Elevating Shabbat through Ahavat Hashem | Rabbi Anthony Manning | December 3rd

So, good morning. Thank you, Josh, for your introduction. Uh, good morning to everybody. Um, it's great to see you again. It's good to be back. I've been uh around and about. Uh, I've been on eight, nine flights since I saw you last. And, uh, as is inevitable, come back a little bit sick with a sore throat and a cough, but that's just part part of the course, I think, shleing round in November. Um, so you'll excuse me if I maybe talk a little bit more quietly than normal. Um, but I'll try and keep everybody awake. That's that's at least the goal. Uh so uh we have a special Khaneka yamun next week. So I couldn't didn't want to start a whole new series today, but we've got a topic which I think you'll really really enjoy. Next week, please God will be focused on Khaneka issues. There's a lot of speakers next week. We're all doing kind of halfhour slots, so you'll get like a treat from lots of different people. Um I'd like to thank our sponsors the Shirim for the whole of 2025. uh sponsored Leilu Nishmo branded and Zelik bin Calman and we really appreciate that sponsorship and Alifa Shamas. Now what I want to do with you today with your permission is look at something we have I don't think we've ever really looked at in this forum before which is I'd like to connect two important mitzvah. One of them that we think about a lot and one of them that I don't think we think about enough. One of them is Shabas and uh we haven't really spoken much actually over the years about the hashkafer side of Shabas which I'd like to talk a little bit about today and the other one is the mitzvah of a hashem which I think does not get talked about enough at all. Uh the mitzvah to love God and what that means in a very practical way. So, I'd like to outline for you uh a dozen or so, maybe a little bit less, 10 very practical ways to focus on this critical, crucial, central mitzvah of aasm and link them with shabas and ways that we can actually do this on Shabbat. Many of these things we're already doing on Shabbat, but there may be ideas here. Um Shabas comes around uh every week, Barashem, and it's the most important holiday in the Jewish calendar. So, we're very lucky, you know, when you ask people what's the most important day in the Jewish year, the answer is Shabas. and uh we're just fortunate that he comes 52 53 times um over the course of the year. So let's start with the mitzvah of um and start with the basics. We say every day twice a day which is a whole in and of itself and then we say twoim after that. We have a mitzvah to love by the way just by in parenthesis it's not a lot of people say is past tense and you loved if you look at the way the go you shall love that's very strong language there's no other mitzvah that it says with all of our s with our hearts with our minds with our resources and then it immed immediately moves on to the mitzvah of learning Torah. And these words, which I'm teaching you, which could be specific to the Shma, but it could be broader to the Torah, have to be on your minds, have to be uh with you every day. Um, and we'll see the link between these important mitzvah. But the mitzvah of Avat appears not just here. Here's the most perhaps famous reference, but it appears in many different connections, including and especially in connection with the mitzvah of what is again, we've never really spoken about it in this forum. Look at number two, we could bring many on this. You have a mitzvah says the Torah to love God to listen to what he says to stick to him, to cleave to him because he is your whole life. and and and the length of our days. This is what we should be dedicating our lives to this idea of of somehow clinging cleaving and and there are many different ways to interpret that and understand that obviously focus a lot on developing some kind of god mindset and by the way people talk a lot about this a lot of my students who are let's say most people under 35 40 are very um fixated fixated is a negative word focused on having a relationship with God. I don't think anyone suggested to me when I was growing up that I should have a relationship with God. They told me I should learn Torah and do mitzvah. Now, that may be the same thing. Um, but today people are very focused on this relationship idea. And I suspect that for many people, they just make something up in their mind that they think is God and they have a relationship with that which is really just a relationship with themselves. Okay? Which actually is probably suits most people because everyone's very obsessed with themselves. You know, they have kind of benches by the sea now, which face away from the sea, face with their backs to the sea, so people can take selfies of themselves with the sea behind them. Nobody actually wants to s look at the sea. They just want the sea as a backdrop to a picture of themselves. Actually, sat on a plane from New York to Miami. And the lady sitting next to me spent the entire trip looking at pictures of herself on the phone. Okay. May maybe she was a model. I I don't know. You know, >> you would follow that. I >> I I can't tell. I wouldn't like to comment. doesn't seem that way but I you know I don't know but um this idea of having some kind of sticking to or connecting with God is somehow we got to work out what that means. What does it mean to have a relationship with and to somehow cling like glue to God brings this down in the mitzvah number three we have a mitzvah to love. What does this mitzvah mean? So the first thing he says you've got to use your brain. There's no other part of your body that you can do this mitzvah with other than your brain. Truth is you can't do any mitzvah truly other than with your brain. But this is all in your mind. We have to focus. We'll come back to that. Hashem's actions, Hashem's uh involvement, his mitzvah in the world until we somehow grasp God as much as we can. And here's the key. We have to get some kind of excitement on egg >> joy. >> Joy. We have to get a joy in what we grasp and it has to be the ultimate joy. If you were to describe, he says, "What do you get the most joy from in life?" The answer is going to be should be I just get the most joy from, you know, connecting to God, being being part of that relationship with God. It's interesting. I listened to a shir last night um by Rabbi Johnny Solomon. If you ever listen to Rabbi Johnny Solomon Shirim, he's a wonderful uh you know Kim and very sadic of a person. Um and he gave a sh he's he was very close to Rabbi Saxs and he gave and he gave a share on Rabbi Sax's fifth site about Rabbi Saxs as someone who was an an enthusiastic and energized and uh and warmfilled Torah teacher who was in love with Hashem. And and we don't often think of Rabbi Sax like that. We think of Rabbi