Elul: Hashem is My Light and My Salvation Whom Shall I Fear? Psalm 27 with Rabbi Kalman Flaks

Heat. Heat. my [Music] shad [Music] mad. Hallelujah. [Music] Hallel [Music] Oh. Oh, [Music] the kings in the field. The kings in the field. Oh, it's coming. One more song. [Music] Oh, I [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Oh, the [Music] lift may th [Music] Oh yeah. Hey, [Music] so that's one of my uh Wow. Wow. Even a round of applause. I need it. I need it because I probably should have practiced a little before I uh before I came here, but in any case, we're doing it together. That's like my favorite line in of there's one thing which I've requested from Hashem all the days of my life to dwell in the house of hem all the days of my life. If we had to encapsulate the month of that we're walking into the king is in the fields teaches it's easier to access during this month and this is the time when we just want to be in the base. We just want to be the base medish right now in the base and wherever we're going on the streets to be in the state of Vegas with the we'll get back to that uh over the course of our little minieries. So we're moving for just momentarily away from the state of so we're not doing we're skipping for to why are we skipping to inesh anybody take a wild guess why would we be skipping to because there is a custom to say every single day after ding after or for after shak and some people do it at and some people do it at mar of different customs. It's all good. But that is a min in almost all Jewish communities. You're going to see this wherever you go. many Jewish communities to add ine okay that's the mentioned in the Mishna sim 581 of the brings down that's this is the min okay but what I wanted to kind of step back a second and ask ourselves as we always do in this before we just jump into the words of the itself we'll see if we get to that this week or next week is where did this come from where did this custom of saying uh David at the end of our ines come from I mean it's a beautiful chapter of Tom we'll read it together and why do we say it in L where did that come from so Misha didn't make it up of course but it actually is a bit of a mystery as to where exactly this custom came from so the mishura quotes the mate Ephrien so And the and the don't quote this custom of saying it's not mentioned in the not mentioned certainly in the it's not mentioned not mentioned in the Rambam and it's not mentioned in the 16th century rabbis like the or the but says this is the universal practice to say at the end of so he quotes the mim who is a mate Margolius Margolus was an interesting sadic. He was from the town of Brui and he was not a rabbi. He wasn't doing dras. He was a merchant but he was such a tremendous that the sofa considered him to be like his rebi. So you can understand this person was and on his free time he learned and learned learned and he wrote down many ashkaz and so the mission is quoting mata. Okay. And what does a mat Ephraim suggest? He says that the custom that he sees of of uh saying comes from the following midrash. It's a midrash called shakar. There many different midrashim midrash you know written approximately the tamuric era and some of them go already to the gonic era at different times. So one of them is called midrash shakar. And in Mid Shakar he finds that there's an explanation to David. This psalm the 27th psalm Hashem is my light. What does light refer to? Rashashana. Mid says the light is rashi. Hashem is my salvation. When do we feel like God is our Yeshua, our salvation? Yum kipper. That's what the midrash says. So or refers to refers to and it doesn't say this in midrash but adds on the midrash. If you read as we will soon it also refers to because God envelopes envelops me in a where do we see what's the next holiday right after there we go. So we have an illusion suka. So thus became says he custom to say from rash from to prepare for rash from the month of kipper until the end of sukis. Okay. So, okay. So, that's what he suggests. That's what most people will explain. Um, just to dwell on that explanation for a second, I think is uh understood that God saves us on Yum Kipper. How does he save us? How is he our salvation on Yum Kipper? What way is God our salvation on Yum Kipper? What do you think? Does he save us? He takes away our sins, right? We walk into Yamiper with a laundry bag full of sins. We do a proper cha and the wash comes magic. We're saved. We're saved from whatever punishment, whatever bad things are going to happen. So that's kind of natural. But more interesting is that the midrash is saying that God is our light, our when it come. So how do we understand in what way is God our light on rashash shana? What way does he enlighten us on rashashana? Any suggestions? >> He's provided us with the Torah guide book. >> Okay. But then that would be more appropriate let's say for simra or for shuis. What does that particularly have to do with rashana? So maybe I would suggest I cheated because I got a chance to prepare for sheer think about it. But um on Rashashana hopefully we'll all have these moments of just like enlightenment of like what is my purpose in life and what am I here for like Hashem is the king and how am I fulfilling my mission and maybe you'll have that moment you're singing like in the middle of your tin and you're just surrounded by holy people in such a holy environment and it's just going to be like a light shining into you