How To Begin Your Spiritual Journey: A Step By Step Guide - Rabbi Avi Hoolin

Hi everyone and it's so good to be back. So the question that we're going to deal with today is that a guy comes and he meets a Kira of rabbi and he's really really inspired and he's like wow it is so true everything that we discussed there has to be God in this world and God gave the Torah at Mount Si but my life like nothing in my life right now is religious and I can't just change overnight. That's not even emotionally healthy. So now what am I supposed to do now with all this information? It's like overwhelming and really this over here is really a struggle of a lot of people because a lot of people really see the truth and it's almost impossible not to see the truth. Right? I'm saying you look at the you look at the world and everything in this world tells us that there's a creator here. Meaning our entire selves are so complex and so complicated and we understand the truth of 600,000 people standing at Mount Si and the transmission of that generation after generation. But now I'm living a totally secular life. That's everything I know. What do I do? You ever thought about that question? I really want to be religious. I really want to connect to God. What do I do? So really what's so important to understand is that when it comes to religion, Hashem wants what's good for you. And Hashem understands psychology and Hashem understands the person. Hashem understands the heart. He understands the mind and he understands that growth is not overnight. If anybody ever spoke to a rabbi about this, no one is expecting anybody to be in one day a totally completely transformed person. Even though in the heart you can be. We know when it comes to chuva, when it comes to repentance, we have a famous gimmar. We have a famous gimmar of a man that was with a prostitute and and he realized that right that this is the incorrect way and he was crying and crying until his heart went out and and a voice of heaven came down and said that this man went straight to heaven and besides for that he was called a rabbi in heaven and it's really true that a actually could change his entire heart, his entire essence in one moment. So there's really two parts of this. There's the inner change of where you want to be and then there's the fact of the stepbystep growth. So when a person takes in and he says, "You know what? That was so inspiring." And I go to a project inspire and I go to a beautiful Shabbat and I say, "Wow, this was phenomenal, but now I'm scared and I feel a fear inside me that now my whole life has to change." Slow down. The fact that you already want to change is huge. You already gave your heart to Hashem. The actions will come with a pace. Let's sit down and let's journal and let's think and let's make a point. What could I accept today? There's a fascinating story of a man that he approached his growth with yearby-year resolutions. And every single year he decided, you know, this year it's going to be prayer. And he kept it up with stability for an entire year. And the next year he took on another mitzvah. 20 years later he built the most beautiful person by a stepbystep commitment. But that's the answer. The answer is what we take let's commit to Salant tells us he says when it comes everybody before the high holidays everybody's in spiritual mode they want to do this. They want to do this. They want to do this and it's coming from a beautiful place. He says no one second that's beautiful. Let's be inspired but let's pick one thing. And when you pick that thing, cut it in half and then cut it in half. But what you're going to take, take it home. Take it for a full year. So when you come back and you're feeling inspired, but at the end of the day, the fear comes up. You say, "How am I going to do this?" Slow down. The want itself is tremendous to Hashem. Let's take something, split it in half, and cut it again in half, but let's stick with it. And remember to speak it over with people and to discuss it and to connect to people and allow yourself also to fall. It's the commitment and the step-by-step growth. Have a beautiful day.