Sex as the cerebral and as the intellect as the Cambridge and Oxford man etc. Um but actually he asked on his Kev for the only one thing to be um inscribed on his Kev that he was thirsty his soul was thirsty for God. Okay he needed that that that excitement and that thirst. And this is what this is describing that above all our our um our joy in life should be this this thirst for God. And he says, and in case you think this is only for great sadikim, it's not. This is for every Jew. Every woman and man, women of course are the same, exactly the same mitzvah as men on this. Uh as soon as you reach bar mitzvah, this is the mitzvah. In fact, there's the sofa asked what is the first mitzvah that a bar mitzvah does or mitzvah girl when they reach the day of bar mitzvah. And the answer is this mitzvah, not and but this mitzvah should be the the first mitzvah. And then he says mitzvah we know the roots of this mitzvah. You don't do any other mitzvah properly beautifully nicely only if you love God in that mitzvah. Meaning he's saying this is not just an add-on. You can't just say well I do mitzvah but I'm I'm a bit of a miserable person. You have to know I'm actually personally very challenged on this issue because I have three things working against me. Number one, I am I'm English, so we have no way to express our emotions in any kind of healthy way whatsoever. Number two, I'm a litak, therefore smiling is not something that comes naturally. And number three, I'm from Yorkshire in the north of England, which is completely renowned for miserable people. Okay, I no offense, not no you lived in Canada for so long, you be you you lifted up from the warmth of Canada. Um the point is that there is there is a mitzvah to try and achieve this with every other mitzvah. You can't keep kosher or keep shabas or put up a muza or wear shhatas or not wear shhatness properly beautifully unless you're doing it with hashem. And again I think that sometime we think oh that sounds veryish. So we have to work this in and again we need to find out there are many ways to do this and I'm going to be very practical about them in a few minutes and and again specifically connect with shabas. Um, it's important to remember that this mitzvah, this this ahava, this love goes in the other direction. We often think about the mitzvah for us to love Hashem. How do we know that God loves us? And it's funny. I was just in Atlanta just now. Um, and and there were the road on which the the shul there were three or four shs all on the same road. Again, you really have to walk past the sh you don't go to and the other sh you don't go to before the sh you do go to. And there are four or five churches. Um, and there was a big sign outside one of the two churches which says, "You are loved by God." And I think I've never seen a shawl with a big poster outside saying, "You are loved by God." And I like I wonder why that is. That's just not our messaging. And I'm not sure that that's entirely correct because it says very clearly number four, God loves you. That's why he chose you. God loved your God was he loves you and he's going to bless you and in fact if you look in number five you'll see the says that if you're about to make and says if instead of making a b you make the following in Aramaic and you say you lift up your bread and you say bor rahmana mala married the higher blessed is the rahmana we'll see what that means in a minute the king the lord of this piece of bread then you did the braha you make your bra how can you be where was there shame there has to be shame you have to say god's name in a it's not a god's name says the shame there is god's name and his kingship because the word the one who loves us the loving one is god's name because that's what they called god inbl interesting you know we have this name sort of god which by the way also from people don't usually talk about god either it's but maybe it has too many Christian connotations I remember there's a story one of my one of my I've got a leak in my cup sorry about that and one of my rebum uh many years ago uh in England uh his son his five six-year-old son ran into him uh and said to him uh daddy daddy the Christians are putting leaflets through the door so he read it and tak was from a Christian group. So he said, "How did you know it was from the Christians?" He said, "Because he talks about God and we don't talk about God." Thank you, Josh. Um, you know, we talk about and or the we kind of, but one thing we definitely never talk about is Rahmana. Can you imagine this is the word that the kazal, the rabbis in barl used every day of their lives for God. Rahmana, Rahman, Rahman, the one who loves us, the one who loves us, the one who loves us. It's a very different kind of mindset and I think we're really missing out a little bit on this. I heard Rabbi David Eron say this a few years ago. I think it's a very important point and it maybe that we need to somehow, you know, reverse. Oh, that that's exactly what I need. Thank you, Mr. Okay, there we are. Do you see an engineer in our midst okay? Thank you very much. So, let's let's talk about the connection with Shabas and how we can do this in a a very practical way. So first of all if you start focusing on the way we d on shabas we focus a lot on the idea of love. Uh I brought you a couple of quotes from the um from the from the sid from the number six we d that god should cause us to inherit with love with willingness and that we will rest. And then we have these three alternative phrases ba b and bum is. So why do we call shabas ba and call shabas and call shabas bum. Okay because shabas is a word that can be masculine or feminine grammatically. There are a few words in Hebrew that can be masculine or feminine. A is one. Mah is there's a famous rashy that brings down a whole bunch of words. Shabas is another one. Shabas can be masculine. Shabas can be feminine. Um so on Friday night we focus on the feminine aspects of Shabas. on fri on Shabas morning we focus on the masculine aspects of Shabasu and on Shabas afternoon they come together to to be actually a pair and Alpa and certainly stresses this a lot there's this idea of Shabas as the as the love affair as the connection of the masculine and the feminine of the and by the way that's what you're doing when you're singing you're making a you're bringing it's you're bringing in really the and the are are two aspects two veance is if you like in a if you want to look at the spheres where malut is is a feminine uh sort of energy and tret is a masculine energy and you're making audim between the two. So this is really what's going on on Shabas. There's a lot of sense of of connection between man and woman. This is one of the reasons why that's the the mitzvah I brought you down in number seven says the garing. What is the the ideal way that a