of like what is my how do I need to restructure my life? It's not about practical chuva. It's more just about like shining that light into me of real strong that God is the king and I'm here to serve him and how am I going to change my orient myself around that. But that's my theory of why Hashem is already there and yes good. But as beautiful as that sounds I have a kasha. The kasha is if you open up the midrash there are many explanations. You know, you guys ever read Gomorrah? This rabbi explains like this. This rabbi explains like this. There's at least a dozen explanations for what does he mean? The fact that one rabbi suggested that it means very nice. Why should that justify that this is the custom that the whole Jewish people say? There's a lot of midashim. There's a midrash that says that Esther said on So, do we say that of PM? Some people actually do, but most people don't. So, in other words, we still have to dig a little deeper. How did this custom become entrenched within the Jewish people? What's the the deeper meaning behind it? Okay. So I was listening to a shir by Rabbi layman and he he dug a little deeper and it's interesting that in many not many but there are some communities that don't say leav for example the g the villagon brings down don't say lav this is not our custom okay surprising I mean to him >> what's the big deal but the gur now do they say the lav at the gruel I think they do. I just finished and I think they do. So, we live in a, you know, postnagidic generation where it's all kind of blending together. But originally, the gr said don't say it. Not only that, but there are communities, specifically sons, ruptits, a few others that do not say, and there are other communities that do say. So, what's going on here? So one explanation which I saw was that it's not brought down in the coven of the if you look in the he doesn't say we're not going to veer from the path of the so that was some explain that however what's the problem with that yes >> so okay that's a great question because you're saying that the sitter says on it right >> but the truth is there's a lot of sitters that say on ital And they're not the actual real of the it's more that they took some innovations of the and they inserted it into their prayer. They took it into account. But uh the original of the is only very very rare. It's like some 1600 sitter. So not everything that does is exactly like the did it. Okay. Uh, does say does I think says but they only do it until if I'm not mistaken >> until >> and then until >> they don't do it from >> why I have no idea. Okay, you got to I can't I don't know if they know either. You can ask them but that's their custom didn't do it at all. Kabad does it a little bit. Some to get cut it out. say, "Oh, the custom, but then why do the other do it?" And also, there's tons of things that the Arizal did that we don't do and that they do that didn't do. Okay? If you ever go through, I was just invas and sometimes when I'm in I like to try to be cabalistic. So, would walk around his table seven times before he would d do Friday night daming and he'd always have myrtles at his table and he have 12 breads. say not we don't do everything that Rizelle did. We do a lot depending on how cabalistic you are. Uh but but not not everything that the Rizel did necessarily is uh we are we do we feel we have to do just like him. So maybe that's not necessarily satisfactory explanation as to why some communities don't do. Yeah. >> So do the Ashkenaz do it starting in L the first >> starting in L? That's a good question. Did they start yesterday or they start today? >> Well no did they start for the whole month of >> the whole month of L. And by the way, many Sparty customs also have adopted this, but we'll see that not not universally. And in many sparty communities, they'll say the whole year. Okay. Why is that? I'll skip ahead. But the writes that it's such a holy, beautiful prayer, we should always say it. And in fact, you'll see a lot of different uh for Marv uh they I've seen this in communities. Um they have a special song which they they sing it to and writes down inv that it's such a holy protection that it's they can say it the whole year. Ravosnner says that certainly in Elo we'll get back to this but certainly in Elo it's it can atone for our sins and it's can be spiritually protective. So Ashkanazm basically have taken upon themselves to say it at least during until uh and some of them say it and some of them say it inesh okay but I still haven't really gotten to the original source. So after doing a little bit of archaeological work it turns out that here's there's two ancient books which are the first books which this custom of Levit is mentioned in. Okay. The first is a book called is a very beautiful mus a lot about um the and it's an ancient book. Nobody knows who wrote it. The thing is in the book which you can go to a bookstore today and buy it has a poem by Natan who is the false prophet of shopi. They included in that safer a poem by this natan and therefore the vilan and someim were concerned that either maybe natan the false prophet of cha actually wrote this book which he didn't because we have manuscripts or that it was somehow sabotinly uh you know the hashkafa of shopit somehow made its way into that book. And since in that book he mentions the custom of saying leav some communities both in and refrained from saying leav. However, with that said, now we know that the book