Fear and Faith in Times of Crisis - Lessons of Tu B'Shevat

love thank you so much likewise [Music] should we with a lot of atlanta um sure take your time no worries you can give it a few minutes to wait till the people come in um yeah just we'll begin in a few minutes hi everybody this is a speech for the community of great britain and they're waiting for everybody to come on because it's also on zoom on their zoom channel and i welcome everybody who's here wherever you are thank you very much for gracing us we'll begin in a few moments they're just waiting for the people to come on to this lecture for the community of great britain welcome everybody welcome welcome i'm ready whenever you are yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah oh yeah yeah yeah [Music] um [Music] i [Music] to just say for one minute a quick to hit him i'm going to hand over to my dear colleague we're very very happy and grateful that we have been backing almost full strength as well please is foreign right [Music] we're very very grateful for his precious and uh very busy schedule to speak to us directly here schedule please thank you so so much thank you okay just let me know you could see me and hear me rabbi rabbi barillon okay beautiful so first of all i am so thrilled to be here with all of you hundreds and hundreds of jews who are joining us from great britain i know from london from manchester from other cities in great britain and from all over the world for maritime from america asia europe south africa so welcome to everybody and i am really grateful to this great organization haderach which means the path for extending this gracious invitation and inviting me here to share with you some thoughts and feelings and learn together and grow together on this very special day of hamish the 15th day of shivat to beshvat 5 7 81 or january 28 2021 for me it's still daytime here in new york i'm looking out the window and we still have a beautiful day i know i'm speaking to many hundreds who have already experienced sunset but as the gemara says when it comes to carbonus kaczym halaila when it comes to holiness night follows day so i'm really really very grateful to hadara for this opportunity and thank you to rabbi aviv barry landslitta thank you to rabbi shmuel schwartz thank you to rabbi avi you dey conscious thank you so so much those who are so instrumental in all of the work of haderach thank you to robbie rabbi yabba from thank you to torah anytime thank you to call halashan thank you to the yeshiva.net and thank you to all of you for putting this together for bringing everybody together for building so many bridges and for creating this moment of and all of you who are gracing us here during this sheer as it's been announced i'm going to speak and then we're going to follow this with questions and answers so please feel free to share any question you would like it can be anonymous you don't have to share your name don't worry and you can share the questions through any of the methods that you're using to watch uh to watch this class whether it's uh through the zoom whether through torah anytime the yeshiva.net i'll check all the questions if you're here on zoom with us you can also uh you can also put your questions in chat and we can uh read the questions there as well this year is dedicated also as a reforce in the merit of a complete and speedy recovery of forest lama for complete and speedy recovery vanilla vanigla this shirt is also dedicated in the loving memory may they be a good better and a source everlasting source of blessing and inspiration for their loved ones for their communities for all of their relatives extended families and for all of the jewish people and for the whole world and bakari of akitsuvarana new sheikh nayafar for him i want to begin today's class with this tonight's class with a fantastic and very enigmatic medrish on the weekly torah portion parshas bashallah and i'm going to read the madrish it's madris rabba parshas bashala section 23 on the words as yoshimusha the torah says that after the sea split and the jewish people walked through the split sea the egyptians drowned that's when moshe and the sons of israel all the jewish people later there would be a separate song that would be led by miriam for all of the jewish women but this song is led by maisha and the sons of israel they sing this most beautiful eloquent song that we recite in our prayers every day and the madrish says this will give you an understanding of that verse in tehillim to hillary's psalms 93 which means your throne became established from then even though you have been here forever what does this mean your throne has become established from then when is then but you have forever been here what is this verse teaching us the beginning of the capital gimbal in fact everybody knows this verse because we recite it when do we recite it we recite it in the song of friday tomorrow morning right hashem slavish now we speak about the rivers what is the meaning now we all do this song every friday this is the song that the levites used to sing in the best but let's focus on the words so the madru says rebrakia in the name of him explained afalpe shemayolamata even though you have been here forever but your throne has not been established permanently and you have not become known in your world until your children did not sing the song after the splitting of the sea fascinating words god you've always been here you have been there forever you're the creator of the world you're the source of matter space time energy you transcend it you have been here before time was created you have been here before there was a before because the very concept of before is also a creation so maya lamat you've always been here posix has been the opening of turbo asia's borough in the beginning god created heaven and earth which on a deeper level means that the beginning was also created bereash is baralicum even the beginning was created because time is a creation heaven was created and earth was created heaven represents space earth represents matter so right here in the first opening verse of genesis we have the beginning is created together with space and together with matter time space and matter always work together and modern science and physics cosmology astrophysics has testified and each day and year brings us closer to this awareness that time is another dimension of matter as albert einstein has taught the world the scientific world but it's all there in the first verse eli kim hashem god is the source of time space and matter that trio always works together and god transcends all three and therefore fuses them also together because he transcends them he combines them he brings them into existence says the madris you've always been here but us but us as yoshi when moishe started to sing us that's the cause that moment when moshe and your children started to sing that's when at last your throne became knocking it became established it became consolidated it became affirmed it became entrenched ingrained your throne was not established you were not known in your world until they did not sink and the medrish somehow feels that this is not a message that we will still that we will understand unless it gives us a metaphor so the madras gives a detailed and nuanced and fantastic and fascinating and enigmatic and intriguing metaphor mashallah malach if you want to understand the message let's give the metaphor of a king a king who led a battle he led an engagement against his enemy and he triumphed he came out victorious augustus and they turned them into an augustus of course augustus you know what augustus is caesar augustus is the man who transformed the roman republic into the roman empire the nephew adoptive son of julius caesar who was assassinated a2 brute then caesar falls augustus caesar augustus as his name came to be known is the first roman emperor who would reign until his death at the age of 75 in the year 14 after the common era which means his death happens around 55 years before the destruction of the second base amicus the second base amicus is destroyed in the year 70 after the common era he's known as augustus the actual word augustus means the majestic one or the venerable one this is the term that's used here in madrid there was a king