town will have a marital relationship between he and his wife? Shabas every night. Shabas night is mitzvah night as it were the son of was the son-in-law of he went shamshi. But every Friday he would make sure to come home. He would always make sure to be there with his wife on Shabas. By the way, it's very interesting. There is literature in the second temple, late second temple period that suggests that uh that actually Shabas is the is a day that you should not have connections between a man and wife. And the rabbitic um take on this was very much to reject this as being sectarian, sectarian, as being against Judaism, as being against Torah. It was very karif against this, which is why it stresses this idea of the feminine, the masculine. And in fact that's what we have on Friday night shabas morning and shabas afternoon. We even have and I'm not getting it in too much detail the minhagim of which kalas we use on shabas. Yeah. On Friday night we have a min to use the lower kala which has a female kind of veilance. On shabas morning we have a min to use the upper kala which is male. And on shabas afternoon they come back. They come together. So there is no male and female. They're both equal. we've reached, if you like me, Mos Mashiach and and uh and um is a woman and a man will be back on a completely equal footing if they're not already as it were. And you can ask your wife if you're on an equal footing with her, she'll tell you. Okay. Um but the point is that this these minhagim reflects this idea of of the of the connection of the love that goes on between within the Jewish people and also to connect and unite all the spheres as well. We say in Musf number eight, don't if you've ever thought about this, we we don't just d that we're going to do the mus one day. We we d that we'll be able to do the with love. Um interestingly, when Shabas falls on, there's an extra I'm sure you've noticed this. If you look here number nine, we say we mention this is but and then if it's shabas we add another why is there an extra when falls on shabas. So look at the lavush beautiful lavush number 10 commentary on the from the 16th century in Poland 17th century we say on shabas which we don't say on this extra shabas because we got the mitzvah of shabas at our stop in the desert before we got to si and we took our mitzvah there a mara was a time of great love for hashem The sweetened waters. Yeah. The waters that feel felt bitter became sweet. The mitzvah and the other mitzvah that they received at Sinai. Interesting. They didn't take them on with such because there was a certain um certain am certain element of of coercion that when we received the Torah at Harina it was almost like you know the idea of the mountain over our heads that like this is it guys you know you take it or you're all dead but was included in that so pesukas we received at Sai without this extra bun shabas we received before we don't stress on y of the nature of but on shabas we do because shabas is our day of great expression of aava that's how we receive the mitzvah and that's how we express the mitzvah so there are many aspects of this and we'll bring out uh some of them over the next few minutes so what is a hashem I brought you the ram here a hashem is the goal of a lifeless um let's have a look at the ramam here in hilush chuba this is the climax of hilkash chuba for the ram the 10th pirate says the ra person again not ish any man or woman a person should never say I want to study Torah and I want to do mitzvah because I God promised that I'll have a good life or that I want the world to come and I want to avoid sorry because I don't want all of the curses that it says in the Torah for those who don't keep mitzvah or because I'm worried about my no that's not the way to to to connect to to be an to serve hashem because someone who serves hashem like this who they they're serving from there's a sense of fear and awe and distance this is not the way that the prophets were this is not the the you don't you're not a you're not an ever mira I always think of uh you know I don't know if you ever saw down abbeby you were in maybe it's like I'm not recommending necessarily you watch the whole thing cuz it's like there's a lot of a lot of but you know that like the butler what was his name Carson yeah like he's like he's an e to the family but he's in love with the family he's it's like the family success is his success and everything he wants in his own life is for the he's he's not part of the family he's an e to the family But the family, he's just in love with the success and the and the goals of the family. And says the Rambam, someone who loves Hashem or serves Hashem, I should say. They do Torah mitzvah, learn Torah, not because of anything in this world, because they're scared of bad things, not because they want good things. It's true. This is the way to do it. This is the way to be. I do it because it's truth. It's endless. It's the way to live. And in the end, whatever good comes, I'm not worrying about says this person. I do it because I'm in love with it. I'm excited by it. It's the way to live a life. And then he has his famous mosh which is not his and also in the what is the the way to do this? And he uses all these adjectives. You have to love God with a with a love which is great, strong, exceeding love, a passionate love. And this is, you know, he's translating into until your whole soul is is is like linked is tied up with God and you're kind of a little bit obsessed. You're bit sort of high on this on this love of God as if you were lovesick. says the Rambam, do you remember what it felt like to have a crush on someone as a teenager? And and says the Rambam, in case you never had that experience, which is possible. He's going to tell you what it feels like to have that sense of obsession with somebody else because you can't get this woman out of your head and you're mad about her. Tell me constantly. Every time you sit, you go to sleep, you can't stop thinking about her. When you get up in the morning, you can't the first thing you think of is her. You want to sit down and have dinner, it's just her in your mind. You want to have a drink, it's her. More than this, more than this should be the love of God in the hearts of those who love him. Should be obsessive about him. And that's what said when he wrote, "I am love. This is us. This is the Jews lovesick love a lovesick people for God obsessed about God excited about God but of course in case you thought you're going to achieve this by hugging trees or taking uh you know mood enhancers or anything like that uh says the ram but of course it's absolutely clear you have to think you have to think you have to contemplate you have to leave other things behind and he says like the more you think and the more you understand the more you love your