Elana Glatt on A Story Within a Story: Delving Beneath the Surface

I wanted to share something. I know I gave a bit of a vague title for those who were looking. I called it a story within a story delving beneath the surface. And when trying to think what more what else should we discuss what have we not given a glimpse in the things that we've already learned whoever was anyone who's learned on their own and who just decided to come to this yian this morning. I thought that a really beautiful idea that could help us review some of what we learned but also delve deeper beneath the surface of the story is to appreciate a little bit more depth behind David Malik and specifically the inner world that we're privy to not actually in Safer Schmalf itself but in the work of Dahill that he also composed alongside many many of the stories that we actually learned in Safar Alf together a little bit if you listen to the recordings I tried to point about sometimes when it came up and some women in the group they actually made a document and were tracking and when it came up so I would love to hear more and more input there's actually many many proim that a line here a line there can go through the entire gamut of his life but the reason I wanted to talk about this this morning a obviously is because of the time period we find ourselves in every day every shabas you get through shabas and it's quiet you hear planes overhead and you're not quite sure do I have to be paying more attention to this plane or it's just a plane. I grew up in Woodmir, New York actually and I think there's a plane every three minutes over my parents house and growing up that was very normal. Yet here it's not so normal in Shalim. So every time I move a little bit and every time I shake I I feel like we're all in the same place. And what do we always do? What do we always turn to? We hear of someone who needs a we turn right away to we hear someone who needs a Yeshua anyway. we turn to Tahillim and so I thought it's ever relevant if any time to focus and learn a little bit more to gain a little bit more appreciation of a few program of Tahillim but also to do so through the through the lens of our small learning that we've had together I think it's ever relevant so I wanted to try and choose just a few guess another like small a small preface before we start our learning together today is that when we see David we do get moments we get moments of glimpses even within the safer we see the tragic story at the end of our safer of ticklag and when David comes back to his town where he thought his family was safe and unfortunately it's burned to the ground and his entire family is missing and many people I was in a I'm in a chat I don't know who's part of that one were writing that it was reminiscent of a lot of post October 7th imagery and it really does and so many of the texts that we've been learning and we and we see really relate so much to the times that we're in we can feel the emotions ourselves reading the but we don't always get to know the emotions or the inner world of the character in Tanakh how he's feeling in it with so many characters we get a one word we get one line so you can expound and you look at me and you try to go deeper but David is perhaps maybe Schlommo also he has long long spar where we get to know a little bit more about his makeup and his worldview and his perspective but David is unique in that way that we actually get to understand how he was feeling in a moment but what's so unique about Tahill it's not just a story book of how he was feeling in the times the words he say he says are really timeless. They really tap into emotions that we can tap into today. And every person who's reading it will have a different understanding and will have a different place that they connect to it at different stages in their lives and different moments in their lives, the ups and the downs. And that's what's unique about Sahilim is David. It's not all a sad story. It's not all a happy story. It's a vacasillating story that goes up and down. And you track him even within certain bakim and we'll see the happy and the low and the up and the down and the emotions and the back and the forth. We really get to know a little bit more about what he was experiencing. But he also gives us timeless words to tap into that we can access forever. They say that the number two bestseller aside from the the Bible itself, the Torah itself, it's actually Psalms, it's actually to Haleim, it's translated in every language that you can find in every single country in the world and it's something that is timeless. So I want to jump in a few praim and again I would love to hear more from anyone else and hear more. I didn't even envision there'd be so many incredible women here. I thought maybe a little give and take here. I'm happy to still hear from anyone, but maybe afterwards for a few minutes I can stay before I have to run back to work. Um, but let's begin. We'll start with a story that if you are familiar with, I guess it's a good review of say Alf as we're already into B or however you pronounce it either way. Um, so in Alf, if you have the source sheet, I brought it as source number one. If not, don't worry. You don't need to look inside. It's just if you want to look at the person next to you. It's just helpful as a grounding to know where we're talking about. Alf, we find David Hamel in a very difficult predicament. One of our hardest pim that we had to cover. There are many of those hard pim that we had to cover. But perhaps one of the hardest prim that we had to cover was the story and the massacre of Nov. So Kafal is actually the the priest story when David is running away from Sha and he has nowhere to go and he is stuck. We said that he had just had this encounter with Yonatan in the field and they had this whole arrow sending ceremony so he would know whether or not he was safe or not from his father's shot. Well, David felt he was not safe. Yonatan felt he was safe. He really believed his father's heartfelt um pleas that he wasn't looking to harm David. But unfortunately, Dovin knew that