who won the battle and he was victorious and they turned them into augustus the majestic a great king great emperor umru lawyer they tell him augustus till you did not lead this battle and triumph you were king you're a melech but now after this victory we have turned you into augustus now you're not just a regular monarch leader or king you're on augustus it's from a different stature different level different caliber of leadership asks the madrid covered by augustus what's the difference between the glory the respect conferred over the king and convert over augustus ella you see people think you have to read roman history books for this you don't have to la havdel this is madhurish rabbah this week part of ella the differences i'll tell you augustus yo the malach the king stands he stands on the luach he stands on the on the platform augustus sits luach is like a large tablet or a platform that was designed beautifully for the king to either stand on it or sit on it the melody stands augustus gets to sit this is the metaphor that the madrid shrabba teaches us in order to illustrate rate and clarify what is it that happens when the jews sing the song and the marriage continues the jewish people tell the creator of the world you have been there forever you have been there pre-creation you're still here post-creation but you have always been standing and they have a verse from havaka ahmad by you made it eretz god stood and measured earth in other words when he created and made the measurements of earth and every other planet in the entire universe he was standing but when you stood up over the sea to split the sea and then we sang the song before you beginning with the word [Applause] at last your monarchy can be settled you can sit down on your throne your throne is established now you understand the words in tehillim chapter 93 that we say on friday and at other occasions when did your throne finally become firmly established only by azir then you're now now you're not only a melech now god is called augustus now he's the emperor the majestic one the venerable one he's not standing anymore he's sitting what does this mean my friends how are we to understand this madrish fascinating madrid against a pilger a whole a whole pill melech augustus what is the meaning of this mattress friends madrid parshas mashallah okay we'll reflect on this i'll give you a little time to reflect on this but azer hashem will get back to this towards the end of the class the end of this year everybody knows that today is a special day in the jewish calendar as i mentioned the beginning it's the 15th day of the hebrew month of shemat and it's commemorated in the jewish world with various minhagem various customs various traditions some spider communities have very elaborate traditions some people do a whole seder and they have a whole text or they call it tikkun and certain fruits that they eat on this day with special songs and special prayers and special liturgy it's not the most famous jewish holiday and it's certainly a strange holiday when we reflect on it what's the origin of it the origin of it is the mishnah in the opening of masaka's rosh hashanah the opening tractate of rosh hashanah the mishnah says there are four rosh hashanahs in the jewish calendar there are four heads of the year there's the first of nissan the first of elol the first of tishrei and the first of shevat according to the school of shama according to the school of hillel it's not the first of shemat it's the 15th day of shemat rosh hashanah elon the new year for trees and therefore it became customary in jewish communities around the world that we commemorate this rosh hashanah the new year for trees by eating various fruits that grow on trees especially some have this special custom to eat particularly fruits from the seven species with which the land of israel was praised in deuteronomy chapter eight parties akev land of wheat and barley grape vines fig trees pomegranates a land of olive trees and date honey yet if you were to ask me this seems like one of the stranger jewish holidays because all of the other holidays celebrate concrete events in jewish life the three central jewish holidays peshwas and sukkas are associated in torah with three agricultural seasons and significant developments that was crucial to the life of the jewish people in the ancient times most of them who were farmers in the land of israel pesach passover is the time that the grain becomes ripe schwas is the time of the harvest is the time when all the grain the vegetables and the fruits are gathered into the home of the farmer or the silo of the farmer after being outdoors in the summer and this is before the rain season that will soon befall the people and the land in the coming winter hanukkah and purim are of course major celebrations because of our salvation of antiochus or of haman in ancient iran ancient persia pesach is also associated with the exodus who was of course associated with the giving of the torah circus is associated with the huts that the jewish people lived in or the clouds that surrounded them when they left egypt the new year for trees is an exception what happens on this day and why do we celebrate it yes it's not a holiday that's recorded in the torah it's not a holiday that's recorded in the gemara in the mishnah the date is recorded in the mission as rosh hashanah but what is the nature of this rosh hashanah and why do we celebrate it if we were to celebrate the date when the trees become adorned with fruits it's understandable the date we celebrate for the trees is actually at a time when the trees are barren and cold naked orphaned from their foliage and orphaned from their produce i am now living in new york i'm looking out the window and when i look outside or i walk outside on the 15th day of schmatt many of the trees are not even visible they're covered in snow and even if they're not covered in snow and they're visible all you see is a barren tree that seems lifeless nothing going on no foliage no leaves certainly no flowers certainly no fruits no vegetables yet this day became the rosh hashanah for trees and we celebrate it what is the meaning of this and how do we celebrate it we celebrate it by eating fruits from the tree which at this point the tree is not capable of producing inherits israel in israel the trees cannot produce fruits during this time of the year it would be like celebrating a bah mitzvah at the age of nine and as i said in some jewish communities they have this whole seder like a passover cedar where they're eating all of these fruits yet this is at a time when the tree can't produce fruits the fruits are not available yet we should celebrate rosh hashanah for trees in july june july august you can obtain fresh green frigs figs fresh grapes from the trees that's when you celebrate the new year the new season you take your fruits you make a shakiano we're eating fruits from trees at the time when the trees are incapable of producing these fruits what is the meaning of this what is the message of this so the talmud interacted rosh hashanah page 14 rosh hashanah explains why this date was chosen according to meshamah it's the first day of shamath according to basil is the 15th day why so the governor says rabbalazar explains in the name of rebecca i'll quote it in hebrew and then i'll explain it meaning in the land of israel at this point most of the winter's rain has already saturated the earth and the new sap starts rising in the trees allowing the first flowers and fruits to bud shortly after by this day the fifteenth day of shevat we can be sure that a new vitality a new sap ascends into the tree allowing for its future rejuvenation that's how the talmud and rosh hashanah and rashi explain the idea now before we go further i do want to make mention of why the mishna mentions this date why is it so important in jewish law the reason is because the 15th of strat serves to separate one year from the next in regard to the laws of mysores tithing of produce the laws of arla the fruits of the first three years which are forbidden to consumption and the laws of shriyas the laws of shmita the sabbatical year for example the law of arla is that the fruit of a tree could not be eaten during the first three years after it's planting the fruits of the fourth