your your is connected with your now again the ram and we'll see soon all really the mafim require us to be able to do this at the same time as being normal yeah we have to do this while we're in the bank and while we're doing our taxes and while we're picking up the kids from school and while we're eating dinner and while we're like somehow this has to be worked in as a sort of attitude again you can't We most people are not don't just run around the streets with their arms in the air. You know, there's this image of this guy with his spidas in the forest with his arms in the air screaming tatty tatty or something like okay that's beautiful. I'm not knocking that. But like I don't know that it's not what I do and that's not what probably most of you do. But we have to be able even a yka has to feel. >> Yeah. What time? >> Half past three. Half past three every day. Okay. Um maybe he feels through like stopping people saying something like that. But um he everyone has has to has to feel listen the Rambam stresses the idea of that has to just like the brought from the Rambam I brought in number 12. There has to be energy, excitement, joy. Go over to page three. This is a of course we have to have joy in. And then later only after the joy think about what uh the reward that comes and I brought you here uh uh from Rafuk um there's a there's an experience that I think it was Raf Khalap happens is brought down in in the biography of Ravki one winter evening it was cold enough number 15 to freeze the blood in one's veins everything was frozen ice formed on the window panes darkness prevailed and the clouds covered everything with an ash and gray I went to see the rough his house was pitch dark everyone was asleep apart except for the rough he moved around his small room all in passion. For a while he did not take notice of me. But then he approached me and gave me his hand. He was completely frozen. Yet with a burning enthusiasm, with glowing eyes and a fiery countenance, he asked me, "Tell me, is it the same with you?" "What do you mean?" I asked. "I'm completely consumed with a burning love for Hashem. Do you feel the same way?" >> Well, he was cold. Cuz he was he had a fever. >> I think he had a fever. was burn he was burning up with he was he had a fever of hasheb okay and therefore um you know at the end of the day we're going to have to work out how to actually do this and I want to give you 10 practical takeaways cuz it's all very nice giving a shir about like loving God but what does that mean in practice and I don't know for each person in this room some of these may resonate more than others and maybe there are more than 10 these are just 10 that that that I came uh up with that I think really work in this way and I also want to link them to Shabas because again Shabas is a very practical way to do this. So the first one is is developing in mitzvah. There's a number number 16 if there is we have to sing we have to have our the way we be become and this is very hard number 17 at the end of all the of the he says the we have to have when we do mitzvah and we love It's not a small thing. It's a really big thing. It's really tough. It's something we really need to think about. And anyone who separate prevents themselves from having this level of himself or herself deserves a punishment. And he brings a a very very uh striking. It says where's that puk in the you read the inim and it's and it's it's relentless. It's just himukim of the most terrible terrible things you could possibly imagine which you know tragically have all happened in our history and you're thinking to yourself wow what what what did we do to deserve this? And the only thing it says, it doesn't talk about or not, you know, keeping other mitzvah. The only thing it says is because you weren't happy enough. You did mitzvah but not. Yeah. Because you didn't serve Hashem with that's why all these things are happening. That's very scary. Yes. >> It's an avod. It's hard work. Yes. Like coming back to my mosh before, being the butler and doing a good job is a very hard job. It's not it's not a you know it's a 24/7 job and therefore somehow or other we need to think about how this is going to work the number 18 says the main for any mitzvah if we thinking about if we if we're thinking about reward the is in the mitzvah the is not an extra element of the mitzvah like oh I do this mitzvah I I don't do with such simka no you didn't really do the mitzvah this if you want any kind of consequence is to the terms scar as consequence. You know the idea that we go to to Shamayim and then there's this like you know court judgment and and we succeed and all the angels are there like clapping as we walk out of the courtroom that's very childish. You know the the sk that we get is a consequence. You know if you go to the gym on a regular basis God doesn't reward you for the mitzvah of looking after your body by giving you big muscles as a as as a as a as a as a prize. You know that's not what it is. You get the muscles are because of the workout. Yeah. Therefore, we get whatever is hab because of the workout in this world. And therefore, he's saying the workout is to be bas and then there'll be an element of everlasting connection to this mitzvah. Otherwise, it's just an action. It's it's not it's not got any long-term consequences. Okay. So, Shabas is Shabas a day of simka. Well, it's a day of on. But actually says it's also a day of sim. If you shami asked a very interesting question remember purim mashul when we have three days of purim in now again I I feel I have to mention this every now and then because it's not happening again till like 2045 or something like that so we have to keep our minds on it so the question raises is why don't we just have the suda of shabas on sudas purim on shabas because you know we we we've got the these three options Friday shabas or Sunday shabas is the day inim is the 15th of adar so so so we eat on shabas Have the purim on Shabas. Why are we putting the purima off till Sunday? Just do it on Shabas. Says number 19 says for we put the suda off. Interesting. People had special foresh. We put them off to Sunday. Why don't we do them on Shabas? Says no. We have to the mill says we have to make a special theim is is is dependent on this mitzvah that the bin brought in excluding say when there's a sim that comes from God from the Torah you can't mix a Torah with a rabbitic purim is a rabbitic simka shabas is a Torah simka therefore you can't it's a little bit You have a you can't get married on why can't you get married on because you have to have says the says the you can't mix so too on Shabas you can't mix the of of so Shabas is a day to really work on simka in all of its different aspects um and as I say the the shami stresses this idea of simka as a mitzvah not just on yans but specifically a mitzvah on Shabas. That's the first thing. So working on our in whatever way we can in doing mitzvah is essential for this for this purpose. Let me give you a second option number 20 says the Rambam and I mentioned this before. We only love Hashem through thinking. Yeah. Meaning the Rambam is very emotional. Don't get the impression that Ram is some kind of uh you know uh brain in a box completely devoid of any kind of human emotions just an intellectual rationalist. He just told you before we just read that we have to have this excitement and energy and obsession with God but it has to come through working it through in our minds. Think about it. Everything is from our heads. You know you watch a movie you laugh or you cry. Why are you crying? Oh because somebody died. No they didn't. They're actors. 