this was Hashem's plan that there was this wasn't so clear-cut and he knew he had to run, but he had nowhere to go and he had no food and he had no protection and he had no GPS in front of him. He had no game plan. He didn't know what his next step was. So we saw what does he do? He stops off in the city of Nove and he asks the coal for some bread and which maybe been had been the or we understood different ways what what it was and after this whole encounter in Nove which he said was top secret no one can know about it I have no men with me because I am on a mission for Sha making the whole kohanim the kohanim felt that he was really on this task of shwell at this time unfortunately we know what's going to come but following that exact story David has a little the food now. So, he made it through the next little bit of time, but where is he to go? And he realizes there's nowhere safe in the entirety of for him to be. And so, where does he run to? He runs to the land of the pushim. Exactly. And who's the leader of the pushim land that he runs to a from is the leader of the land that he runs away to to find refuge. We spoke about this at length, but the first time David, what's in his rationale? He has nowhere to go. He is not safe. Everyone recognizes him. If he goes anywhere near, he's going to be betrayed. We're going to see this in the next source that we're going to talk about to proim that he writes about betrayal. And when someone turns on you who you thought maybe would be your friend from your same shvat and yet there's no one to trust in the story of David's running away. And in this very moment, he has nowhere to go. And he says, I'm going to try to fly beneath the radar. I'm going to leave Israel. I'm going to go to pushi land and I'm going to hope that I'll be safe there in the lands of the pushim. He really felt, who knows, maybe I can go beneath the radar. It was the days before social media, before people had pictures in in magazines or things that you were, you heard someone, you didn't know what they looked like. You heard of them, you knew their names, but we didn't know who they were necessarily. It's actually something I just remember now of knowing people's names. I remember hearing way back in in the Torah when we know about Yahosua, Yoshua Benoon, who was the top student of Mosha Rabenu. So Moshe before he sends him as a spy into the land of Erit Israel, he actually changes his name. His name had been Hosa and he changes it to Yahosua. And one idea that I once learned, I'm not remembering offh hand is why did they change his name to Yeshua? There's many ideas as protection as different things. One was because the name Hosa was known. He was known as the Jewish savior and they didn't know what he looked like, but they knew his name. So they changed his name to Yahosua so he could bypass. you can get past the security guards who would immediately say we know who you are so David stop maybe I dress differently I act differently I come alone no one knows who I am in the context they don't really know what I look like maybe I can get by but what happens unfortunately David comes to the land in front of Akash and his men and immediately they say hey that's you David we know who you are I brought the in case you want to see inside And not only do they recognize him, they know exactly who he is. They said that that's the main general of Sha. That's the one who they used to sing. They even knew the songs that the Israel used to sing to encourage the to keep fighting the wars on behalf of Israel. Sha used to fight the thousands and David the tens of thousands. They knew exactly who he was. So David is alone with no protection with nowhere to be and recognized red-handed. He's caught in the moment. What is he going to do? And we learned that what does David do? He actually dabbed to Hashem at that very moment to bring upon him a dose of madness that maybe he could pretend to be something that he's not. He could pretend that he he's gone off the ri the the the rocker. He is not the David that they're looking at. And miraculously, miraculously, like a miracle on top of a miracle, he [snorts] acts in a certain way that Hashem has to give on him because as a dignified person, he couldn't just put on this madness like that. And Hashem gives him a little bit of a dose of madness. And luckily himself, the teach us, or I think they can even teach us based on it, why do you send me this? But he actually had a wife and a daughter who were mad themselves. and he said, "I don't need more mad people in my home." And he sends David away in the nick of time with no idea how in the world he was going to survive. Hashem saves him. It's the theme of the entire safer is each time it's a little bit closer, a little bit closer. He's literally this close to being caught by Sha and Hashem can swipe in and he can save him. Which is always a message. Even when we think, well, hope is lost can always act. There's always a chance. There's always hope and we can always cling to the hope that we see from David and we see from his story. But to look now, we don't just have to guess how David felt in this moment. We don't just have to leave it at that and say, "Okay, he must have been extremely frightened and stuck and he had to turn to the recesses of his own heart. we can see that he actually he goes deeper and he he speaks in such a deep way that he's actually able to access the inner sense of himself that in inner sense of and that's happening in that moment. So I brought for you parak 34 of her lidal actually it's a beautiful parac of where he goes through things in the in the um in the order of the alf and this beautiful paracim he actually composes in this very moment said when he actually changed He changed his essence. He had to hashem and he put on a dose of madness to be able to survive. And what happens and we mentioned this if you listen and if not aime is a generic name for rulers just like parro all of the parro were parro because that was just the generic name that was given. So akish was the actual leader but his title was and he actually let him go and teach