year are called neta revi and are sanctified they're brought to jerusalem they have to be eaten in jerusalem or redeemed with money from the fifth year on the fruits can be consumed in a normal manner but how do you calculate when the tree has turned three years old or four years old when what's the birthday the birthday is to be swat the 15th day of shmata is considered happy birthday dear trees happy birthday dear trees practically this means that the fruit that grows after 15 of shabbat this of year four could be eaten in jerusalem you don't have to burn the fruit those growing after tu bishwat of year five can be eaten at home in other words tu bishvat that's the demarcation before that is the old year and tu b'shvat begins the new year if you're reading this in a sub zero weather or you're listening to this i'm reading it in a sub and i'm reading it in a cold weather if you're listening to this in a sub-zero weather you can find comfort in the explanation of the me rebecca menachem who passed away in 1310 who points out in rosh hashanah page 2 in in talmud that the winter season extends from the month of tavis until the month of nissan the 15th of shvat is the midpoint between fall and spring once half the winter has passed its strength is weakened and the cold is not so intense and the budding process begins okay so this is a more technical halachic explanation of why this day has been chosen in order to mark off and say this is the birthday of the trees this is a new year now let's go one step deeper at the surface when you look at the tree at the 15th of shvat it's lifeless it's barren it displays no sign of rebirth no signs of new life that were breathed into it it will still take time till the tree develops buds it will take even more time many more months to observe and pick the actual fruits at the surface there's nothing going on right now but that is only on the surface to the fifteenth day of shvat is the celebration of potential invisible potential but real and authentic all of the future growth of the tree is possible only because of the sap rising in the tree at the time of the 15th day of the month of shevat the potential has been created and that is what we celebrate today at the surface you say i don't see any change whatsoever the trees are barren and lifeless but precisely at this moment life secretly started to develop anew in this tree because as we said most of the winter rains have been saturated the new sap is coming into the tree to be able to allow for a new generation of fruits this is then the holiday that provides us with an extraordinary lesson in life you can't always see the fruit but you could still celebrate the process of growth itself knowing that from potential to actualization there is a process and a process that requires hard dedication and labor and work and you could begin celebrating the final product even when you don't see it because right now you know that the potential is there and we're going to get there most of this process we can't see because it lies beneath the surface of the ground until that fruit is ready to eat we don't appreciate much of the process it takes so much labor to get to the next stage we have to monitor the tree you have to weed out harmful substances you have to find ways to protect the fruit from the birds and animals who will destroy it from the bacteria who will attack it and yet you know that the potential has created because the most important thing in life is to identify and celebrate the existing potential not getting frustrated by the process and imagining the final product right now to the point that we already sit down and we take fruits and we put it on the table and we say baruch wait the trees are dead no no no we don't see death we see the potential for life and we are ready are filled with joy as though the process has been completed even though it has not been completed but this is what gives us vitality and it vivifies us it gives us enthusiasm and passion in our labor knowing and identifying the power of potentiality i want to illustrate this in very practical terms for so many people's lives there is a famous neurologist his name is daniel levitan malcolm gladwell's book outliers quotes dr levitan and i quote the emerging picture from studies is that 10 000 hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert in anything in study after study of composers basketball players fiction writers ice skaters concert pianists chess players master criminals and what have you this number comes up again and again no one has yet found a case in which true world-class experts accomplished this state becoming those world-class experts in less time it seems that it takes the brain this long to assimilate what it needs to know to achieve true mastery and in the interim you're often frustrated i don't see results i identify potential i begin the work but i don't see anything concrete i can easily get discouraged judaism is teaching us in the holiday of hamilton that this is precisely the time when the real action is happening beneath the surface don't allow yourself to be deceived by your external perspective i can give up in this tree and say nothing is happening and judaism comes and says no we're celebrating a birthday a birthday of what of a dead tree no look deeper and you will see something great is happening you have to put in work you have to monitor but identify the potential because this is the moment when everything is being born the rosh hashanah is not when the fruits emerge it's when the inner invisible sap starts having an impact even if no concrete results are yet displayed i read once that albert einstein did not speak until he was four years old he didn't read until he was seven his parents thought he was subnormal and one of his teachers described him as mentally slow unsociable and adrift forever in foolish dreams he was expelled from school he was refused admittance to the zurich polytechnic school he eventually learned to speak and to read einstein even learned to do a little math louis pasteur was only a mediocre pupil in undergraduate studies and he ranked 15th out of 22 students in chemistry in 1872 pierre paschal professor of physiology a toulouse wrote that louis pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction yet he changed the world and he saved millions beethoven handled the violin awkwardly he preferred playing his own compositions instead of improving his technique his teacher called him helpless as a composer and of course you know that he wrote five of the greatest symphonies while he was completely deaf you could look into many a great person who had a tremendous positive impact and influence and you will see this pattern and this is the message of the 15th of shvat it may be smack in the middle of the winter it may be a middle of bleak cold short days long freezing nights people here are migrating and mass to warmer climates but this day marks a turning point a time when under all that is cold and under all the cold and all the snow the sap of the tree is rising reading for spring it signifies that we have to be able to learn and celebrate potential even before the positive results happened that's why we eat fruits today we want to recall that the final product never happens in a vacuum it all traces back to the moment when the inner work began and for me this is a very comforting message in today's day many of us are on lockdown our lives have been transformed we're in quarantine many of us have suffered have suffered significantly during the past year with the onset of this horrific pandemic the coronavirus or as some call it covet everyone's life has been affected there is fear there is anxiety there are those loved ones we have to say goodbye to and the finality is devastating there are those loved ones who have fallen ill some seriously some still trying to recover may they have a complete or reform a complete and speedy recovery some have been dealt finance serious financial blows and many others face a lot of challenges with their marriages with their children with our own mental states everybody's life has been affected and the future seems bleak nobody knows what's going to happen a vaccine no vaccine how effective is the vaccine what will happen after the vaccines what about the mutations will