actually did not have shates elements. It would just at the time not wasn't known as a uh as a heretic. Um and so there would be even more reason for everyone to say it nowadays. In any case, the Jewish people have for the most part many people have adopted saying this beautiful. The original source of it though is not that book. If you go a few years back to 1706, there is a rabbi named the Bal Balm, not the Bashmto. There were other Balms besides the Bashmto. You know this a balashm is a general name of someone who knew how to use the divine names and do magical things with and do miracles with divine name. Actually I've heard that my name kalman is a derivative of someone who used to do uh magic with the with god's name. I'm not saying I know how to do that. >> Okay come after sh I'll tell you yes or no. >> Which psalm are we talking? >> We're talking about the 27th psalm. Although we'll see in a moment that it's not so clear it's the 27th but it's known as the 27th Psalm and his name is >> looking it up in my notes here Ben is I'll get back to it okay and he is the original source his name is Shtov Katan he wrote a book in in Germany it it's a very from book has a good uh you know the big rabbis say this rabbi is very holy is a normal rabbi and he wrote that this is a custom to say and what is his rationale interestingly enough it has nothing to do with what we said before but rather because it mentions God's name 13 times in the if you read the itself it says God's name 13 times and what does 13 have to do with anything the 13 of the 13 characteristics of mercy which God uh manifests most strongly on Yum Kipper. But during this entire period we try to bring the mercy of God into the world. Some people have accustomed to read to Devor which talks about the 13 attributes of God and bringing it into our own world and already start right tomorrow which the centerpiece of is of course the 13 of There even some who had a custom say during the when we open the ark because that's the time when the 13 mid of are manifest in any case be that was the original cabalistic reason why leavid started to come into the world. Um so as we go through the kap of and learn it together we'll bear that in mind and how at the end of the day this is bringing the yud god's name into the world. Okay so that's a little bit of the history of in any case like I said everything is everything from hashem so this is the custom to say it must be extremely powerful. Uh but again before we jump into it I just had to share something really cool a little numerology uh some some uh some fun with the the the the number itself. So I told you that it's the 27th psalm right but the truth is in a way it's the 26th psalm. Why is that? Because brahas teaches that the first and second psalm are really one psalm. really psalm one. Okay. So if you do the math, it turns out that it's not the 27th psalm rather it's the 26th psalm. So the 26 why does that matter? What's special about 26 >> yud that is a manifestation of of Hashem the name of God the merciful name of God. Pretty cool. No I didn't make it up called Yadid which uh brings that down but it gets cooler. Okay, watch this. Heard this from Red Gladi. So 26, right? So how often do we say that extra because of the David? Well, how often do we say not once but twice? Once in the morning and once in after or after Marv doesn't matter what you do, whatever your custom is. In other words, 13 + 13 26. Okay, by the way, just we'll get back to this, but 13. When we feel the love of Hashem, then we can feel the the oneness of God. 13 + 13 equals 26. Okay. So that we're bringing that 26 consciousness every time we say the schma feeling the love of Hashem and therefore expressing our behalf the love of Hashem and in every day we're doing 13 plus 13 we're bringing more love of Hashem into our life shift it gets even cooler watch this 26 okay times 26 right because that's the whole idea equals no I should have told you guys to bring your uh calculators 26 * 26 right down is 270 276 47 >> 676 Okay, cool. So what? So there's a ine there are many evil things but from them all God saves us. What's the gamatra of 676? So through the theim were able God is able to save us and bring us salvations. Okay, pretty fun numerology. Okay, with that that was all I'd say segment one of our little mini here. Now I want to move to segment two which is just a little bit about the power of Tahillim in general. to be a protection for us to be a saving force for us. Yeah. Okay. So the Mishna Bur also brings down that there was a custom amongst the Jewish people to say extraimm inesh okay it's always a important thing to say to say to him some people are more into it than others I've noticed in general sardium are a little bit more connected to tim than us rationalist Ashkanazi folk we have a hard time sometimes getting into it but an l everybody used to say they inure They used to say 10 extra tail every time in L. Okay. So it's not so much the custom anymore, but certainly now during the war, you know, in the beginning, everyone was saying a couple extra tail after dabbing for the soldiers. It's hard to maintain that intensity, but really, especially during maybe this is a time our time to go back to saying that little extra, but certainly we're going to be saying leav together, right? And leav piece of tim that all of is taking. Um now you might say okay I once someone of my friends once told me this he said ahim that's for you know the amar they