficulties so that he comes home alive and he brings his buddies home alive. Same thing with an athlete. Look at a champion athlete. Champion athlete. If you look at his coach, his coach is sadistic. Coach is sadistic. I mean, he said to not tolerate something. He's tough out there on the mat. You know, you do something wrong. No way. Tough. Why does he do that? because he's sadistic. He loves the guy. That Olympic coach when he he's tough, he smacks his his his athlete that when they're sparring in a gym, he smacks him. What did you do? Why did you hit your guy so much? You're supposed to care about him. Oh, no. The coach hit him with a controlled punch. In the ring in the finals, the Russians going to hit him with an uncontrolled punch, could knock him out, and we don't want that to happen. So with that in mind, with the soldier and the the analogy of the soldier and and the the athlete, we have to understand why we experience hardships and tribulations. We have to believe that they're all for ultimate benefit to strengthen our muna and to purify our souls. Therefore, our second principle, muna, divine unity, goes hand in hand with belief that everything does everything Hashem does is for the very best. So we combine our first two principle last week's lesson, this week's lesson. Everything is for Hashem. Everything is the best and our positivity surges. Our negative emotions disappear. And the more we internalize the first two principle, the closer we get to realizing our dream of inner peace and true happiness. And that's what you get from Amuna. And that's a bless for all those. Amen. [Music] Yeah. [Music]