Fruitful Ways to Learn Jewish Texts PT18-Shomone Esrai PT12-Modim & SIM Shalom(Rabbi Dovid Gottleib)

uh which is in the middle of the modim blessing next last blessing in the and we had started this last week and we got up to the end of the paragraph on the top half of the page and let's go back through it to to um check the translation and then I'll have some things to say about it because I think something very complex and subtle is going on here so the sentence I'm interested in is this the beneficent one I'll waer none of you knows what beneficent means it comes from benefit means one who benefits others for your compassions were never exhausted and the compassionate one for your kindnesses never ended okay now let me make it worse or harder beneficent and kindness in Hebrew are roughly the same thing to and and are roughly the same thing so you could read it this way you are the kind one for your compassions were never exhausted and you're the compassionate one for your kindnesses never ended and now you begin to see that there's a problem here you're the Paradigm of a because B never ran out and you're the Paradigm of B because a never ran out thanks a lot how about saying you're the Paradigm of a because a ran out the Paradigm because B never ran out why would you be the Paradigm of a because B didn't run out and the Paradigm of B because they didn't run out why would you go back and forth like that what's the purpose of that now in order to answer that question I want to do a little work on the two qualities of kindness and and mercy well they compassion compassion and mercy are roughly the same thing we'll call it Mercy what are what our kindness and mercy and how they related to one another and here I think there's something very subtle going on the first step is to understand what Mercy is this I heard on a tape of do gr cron gloss who was the mash in the you Baltimore before I got there and must have said it over in his name at least 300 times Mercy means in a situation where a person has done something and there is a judgment a ruling an evaluation from the point of view of strict Justice and strict Justice requires some type of penalty and mercy says don't don't do the penalty Mercy is always fighting uphill against Justice mercus always says don't do what Justice would require one way you see this is that let's say an American criminal trial you never issue a plea for Mercy before you get the verdict because maybe the verdict will be will be not not guilty then you won't ask for Mercy just go free if the verdict is guilty and if the guilty verdict carries will the penalty then plead for Mercy would be okay the legal requirement is this penalty but we know the judge has some discretion how to apply the penalty and we're asking that the full penalty not be applied so Mercy is always an uphill battle against Justice and because of that Mercy has two weaknesses this is all his his T first of all um a plea for Mercy always has to have a justification what do you mean don't do justice justice is important Justice is one key moral quality you're saying don't do that let's hear why plead for Mercy without a justification without a reason can't get off the ground number two sometimes the response to a plea for Mercy will be no mercy is an important quality so it's Justice an important quality not always is it right for Mercy to modify and and and and and decrease the level of Justice those are two weaknesses that Mercy has together with its feature as being reactive it comes after a judgment of justice that requires a penalty Now by contrast kindness isn't like that at all kindness said loving kindness loving kindness can be an original gesture it can be a starting point for an interaction it doesn't come in reaction to it might but it doesn't have to come in reaction to something else one reason why people have children is because they want to be able to nurture they want to be able to give they want to be able to help they want to be able to teach the child doesn't exist yet doesn't have any history yet the loving kindness is what motivates them to bring the children into the world so loving kindness unlike Mercy isn't reactive in its Essence it could be a reaction but it doesn't have to be number one and number two there's no Force for a justification oh yeah you want to do a kindness why what's your justification for doing a kindness the answer can simply be kindness is good kindness itself is good doesn't have to be because it's not uphill fighting against anything else and there's really nothing to put any limits on kindness only 42 units of kindness not 46 cut it off at 42 why why why should I do that so kindness and mercy are really two different qualities I have said to you that the purpose of creation the whole for creation is loving kindness Hebrew is there's a verse in in in Psalms the world is created out of loving kindness and then I met the first um disturbing Factor one of the names of God is the one that spelled with a Y and a he and and the for letter name what the soures call the most proper name of God yeah not perfect proper but most proper name of God and that name semantically is related to his being the Creator because the root of that name is Hov he which means to exist and the yud with the H canotes necessary existence rather than just contingent existence and canotes the one who gives existence to others so that name in addition to 14 other things that it does or maybe an Infinity of things that it does one of the things that name does is it describes the Creator as Creator the one who gives existence to everything okay up to here okay but now the Rabin tradition tells us that the quality associated with that name is Mercy Mercy that doesn't seem to fit I would have someone asked me what quality to associate with that name I would say loving kindness this is the name that that presents's Creator and the creation is done out of loving kindness creation is an original move it's certainly not working against some prior principle or some prior judgment why would you choose Mercy see as the quality