5 minutes later they just went everybody take a break. That was great. You know, like why are you crying? The answer is because somebody's touching those buttons in your mind that makes you feel a certain so okay so do it through your touch those buttons in your mind through the thinking that you're doing in life. The man that you understand will be the amount that you love. Those who love very little understand very little will love very little and those who understand a lot will love a lot more. Therefore he says Every Jewish person, man and woman, must do the following. Everyone has to set aside time to work on thinking about God. What is God? What does it mean that God is one? What does it mean that there's reward and punishment? What does it mean that there's an afterlife? There's a Mashiach. There's a resurrection. What the Ram puts in his 13arim and other items as well. What is free will? A person has to spend time thinking about those. This is not just for intellectuals in an ivory tower uh and for uh for for deep thinkers in some kind of yeshiva. This is for every Jew according to what you can you have to think. You have to grasp as we explain in therefore we have to set aside time to think about the big questions. These are not just for students in yeshiva or seminary. What is God? Who am I? What does it mean? What does existence mean? What is the next world? What is it not? Um there are many many ideas that we need to think about. Shabas is a great time to talk about these with our family, with our kids, with our grandchildren. Raise these questions. Uh says the Ram, you need to set aside a little bit of time to actually to to meditate on these ideas and to think about them and to and to get a clarity in so far as we can. Again, we're never going to have absolute answers, but we need to we need to work through the problems and the questions. Even if we leave some things as a question or issues like I don't know I can't I don't know the answer to that uh nevertheless we need to think it through the thinking itself is the process of thinking about God is loving God says Rambam and therefore that's the second way if you like after a second way that we can do that and again Shabas might be a time when we've got a little bit of spare time of extra time of free time to actually do that three learning Torah I was asked to speak in a basakov um in America it wasn't really on my core uh sort of mission because I run a seminary for women in their 20s. Uh so I'm really going to college students and young professionals and uh talking to them about opportunities to come and learn in Israel. My seminary majest but I have a friend who's the the principal of a school the the basakov school in Atlanta and he said do me a favor if you're coming to my to Atlanta already which I went I went to Emory and I went to see the young professionals come and speak at the school. So the school told me I have 15 minutes on Friday morning to give over a message to the girls. So what do I tell the girls? So okay, you can get a lot over in 15 minutes. So the main focus of the message I gave them was don't let anybody tell you that learning Torah is a men's mitzvah. >> Okay, it's a man's mitzvah which is constantly they're being told. Men have to learn Torah and women have to keep sneers. Okay? Well, both of those statements are true, but women also have to learn Torah and men also have to keep. Okay? And we'll, you know, not talk about SNES now. I can recommend a book on it if you're interested, but uh but but uh but the uh the issue of learning Torah is very key. Key key number 21 says the Ramb says as follows. Sorry. He says you have to love God. How how do I love God? What do I really do to love God? God is so ephemeral, distant, transcendental. The Torah says, "Learn Torah through learning Torah. That's how you come to recognize God." People want a relationship with God. Okay? Relationship requires a dialogue. In Davening, you speak to God. In learning, God speaks back. If you're hearing voices of God speaking back to you in the middle of davining, you need to see someone about that. Okay? That's not how God's meant to speak to us. We're not Naveim. And even Naveim, I'm not sure they heard voices. We are meant to hear God's voice through learning Torah. That's why we do it. And that mitzvah is on men and women. That is the primary way that an educated person is able to involve themselves in the midst of a hashem. Just just diving into the text, learning and getting excitement from it. Now, for most of history, women were unable to do a hashem through this method. They were able to do it in other ways. All the ways we're going to see in this But now women are highly highly educated. I told these girls, you are educated to the same level of sophistication as as the men your age. And they are. And you'll go on to do college degrees and post-graduate degrees. Said your your Torah learning has to be somewhere on the same level as your secular learning. You have a front person who's who's got a post-graduate degree, but but in terms of their lemuda kadesh is on the third grader. How how do you how do you do that? And think about this. You know, people people how many people from with 12 years of of of of school education plus kindergarten, many of them each of which cost each year cost their parents $ 35 $40,000 a year per kid. Yeah. And you sit down with a kid and they say, "Can you read?" And they say, "I can I can read, but I don't understand what it says." You can read, but you don't understand what it says. And you've been in school for 12 years. Like, what's going on there? That's crazy. Can you imagine if you had an English exam and they gave you a piece of English to read and they said, "Can you read this at at 17?" Yeah, I can read it, but I don't know what it means. Like, we're going to fire all the teachers. Now, again, it's not the teacher's fault. The teachers have issues, and I'm not going to, you know, be hard on the teachers. Uh, but somehow or other, we have to get