don't know how to uh the guys who can't learn so they say tim you know the right but you know who's a big considered one of the and endless learning inesh he would take extra time to learn every day and in Mua every day he would say the entire book of Tum. This is a guy that didn't have any free time to like go get you know some extra ketchup for his for his hot dog because he was just non-stop staging. He had a whole set or like this man of mai this man of Gumar and he would say he would take I don't know an hour or two to say to him because it was so important the spiritual power of saying to him it's part of our spiritual diet. Okay. Needs gars needs a little bit of a little bit of and a little bit of brings down to have every day a little bit of especially in the brings down. This is the time to beef beef up a little bit our game and say a little bit extra um to him and connect ourselves to Hashem. Okay. Yeah, the psalms are sometimes impet. >> Yeah, absolutely. >> The psalms are >> and I'll tell you I'll tell you before I go into like stories. I wanted to share a few stories. Um it's hard for me personally, you know, I am actually a very like I enjoy learning thinking and it's like hard for me to just kind of go through words. Um, but a few a few thoughts I was thinking to kind of motivate myself about this one. Yeah. But there are sometimes when I really do love St. Tylen. When's that for me personally? When I sing them, right? When I'm in Kabala Shabbat and I'm dancing and singing. That's unbelievable. I'm enjoying it. I could do it for hours. You know, when I'm singing hollow tomorrow, we're going to have hollow minion and we're going to sing. That's enjoyable. So I don't have to wait for to do that uh for roesh and for Friday nights at the hotel. You know I could do that for my three four or five of that I do every day or my or my if you go to a nice slow minion like you know here at where you're not in a rush. So so that's tip to myself number one. Sing it. In fact it was written to be sung. I think all of us are silly that we don't sing more of Dalem. It's like if you took a Leonard Skinner song and you I saw her bathing by the roof. You know what I'm saying? And you read it like you would miss kind of the the the So we're supposed to sing >> what >> how we know the right tune. >> That's the question. That's the question. You know >> I I think whatever comes out of your heart >> that's the right tune. Is that the original nick and that slow moment that David Melik was singing when he wrote it? I don't know. I don't I don't think it makes a difference. He brought down the words and we are here to bring the niggan. As long as it's heartfelt, as long as it's it's it works for you, whatever comes down from your heart and your soul, that's the right niggan. You know, >> Friday night, there's like 10 different tunes, right? >> Right. whatever whatever flows from you at that moment that that's that's what a wants from you. That's my opinion on on the negative. Second of all, um you know there's there's I think the idea of is that it's dka for a few minutes throw away your brain and put your heart in there. In other words, of course, we're going to go through every word of we're going to understand it much better by the end of this segment. But even if you don't know what the words mean, what do the real words mean? When I'm opening up my my tail, I want to get close to you, Hashem. It's ve I want to I want to That's what David's whole essence was. I messed up. I want to get close to you. I want to do chuva. I want to be of course there's deeper meanings and sometimes it's more about gratitude and sometimes it's more about um sorry. Of course, I'm not saying don't say don't mean the words, but on you're a simple Jew. you and you're not reading the article, you're just reading the Hebrew words. I think that itself sometimes just putting the heart in there is meaningful and powerful. And my third piece of advice is read the English if you don't know what the Hebrew means. Even though there's a spiritual magical power of Hebrew, but there's also a magical power of saying the words in English and understanding what you're saying and it still has a strong effect. So, you can switch off and it's all good. Those are three tips I've given myself to motivate me to make to to say these tom with a little bit more kak. And this is the time in the Jewish year when we we you know we we we dig into our a little bit more. Few stories. You you'll let me give a few stories. Yeah. Stories are okay. Okay. Story number one. Um the schlaw brings down a little bit of a wild story. Shia Harwitz writes this in a siker. It's not just a baba misa there's a a man sometimes you hear you know stories and like they're for sure true in the sense that they have a lesson but if they're written down by in in they're true also in a historical sense. So the schlab brings down that this uh man was a simple man. He didn't know how to learn, but he would say to him all the time and he died. And uh they buried him and they saw when they were buried him that he was like his face was shining. And I think it was a few days later they saw the guy walking around and they're like, "What are you doing here? We just buried you." And he says, "I know, but they gave me permission in Shamayim to calm down and warn you guys that a pgram is coming." So you better because I said tilm every day. My tumm used to protect everyone. But now there's no tilm. So they gave me