associated with that name why not sure of who loving kindness that bothered me for a considerable amount of time I tell you what I think the answer is there are other places where this answer applies it's a long long story I'm not going to do the whole thing this afternoon unless you push me but uh but I want to tell you what what I think the answer is I think there are two different kinds of love and kindness there are two different kinds of loving kindness and mercy is really a subass mercy is a specific type of loving kindness to illustrate this I want to tell you a midash famous famous midash and and show you some aspects of it a midash that says that originally thought to create the world out of the characteristic of strict justice but he saw that the world would not stand the world would not be able to to function and and come to success if he creates it out of that name out of that that principle so therefore he added Mercy with to it now this is one of the places where the mid says that which can't be taken literally it isn't as if CU bro was a kind of experimental planner he say let's see how about strict Justice let's run a simulation of that you know my k16 computer uh 2,000 years down the line crash no that's not a good that's not a good set of variables let's try uh strict Justice love with with Mercy let's run that with a double feature ah look at that 2,000 3,000 4,000 5,000 doing fine okay I'll do it that way that's clearly not what it means so it means something like this there is something very important to be accomplished by creating the world with strict Justice there's some terrific value in doing that but if I created with strict Justice although it would be projecting towards that great value it's going to crash oh it's going to crash so I don't do it that way let's the I can find a way that I can get that value and yet prevent the world from crashing and the way we do that is to add Mercy well it isn't it also isn't he tried it one way and saw it the other way it's rather a set of statements done this way with strict Justice only there would be great value and it would crash and that's why it wasn't done that way it was done with with with strict Justice plus mercy and that way you can get both but now let's let's push the the scenario a little further if the first thought was to get the Great Value by creating with strict Justice it's going to crash why isn't the conclusion do nothing do nothing the idea of having a world is it worth it because strict Justice is the perfected world the ideal world and it's not going to exist give it up if A's top priority was strict Justice if that were the origin of all of his activities that would be the outcome strict Justice can't be served by a world don't make a world but that isn't the truth the truth is that strict Justice serves a higher Master strict Justice is the vice president the president is loving kindness as I told you so you have to imagine lovely kindness behind the whole system love M kindness says I want to put strict Justice in as the theme of the creation and then the response is okay okay putting strict Justice in at the theme of The Creation would serve a very big important purpose but it would also cancel out the creation in the end altogether at this point the situation goes back up to the president okay loving kindness you wanted to do with strict Justice in order to get that value you you can't have it because straight the way that that way by Justice alone because it'll crash what do you loving kindness want to do now oh well if we can't have it with pure strect Justice we'll have it with strect Justice and mercy also where is the motivation for putting the mercy in coming from what's the parent that gives birth to Mercy it's kindness It's loveing kindness only loving kindness operates twice first it operates to put put into position a system with strict Justice in it and then it operates to modify that system so that having only strict Justice won't lead to a crash so really the motivation for putting mercy and at the bottom to modify and soften strict Justice comes from loveing kindness also only it's a different application of loving kindness now I want to sort of describe the difference in certain terms again this doesn't go to the end of end of the end of the story but I the difference one way to see the difference between them is this first the first move of loving kindness is what system will be the system that will produce the maximum value that system will be the system of strict Justice now let's see if you remember from yesterday why would that be why would strict Justice be the system that will give you maximum value because strict Justice supplies that you earn earn what you get that you deserve what you get that you have your self your dignity and self esteem and your honor that you aren't giving given s you for nothing you avoid the bread of Shame so if you have a system which would survive and people would qualify under strict Justice then that would be the ideal that's a system for the totality now what's the objection the objection is it's going to be it's going to crash what does it mean it's going to crash it means ruen won't make it shim won't make it Sora won't make it the list goes on and on and on this one won't make it that one won't make it that one won't make it kind just says I can't tolerate that I can't tolerate that because loving kindness wants ruing to make it and wants shim to make it and wants sah to make it this is loving kindness dedicated to to each individual not loving kind is setting up a global system that will maximize value but loving kindness that applies to each individual wanting that individual to be successful that's Mercy Mercy applies to the individual so M Mercy is really loving kindness for the individual who's in trouble who isn't going to make it and I believe that's what meant when the tradition says that loving kindness um that that Mercy is the characteristic associated with the name that canotes God as creator of the universe he creates the world with Mercy not just loving kindness which