we have this under control at some point will life go back to normal a lot of our youth have been affected very dramatically kids teenagers who need the social life who need a social connection and everything was affected everybody was affected in such a powerful way and yet i think that this message of the 15th day of schwart teaches us something very powerful and that is real transformation happens in silence real transformation happens during those times in our life when it doesn't seem like a lot of good things are happening that moment when the trees celebrate their birthdays are not moments that at the surface seem so promising but that is true about every new birth in life whenever you have to give birth to a new reality a new concept a new emotion a new experience a new opening in your life often you have to lose everything from the past the seed cannot morph into a tree if it's not decomposed if you want that the seed should be may be maintained as a seed on your window seal that's wonderful but it's never going to be able to be transformed into a tree it has to go through the stages of decomposition in order to be able to be metamorphosized into something completely new and that metamorphosis is never visible it's going to take a lot of time till we're going to see the results but don't lose your enthusiasm and your passion during those moments they once asked winston churchill what his definition of success was talking about great britain and churchill said by the definition of success is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm in the process and of course what he meant is that's exactly how you're going to succeed you look at moments and you're just feeling the pain and and you feel that you've been decomposed and life has challenged you to your core and everything is falling apart and it says that moment when you can open yourself up to a new sap to a new energy to a new vitality precisely because the old sap is gone precisely because the old sap and vitality is not working precisely because the old way of doing things has been shattered it's at this very moment when everything seems to be broken that a whole new consciousness begins to emerge in your life but i have to be able to open myself up to it and i have to be able to already now celebrate the results we know in the studies today of quantum mechanics and the way it impacts our health that when our bodies and our brains can begin to celebrate the future as though it has happened already our brain absorbs that energy in the same way as it would have absorbed it if it actually happened our brains register that reality in a very real way and that's the energy that we exude into the quantum field that actually impacts the reality around us and inside of us in that sense commission is a quantum holiday if you will we're celebrating the fruits that are not here yet they can't be here yet it's winter but we're already celebrating those fruits and therefore we're celebrating the shakiano of those fruits and the joy of those fruits if you have to make a shakiano depends if you had them already and it's a there's a joy in this day most communities don't do the tachnon they don't do the regular confessions on this day there's a certain component of festivity here the talmud compares the human being to the tree kia adam the torah says the timor in tightness says that the person is compared to the tree the birthday of the tree is also a birthday of a human being what does a birthday look like a birthday doesn't have to look like everything is new and fresh and perfect and wholesome a birthday means i gave birth to a new idea to a new consciousness and sometimes i give birth to my new idea simply by saying goodbye to an old idea that's not working anymore for me you may be struggling with your marriage and the old paradigms and ways in which your relationship was working are not functioning anymore and you want to begin the work of repair you have been quarantined for so many months and you realize that you're sitting on each other's heads in this shipwreck you might as get along because you can't run away every single morning and stay in the office till late at night and then come home and have this marriage that's workable you're being challenged by the reality of coronavirus to really make mends and to discover what type of marriage you really have you may be suffering from addiction and you desperately need recovery and this time in quarantine without the distractions and without traveling and without all of the social gatherings have only increased your predicament you're struggling with various challenges externally and internally and you're trying to begin the work of healing but at this point you're just confused you're dumbfounded you don't know where to turn you're in the dark the rain and the sleet are covering you all up and it's a rainy dark cold bleaky day the nights and the darkness are long there's no sign of success is anything i'm saying true about any of your lives if not wonderful go enjoy fruits and have a good drink and go to bed and enjoy the night but if anybody relates to anything i'm saying you're trying to develop a better relationship with your children with your siblings with your parents with yourself and lockdown has only exasperated and brought out all of the problems you're a struggling teenager you're a struggling youth whoever you are whatever demographic whatever age whatever situation you're in and you're struggling with these with with all of these emotions and feelings you don't know what to do with them well in that sense hamisha is your holiday you know why it's the holiday of potential it's the holiday of what can be and it's the holiday of recognizing that to get from point a from potential to actualization i need to put in work but it's also the holiday when we celebrate the final product and we already experienced the joy of knowing that transformation is capable this is your new year this is when it's really happening give yourself credit at this moment this is when you got to hold on to your tree and be strong and be inspired it's it's a tree of life for those who hold on to it come back with me now to the madrish about the melech and augustus the regular leader the roman leader and the roman emperor or lahavdil the difference between hashem before the song and post the song and the extraordinary interpretation in the madrish that i'm going to share with you i learned this morning i learned it in a minor in a discourse of the rabbit sedek who was a grandson of the balatanya the author of charles situations his mother was a daughter of the baal hatanya and he passed away you'd gimmel nissen tofresh toughreishav 1866. in his safer uh he has around 40 books there i told him but in one on parishes bashar he quotes this madrish and he dedicates just a few lines to explain f shalom possible meaning in this madras and he quotes a safer called racist limu who explains the difference between melech and augustus and if you're familiar well with roman history and the difference between the roman republics and the roman empires and how and the relationship between the emperor and the senate of rome you'll understand what he's saying he says you have a mug bellas a monarchy that's limited that's confined the power of the king over the country is limited based on medina based on the constitution and on the laws created by those who govern the country which was called the senate and this king cannot innovate he cannot do anything new without the agreement of russia medina of the senators who are essentially in charge around the country yes he's the king but his power is limited then they quotes but then there's a kingship a leadership that's limitless the king on his own can innovate new projects can engage in new campaigns following his desire and his conviction that's the difference between the melech and the augustus the melech is the leader but there's a constitution and there are the senators that the emperor that the leader the monarch the king had to turn to in order to be able to get their agreement but then you have the augustus who those types of who will defy the senate he has that ability to be able to do what he wants and even if formally has happened in rome he may need the senate's approval but very often the senate