permission to come down and warn everyone. They warned everyone and they escaped before the pgram hit them brings it down. So uh so that's the power of the protective measures of you know in the beginning of the war everyone was saying these was passionate about it. We got to you know say always takes so is the time to ourselves. Story number two I think I got three stories on tumm for right now. There's a there was a woman I read this a great story book that was just published. There's a woman driving down Gushetsion recently and uh on the side of the road there's a white sheet over the uh a woman who had a traffic accident and this other woman felt so sad and she couldn't just keep driving. She went to the side of the road and she started saying tahun to like lift up the soul and she got back into her car and she kept driving. Few days later she gets a call and says are you this and this and is your license plates this and this? So the woman like freaks out. She's like, "Yes, how do you know that?" She's like, "Were you standing on the side of the road praying a few days ago?" And she says, "Yes." There are like cameras. And the girl says, "No, no. I'm that girl. I'm that girl that they thought was dead. I had a near-death experience. I was going up to the heavens and I saw your prayers channeling my soul back to my body, and I was miraculously saved. And now uh I I I remembered your license plate. So I tracked it down. I went and I figured out your name and I'm calling you to say thank you. You saved my life through your and she goes around Israel and she tells the story. So wow the power of again it's it's unbelievable. We don't know what a few words uh of and truth is we take it for granted there was some there's some miracles. There's always miracles going around. There's also sad times when Hashem says no. But you know recently, thank God that we have been experiencing miracles in the war and in other situations. We had 17 random that came jump out of a hole last week and thank God nine of them were killed and none of our were were killed. But we still need to say for their fool and learn for them. So this is the power of one last story and then I promise we'll jump in. She's here next week. You know what? I'll save it for next week. So we can start off with the story next week. I think we're we're ready. We're inspired. We're ready to get our teeth wet with leav. Okay. So if everyone can open up their prayer book and um you can turn to the end of your uh dabing which is in article 170 or in different sitters it'll be different and we are going to start vavid I don't think we're going to finish but maybe we'll see we'll see how things flow. Okay. And when we read it slowly together, you're going to see that there's a surprising adventure of Lavit. And we'll have to work together to understand why. What was David Mal's message and why this has made its way to become the the Amish says during Okay, let's do it. to David. Okay. So already when it says to David, what's the simplest explanation? What does it mean to David? By David. David Hamel wrote this. Not a poem about David, but rather David wrote this inspired by the energy of David, the master of chuva, the master of song. Hashem is my light and my salvation. We already explained the midra says from who should I be scared Hashem is the strength of my life? From who should I be scared of? So basically how's you know from a 1 to 10 if zero is like scared and disconnected from hashem and 10 is like confident and ready to rock where's d at in the first puk. >> He's at a 10. He's feeling great. He's confident. He's feeling awesome. Nothing to be afraid of. When my friends come to eat my flesh, my enemies, they will fall. They're going to fall. In other words, I got these enemies who are trying to eat him. I imagine he doesn't mean it literally. They want to kill him. from the language of they want him to be his bread. Okay. And but they're going to fall down. So again, he's pretty confident. And what's the context in which is is feeling so confident. What's what's in the background here? Is he going to a court case? What's what's happening? Sorry, but it's to war as we're going to see in the next he's going to war is going to war and he's feeling confident against his enemies. Okay. Now, who exactly is this is the enemies he could be fighting against? There's many options. He had a lot of uh enemies. Could be theim, could be, could be all sorts of stories. We don't really know. Okay. But he certainly had more than enough enemies in his life. You know, I think we might be able to feed. We're going to speed up. If a camp encamps me, I will not be afraid. If a war surrounds me, with this I trust. So what is the the the governor Melik trusts in that he's so confident that he's going to beat his enemies? Yeah. Hashem he has there's a safer by the called and it he discusses the fact that one of the concepts of trust in Hashem is feeling like everything is going to be successful in this world now I'm going to rock this year I'm going to go in there and everything's going to be amazing I trust that not just the next world but I have be right now and another level of of trust in Hashem is I have trust that ultimately it's all going to work out. That God has a plan. Will it work out tonight? Will I win the basketball game? Maybe yes, maybe not. But it's all for the best. I trust that it's all for the best. You see the difference between the two different types of trusts. I'm