would work as a global feature maximizing benefit across the board if it worked but with a commitment to individuals the individuals should make it so I think think when we talk about Mercy Mercy is also loving kindness just loving kindness applied to a certain system at a certain circumstance where Justice is in place and people are failing according to Justice and wanting to bring them in also I think it's not a contradiction to to say as if to say it's Mercy not loving kindness and why is it mercy and not loving kindness because Mercy itself is a kind of loving kindness okay we together so far now let's go back to the text the text said you are the kind one for your mercies never are exhausted well yeah that's right your kindness is so complete and so far reaching that it produces mercies when mercies are necessary to save individuals that are otherwise going to be lost these words as I understand them as I read them are a direct expression of the idea that I just told you and now the opposite is the same as well and he's very merciful his mercies are plentiful why why is he so merciful there are lots of reasons why people can be merciful not just because their their Essence is loving kindness for example a person can be merciful because to merciful to Peter because he needs Peter and if he if he uh and he's useful Peter's useful to him and if Justice gives Peter the penalty he won't be useful anymore it could be completely selfish doesn't have to have Peter in mind at all simply I need him then you have what used to be called the bleeding heart liberal who was superior to the Contemporary progressives who have no bleeding heart they're just vicious um you where a can't stand to he be in pain he just can't stand it and therefore he he can't punish this is where parents get into trouble not every mistake is like this but a lot of are where you just you feel so much sympathy for your kids and the kids are programmed with behaviors that are designed to elicit your sympathies and to make punishing them very hard and they know that and they use it um but of course you're cheating the child if you if you systematically don't punish him you're cheating him out of what he needs for his education and development training so here the the the s c says you are compassionate because your kindness is inexhaustible not for those other reasons and that means that because kindness is what is motivating you it won't lead you to ignore Justice kindness comes to provide a modification of Justice by by making Mercy available but Mercy has limits as we said because kindness wants the ultimate best outcome and that requires sometimes acting in terms of Justice I think these words here Express this these two very very deep subtle ideas and that's what one should try to have in mind when one says these words did you want to say something no okay well together okay now the ending of the of the as a title of a section is called Thanksgiving and that characterizes this blessing up until page 117 when you come to the blessing for peace and the blessing for peace is back to petition all of it is request for certain things that you want the to do well petition was supposed to be the middle section so what is a prayer a petition doing at the end and the answer is that this prayer of petition is really a response to the Priestly blessing which comes immediately precedes it so it's not part of the formal structure of prayer which has the three parts Praise of God and then petition and then Thanksgiving it's an addition which is a response to the Priestly prayer and the Priestly blessing and you can see this a little bit if you look in the gray box on top of 17 where you have the three verses of the Priestly blessing that's the last three lines in the in the gray box mem bless you and Safeguard you two verbs May Hashem illuminate his countenance for you and be gracious to you two verbs mayem uh turn countenance to you and establish peace for you two verbs for a total of six verbs now look down to the beginning line of the peace blessing establish peace goodness blessing graciousness kindness and compassion six qualities so the six qualities are at least a hint that this blessing is made corresponding to the Priestly blessing okay okay that's first introductory remark second of all titling it peace as an English translation of Shalom I think is very misleading I can't fault the translators because in every dictionary you'll see peace translated so translated as peace but I think it's an extremely misleading translation because peace in English is is a negative concept peace means absence of disturbance and danger and and um you know a peaceful scene nothing much is going on in English you can say the graveyard is very peaceful in Hebrew Shalom comes from a root shal which means complete integrated perfect can't say shalom about a graveyard canot do that and by the way when we ask for Shalom we're not asking for a ceasefire or temporary sensation of hostilities shalom means sharing and and uh a mutual Aid a mutual concern not just putting down your guns it's one of the differences between what we're looking for and what they're looking for so we have to think of this as a blessing that somehow describes an ideal set state of cons of circumstances using Shalom as its as its um theme now there is a statement in the re tradition which says the only CLE the only vessel that holds blessing is Shalom the only vessel that holds blessings is Shalom blessing usually means a multiplication of something which is already in the world and it very often refers to the material world indeed rashi's transl rashi's commentary on the three verses of the pr prly blessing where it starts May hasem bless you he says bless you in your material possessions blessing definitely be material we spoke about the fact that the real blessing in the material is satisfaction we spoke about that but go back to it again so now one of the things that K telling us is if you have a multiplicity of physical possessions the only thing that will preserve it and give it its value is if there is Shalom um