is completely subservient and if they know this is what augustus wants this is what they agreed to it says that zamach's he says now will understand the madrish there are two types of relationships between hashem and the universe and therefore there are also two states of consciousness that you and i can live in there is the relationship of god in the universe known as shame eli kim beresha's bori aloy kim ali kim is the numerical value of 86 al-aflam and hai yud mem which as rebecca devera writes in the pardes is the numerical value of the word which means nature true hashem is the one who creates nature we say in davonin hashem renews every single day the work of creation but nonetheless you will not recognize in this an innovation that transcends nature yes there are many fluctuations within nature the structures of nature lend themselves to so many vicissitudes as he says there's a year of satiation there's a year of famine sometimes the economy is strong and sometimes the economy khalil is weak sometimes there's a pandemic in the world sometimes there are various forces inside the world in other words the natural patterns are not consistent and predictable always there are so many different types of changes on every strata of our planet but this is all part of the structures of nature of the flux of the vicissitudes of nature it's not anything that goes out of the confines of teva this is called elo kim and that's when god is called a melech i made he stands why he says he stands and everybody else stands and when you have a king who's standing among many other senators even though the king may be wearing a crown the king may have a different uniform a different attire royal garments they're giving him respect but nonetheless his distinctiveness is not so conspicuous why because everybody is standing there and he's also standing there so you may not recognize him and identify him in a such a unique and conspicuous fashion augustus he sits and everybody else is standing and now you immediately see the difference you immediately see the distinctiveness because the malek is standing and everybody else is standing so you don't see so much the difference in other words he fits into the crowd he's mingling among the crowd he's almost submerged and swallowed up in the crowd but when there's only one sitting augustus is sitting and everybody else is standing it's immediately identified that he is of a different caliber what does this mean this is not the name of the kim this is the name yut kevke which transcends nature and this is what happens at the splitting of the sea so you have the way hashem is operating within a realm of nature and even though he created it but he created a system and a structure and that system and structure he is part of and that's when even though he's the king but he's standing among everybody in other words it's part of the natural world it's part of the natural pattern even though that's also wrong by god but there is more concealment and the reason there's more concealment is because we see that nature is running its course and even though who made nature run its course and who's vivifying and animating nature to run its course it's the reboiner shall i look but it's ala kim al-akim means it's more concealed the word hateva which is the gematria of ella kim also comes from the word tuvu biyamsov drowned tv means to drown why is teva associated with drowning tv tv what's the connection the answer is there's a third meaning of teva what's the other meaning a minted imprinted coin is called the matbaya mashana meemat bayashi says anything that's fixed and consolidated is called the matbaya it's like the image of the king minted into the coin imprinted and it remains that way teva is fixed it's consistent it's predictable it's what we call the laws of nature it's what all science and all progress is based on the fact that there are laws of nature that we can identify we can identify the causes the consequences and based on that we have made tremendous progress whether it's in engineering or in mathematics or in medicine or in biology or in space travel it's all based on predictable laws of nature that are fixed or consolidated that's whatever matters why is it drowning to buvayamsaf because when something god for when someone drowns they disappear under the water you can't see them anymore the divine energy is standing and therefore disappears among the masses we don't necessarily see the divinity that vibrates through nature it's drowned tuba vyamso like the egyptians when they were submerged in the water you don't see them anymore godliness is everything and everywhere anoid mulvader but i don't see it because teva ali kim 86 sateva gracious boreali kim this is the melo hashem is the melech but it seems like there are other kings there's a lot going on there's a lot going on god is standing among all of his generals and all of his captains and all of his commanders and all of his senators and all of his congressmen and all of his congresswomen there's a whole huge regime and government going on and god is one of them one of the boys so to speak melech i made but then there comes a point in life where malachi and that's when nature is completely defined when we see that the king is not asking the senators for agreement usually god turns to nature and he says nature what do you think and even though of course that's also all hashem he's the only one who created nature but the metaphor is the king turns to the senate and says do you approve of what i'm going to do that's like nature so to speak hashem creates a system and he works with the system so he turns to nature and he says nature you think this can happen okay if it can happen let's make it happen and that's what we call things that follow the course of nature it would be like god has senators so to speak we call them angels the gemara calls them these are like the troops the legions the perfect masalas that hashem creates a system all his energy and it's really it's like an axe in the hand of the chopper as the navy tells us but nonetheless it would be so to speak like the king consulting with them getting their approval and when they say yes this works according to the system eli kim says let's go ahead doctor's orders lawyers orders politicians orders economists orders general's orders but then there is the king sits down and he runs the entire show according to his will there's no structure there's no system there's no senate to approve it says the madrid that was what happened at kris what happened at kriya samsung was the splitting of the sea was a complete defiance of nature the sea is supposed to be a sea suddenly it's opened up it becomes dry land this represented the reality of hashem of youth that transcends nature he continues he also showed that the egyptians what they did to the jewish people they drowned who knows how many jewish babies in the nile delta what seemed like water was really a cemetery it was a killing field it was really a bloody river that eclipsed the blood and the groans and the moans of the jewish children who were cast into that river and what's the end of that story what's the grand final the grand finale is that all of the egyptians end up in the yamsof in another sea where their bodies also drown in that sea this represented that there's accountability that this is not a jungle the world is not a jungle there's meaning there's purpose there's reward and there's punishment this is the time he says melech yoshif augustus sits down suddenly we see the layers of consciousness were removed concealment was removed the doors of perception were cleansed and we got to see a deeper layer of reality and the deeper layer of reality is that all of nature is only from our perspective really it's all ha via who elokim hashem who elokim it's really one hashem eli kenu hashem it's all one hashem who elect yes there are different perspectives and different ways of looking at it one sometimes i could look at god and say oh he has a very impressive senate at kris yamsev there was no senate anymore it was not a melech it was augustus he wasn't standing among the boys he was sitting and everybody else was standing in other words it was very obvious that ain't mulvade he's the only one that calls the shots and it's according to his will what