forgetting which one is which one is. Which one is seemingly buying into in the first three of the first or the second? >> This world or >> is he saying it's all going to work in this world or is he saying it's all going to work eventually? You know, Hashem has his plan. >> This world. >> This world. He's confident it's going to work not just in the next world. He's going to beat his enemies. Okay. He has trust in God. Yeah. God bless you and God bless America. Okay. Um let's keep going now. One thing I ask from God. That is what I'm asking for to dwell in the house of God all the days of my life. to be to see the know of Hashem, the delight of Hashem and to visit in his in his sanctuary. Okay, this I would say is the most famous and maybe the most crucial verse of the first let's just decipher what it means and then we'll try to ask in the context how does it make any sense. There's one thing that I want out of God. There's a lot of discussion. What's the difference between asking for something and beh my buddy's there, can you give me five bucks because I want to buy a Coca-Cola. Okay. So, I ask you for the five bucks, but what do I want? I want the Coca-Cola. Okay. My ultimate goal is the Coca-Cola, but I might ask you for the five bucks. So, the sha is what I'm asking for, but the the bakasha is actually what I'm yearning for ultimately. Okay, that's explanation in any case. Yeah. So, what is he really yearning for? What does Malik really want? What's his whole purpose of his life? To sit in the house of God. Yes, he has to go to wars. Yes, he has to deal with politics. But really, what he's yearning for is to be in the base matters to be in the base to be in the mdash. Oh, he's yearning and to feel the presence of God. That's the one thing that he's yearning for to be in the and and the vaka vaka is language of like I'm visiting to feel like that to feels like the first time right the feel like every time he gets you know you guys ever had that moment where it's like ah I I missed that first time to the hotel the first time you dabed and sometimes we just miss that feeling of like the first time one of my favorite things about going to the hotel is I see all the birthright kids or all these like non-Jews and it's their first time. So I need to give them an inspirational time. So I need to get them dancing and through that it makes it feel like my first time. It keeps it fresh, keeps it real. So that's what is yearning for. He wants it to feel like bor like it's mish like boke like it's the first time every time he's dening every time he's in the bush. The gar says when you dab in ideally you should only d for one thing. Yeah that's what the tinus says. However it says but that's only for personal prayers. When it comes to generalized prayers, you can say, but often times we do find that prays for other stuff too. So he says here, but then he says he already throws in two prayers to dwell in God's house and to see the norm of Hashem when he says I'm only asking for one thing. So what is it? one thing or two things says like this ultimately what he really is yearning for is to be to see the the pleasantness of hem to feel the presence of in order to do that he needs to be in the base of mdash so in the same way you can ask for a lot of stuff okay you can also ask for and also ask for money but the ultimate goal says it has to be for the you have to convince that it's all really one unified request I need to get that so I can be happy so I can serve you with em. It all has to be one unified thing. Although I have actually heard some rabbis say that maybe each prayer just say one thing. Don't make a laundry list of 20 different things that you're asking for, you know, for the and for the D for everything. But in your in your private prayers, there is an inion I've heard of just focusing in uh on one thing. I have a hard time doing it once I'm in the I just it it just flows out of me. You know, >> you're supposed to ask for >> there are different mahal. So according to the you can ask for everything but do it in the concept of the one thing which is really to be close to Hashem. Yeah. Anyways, we digressed a little bit. But that's good. No problem doing that. What does any of this have to do with what we said before? Remember he's going to war. He's excited. And now we by the way I want to I want to I want to in the house of God. What's the connection between point A and point B? was David, you know, just got went on a tangent, lost his train of thought, like doesn't seem to be connected. Yeah. First three verses he says, I'm so confident that I'm that I'm going to win these wars. In verse four, he says, the one thing I ask from God is to be in the house of God. I'm asking, what is the connection? What is the relationship between the first three verses and the fourth verse? They just seem disappared. What does one have to do with the other? >> If I win the war, then I can dwell on your house. >> Oh, so that's kind of what the sofa was trying to say that I don't know. It's my question and that's my answer to that. In other words, we're saying is why do I want to win the war? I don't want to win the war so I can have a trophy. It's like I want to win the war so that ultimately I can go back and be in the base and be in the base. You know what I'm saying? And in that way I lift up the war to also be also part of the learning experience of fighting but I'm also in the base manders even when I'm fighting and is that amazing character