there's another kazal that says those who are engaged with bringing Justice to the world are bringing blessing to the world and Shalom to the world now let me give you an illustration of this it's one of many possible illustrations I was I went to Mexico twice to do shabbatones and while I was there I was told that Mexico has the natural resources to be the fifth richest country in the world it has oil it has uranium it has gold it has all sorts of resources I was also told when I was there that Mexico City had 16 million inhabitants 3 million of whom were homeless so I said let's try to put two and two together and get four they have natural resources to be the fifth richest people in the world nations of the world and they 3 million homeless in their own capital like what's that why is that and then somebody said well I'll give you an illustrations to why this is true there is a city on the west coast of um of Mexico and the whole city is owned by one person that's interesting did you ever hear of a city owned by one person I didn't so I said to him how did that happen very easy he said he's a generation he was a a general in the Army and he ordered the Army to build him a city that's corruption with the capital c you know the people in in our governments who take you know a couple hundred thousand doar here and there that's small change he owns his whole city because he forced the Army to build it for him you know well of course then why are people poor there because the city the country is corrupt there's no Shalom I'm not talking about the drug cartels that kill people with guns I'm talking talk about murder talking about the fact of corruption where people who have authority and power use it for their own aggrandisement uh and they don't care about the about the people at all like the leaders of Hamas who each of whom has bank accounts worth millions of dollars squirreled away in Switzerland and other places and the leaders live in Doha in in luxury and the Palestinians are murdered and die they're murdered by the Kamas they die they're starving and they just couldn't care less so one of the things kazal telling us is if a gives you blessing and you have multitude of resources it won't help you unless this also Shalom it won't benefit you uh when the Soviet Union still existed one of you know what what president um what's his thing called the evil empire Reagan pres rean called the evil empire a we we sent people there with supplies for the refuseniks one who went told me that he was in the park in Moscow and he saw a man selling burnt out light bulbs burnt out light bulbs why would anybody buy burn at light bulb he said I'll tell you why because this guy Works in a factory so he buys the burnt out light bulb and comes to the factory with the light bulb in his his pocket when the supervisor isn't looking he takes a functioning light bulb out of the socket and puts his burnt out light bulb in the socket and now he has a functioning light bulb in his pocket when the supervisor comes by he sees the burnt out light bulb he goes to the store room and brings a fresh new light bulb and puts it into the socket and takes the burnt out one and sells it to the guy in the park so everybody's ripping off the factory why are they doing that because they knew very well that the government was ripping off all the workers lying to them and cheating them out of what should have been theirs and therefore why shouldn't I do what I can to get some back that attitude is what happens when there's no shalom in order for a a country to be maximally productive people have to feel that country represents them that they have solidarity with their fellow citizens that the institutions are going to be fair it's very interesting in the the rest of the world the non-democratic world democracies are looked upon with contempt because they're inefficient because they're disruptive because they have uh so much dissension among themselves and so much cross fighting yeah that's true there is a lot of that but in the first World War second world war it was the democracies that won too bad because if you have you're on a country like like Russia your people have no loyalty to you each one in power is looking for his own benefit one way or another well the country benefits it doesn't benefit doesn't matter to him you're not going to have a strong country if people don't believe in the country not willing to work for the sake of the good of the country democracy produces more then dictatorships used do usually there are type odd cases of benevolent dictatorships where people love the dictator that does happen in a certain sense you have a very good society that way there is Shalom and there is very very strict organization single directedness of of policy at anyway this is the general idea that Shalom is the vessel that holds blessing and makes the blessing really beneficial to the people who have it okay we together now let's look at the words establish peace goodness blessing graciousness kindness and compassion peace coming first upon us and upon all your people Israel bless us our father all of us as one with the light of your countenance for with the light of your countenance you gave us Hashem Our God the Torah of life and a love of kindness righteousness blessing compassion life and peace let's stop there there's a lot to to analyze in those in those words I can't give you a precise explanation of the six qualities that we start with ex have to point out the peace comes first because it's the thing that makes all the rest of it uh functional us and all your people Israel we've have that many times in the in the players we're really playing for the whole uh of the Jew of the Jewish people but there is a certain for for greater responsibility for those who are close to you than those who are distance from you bless us our father all of us as one that means look at the people of Israel as a whole and give blessings that benefit the people as a whole not individual blessings for each individual person but for the whole now that doesn't mean it's an opposition it's