us here something really interesting. They say that there's actually an interesting medash of a conversation that happened a few weeks before or a few months before this incident. The da himself actually was speaking and he was saying, "Hashem, I understand so much of your creation and I understand so many of the things you've placed into this world. What place does madness play in this world?" The ability to connect through wisdom is one of the most human rights that we have, human gifts that we have. The fact that we can sit here together on a morning, a Sunday morning, and we can learn Torah. We can access the depth of both our minds and our hearts and our souls at the same time. We can do so much. There's so much depth of potential that exists in this world from being able to understand things deeply. And he said, what role does it play for someone who dribbles and can't even have a have a conversation? Where do they play? Okay, obviously we know that they everyone plays their role and everyone has their unique space in this world. So I'm not going to go into the philosophical question behind his question. But David himself was perplexed by this. And the medish tells us that Hashem turned to him and said, "David, just know everything in my world has its place. Everything has a time and everything has a place and everything plays its its role in creation in entirety. You only see a little speck. you don't know the grand's picture. I know so much more. And he even says to him, there's going to come a time that you're going to need a dose of madness and you're going to appreciate if there weren't people in the world that didn't always act 100%, you wouldn't have been able to survive a by being able to put on madness. You're going to need it. And well, actually in that same maj's actually two other examples that our rabbis give of two other things. I'll mention it briefly. We mentioned them very briefly also in our learning. two other things that he questioned in creation. I know I sometimes wonder are these the hugest things to question in creation I'd question more perhaps other things but the other two things anyone know what else does it a spider and what's the third thing >> a wasp exactly he questions a spider he's questions madness in this world spiders and wasps okay I understand spiders and wasps I also don't like I'd say maybe mosquitoes would be a little higher on my list of things to question I always say I trust you in in entirety But when the season comes now and your kids and you get eaten all the time, I don't understand how they fit into creation, but I know that they do and I tap into this story of >> they feed the frogs. >> They feed the frogs. Okay. Thank you. That's a positive. I was going to say maybe they carry out other missions that Hashem needs, but that's a positive and I appreciate that. So, thank you. It's worth coming today to have an appreciation a little bit more of mosquitoes. So, thank you so much. But he actually he asked that and he says, "What do spiders play into creation and what do wasps?" And we'll see. I'll say for a second in here we know later and we'll actually talk that's going to be our next story when David is running away in the desert of the beautiful area of in the cave in Getty and a spider weaves its beautiful web making Sha will think this must be an empty cave and hence Sha was able to come in when David is there and David has a moment to show him that even though he could have put his hand on the king he did not and the last one is when he again sneaks into the camp of Sha another chance he had to have harmed Shotwell the medra says that as he was going close to Aar his main general and Shaul who were encamped a little bit separately in a circle around him. Sha actually a sleep moved his legs and trapped David and David was stuck and they say Air was so strong it's like a brick wall. I remember actually my brother when I was growing up Hashem was a basketball player and was strong. Sometimes he would just stand in the hallway in black. So I try to get past and I couldn't but he's very very nice and he's actually super kind. He would move. It was just to show there's strong people out there. So he he would block me and then he would move. So Agnar was known to be super strong and Davidid was stuck. And what happens according to the Medish, a wasp comes at that moment and stings Aar's foot and he doesn't even wake up. He just feels that and he moves and David was able to escape. So two moments in addition to this story of the madness that's able to save him in this moment. David is overcome by emotion of recognizing not only was it the thing that I didn't anticipate ever having a place was it the one that saved me but could save you like this even when it seems like all hope is lost there's always that opportunity and so this per he goes through I saw this beautiful understanding in the art scroll to him which I highly recommend if anyone is looking for a beautiful toll him the art scroll interlinear is a beautiful work on him it says a little bit of what it is a oneline sentence of what the parrot's about a few beautiful ideas. I really think there's so many more and you can access and access and access and keep going through mafarium but it's a beautiful work it really really is. So if you're looking for another and you don't yet have that one but the over idea overall idea of this peric he goes from alf through tough to show that just like every letter has a role in this in this par everything plays its role in the entirety of creation in our own lives and in the bigger picture of a kadesh's world everything fits into Hashem's plan he knows exactly why he does things and he knows what he's doing and the actually tells P which is the letter T says taste or look around and you will see because Hashem is good praised or happy is the man who's able to cling to this who's able to tap in to this understanding of that even in the darkest of times David is imploring to himself that's again what's so unique about he's saying these words to himself but He's imploring us in the future also there's timelessness