Rabbi Reuven Kigel - What's My Reward In THIS World

foreign was like these are all Emmett couples I was like yeah we either know one or both of the both of the couples right it's amazing and this is we have over 300 couples you know we're just most of you guys got texted today you know so this is like if we organize this we'd have to we need the whole bake oven so hopefully hopefully soon soon um I just wanna there's one more congratulations we actually have an officially engaged Emma couple right um we're sitting right here Aaron and Roxana our own actually started the Evan Hunter program in Colorado and said we need a tour program in Hunter they don't they don't really have one and I was we were Baruch at the time and Rabbi runenberg asked me if I want to go up on the sixth train I said do I want to go for the sixth straight I'm there and uh this was five and a half years ago and uh thank God we've had probably over 100 students that's tremendously benefit from us at that time so we want to thank you and Mazel to you guys um you know it's just it's it's really like everyone's saying it's amazing to work with other Emma rabbis and we feel like uh lady teachers and we feel really like a family and uh we just want to actually thank our wives for allowing us to do this and hang out with you guys while uh you know they they uh the bulk of the responsibilities at home um I actually this year I'm having a little bit of a different role at Emmett uh since Rabbi Devlin rolled into Queens he was able to take the help of Queen's college and I'm still a baruchian hunter but Mondays and Wednesdays which were days are usually Queen's College I'm actually going to be working more with couples and young professionals like yourselves and I'm so excited to be able to do this I actually talk about my craft so you know I'm getting a little bit older now I'm 27. uh I'm 27 and I I you know I want to work with like couple zero professionals a little bit too and they said you know what we have an opening just for you and so one of the things I'm going to be doing I would hate to throw you with so much non-financial responsibility but uh we are actually going to be forming a young couple's leadership board uh in order to have more young couples events have the Kobe dinner do it in a little bit more of an organized fashion hopefully we get to meet every you know six weeks or so and uh Andy volunteers please let me know if not there was a sliding sheet going around so I will be calling you eventually to find out if you want to be on the couple's young leadership board and if we with your help like grab a good Maher always says with your help we can change the world together um I'm having so much fun I forgot I was supposed to speak about um you know on college campus being college campus rabbi when I pitch our program or pitch Judaism and talk about you know lofty ideas with the students so you know college students they want to know the bottom line so they say like something to this effect grab that okay this is all a great one I want to know if I stop eating bacon double cheeseburgers if I start keeping Shabbat what is going to be my reward right here in this world right right here the next World Rabbi I'm 20 what next world I can't think about the next world right now what's gonna be my reward right here in this world right what should I say though right which is it's a loaded question yeah it's a loaded question I remember I was their age once so I usually say something to this effect I say something like this I say look you know I cannot uh really predict what's going to happen in your life and everyone as we say in Yiddish has their own tackle up which is uh like everyone has their own like bag of bush so uh by the way okay all right hopefully this is what it comes back everyone's got their own stuff so I don't know what's gonna happen to you right I don't know what's gonna happen too but I I can give you one guarantee until I give you one guarantee that if you follow these laws you're going to have a much better marriage and family life and you're gonna have more kids and your kids are going to listen to you better and the thing which is this is what's the most important thing in your life you're going to be much happier than that that I can guarantee you now they look at me they usually go away pretty satisfied then of course we bring tones to some Shabbat and they're so so but the question is is the battle reward is the reward for keeping all the family Purity laws and the Shalom laws and following the Torah keeping Shabbat so you have actually family time you actually get to turn your cell phone up and nothing's buzzing my pilot I gave my rubric my phone and my side's still buzzing I don't know what's going on so so is that the reward that we're gonna have an awesome awesome Family Life a much better family life than otherwise so uh I've been looking into this a lot as I was learning uh uh the talmud a session called Rosh Hashanah and uh the truth is that we do not get rewarded in this world from its vote right the real the reward is in the world to come and the fact that all these good things happen to us in this world because we do mitzvote that's not the reward that's just the natural consequences for example if you study hard for a test right I don't know if anyone ever did that but let's assume right if you study really hard for a test and you do well on the test now's the reward for studying hard doing well on the test no that's the natural consequences of your action write the reward so the teacher gives you a you know uh ice cream cone afterwards that's the reward but studying hard for a test and doing well that's not the reward that's the natural consequence of actions so it's the same thing here if you are going to take your time to follow the family to follow Torah laws to not speak Russian Hara to not steal from people to not get angry people to keep Shabbat to watch what you eat to watch what goes into your mouthwashable goes out to your mouth watch your relationships with everyone have a great relationship with Hashem of course you're gonna have a great life but guess what that's not your reward that's the natural consequence of those actions and you're really worried that's going to cover the next world and I I don't know what's going to be there but it's going to be great so when I tell the college students I know I'm telling you guys the reason why we followed them is vote it is not for the reward right because that's we don't get that here anyway and the all the natural consequences that we get from doing the Miss vote that that's just like a bonus right that's just like a bonus and the reason the real reason what we're following is because Hashem Massachusetts too and we're supposed to love Hashem so my message to all of you as we go into Yom Kippur is to remember that everything you're doing every mystery that Hashem design Hashem loves us so much that this is so good for you to do it's going to give you such a great life in this world and it's not even the reward it's just the natural consequences of the actions when you think about it and the intention you should have as you're doing them as you're asking for a long life is Yom Kippur as you say it Chef I just wanted the opportunity this through this this vote because I love you and I want to serve you to the best of my ability and I want to thank you for making everything so fun and so rewarding so have a shout out