like not in the night time in the daytime not for the individuals but for the whole the whole is composed of the individuals aren't there any other ingredients to it and if there are blessings to the to the whole that's going to then imply blessings to individuals but it will set different priorities so if I if I look at myself my relationship to the Creator and the life that I lead and the decisions that I make I can think of blessings that would be relevant and appropriate to that reality but then I'm a parent and I'm I'm a sibling and I have the my my neighbors and my my community and my city and then my existence is different in relationship to all those connections and all that has to be taken into account when a blessing is is is aimed at me personally what am I asking for I'm not pretending that I'm a disconnected individual that I live by myself I'm not pretending that I'm more important than other individuals so that being the case I'm asking for a blessing for me as part of that whole that's the spir spirit of which I'm asking for the blessing which is basically the spirit of the prayer all the way through but here is explicit when I say bless I mean bless each of us as parts of the whole now with the light of your countenance what does that mean countenance is just a fancy English word for face okay the light of your face but then of course God isn't a physical being doesn't have a face well let's see let's go back to the Priestly blessing um what was the third the third verse hasem turn his countenance his face to you establish peace for you that's written in the Torah so obviously something is meant by referring to hashem's face and turning it to you and in the blessing of the light of his countenance one thing this means out of an unlimited number I learned from the ra is this when events happen sometimes it's just this happen this happened this happened this happen sometimes um the events have a certain complexion there's a certain theme certain consistency um and there's it's a sort of communication in the consistency so for example a child may be upset when he gets punished but a certain age seven 8 10 startes to think when do I get punished what's going on when I get punished oh usually it's when I'm beating up my younger brother that's that's certainly a consistent consistent theme and when I get punished maybe maybe there something wrong with beating up my younger brother I know you could get that could come to that conclusion at the age of 11 maybe what my parent is communicating to me is this thing shouldn't be done because it's not just each punishment it's the consistency with the punishments would then lead to a perception of a certain value it's it's a sort of communication sometimes the communication is a communication of a smile my wife and I have had experiences which we think are really extraordinary and they're of one kind when something is lost give charity or promise charity there are Traditions to do that uh Balan just had now another one a new new person AA of of London and it's uncanny the number of times that it has worked it's uncanny in her case just recently there's a book that she could she misplaced I look throughout the whole house twice she looked out the whole house twice and we didn't find it she heard about this person and she gave some charity in his name in 3 minutes she found it 3 minutes later and it wasn't hidden anywhere it was put in the bookcase sort of crooked in a way that you couldn't quite notice it and then she no it you know that's really remarkable so we feel there's a kind of a kind of communication there I'm helping you I'd like you to know that I'm helping you and there's there's the Jewish tradition that if you do it together with Charity that is something which is relevant to finding lost things and I'm showing you that it works and when you feel that you think wow thank you very much you know you showed me something and feeling that realizing it is very precious um in fact I'm going to go a little a little deeper here because there's a there's a general theme here which is really extremely important that this comes from the kous Ley you have something that you want to say yeah oh no okay so let's say let's say a miracle happens to you and you're and you're saved from a from a danger there are two ways to look at it this has happened to people you're riding a motorcycle up a Mountain Road cryst Mountain Road you're coming around a curve there's a truck and it's coming down too fast and you can't get out of the way and it hits hit the motorcycle you and the Motorcycle are thrown into the air you separate from the motorcycle motorcycle falls down into a 300 foot Ravine and you have your jacket caught on a tree growing out out of the mountain side and you're caught hanging there and 3 minutes later a um a um an ambulance happens to be driving up the road and notices you and takes you that I think if that happened to you you'd say thank you I think so but now there are two ways to look at it says theous lady one way to look at is like this I'm saved I'm alive how did this happen why am I alive my jacket my jacket got caught on a tree that's amazing and then three minutes later hello what are you doing down there H my motorcycle and I got caught we have a robe we'll get you out wow look at that b I'm saved I'm pulled out it's a miracle thank you very much thank you very much that's one way to look at it here's another way to look at it when where am I my jacket is caught on a tree what's the probability of being hit by a truck and my jacket being caught on a tree zero okay and then the the ambulance comes by and they pull me out I think and the ambulance came by and pull me out this could only be you this wouldn't happen by accident this could only be you thank you for showing yourself to me thank you for communicating openly with me oh oh and yes of course by the way um I would have died that's true I would have died you saved my life thanks for saving my life where is the emphasis is the emphasis on I'm alive you saved my life thank you or is the emphasis on you showed