that's able to bring together both worlds of the base of the base and the the right so all the more powerful and important during our our generation. Yeah anyway so that's maybe that's the connection of of David M. Yeah. So you say I would dwell in the house of the Lord all my days of my life. Like uh is everybody thinking that's a big conne with my family? >> Well for David do melik was it the base matter of the base kessus to be if we're completely honest with the besus? No, because besus the content we have nowadays of dabing with the minion didn't come to existence until after the aness after the destruction of the second temple. >> So clearly that's not he's talking about the would say that he used to learn this rebi. So maybe she okay there were may have been places of study places of gathering places of reading the Torah but it probably wasn't as similar to the base Knessets that we're referring to today and maybe he was referring to the B mikdash that he was yearning to build but I think Yurshot is correct that it's not a specific physical place necessarily but rather he wants to be in a state of vos of a state of attachment to Hashem connectedness to God of Of course, the best and easiest way to do that is to be in a base medish, right? You go into the base mish often and that's my experience. You walk into the base med all you want to think about is Torah and learning as soon as you leave it life phones this that right. So the best way to do it is nowadays to go to the base mas but for sure for everyone the goal is to be in a state of the mishkn the whole safer he's constantly constantly stressing is that the purpose of life is to be connected to hashem and the way to be connected to hashem is in our thoughts so as soon as I turn my thoughts away from whatever random distractions and right now I'm aware I'm in the presence of god right now I'm in the base hashem right now I'm in the base of mdash as soon as I tune my thoughts there. So for sure it's not only in the base >> you could be looking at a gorgeous sunset. >> Exactly. I mean and that's one of the keys of that when we go to see the canaries today we said oh we see right for sure but the truth is there is a shift of the energy of course we always want to find God everywhere we are but we do move it more towards um if we can you know because we want want to start getting to that rash sha yum kipper vibe and being in that environment of the base matters basics often can inspire us. Remember in the to serve to protect there in they just move into the base mish they literally move their mattresses into the base medish >> and just it's like the the challenge they eat they sleep they don't you know that's not I don't know if that's if everyone's ready for that but that's the that's the idea and and and in the yeshiva world tomorrow is the the day when everyone's moving back into the base maj and uh you know re extra hours of Torah, extra hours of learning, extra hours of uh but of course you're right that if you're out in the world working and seeing the or even just uh traveling then that too is is is in the field or on the mountain and you know you have the whole of Duke concept that's that's also >> I was thinking about first of all every single Friday night. I I completely agree with you. I think every shul should go outside to the fields here. Okay, the fields of the train construction. It's a little different here than when you go to the fields of uhat. But still, even so, if I were in charge of Judaism, I would make it mandatory. You have to leave your base even for 5 seconds. Feel the fields like the original cabalist. bring in that holy energy and then bring it back into the base matter. So for sure there's a in and out. I'm not we're on the same page but at the same time there is a time to to shift to to focus more uh no it's interesting what you say you would think should be yeah I hear I hear to do a little bit more and the weather is still nice yeah I'm with you I'm with you maybe you know here they have a little courtyard little outdoor area so you can get a little bit of You're outdoors, but you're you're still in in the base. You know, best of both worlds. When we have dinner, you guys can uh get the best of both worlds here at IBAem. Building the base. Okay, let's uh do a little bit more. I don't want to get go too late. There are other important and good things happening. suka. Oh, now we're going into the suka. When God, how do they translate it envelops? He hides me in a suka. He's hiding me in a suka. Okay. And on that scary day, this is going to be a dangerous day, which is where you're going to be in a suka. A lot of people uh I remember watching a video where there were people in uh October 7th that felt like this of was talking about them like they were hiding in a suka. Some of them were hiding at the festival these under these trees or even under sukas and uh and they felt God's presence. They felt like God was watching over them and that's how they survived. There was a specific YouTube video about that that guy where the guy was thinking about that specific thing. Um and he was regretting not you know going to the party and and and thinking how God was watching over him in the any case on that bad day. I forgot to say is also the amount of words of the 676. So God protects us from the to the on the bad day. Oh, God will hide me in the secrets of your tents. In Iraq, he will lift me up. Okay, it's similar to the language of we'll