in everything that he's saying saying do you want to live a life where you can continue going even through hardship want to live a life where you can see the beauty hopefully only in good we can recognize these beautiful moments of through good but sometimes things are also challenging life has its ups and downs in everyone's world you want to know how to continue to go forward with equilibrium even when you're in the grasp of in a pie foreign land and you don't know how things are going to continue. He says, "Even in those hardest of places, look for Hashem. Look for the good. Look what was able to do. Look and say, "Wow, what are the odds that [laughter] Akash's own family members had this that this very one idea that came to his mind of being able to survive actually enabled him to survive?" What are the odds that I thought of this at this exact moment? What are the odds that this came to my mind to be able to remember to call this person at this time? There's no coincidences in life. There's only coincidences, only things that are given by. We have to train ourselves though to see them. The more you look, the more you search, the more they'll be found. It reminded me of a story that I like to share stories along the things that we do. That's how I learned from it. So again, you'll have more Tanakh teachers. We're going to teach you 100 more layers on this, but I I don't know. I find that the depth of the story really can penetrate your heart in a deep way. I remember one time I was in a taxi and I had a little baby at the time and I had to go somewhere. So I instead of taking a bus that would take an hour and a half to get not so far but [laughter] it would take that long. I decided I would take a taxi so it'd be much faster so I can get back in time. My husband was watching my baby and it was one of those times that we're on the ben and we're sitting and we're sitting and unfortunately there must have been an accident or something. So my first of course is to say a periph thankfully we're okay. we're just [snorts] sitting in traffic. We try to remind ourselves even in those moments that there's a bigger picture. I hope the person who is in that car is okay and everything is just a minor inconvenience besides for that and life is the most important that there could be. But anyways, it's 10 minutes, it's 20 minutes, it's 30 minutes and it should be a 4-minute drive on the bacon. Aside from looking at the meter and [laughter] like oh man, every second that the meter keeps going off, you're like Hashem has his plan. This for some reason is what he wanted. But then the taxi driver in in his beautiful Hebrew starts telling me this story and I once he told me the story I like maybe this is why I had to pay this much for this story because it was worth it for me to hear. And he said that he was a fighter in Lebanon. Unfortunately we know so many people who are in Lebanon now and our learning should be a and for them and our continued learning and our and our and they should be safe and come home very very soon. So unfortunately we're not new to this and this is not he was in Lebanon to the one of the first one of the first rounds he's a much older fellow and he was telling me he's like you want to know how I know that Hashem lives exists in this world how I know with certainty that Hashem exists you can ask any and they will tell you they know with certainty that exists even in the the challenges and the sadness that that our have experienced are also beyond beyond. So he told me the following story. He said that he was in a very discreet unit in Lebanon and they were on a night mission. They had to go to a specific location to find terrorists who were hiding in a home. They had to ambush them and to conquer that place to gain territory that was safe for the Israelis to continue forward with their mission. And so he was uh he was in a tank. He wasn't the driver. He was the one next to the driver in this big armored vehicle. And they're driving in the street and it's pitch dark, pitch dark at night and they're turning onto a block that they had seen already. They had already prepped this. They knew what their mission was. And all of a sudden the commander, the driver of the tank says, "That's sore. Stop." And everyone's very taken back. Why? They all look out the window. They don't see anything. They don't understand. And he says, "Stop right now." They stop the tank. They stop the armored vehicle, whichever one it was. And the driver sends someone out. Go right now. Go check what there is on the street in front of us. And the man goes out and they actually see that there was a a trip wire, like a fake invisible wire across the whole street with two bombs on both sides. Had they driven past it, the entire vehicle would have blown up. And everyone looked and said, "How did you know? How did you know that that was there? It was invisible. There's no way to know." and he said, "Look in the middle of the street right now on the wire. What's on top of the wire?" And he said, "I don't know. There was a bird. There was a bird that happened to land the wire in the middle of the night." And he said, "If a bird is in the middle of the air, then it's flapping its wings." But this bird is not flying. This bird is just calm. The bird is just sitting there. That means it's resting on something, which means there's something there. And that's what made him stop and that's what made them get out and check. So said right where [laughter] an incredible story I carry it till today the puts within but I noticed that but I recognize a bird. No I walk past it. Sometimes I'm so thankful to my little children when they point out look at those flowers look at the sky. Sometimes we get so we get older and we just we look down and we're so busy on the things that are happening in front of us we forget to just take a step back and look. We're in the most beautiful time of year when the flowers are starting to bloom, when the sky is so blue, when the opportunities are endless. It's not yet too hot that you can be outside during the daytime. Most some of the time it's the most beautiful