through to the students that they have a mitzvah. They need to understand otherwise they're functionally illiterate. And Shabas was a time that set aside for learning Torah. Look at number 22. Shabas is given to us as a time to learn Torah. Shabas heashem. Again, it's stressing that Shabas is a way to connect with God. That is not the mitzvah of Torah specifically of learning Gammorrah in depth. I mean, you can learn Gmorrah in depth. That's the man's obligation of learning Torah. But all the other mitzvah of learning Torah specifically to connect to Godem are women and men. And therefore Shabas is a time that people should set aside time to learn Torah. Looking at number after you have lunch he says you should set aside some time to learn maybe learn maybe learn some of the and I brought you the shar here which is very interesting. Look at this troub is required. They're required to come up with something new. We don't want to hear the same old dra Torah at the Shabas table that we always had. Come up with a new idea. Get yourself a book of questions on on Shabas and like you know so you'll have a book of questions to ask. Okay. and come up with some new ideas like it says in the zah. Why? When your when your extra goes back to wherever it comes from after they're going to ask your what did you say today? You don't want to look like a fool. you know you stand there say I don't know was you know a was a great person you know they want something new and then he says and if you're not so you know learned to to make not everybody can do this not everybody has the education to do this then at least learn something new it's different pick a book you never picked up before an idea a Torah you Whatever it is that look I never learn anything I'm going to learn that do something new on Shabas at least the kdesh of doing and learning something new is part of this mitzvah of hashem through learning Torah and therefore I think that shabas is a a great opportunity to expand the areas of Torah that we're connected with uh and to pick up news for whatever time we have nowadays Friday night's perfect I mean Friday night you know by 7:00 you're already done with dinner no what's to do after that it's like co all you know go to bed at 7:00 and whatever but No, go stay up do some learning learn something new etc. Next number 24 the fourth way I'd like to suggest that we doem is also in the ram quite rambom heavy today. What is the way to develop love and also awe of God? Go outside and look at the universe. Look at nature. Think about nature. You see the wonders of nature. It's just infinite almost. The locates just the universe is just mind-bogglingly large. The number of galaxies, forget about stars, billions upon billions, trillions and trillions and trillions. If you realize that this will give you a strong words will give you a like a an insatiable appetite. I just got to know how all this came. I've got to know the being that created a universe where where which is so vast like David said I said that Rabbi Sax had on his has on his kev that I I I just can't understand how how a leaf works. It's just unbelievable. You could do five PhD doctorates on like you know a leaf. We take it for granted our leaves you know leaves are leaves nothing is for granted you know look at this looks very straightforward. You put it under electron microscope and it's like a whole world, you know, on the standender. You don't want to see a lot of the creepy crawies wandering around. But like the point is that it's it's unbelievable. It's actually, you know, beyond uh comprehension. And therefore, Shabas is a time to do that, too. Well, how often do we get the time during the week to actually go for a walk and look at nature and think about the universe and look at the stars, if you can see any stars anymore? Okay. The the Shabas is a is an ideal time to do that. And to do that shame that's what the Rambam's saying. The way we develop a hashem is through is through just studying nature, studying the universe. And that's why he says you need to set aside time for that. Next number 25. Learning Jewish history says we have to think about God's actions in the world until we understand him to the best of our ability. And what should we get excited and feel joy from? His hash the way God runs history. And this especially I think is important for for uh for for young people as well feeling part of Israel feeling an excitement. This I think this is in many ways the the aava that we're feeling in Israel with a younger generation. They feel part of a cloud. They feel part of a mission. they feel part of a people and that it's exciting them to want to do more and to learn more. I don't know if you read in the there was an article recently about how people's level of religious excitement and commitment has gone up about 30 40% since the beginning of the the war that we just had. That that's not just down to the fact that people were dabbling because there were missiles falling. I think it's because there's a sense of clown. There's a sense of being part of history. There's a sense of seeing God's hand in in human history. You have to be almost living under a rock or burying your head in the sand not to see that there's something strange going on. It's interesting if you'd have asked Jews 600 700 years ago, do you see God in nature? They would have said, oh yeah, I mean look at everything around us. How else could any of this come to be? You ask a Jew today, do you see God in nature? So some of them will say yes, but not some of them say, well, I don't know, you know, evolution and Darwin and it could have all happened like this and it could have all come from the big bang. There's a lot of things cooling down if you like that excitement in seeing God in nature. Although I don't think these things are contradictory if you look at them in more depth. If you'd have asked a Jew 600 years ago, do you see God's hand in history? They say, I don't know, only in the sense it just gets like you know more and more oppressive and exiles and pograms like when do we where do we see God's hand in history today? For the last 150 years, how can Jew not see God's hand in history? It's like it's like imprinted on every page of the Jerusalem Post uh or whatever whatever news you read. It's there. It's it's right there. We're living right through this amazing time of of of revelation. Ravon talks about this a lot. Rimmon says that the Nissim that we've had over the last 2, three, four years, maybe the last hundred years are way greater than anything we experienced in the time of uh of the the Tanakh. Way greater. We're just we're just a little bit blas about them. Maybe we're not, but we get used to them. I tell my students sometimes, if you say to your great-grandparents, you know what I do? I get on a metal tube and I fly 38,000 ft