yourself to me you revealed yourself to me that's precious to me yes yes I about my life was saved that's also important but what's precious to me is the fact that you revealed yourself to me this is the light of your countenance the light of your the the light something you see so something that's got to be visible and your countenance is so to speak the um theme of the of the events that take place in the world to people so um we say happy is a person who is chastised punished by his father because his father loves him when things go painfully I won't say badly that's that's prejudicial when things go painfully if you perceive that it's coming from one someone who loves you and cares about you you experience it an entirely different way that's what happens the 11-year-old when he finally figures out that his parents don't hate him because they won't let him have the sixth ice cream cone but they love him because they want to let him have the six ice cream cone he experiences it in an entirely different way this is the light of your countenance show your countenance that countenance which we said 13 minutes ago goes back to loving kindness show your loving kindness to us so that we can feel it see it perceive it and by the way I'll just add one more little footnote here I said that's the light of your countenance excuse me one second this has to be calibrated so I'll calibrate it it's about 150 this is an insulin pump settings calibrate 1 15 because if I don't calibrate it'll stop working okay talks about a principle of roughly everything is under the control of one agency one will doesn't look like it the world doesn't look like it indeed I had a very thrilling experience this morning when I was learning the ram the Mah with a friend of mine he said word for word something which I have said intuitively many times and and um I was thrilled to see that he says it we we we are monotheists right is monotheism intuitive is it an idea which is sort of natural and expected an idea that easily fits the world I don't think so I think alism is much more intuitive much more natural much more much easier to apply to the world ask yourself does the world look like it comes from one source does the world look like it has one theme does the world look like it has one uh one basic quality think of the world you live in the Sun is up and down every 24 hours the seasons rotate in a yearly basis the same way every year the Stars go around the same way every year the wind isn't like that at all the wind isn't regular it's hard to predict you can't predict what the wind's going to be like two weeks from now would you dream that the agent that's behind the heavens is also behind the blowing of the wind what about the tides the tides slush in and out roughly every 12 hours that's not like the wind is not like the stars either what about Grass Grass Grows and in the Norman Northern climates you have it in the summer time winter time it all dies comes back in would you think that what makes the wind blow makes the grass grow why would you think that the world looks very variegated it's lots of variety in the things in the world it's much more natural to think there's one agent behind this Sun as another agent behind the wind another agent behind the sea another agent behind life another agent behind death agent behind War because these are very different phenomena they don't look at all like they're coming from one from one agency we as monotheists have to take the idea of singular agency and then project it on the world and say okay the world has 16 or4 or 4,920 different themes but it all comes from One Source okay that's a job says this this chapter on the shma in the history also history doesn't look like it has one agent behind it pushing inconsistently towards an end history has starts and stops it has retrograde where things go terribly it has things that happen which seem to have no relevance at all but that's not true the truth is there's Divine Providence running history and all of it is Pro program from one agency so G would mean the gradual re revelation of the fact that there's one agency behind everything that's what he says but I think there's another element which he's taking for granted which he doesn't always stress is it enough that it have one agency wouldn't we want to ask okay there's one agency behind it but who is that what are its principles what are its goals why is it doing this I think we need also to know who the agency is and from our point of view the agency is the one who runs the creation with loving kindness that makes it what we call Divine rather than something else so this again is the light of your countenance what's the light of his countenance well well at least it is something that projects loving kindness because that's why he created and how he runs the world that's makes makes it his so Unity alone isn't enough it's got to be Unity with his stamp on it with his identity on it that's what lovely kindness does so that's what we have here of says bless us our father all says one with the light of your countenance four with the light of your countenance you gave us now here we have to be very careful gave us Hashem Our God the Torah of Life yes okay and a love of kindness you put in us a love of doing kindness you made that part of our Essence with thanking him for making us the way he made us okay now righteousness well how does it work is it that you gave us righteousness or you gave us a love of righteousness is it love of righteous love of kindness comma break take a breath new new new topic and also righteousness or is a love of kindness Karma righteousness Karma blessing Karma compassion Karma life comma and peace that doesn't look right um because love of blessing is natural it's not nothing to be remarkable about blessing is something which really benefits you so it sounds like you gave us a love of kindness comma and you also gave us righteousness you gave us blessing blessing is something that you gave us a thing that you gave us you gave us right gave us compassion a life and peace are things that you give