time and yet I'm always thinking of the next thing and the next picked up and the next thing and the the next idea that needs to be done. And sometimes it's just noticing sometimes it's just look even in I say this is even in good. We should only have this that we have to find in the good find more good in the good. But even David Amelik in the hardest of times in the land in the most fearful of places he's able to pause and he's able to say if you want to live a life that's rich and meaningful look. And so I think of the who had hashem implanted within them that wisdom to look and to notice everything to notice a bird and to say oh it's not just a bird. No it's a bird that's not moving it's not flying. It's not flapping its wings. It means there's something there. And even in the hardest of times I don't know what happened. He was my driver. So thank God he made him he was okay and he you never know though you don't know the stories behind you don't know all the other ones who were with him you don't know the baggage that he carries until today that we can feel to him and to everyone for everything that you do you never know who you encounter you never know where you find them in life you can just give them a smile because you don't know at what point or where you're finding them in their day in their life in their week in their year every day is a new opportunity and just something so interesting that we get we're privy to this we don't just have to Guess how did David make it through this moment? How did he get out of it? How did what was he thinking? Yes, he was gripped with fear. If you read through other pro and you'll see he goes through real emotions. He has to process what it means to be abandoned, what it means to be forloren and alone. And it's confusing because not only is he alone here, he was also told that he was going to be the next king. So, it's another layer upon it. He was already told that he'd be the next king. How am I go how is this going to play out? It's not even like I I have no clue. So, I'm just hoping that today goes he had a vision of where he was going to get to, but yet everything he was experiencing was not equaling that. And yet, he doesn't just give up in despair and to fall in that moment and to get stuck in the lands forever more. He rises. He gets up and the par continues. Get up my sons. Listen to me. For the fear of Hashem, I will teach you. The says when you get to a place that you see these types of moments in get up and go act on it. You feel inspired, you see something good, you recognize Hashem's good. So continue on. Now go use that. Use that to accomplish. Use that to help guide you. Use that to help you in different moments. Sometimes you have to learn the amuna. We'll talk about this in the next pair. You have to speak about it and learn it and talk about it and implant it in your heart because you don't know when you'll need it. You don't know at what point it will help you get through. Again, hopefully small small little things. When you get to a doctor's office and they say, "Oh, the doctor's not here today." And you say, "But I booked this nine months ago." And what do you mean the doctor's not here? We don't have your number. And you say, "Yes, you have my number. You called me last week to confirm that the appointment was happening." And you tap into those moments again. Small but big, but small but big at the same time. You say, "Thankfully this was a checkup or thankfully this was this and there's other things." You tap in. It doesn't You don't always have it that day, that second, but sometimes you do. And it can never hurt to work on recognizing the even in the difficulties. That's a lesson that David teaches us from al tough, from a to z in our entire lives in the creation of the world. From spiders to wasps to caves to madness, from whatever it is that we're going to experience. He's trying to show us the inner world. You want to get through the hard moments. Recognize Hashem has a plan for everything. Everything fits into creation. He knows. He sees. He understands. Train yourself to see it. The more you see it, the more you'll experience it, the more good you're gonna you're going to face and you're going to experience. Okay. Number two, the second paric of the second story line that we're given, we don't just have to wonder. We don't have to guess. We actually are given two of David's inner turmoil at a certain moment. The next source is source number three, which is which is um the story of the Zephim an uh part of Ben Israel who actually turned on David and not only once twice they deceive him and they give him over to Sha but to give a little context to this perim if you remember he he's had a really hard time he manages to escape at the nick of his the nick of time like the skin of his teeth he escapes from many more journeys that happen along the way and then he hears him and his men are in hiding they're refugees they can totally just sit and focus on their own survival. And what happens? They hear that there's this town, this Jewish city of Kila that's actually being pillaged by the pishim and his inner compassion for Amrael, his inner desire to do what's good. He knows that he's really a good fighter. And that's what's also interesting. My husband was pointing out to me that David on the one hand is the heroic fighter of Israel. Just like we saw in the last peric, what's the song they sing about him? He was the war hero. When he gets when Sha tells him he can marry Mik on a condition that he's able to get a 100 plus4 skins, he brings back 200 plus4 skins. He's the one when everyone is afraid of of Galas of fighting this giant. Whenever there's an example of an underdog and a giant, it's David and Goliath. He's huge, taller than this room that we're in. Armored from head to toe. Who's the one who stands up to him? David. Yes. With bravery because he has no hashems with him. Also bravery. He's a brave warrior. And that contrast makes it even more complex that we find the bravest of our generals is the one who has this inner emotional world that he's letting us in on. It's a very big