in the air at 700 miles an hour across the other side of the world and seven or eight hours later, I get off that metal tube and I'm in the land of Israel with a Jewish army and a Jewish police force and markets with fruit and food and growth and and exports and high-tech. And your great-grandparents would say, "Okay, that's what we've been dabing for all of these generations." That's that's the goua. Okay? Okay. And again, I'm not making a statement about whether we're in the Gulma, you know, this, but the point is that people take this for granted, but this is the God's imprint, the hand of God on history. And therefore, that's part of the Hashem that has to generate a sense of excitement. Okay. So, we've had lots of good examples. What have we had so far? Sim in life, uh, which we can enhance on Shabas, learning Torah, uh, we've had learning, uh, Jewish philosophy and ideas. We've had, uh, learning about nature and appreciating nature. We've had learning God's hand in history and seeing that sense of of of involvement in the world. Now number six, this is not so popular. Number 26. What is the opposite of a hashem? What is the breach? What is the breaking of that mitzvah? It's not it's not not loving God or God forbid rejecting God. It's loving >> money. It's loving money. Look at what the says number 26. someone who breaks this mitzvah and they focus their mind instead of on God and on connecting with God on material things and all the nonsense in the world not shim meaning he recognizes of course you can have a nice house and a nice car and and a good job and you can do all of that shine so that you'll have the resources to live a life uh connected to Hashem raising a family building the world etc I just do this cuz I love money. I want to have money because I like playing with the toys. I want people to respect me. Okay. Who wants somebody wants to uh to to rise his name to to be famous etc etc. um and not to improve the world or to be excuse me still a little bit jetlagged. This is a very major breach of and their punishment is great. And by the way, the Mishna Brewer brings this down on the first page of he goes through on the very beginning in the he says before you learn any here are the six constant mitzvah. He brings them down from the and I think he's number two and he says the breach of is materialism. People who are ultimately focused on money and this is a big challenge all the time even on Shabas where they say you know something you whatever you spend on Shabas you get the money back. Yeah, that's that's that is an idea. But there must be a limit. You know, sometimes you you know, shabas just becomes ridiculous. There's like eight different kinds of meat and eight different kinds of this and eight different there has to be a point at which we actually become focused on the materialism and uh and and realize and recognize that's the case. And you know, I I go a lot to America and England's the same honestly. You know, why why do people have to do well at high school? Why do you have to do well? There's such focus on, you know, you have to do well, you have to get good grades, you've got to work hard. And if you just trace it through, it's very straightforward. You need to do well in high school so you'll get a good place in college, and you need to get a good college degree so you get a good job, and you need to get a good job so you'll earn money. Now, I understand if you live in Tene or the five towns. You need to earn two $300,000 a year just to survive, to get your kids into school. One of my friends said he has like five kids in Jewish day school. He said it's like buying a new Lamborghini every September and driving it off a cliff. Yeah, which says a lot about the cost of the of the school and also what how effective he feels that the schooling is. But the point is that that that there's it's that is the whole nature. Everybody is ultimately just focused on money and it's the same across different societies. Yes. >> Just had a by >> Okay. >> He did. Okay. >> What's the second line of >> Okay. Good. But that's lashem shamine. You know, we want we want we want we want more money so that we can we want to have an easy paranas so we can spend the time doing what we really want to do which is focusing on mitzvah, building society, raising a family, etc. This is a problem. Yes. >> Said the original didn't have taso. Oh, really? You can only have the other one and he changed. >> That's so interesting. Somebody put in Okay. Again, there's nothing wrong with money. We're not meant to be living in a monastery or a nony rejecting all material wealth. But nevertheless, this is a real challenge. And this is the mitzvah. Okay, let's look at the last four uh as takeaways being a kid. Look at the look at the Gmorian 27. How do you do? You make God's name loved through your actions. If somebody knows how to learn, knows how to learnish and they went to yeshiva, they know the look and they do business so beautifully and nicely with a friendly way with people. What do people what do other people in the world say about that Torah Jew? Happy is his father that taught him Torah. Happy is his rabbi who learns taught him Torah. Tory. Oh, what a what a tragedy for people who didn't learn Torah. Ply this person, this man or woman. They taught him Torah. Look how beautiful he acts in the world. How refined his is his life. But someone who goes to yeshiva, they learn and they've been through the system. They know all of the Torah, but they're not honest in business. They don't act honestly. They cheat. They don't talk nicely with other people. What are people going to say about them? What a what a for these people. Sit and learn Torah. Just just learn all day and look what they are. What a waste of time that his father taught in Torah. Look how disgraceful this person's life is. Even though they claim to be a Torah Jew, the knew all the time there are people who are and there are people who are. And you know, you can interpret that however you want to interpret it. But this mitzvah is the mitzvah of if you cause the world to fall in love with Torah and with God through your actions, there's no greater than that. And therefore, that's another way in which we can think how to be a role model, how to be a model to our family, to our friends, to other people. Okay? Well, nobody's perfect. Everybody has faults, but that's part of their role modeling as well. Linked to that is the mitzvah of outreach. People say, "Well, what what's the mitzvah of of so look at number 28 says the the rabbis have explained that we call other people to serve or to connect with Hashem. When a person loves something, they think about it and they praise it and they want other people to praise it. And he goes through and says, "This is a hashem." You get other people excited about Torah. If you really