did this do to the jewish people it created that shift in consciousness within them as well and this is what the song was about was yoshimura israel i could live my life on two different levels i could live my life on the level of ali kim and i could live my life on the level of yut kevke to live my life on the level of alikhim means i live my life but i am confined by my own structures and by my own natural patterns and my brain says this is possible and this is not possible my brain says i can have a good marriage my brain says my marriage is going to be miserable this one's brain says you could be successful and this one's brain says you're a loser this one's brain says you were traumatized when you were a child you will forever be traumatized and this one's brain says no you're fine you'll be able to get out of your trauma this one's brain says you will never be able to have a good relationship with your children you are always doomed to this type of failure you are always doomed to anxiety and stress and your brain is picking up those messages not because your brain is trying to make you miserable these are actually survival skills your brain is trying to be kind to you your brain is following a certain trajectory of information and data that has been absorbed by your brain and created neural pathways when you were very young and that's the trajectory of the roman senate and before you do something you turn to the senate you turn to the various compartments of your brain and you say you think this is safe you may do it subconsciously and your brain says no no this is not safe you get out you get out don't remain present in this conversation this is too difficult it's time for you to get angry to cover up your real emotions do you guys get what i'm saying and you could remain there and every time you consult a roman senate could i go to war no i can't go to work can i make peace no i can't make peace can i be successful is this a manageable situation what's the next step and the roman senate will tell you what to do and you become a victim of it and even though you say i'm the king and i call the shots of course you call the shots but ultimately your brain's patterns it's called your teva are what define the trajectory of your life means the doors of perception are cleansed the inside comes out and we see hashem who elect him hashem is not standing he's sitting god is always here but it could be oil it could be concealed oil from the word that creates of the jewish people got to see that there's a oneness in existence anoid mulvader what does this do to me this allows me to start singing all the way down to what does it mean i could sing in my life song comes from an explosion of energy of joy of jubilation of celebration the song comes from that experience of oneness and inner serenity and peace and harmony the song comes when the jewish people experience that shift of consciousness where i'm not defined anymore by the roman senate where i realize that when i align myself with infinity then my desire for it to be so will create that reality the fact that i really want to achieve this and i can imagine that it's already happening will create that reality i'm not any more a slave i am not a victim i'm not even a victim to my old neural pathways i am not a victim to my old convictions i am not a victim to my old scars wounds traumas i am not a victim not of other people and not of myself i am aligned with divine infinity and therefore i can recreate the patterns of my brain i can recreate the patterns of my nature but what i have to do is i have to humbly align myself with divine infinity and not be afraid of anything going on in my life create space for everything and realize that god is not afraid of nature nature stands around hashem as hashem sits in the center and all of nature looks at god and says so how do we become a channel of infinity and in your own life what this means is you don't have to run away from anything in your life you can create compassion and space for every experience and sensation past and present in your life but then you could say i'm not anymore delegating the power to the senate the only power is going to the divine infinity that's flowing through me the only power is given to my most essential self which is a helix i am part of hashem i am a channel and a conduit and god is infinite and therefore not defined by any scars and wounds by any structures even if those structures have been so powerfully entrenched in my system and then you could start singing you could start singing for the results even though you don't see at the results that's what the madrish is saying that's the difference between a melech and a augustus so my dearest friends during this time in history it's a very very unique time it's a very charged time sometimes there's a lot of confusion a lot of fear people are grieving people are hurting people are worried people are anxious and it's important to be able to be there for people to be empathetic not to be judgmental to cut people slack and to cut yourself slack and then to be able to really go into our deepest space and know that even when the trees look so barren and infertile tremendous changes can happen we can give birth to new realities new ideas new futures i know that the tree looks dead and simply brown and lifeless or covered with white snow but the white snow is a bed that's actually protecting the energy don't be afraid of it i don't know the weather in in london tonight i don't know the weather in manchester tonight but whenever i was in manchester it was raining so i don't know the weather now it may be raining maybe bleak but that's when you can give birth to the greatest greatest ideas under the surface don't be afraid of it that potential is created right now right here and you can already celebrate that future but there's one condition i have to go from a lake him to hawaii who elected i need to fuse the two and realize i am never a victim of old patterns of all states and whenever one door closes another one opens one window closes another one opens every crisis is an opportunity every obstacle is a challenge every old world that crumbles is an opportunity to build a new one and even though i only see i only see the debris and i only see the demolition i have to know that at these moments i can give birth to a new concept a new edifice a new reality but i have to open myself up to it and be ready to put in the work that happens during this journey from birth to full actualization so i bless you my dearest friends on this very special evening to be able to tell yourself happy birthday and give birth to new dreams to new realities to a new person to a new marriage to a new relationship with yourself with your spouse with your god with your loved ones with whoever you choose to be you don't have to be a king you could be on augustus thank you very much we'll take some questions okay i'll begin with questions now rabbi uh barry lund if you want to i don't know how you're gonna send me in the questions you'll put them in the chat on zoom or uh or wherever else i don't know how you want to send it to me you can also uh if you want to watch what's if you want to what's up them to me okay the first question beautiful question why does the madrid say that the king stands and augustus sits doesn't the king also sit when he wants to yes of course it's a metaphor that's saying it's a metaphor when the king stands among all of his ministers he doesn't stand out he stands but he doesn't stand out but when the king is sitting you know sometimes you'll see an image of the president or the prime minister sitting at his desk and all the advisors are surrounding the desk that's when the leader stands out you see that the leader is unique head and shoulders above everybody else spiritually what that represents is eli kim is the way hashem is one of the boys so to speak hashem is part of nature eloi kim bigamatria in other words he's standing among everyone who's standing even though he is the king and he is responsible and he is the leader but it's not so visible at the surface there is a structure outside of the king that the king conforms to sitting is a metaphor for exclusivity ain't it that's the message that he's trying to explain there are other explanations in this matter