dichotomy. You don't always find that of the person that could both be the manliest and the strongest and the war hero, but yet also the compassionate and the um expressive. It's a it's a unique balance that we're finding. So David knows that he's capable. David knows that he is the one who is the general and he knows how to defend Israel more than anyone. and his men fight with him and they say, "I get it that you feel that you're the war hero of Fin Israel, but our lives are at light are on the stake here. We're literally running away from Sha. Why don't we just mind our own business and focus in on our own problems? We have enough to deal with. We don't need to take on other people's problems at this moment." We can appreciate that. We can understand that imagery of sometimes I have enough things that I'm dealing with. Why? Who knows what circumstances knows that we can stretch a little bit beyond to be able to reach and to be able to encounter and to be able to tackle for today. But nonetheless, David, he's not swayed by his men. He's never swayed by his men. Honestly, that's one of his traits also. It's pretty steadfast. When Hashem knows that this is the right thing to do and he knows it's the right thing to do, he will continue doing it even if it comes at a cost of other people doubting him. And so, David girds himself and says, "We are going to fight and we're going to defend the people of Kila." And they do and they miraculously save the entire city. And then what happens? He wants to know what to do next. So he asks or he asked two questions at once, which you're really only allowed to answer one because he's he's just so frazzled. So he asked one and then he asked another. And he finds out that the people of Kila are going to turn him over and Shotwell's coming to ambush him because it's a city that only has one entrance. And so now David just did the righteous thing for Ben Israel. And right away he has to run away. And he does run away. And he finds a new place to hide. And the next place he finds is in the midbar of Cif, which actually in the land of Yehuda, his own tribe. So these are men of his own flesh and blood, of his own of his own blood, of his own ancestry. These are members of Yehuda. And yet what happens? They tell Sha, "Hey Sha, we hear that there's Nat, the one you're looking for is here." There's one piece that I left out from the story that happened right in between him running away, hiding in the midvar. He actually gets a secret visit. Anyone remember who came to visit him? Yonatan. Exactly. That Yonatan came to visit him. He found out where he was, came to visit him and give him in that moment and to re re um unite and to reinstill the breath that they had between themselves to say I will forever be loyal to you. And Yonatan didn't know unfortunately what the ends would be but he really truly envisioned that they could work side by side that David could be the king. He could be his general he could be his second in command and they can have this beautiful partnership of friendship together. He comes to him and then according to some of whether it's because they saw Yonatan leaving and they assumed he must have found David or for other reasons they find out he's there and they turn on him and here's David he just did the right thing for Ben Israel even though it was dangerous for him he thinks again he's reinstilling this breath with his best friend Yonatan he thinks things are good and now he's being told on he's being turned on by his own brothers and what does he do so we know he packs up and he goes and he goes in another hiding place and the story keeps going until Peric and Alf and then continues through that soon enough he'll become anointed as the king finally for all of Israel we're not there yet per we're not I don't know actually I didn't listen to today's I don't know are we there yet or not you'll tell me I don't think we are but David is still in the process but we don't have to wonder we don't have to question what he's feeling this moment he actually gives us two which help give us just a sense what it feels like to feel betrayed and hopefully no one should feel this ever in their own lives But sometimes you think you could rely on someone and they don't stand up to what you were hoping or you felt that this person was taking care of something and the ball was dropped and you feel disheartened. You feel hurt. You feel left alone. How do we manage through those types of moments? What are we supposed to do? What strength do we draw and you can only imagine David how he must have felt being betrayed at a cost that almost came to his entire life that it was dangerous to him. So what does he do? tells us hello David when the zim come he's telling this very story again he's he's shocked he's not shocked because he knows that this is what to expect but he still is he's still a person he's still someone who's being given over by other Jews to the one who's searching for him it's a complex story maybe one of the other speakers We'll get more into the depth of this of trying to come to peace and terms with the entirety of the storyline behind it and Shel and David and it is more complex than we can address here today. But David in this moment he's confused. Why is he being turned over? What did he do wrong? What why am I am I worthy of this happening to me again? But what does he do? to Hashem in your name please save me and with your strength please judge me. He turns in this moment and he says even when I feel betrayed by humans and people do the wrong thing it still comes from you. The first one are circumstances that are happening around me that I find myself in and I have to find strength in Hashem. The second story is David finding comfort when it's people who hurt him. And I listen a lot to Rabbi Efraim Goldberg shears and living at Muna. I don't know if anyone else listens and he he always emphasizes that people are going to be held accountable. So from the side of sees everything and if someone does something that hurts you, they will have to deal with that. But still, what do we do then with that pain? What do