us so it means these qualities of of your psychology and your soul righteousness and compassion are Divine implants they're Divine implants you don't commit to the world tabula as poor John Lock said with nothing in you when you're just in formed by the circumstances is around you which is impossible to say anyhow we're certainly not like that and he gave us these elements in our character and we are thanking him for that that he implanted these elements in our character okay but now we have spoken about this human being has a good inclination an evil inclination what about jealousy what about um aggressiveness the need to win what about being addicted to to pleasure and so for and so on aren't they also part of us how do we feel if we look at we thank Hashem for the good qualities that he gave us and then recognize that he gave us qualities which are negative qualities and while we're talking about it what about the fact that we have a whole holiday celebrating Liberation from Egypt after most say 90 years of bitter slavery problem say was longer when we reflect that obviously it was Divine Providence which engineered the slavery in Egypt so if we're giving thanks we're being liberated from Egypt which we think of as a great benefit how do we feel about the fact that we were put into slavery by the same agency Divine Providence which we're not giving thanks for I think there's a theme here that's very important to understand this last question is asked very often um by people coming in and also by people who are struggling and the answer is that there are things which we appreciate as good and is appropriate to be thankful when you receive them and then there are things which we believe are good because they're meant to benefit us but we don't always see how and why they benefit us and then the obligation of gratitude is either non-existent or very very much less less if someone gets hit and doesn't know why he's getting hit and can't see the benefit of getting hit maybe he could train himself to say thank you out of understanding but it would be Hollow it wouldn't be something that he really means and the expression that we give is is something which should be a fair expression of our own psychology and you have this in the laws of L Bings um the mishna says that if something good happens to you you make a blessing in thanks to God if it benefits you and others it's he is good and does good if it benefits only you you kept me alive to this moment when I can experience this wonderful good and if something happens to you which is bad you don't say the you don't say the thank you what you say he is ding EMS the true judge or the judge of Truth you accept it and you acknowledge that it is a true judgment but that's all you don't say thank you why because although intellectually you could understand that it would be good but that's not the way it feels and the blessings give validity to the feelings that you have even when the feelings don't express your official official official philosophy so the gamorra asks the following question what happens when something's both good or bad but good and bad that happens to you what blessing do you make then and it gives an example because there could be different kinds of examples of this example is this you have a field and you have a wheat crop that is mature and next week you're going to harvest it and sell it but there's a river running at the bank at the edge of your field and the river overflows and swamps your field and destroys the clop crop that's bad but in swamping the field the river deposits silt from the riverbed on your field and your field is now much more fertile and much more productive and within three years you'll make up the loss and be making a profit that's good what blessing do you make on this compound event and theor answers only the blessing on something bad not the blessing on something good why because the bed you experience now you put in eight months of work to produce that crop of Wheat and it's now destroyed you feel terrible about that ah three years from now you you're making a profet yeah uhhuh three years from now making a prophet but right now I feel terrible about the crop your feelings are tied to the Here and Now much more so than your ideas yeah I understand my philosophy God Did It for the good in this case being a farmer I know that the river overflowing is going to make my my field more more um fertile but I don't have that effect now so you're it's the feelings that um that are expressed by the by the blessings that we made and that means that the feelings are relevant so why were we put into why did slavery take place in Egypt first of all because we failed in certain ways and second of all because preparation for the SE of the Torah siai required a certain preliminary period a kind of Rehabilitation from prior disasters so there is a reason for it but the to Express gratitude over pain and suffering which has a good result is something which we don't we don't do and the the same thing's true when someone gets hit for a reason that he doesn't understand he's is's not going to express that kind of so now let's take these negative elements of character yes say more about this tomorrow but at this point the negative elements of character jealousy and pride and desire and other things which are now I'm going to be very careful part of who we are part of who we are I didn't use those words before I used less I used more specific and stronger words before they're part of who we are the first attitude we have to have is although we're not going to we're going to recognize that they're dangerous and they're destructive but they're there for a purpose and we're not going to thank God for blessing us with them but we'll take the attitude of D it's there for a purpose it's true the Judgment in it is appropriate but I'm not going to treat it in the same way as the ones which I directly appreciate as as beneficial and tomorrow we'll say a little bit more about it that I think this is a very deep theme which has lots of applications we together so far okay okay