including in her territory of the tsa mahzad he has a huge huge long discourse giving a whole deeper explanation of sitting and standing which has to do with that sill is brilliant but that's not that's not for today's sheer i am struggling with a particular predicament in my life especially with my marriage and my children things are not the way i would like them to be in fact they seem bleak what would be your practical advice well that was my whole this was my whole class and i think it's not so easy to internalize it and live with it but maybe it is if we shift you know we gotta gotta turn off the old switch and put on a new switch and the point that we're making here is not that there's no challenges we have challenges we have concerns but when you look at your child always see the potential don't surrender to the present reality you know sometimes you have a child who speaks in a very rude way or obnoxious way or very insensitive way and it causes you such heartache you know maybe the way they communicate with you they communicate with other people very often what's happening is you have just encountered your most sensitive spiritual loving and attached child and because life is so hard for them because they're so loving and they're so attached and they're so spiritual they're so sensitive and they're so deep therefore they go through this process of trying to figure themselves out they have to work out so many things that other people don't have to work out because they're sensitive and deep you look at the potential you look at the plymouth don't look at the dead tree you look at the fruits that are gonna come out and start celebrating those fruits today say mr with your marriage maybe the challenges in your marriage is because you're both sensitive people and you're deep people and you never had the help that you need needed to be able to identify your trauma rather than blame the other person so instead of wallowing in the agony see the potential of what can be and start living with that start eating the fruits now and you know what happens and those fruits will emerge those fruits will emerge i know there are exceptions sometimes there are situations where you have to say goodbye you have to part ways but those are unique exceptions you know if there's real abuse or somebody's not ready to cooperate at all but if you can if there's if there's room for communication if a husband and wife are ready to communicate let's go there let's let's not just write off this marriage if if people are ready to communicate that is a sign that a lot can happen and therefore we should try to we should try to invest in that next question you could put your questions in chat if you want here on the zoom you can ask your questions and chat on zoom or uh or you can ask them also i guess on youtube on the yeshiva.net um torah anytime if anybody's asking questions somebody has to forward it to me on chat because i wouldn't have them okay next question you keep on saying elo kim and yutke wafke is yutkevke the tetragrammaton yeah it's often called the tetragrammaton and uh it's basically the essential name of god that consists of four letters you'd have hey and it basically means he was he is and he will be which basically transcends nature elokim e-l-o-k-i-m or al-aflam and mem represents the way divinity is manifested in and through nature okay i needed to hear this so much we're making aliyah and tomorrow is my birthday so this was perfect message for me as i'm making aliyah tomorrow is my birthday well mazultev happy birthday to shandy and may your aliyah be with tremendous tremendous success what's a good mantra to keep in mind all that you said today this was so beautiful insightful hopeful and extraordinary what would be a great mantra uh i think i think one of the great mantras for this is every day when you say israel hashem basically it's this idea hashem and eloquenu are completely one in other words the king and augustus are completely unified there's no two gods khas vashallah so even though we live within nature and we function within nature and we conform to nature you're not supposed to jump off the roof of your house or jump into the sea unless it's split but nonetheless we always recognize that we're not victims of nature we are here to reveal the infinity within nature in other words nature can become a conduit for that which is beyond nature which means all of the fixed situations even though they seem so fixed and permanent but really they're pliable and they're flexible and so much has to do with our attitude and perspective next question the challenges through the hardships and on comfort of pain to a degree has the potential to bring forth pure and beautiful fruits i believe it's a great mitzvah to know this and understand this and help the individuals who need it because the way i see it is we have to explain to people that their hardships and uncomforts and pain is only a way to produce their beautiful fruits beautifully set okay can you give most people phoned in on zoom so they don't have chat okay if they want to text their questions rabbi avi they can text it and you could put it on chat and i will see it or if you want you could send it to me by whatsapp and i will and i will i will be neither address it okay here's another question can you give a practical example of how to change perspective in a given situation for example a difficult relationship it's a very good example you have a i have a difficult relationship how do i change how do i change perspective okay i think what may be very helpful is the first thing is to go from anger to pain which means very often if something happens in this relationship i'm overtaken by a lot of anger and that anger is normal but anger is a secondary emotion and it's usually covering over your pain so instead of identifying yourself as just being angry can you take a deep breath and go deeper into yourself and identify the pain and the loneliness that you're feeling and if you can do that can you then sit with that and ultimately communicate it to your spouse because then instead of just pointing a finger and saying this husband or this wife is just no good i actually go into myself and ask myself what am i experiencing what are my needs what are my feelings and can i then communicate it to the other and you know what might happen so instead of just coming to a conclusion this relationship is doomed it's over and the same patterns keep on happening over and over again the roman senate always says the same things instead can something else happen can i really take ownership and responsibility and say this is what i'm experiencing this is what i'm feeling this is what's going on in me and now i want to communicate it with my partner i want to communicate it to my spouse in a loving respectful calm way and they can do the same thing and then real relationships can happen but there has to be a change a shift of instead of always going to blame and accuse and get angry let me go into me and see what am i really experiencing here and then share it own it feel it and share it in a calm way and let the other if the other person can also do this and you can have these types of conversations everything will change this is i think one place to begin just let me see the next question [Music] you quoted a book in your class you quoted a book called graciously modem graciously modem the difference between a malek and an augustus from the tamaksadek what is this racist lamudum so as far as i know i don't remember ever seeing the book but as far as i know racist limoudin is a hebrew science book that was written by a man named borok linda and it was published in the 18th century it was published in germany i'm looking it up the first part was published in berlin in 1788 that's the year that samar sadiq was born he was born 1789 and the second part was printed in 1810 and it became a scientific encyclopedia very popular among jews for the next hundred years in terms of the hebrew library and science this was considered a very significant book that's what is that what it's means possibly possibly but this is this is called graciously modern interesting and i'm looking up here it says that not only the masculine even traditional jews found the book to be significant because it presented science it