I do with that moment? So sometimes there's something for me to do and I I could speak up. I can make it known. I can try my best to to let them in on it. I'm not supposed to just hold things as a grudge in my heart. I'm supposed to speak it out and try my best. Say there's sometimes moments you can't. You know, this person didn't mean to, but you still feel hurt by that moment. You can turn and you can recognize and dab into Hashem for the strength to get through this moment because I know that not only external circumstances come from Hashem, internal personal circumstances come from Hashem, too. If I wasn't meant to feel this hurt, I wasn't meant to have to figure out what to do now. I wasn't meant to have to stretch the inner depth of myself to figure out plan B at this current moment. I didn't have to feel the negative emotions that come sometimes with being let down in the way that I was supposed to. then I wouldn't have felt those emotions and I wouldn't have been in this place in the first place. So yes, you're allowed to experience, you're allowed to feel hurt, you're allowed to feel sad and you're allowed to also try your best to make amends with the people that it is. You can also look internally and recognize I wouldn't have felt this if Hashem didn't want me to. Nothing is beyond him. Nothing is bigger than he even continues. He says here it's very powerful language that that David is saying. He says For strangers have come to against me. They've risen against me. That actually I didn't write the exact translation of the word. I apologize. But he's using this imagery that strangers were coming to harm him. They were not strangers. He knew who they were. They knew who he was. But he said they acted to me as if I was a stranger to them. They didn't show compassion. They didn't show mercy. They didn't show love that comes from people who know each other. They came distant. They distanced themselves from me. They almost dehumanized me in this moment so that they were able to act the way that they did. And still David's able to tap in and say there's a bigger picture here. And he says, he says, "Hashem, you have saved me from every single time that I've been in a place of despair, of a place of danger. You have saved me from those moments." and he turns to recognize that's the last and when I was amongst my enemies you saw you know there's nothing that you don't know Hashem it doesn't mean that it was easy and it doesn't mean that it happened smoothly unfortunately we see we're only in parl of of the safer there's a lot more stories and a lot more complications that David's going to go through but what gives him comfort is knowing that this pain is recognized it's seen Sometimes that's the hardest. The hardest feeling is feeling alone. Is feeling for Lauren is feeling like nobody knows. There's no one who understands the depth. But always understands. He always knows. I remember seeing there's an incredible woman Erin Price. I don't know if she's ever spoken to you. She writes a lot for I happen to have known her son Sadia Satsal who passed away during COVID. And he she he used to go to Msura Yah where I used to go and I knew him. I feel connected even though we don't know each other. She wrote a book after losing her husband and she called it on my own but not alone and I never read the entirety of her book but I just remember thinking that title on my own but not alone that if there's someone David was alone and felt alone in so many moments we're never truly alone when we recognize that there's always someone watching there's always someone watching and sometimes we look at it this way punitively and he sees everything that we do and And there's someone who's watching a proctor who sees. But it goes on the flip side. If he's always watching the things that we do, sometimes that are bad and sometimes things that need to be held accountable. He sees all the good that we do. And that's something so meaningful when a child knows they did something nice and the parent notices it. You don't always have to point it out in the moment, but then they hear you telling the the aba when he comes home or someone else, did you see they were they gave up their thing in this type of moment. You feel good when you know that someone saw the good. They caught you in the good. Not just catching you in the bad. It's really hard. It's really hard as a parent to try your best to catch the good moments because they don't they're not as loud and noisy and messy and require as much intervention as the hard moments do. But catch the good. Hashem catches the good, too. He sees the good. He sees the bad. He sees all of it in between. And we're not alone. He truly knows everything that's happening in every single moment. Even in the depths of despair, he knows. And just to point out one more one more paracim that he that he references the same story of the people of Ze and the story that happens to him. So this is actually a beautiful par of this is a beautiful peric we sing as part of halal when we say hal shaleim but if we don't say hal shaleim it continues and we continue into so these are these are words that are familiar to us that we're used to this is a very uplifting positive I love how much hashem our relationship is so deep and you hear me so Why is this a parag that has to do with him being betrayed? So actually they say on the pak um second where did I'll tell you which at the end right here before it turns into which we sing separately but is actually part of the same paragraph of and I say I say to myself within the depth of these bitter moments Every person is co is cruel is is will betray will betray me there's no one I can trust there's no one I can truly lean on that will not turn on me and I'm actually explain that this very when he says says Rashi this bitter comment was uttered when he was betrayed by the people of again very real human very difficult it doesn't mean it's easy it just means that we have a blueprint from someone who went through the most challenging of times on a surface level we know the stories were challenging and then we get to go