love it and you show you love it, then other people will come to love it too. There's a line in Wsworth that says something like that which I don't remember exactly now but um that's the point you know of there are many mitzvah of kira but one of the main mitzvah here is the idea of a hashem that we're not trying to judge other people or tell them that that they're you know not acting the way that we think they should act. We're trying to get them excited about this this idea of Shabas and Shabas is probably the most powerful Jewish outreach uh opportunity that there is. One of the things I did just now uh in America is I did a Shabas. I did Shabas for the community in Atlanta and I also did a Shabas uh in Long Island uh with Olami. Olami are an outreach organization on many campuses now uh who are working with young professionals. They're working with with with the students on campus and they had a whole you know Shabbaton in Long Island in Woodmir and it was amazing. Barashem is incredible and again Shabas is an opportunity to show people the the the kind of jewel that we have uh as Jews and the kind of opportunities that we have. Uh this is an amazing amazing thing. Okay, so that's the the eighth idea. The ninth idea is msus nephesh. If you really love something, you'll give up for it. That's how marriage works. Okay, that's how life works. That's how children work. Your nephesh people don't always do everything they want to do. Number 29. If it says with all of your like life, why does it say with all of your money? And if it says with all of your money, why does it say with all of your life? Because says the you have some people that their body is more precious to the health is more precious to them than their than their money. That's why it says so you have to you serve Hashem with all of your life with all of your health and if you have other people that their money is more precious to them than their life that's why it says with all your money mean you have all sorts of people in this world some people their health is more important than their money some people their money is more important than their health and you think to yourself like is there anyone really whose money is more important than their health yeah I think that's actually a lot of people you know uh I I speak for myself when I say if you tell me, you know, go to the gym uh so that you'll get healthy and you'll uh you know, hopefully live longer, etc., etc., you know, well, whatever people eat, show me, you know, show me beside Hashem and like God decides who lives and dies, you know, but like I went to a personal trainer a couple of years ago and I paid him like 8 9,000 shekels to actually, you know, lose a bit of weight and get myself into shape. So, what motivates me now? I spend all that money. Like, I'm a frier. I'm going to spend 9,000 shekels to put all that weight back on again. Like what do you think I am? I'm not reading. I'm not stupid. So it's funny like you mean your health doesn't motivate you but your money does. Yeah. Kind of. It's like you know that's the way people are motivated in life. >> What do you what do you mean >> to keep your body? >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I shouldn't need to I shouldn't need motivating. It's a mitzvah. You know there's a gar one of the one of the as as a young man says to his father I'm not going to that shir anymore. All the rabbi does is talk about health tips. and he says no that's the most important thing that's the mitzvah you have to look after your health so why do I need motivating people need motivating so the point is that giving up whatever is precious to you in some way is part of your hashem and part of your part of a hashem I brought you a very interesting ram that said this is especially ramban sorry this is especially true init look in this ram very quickly init number 30 He quotes here. What are those people who love God and keep his mitzvah? These are the people who live in the mitzvah. And then for mitzvah and he brings the here. Why? Why are you why are they taking you out to to die? Because I did. Why are they taking this person out to be burned? Because I wanted to learn Torah. Why are they crucifying this person? Because I ate matzah. Why are they giving this person lashes? Because I kept the mitzvah of Israel is a place of mira. Now, nobody is taking us out in Israel and punishing us for keeping mitzvah, which is an amazing thing because that wasn't the case for a lot of history. And uh you know the Kaneka story is very much part of that coming up. But Israel is a place of msira nephesh. You don't need me to tell you that people live here with the diff different kinds of msira nephesh and we often don't think of this msirus nephesh as the mitzvah of hashem. You know those people who have given up so much in all sorts of different ways over the last 100 years to make the yeshu of this uh country possible. This is the mitzvah of doing it for love of god. We're doing it because not we're doing it we're not doing it because we've got nothing else to do. We're doing it because we deeply deeply believe in it. And says the Ramban aas hashem is imprinted on all of that virus ne that I think is the the fifth the ninth reason. The 10th reason the last reason I brought in 31 the the the ramal brings down that one of the ways that you express a hashem is by being zealous by having a sense of uh personal investment that I get upset when this is not being done right. Now again we have to understand that the has to be done in a way which is intelligent. You can't just run into the street and scream shabas shabas and throw rocks at people. That won't get anybody to keep shabas. You have to do it in a way where people feel but we shouldn't be blas about it. We shouldn't say oh you know whatever people don't keep this they don't keep that. It's not in my business. We should feel outraged on a certain level that people don't keep shabas but work out a way to to to to work on that in a way that actually is effective and helpful and and not judgmental and not demeaning and condescending. Okay. But we should be outraged. We should be upset by it. And then just to let it go and say, you know, something everyone does their thing. Okay. Maybe we've lost a little bit of that sensitivity about uh how precious Torah is and how important it is that we we try and ensure that it's kept. So here we are. You can take from any of those 10 to do the mitzvah of or you can think of others and you can write me, you know, an email and give me other ideas. But those 10 is something to be going on with. Uh and I think that Shabas is a great opportunity to do that. So we're going to end there. Uh next week, as I say, we're having a special uh I think Rabbi Shaw is about to talk about it and we'll see you then for a quick uh a quick download.