presented updated scientific studies and progress and and i i see that some the son of david offenheim quoted a lot of racist limu in his book about astronomy and other great rabbis as well okay so that's i guess what the tsa said it means by registering this is early 18th century barak landa interesting barak linda baruch linda okay next question how can one give physic to teenagers who are struggling in tight lockdown conditions without the busy social life that they usually thrive on yeah i think it's it's very very important we have to do whatever we can teachers parents educators zoom fabrengans kumsits chats malava whatever we can do through social through through the technology that we have we have to engage them and be there with them maybe you can make smaller programs that are that are according to the obviously the the guidelines of the health officials maybe smaller groups but it's very very important to do whatever you can to maintain the social networking and social life of our kids and our teenagers and our youth and any programs we could do and to engage them do interesting things classes should have zoom meetings or whatever types of meetings constantly even smaller groups maybe have different children run different teenagers run different zoom meetings like you divide classes into groups of five and everybody has their own zoom meeting outside of school and one person is in charge to run it do musical events fun things games riddles whatever it is trivia but i think you know watch good things together uh good materials together whatever we can to engage them we have to do and and tell them listen you know the the real test of character is during such times when we're in quarantine it's like the trees again you know the trees don't look very alive but that's when everything is happening during these moments when you know a lot of our taken away it's time to go into myself and in yourself and find your deepest resources and we have to be living examples for people and try to help them reach that space i lost my job because of corona i started a new job two weeks ago it was going okay suddenly today my boss had a change of heart i don't know what happened he said he miscalculated and there's not so much work as he thought and he doesn't need me anymore well i know that the other one working there said that i caught on quickly and was doing my job okay i don't know why i was sent away so i lost my second job how can i find perspective in that also in line with what you said about new beginnings and looking for new opportunities wow first of all i'm sorry i'm very sorry and it's difficult it's very difficult and i'm so sorry and i hope you'll be able to find what you need very soon hashem should give you atslacha but i think it's so important for you not to become demoralized and to say again why this is happening i don't know but it's important for you to say you know i'm going to become stronger from this and i'm going to become more determined and i'm going to do what i have to do to be able to excel in the particular skill that i want to develop and i'm going to find something and maybe there's something that you could create i would right away consult as many people as you can you know send out messages to friends family extended family relatives classmates old classmates you never know just send out those messages you know create a cayley create a vessel that's externally and internally you know ask yourself what are your skills what are you passionate about what are the needs out there what can you get good at and and really be determined and and and you will you will be successful maybe you can even create something yourself or at least you know at least toy there with that idea in your brain how do we balance technology and the potential issues it brings when you're trying to live a religious jewish life this is a big one technology can be an absolute catastrophe technology can be an absolute blessing here we're using technology now to learn torah to learn torah to grow together to connect but technology if it's not used by the right person in the right way in the right context can be an absolute disaster so it's important to understand just like nuclear energy can be used to destroy the world and light up the world everything hashem created in the world was ultimately created for quite shamayim as it says at the end of prikyavas it's to be used for terror for years shamayim for spreading tighter in the world but there is free choice and everything can be used in a different way and that's why you have to make sure that people are not addicted to their screens your kids are not addicted you have to have the right filters maybe you know you have to minimize the time because there's a lot of screen addiction there's a lot of numbing there's a lot of disengaging from real life through technology it's important to have limits it's important to engage in real life it's important to be very careful with immodest material these are things that we have to be very sensitive towards to the best of our ability you know we're living in a time today where we're all using technology and that's important and it's a blessing and it's unbelie has unbelievable potential but it also has great potential for harm and it's just being aware that we live in a world where it's a beautiful world and it's a dangerous world everything is godly and yet everything could be used in a very unproductive way and being sober about it and knowing about both sides of the coin and being practical and real and knowing who could use what when and how i mean that's my basic generic advice on this issue okay i'll take one more question next question my children are extremely spirited they often don't listen i feel totally out of control as a parent how do i see the potential in them rather than feeling so frustrated and helpless it's a great question i love it and i think the answer is that their spiritedness is going to take them so far they will be leaders they will be successful they will be amazing and just see it that way yes it's important to have an organized house you don't want anarchy but you have to realize not to sweat the small stuff in other words maybe speak to a real expert or some experts like know what you could what you could um create in your home what you can't create realistic expectations that work with them don't try to suppress their nature don't try to make them what they're not don't try to you know get into situations that are going to be combative like work with them you know realize who they are realize how you could motivate them realize how you could bribe them figure it out and don't get stuck on the way things have to be like create a flexible style that allows for the home to operate in a happy environment yes it's important to have structure it's important to have rules it's important to have safe boundaries it's important for children to feel the presence of their parents and to feel that you're involved and that you care and that they have structure because it's very important for children but tune into who they are create the structure around them don't force them into the structure create the structure around them rather than create a structure and then force them into it you know what i mean there's this your structure should be created from a deep understanding and sensitivity to who they are and celebrate them celebrate their spiritedness and have fun in the house have fun in the house that's what i would also say okay my dearest friends my dearest friends halacha quest people are someone asked a halache question please ask your local orthodox rabbi i wish you all tremendous success tremendous thank you so much once again god bless you a happy to be shevat a wonderful shabbos my love and blessings may we all see the complete fusion of nature and beyond nature with the ula shleima speedily in our days on main thank you taking so much time as well to answer these questions for your incredible insights this is the human psyche and angels of life and next week next wednesday night we have schmuel schwarz carrying on his series all about the corona diaries of and love them and thank you again to everyone through happiness and to see you again soon foreign [Music] oh [Music] [Laughter] [Music] so [Music] oh [Music] go