even deeper into the emotional world but what's he imploring himself and then through that us and then when we say the words of we can now have this kavana to think also that he wants us to get close to hashem through these moments he doesn't want these moments to break us he wants the moments to make us he wants us to get close to him and to see him that's what David's imploring us even in these difficult times so this actually is interesting it's put in a positive context in a positive story but it's one line but it's still you could vacasillate you can go in your day and you can feel both hurt and okay and sad and happy at the same time that's what being a human is talk about AI sometimes can't it's it needs to whitewash it needs to be it needs to find the the easy answer to this type of thing it can't appreciate nuance in the same way human beings are nuanced human beings are complex I think if we need one underlying theme of alif people are complex Lex, I think that that's a very fair answer. And there's not, you catch people at different moments. You think you know everything about everyone at any given time. People's inner worlds go through lots of different times and lots of different places and lots of different states. And we don't always know. We don't always see. We don't always appreciate. But we know one thing that is always there with us and always part of it. And nothing happens by random and nothing happens by chance. And it's all part of Hashem's bigger plan. and to just highlight one puss again in this one and I'll share one quick story and then we'll move on to the last one very briefly. I know I'm sorry I think we have just a few more minutes. Is that okay? A few a few more minutes. I'll finish up pretty soon. So here we see that of this of sorry we say beautiful words. We say and David level saying I've kept my faith although I say I suffer exceedingly and he's telling us even when I've suffered and I've suffered exceedingly and I've had a tremendously challenging experience in life I still keep my faith but again to quote rebe from Goldberg again from that I I remember this idea because he says it so often says you could read it differently I have amuna kia because I speak. He said you want to continue to build that. How do you get to a place that you're davidid that despite this challenges you go through you can have amuna. He says you have amuna because you speak of amuna and you think of amuna and you learn amuna and you learn hashem's and you stay connected. I'm so amazed by a room full of women like you who could take time on a Sunday morning and to say I was learning but I'm not just going to stop there. I want to delve deeper. I want to connect more. I want to keep growing because Torah is the fuel. Torah is the book that Hashem himself wrote. Navi is the next step of level of connection. That's how I reinfuse in my own heart and in my own self the mid that I want. When I'm in my own home, sometimes it's hard, but I we don't stop there. We say I'm going to keep listening. I'm going to keep speaking. I'm going to find friends who I can have that continued conversation with. That's something I again I don't know who's part of this incredible group that I got added to. humbled to be part of this network for just a little and I'm stepping out now and there's incredible more educators stepping into the role of the coming sparum that there are but just to see the keshm of people who spend their time discussing words of Torah and words of amuna and trying to get deeper and and to understand how does this connect to my life how does this make sense how could David understand it this way how could act like that with a real depth the way that we get closer to Hashem the way that we're able to tap into this depth of connection to Keep speaking, keep learning Torah, keep connecting with women who rise you up, who are positive, who send you in a place of positivity on your day ahead. A place where you can access amuna with each other that you can have these types of conversations. You also need to have conversations about which doctor should I go to and where can I buy this from and what's the right thing and is there going to be another round of whatever types of things. that you could have your regular everyday conversations but don't forget that we need to fuel our spiritual our spiritual muscles as well. We need the nourishment from words of Torah of connection with other people and when we feel sad or when we have harder moments sometimes we just need to tap in. That's all you can do. Just tap in. There are moments when you can speak freely of it. We say that we talk about speaking of Hashem's and sometimes and hopefully for the rest of everyone's lives in this room, it should only be to speak of the in the good times of the times we're living in Israel where we can walk around and you see the beauty of the land and you can see children playing in the parks and you can see people crossing the streets and you can see all the and all the Torah and all the incredible things that are coming out of your but if anyone one even finds a small moment that to them feels like the feels like the hardship that feels like the sadness or the betrayal or the harder news that you heard. We can always tap into something we can always tap into our relationship with Hashem. And I guess there's I brought two more stories and two more. So anyone who has a store sheet, you can keep looking or if they WhatsApp it out there. If I leave off on one message of appreciating our learning together of a morning like this is always look for in your life. Always look for the goodness. Always look for the positivity. spend time with people who help tap into that true place that you are and how thankful we are that not only do we get to learn but that David Ael gave us that next level of the depth behind the stories that he experienced because we can tap into that both when we say to him but also when we live to him and I hope that that was just a message to start off your yuman and thank you again for this beautiful thank you for letting me be part of it have a beautiful