get back to this when the poet writes that God is my rock at the time of pain. So he's paraphrasing to him where God is my rock in the time of pain. One some of the far explained like when the in the olden days you would build these rock protections like these walls so that the enemy couldn't shoot uh you know missiles on or bows and arrows at you. So God is my wall protecting me, my suka protecting me uh and raising me up uh when I'm scared. Okay. So once again, he's going back to that confidence and that God is going to protect him. However, is there a little bit of a different emotion that's coming into the picture here? Here he's saying there's fear. And it's not like, oh, everything's me on that dangerous scary day, God is going to protect me. So, he's already shifting a little bit and saying, wait, you know, there's a little danger, but God's going to bail me out of it. Yeah. Okay. Um, and you're going to raise up my my head against my enemies, against me. and he's confident I'm going to bring corbonos of trua. What does that of course remind us ofashipper at the rash? He's going to bring these sacrifices and maybe that's also another illusion through the trua the chuva the rash and eventually I'm going to sing I'm going to dance to hashem. So God's going to get me out of this one and and everything's going to work out. What do you think? Should I push it another 7 minutes and try to wrap up? Okay. So we're going to run through the end of the timma. God answer my voice when I call out and answer me. Now at this point what emotion is expressing? What emotion is he feeling? Reading. Hear my voice. Answer me. What what what emotion is feeling at that moment? He's pleading. He's yearning. He's not feeling that confidence anymore. He's feeling like he needs to call out to something has shifted here. Something's not the same. Okay. to you my heart said I'm searching for your face your face I'm searching for how does feel at this moment distant you can't even find God where are you where you at Hashem all that confidence he had before it's not there anymore he can't even find God don't hide your face from Don't abandon me. You've been my help. Don't abandon me. The God of my salvation. So, he's getting desperate. He's saying it over and over again. Please, Hashem, don't abandon me. I need your help physically, spiritually. My father and my mother have abandoned me. you were always there for me. Even when my parents weren't there, you were always I was doing his I always felt your connection. Where are you right now, Hashem? So, he's confident, but now he's lost it. But now he's going back to that amuna a little bit of like but you were always there for me, Hashem. Show me your ways. Show me the straight path for the sake of the straight ones. Don't put me with the enemies because of these wicked ones and these wicked ones are breathing violence. I could understand why that person in the middle of October 7th at the Nova festival kamas he feels like kamas is breathing violence. So the final verse by the way is the same letters as if I wouldn't have had faith to see the goodness of the in the land of life I will have hope to God I will be strong and I will be hope to Hashem okay so that's the last verse just to sum sum it all up starts off the kapito super confident super he's talking about how everything's going to work out because I'm just going to be the base med he's already imagining the sacrifice of the singing the dancing and at a certain point something changes he gets very nervous very scared and he feels completely abandoned by until finally in the end he works himself back but God's always been there for me I'm going to have confidence in Hashem and I'm going get back and I'm going to have confidence in in that's if you ask most people why they're saying they have no idea no idea what it means and that's okay as we said before the main thing is they're saying powerful magical words that spiritually protect am but if you ask me what's the meaning behind leav is the most real prayer it's perfect for l is not just a time of of uh of confidence and it's not just a kind of vulnerability. When you're being doing chuva, all these things are legitimate. All these things will happen. When you're talking to Hashem, many emotions are going to come through us. If you're being authentic and real, there be times you feel confident. Everything is going to be great. There's going to be times when you feel scared and vulnerable. There's going to be times when you feel abandoned by Hashem. But the main thing is to never lose that connection with Hashem. To always continue the conversation. Even at times you feel disconnected to continue talking to him. And as long as we're being real in our real relationship with Hashem, that's the perfect uh preparation forash, perfect preparation for yamipper. These are 30 days now to get connected to Hashem, to reconnect ourselves to Hashem. Yes, by doing beautiful powerful things like David, but also maybe just as importantly, more importantly, to just talk to Hashem. Just have a realm with whenever you can. And uh in that we were going to reignite that fire that sparked that that we felt the whole year and in the of our learning our should only brings salvations and to every single person here and to all of our thanks to the rabbi for hosting me and I for providing such a beautiful space for growth and every single person here for making time to learn Torah Yeah. My body [Music] sh Oh my n my