Q&A- Who is God? Why Did God Create Us? Rabbi Yitzchak Botton

[Music] Jake AKA Yakov gets the call he's a bit nervous a bit on edge maybe it's the Shan grabs the phone oh my gosh I got to tell you found someone has a better girls voice over here I found the perfect sh for you he excited what's her name where's she from Rachel says okay they exchang numbers so speaking with Rachel and they're figuring out where to go so they're talking on the phone small talk what do you like where do you want to go I don't know so she suggests I know this great restaurant oh great restaurant sure I love fish oh really it's amazing I I love fish also I have the perfect place and they decide to meet a little bit close to it so they could walk and talk a bit before they the restaurant and they get there and it's unbelievable very fancy aquariums built all through the interior into the design of the restaurant you have all kinds of fish big fish small fish colorful fish exotic fish all kind of fish it's Mish luxorious so they sit down Jake and and Rachel jakov and and Rael and they're going through the menu and Jake starting to look a bit confused wait a minute so he looked Rachel says Rachel I don't understand uh there's no fish on the menu maybe did I get the whole menu I may be missing some pages she like oh no you don't get it here we don't eat the fish we love fish we we eat regular food we just look at the fish we company and he's like what he never heard of such a thing and of course the date went well so now Jake's stuck because he really does enjoy fish but now they married to Rachel so no more fish at least it's a good thing she doesn't have the same sentiment towards cows because they he could have children from chabas this is my rendition of a famous story told by one of the great kasic rebies he was walking by he sees a young man you know about to eat nice piece of fish and he said why are you going to eat that fish so the man answered cuz I love fish he said oh really you love fish that's why you stole that fish out from out of the water killed it scraped off all of its skills fried it and now you're get it all because you want to tell me that you love that fish no no no you don't love the fish you love yourself you like the way the fish tastes so you did all that to the fish cuz you love cuz you love yourself so you can have pleasure a lot of times they this story about the fish is a way to get us started to understand what real love is all about and what real relationships are all about what I want to do is I want to point this idea directly toward concept of praying because you know when we we turn to Hashem and we pray and there's an idea that we love Hashem we have a mitz to love Hashem and so what I want to ask myself and anyone here can join me in this question is when I pray to Hashem am I showing Hashem that I love Hashem or am I showing Hashem that I love myself I want this I need this this I'm having a hard time with that I'm having a hard time with that why don't I have more of this why don't I have more of that is my entire dialogue with Hashem my entire relationship which prayer represents that with Hashem all about what I can take from him I love myself so therefore I want to talk to Hashem so I can tell him all the things I need and want what is my conversation with Hashem about the basic level of shon is a bunch of requests and that points at the a big problem because according to the way I set up this talk until now if you're all about yourself when you pray you're asking for what everything you need and want so that's like the example the guy he doesn't love the fish he loves himself our prayer is not an expression of love of God but love of myself so I know you're going to be smart one of you guys if you learn enough gamarra you got the Yiddish cup we talked about the yish cup earlier you're going to say no no no ra you getting it all wrong really really I love God but I know that God loves me so much much that he wants me to have all those things that I'm asking for that's the the yishik cup answer but that's obviously not the real answer the point is that a mature idea of a relationship with Hashem in in prayer is going beyond the idea of just what I can have and what can I do for Hashem now it's a very interesting concept to think about it's drawn some controversy recently with the different ribbi figures online some rinic figures online that are speaking about how God needs us and we don't need God and then there's some other rabbis that are taking much offense to that saying how dare you say such a thing how can you say exactly how can you say God needs us we're nothing of course we need God so obviously we need God right that's that's not aish we do need God however we can mature we can ask ourselves okay great so I need God and I'm the needy and I'm the one that's taking taking taking but who likes to take and only take all their life a person wants to also give right and according to the real per of the word a a that which is love is from the root word hav which means to give so the truth is the greatest expression of Love is accomplished by giving and rski Z he says in many of his videos you don't love a person more because you get more from them you actually love a person more when you give more to them because you're invested in them the more you give the more you invested the more you're committed the more you get it's easy to get getting doesn't get you more attached or more invested and to really truly love the person more giving does so if love is giving then let me let me let me turn on a little bit of flash out over here that we better start to think maybe about the concept of how can we give to God because that's true the true expression of love and if we really want to love Hashem which we're commanded to maybe we do have to figure out what God needs from us and how we can give it to him I know that word is a little bit scary to hear God needs how can God need so it's it's a catch 22 because cuz if God created the world and created us he created for a reason but how dare you say that he needs something so you're stuck so the truth is this the only way to really resolve this is um I'll pull out my cabala card because I'm the I'm the resident cabalist over here you know that I'm the cabalist you ask me how I get that position I have the biggest beard so that's I I got it by default and I happen to be sari so that's just makes it that's just makes it glat kosher when we speak about God we have to understand very precisely who and what we're speaking about because God is a lot of things God has how many at least seven names that we can't erase and all of these other descriptive terms which are also a reference to God he's merciful he's he's kind he's a he's a mighty warrior you know he's patient he's vengeful he's he's Elohim he's so many names what's what's God all about obviously there's a lot to understand and in a nutshell it works like like this the cabalists have resolved the greatest conflict or philosophical difficulty of creation is that God is infinite and we're finite how can finite reach infinite and how can infinite reach finite how do you bridge the gap talk about a language Gap this is a this is a real Gap so the only answer the real answer philosophers can philosophize but what they're they're going around in circles and they're own head which is limited the kabalists have received the true tradition from Moshe renu and this is the answer the answer is when you're speaking about God's Essence the what we call in Hebrew the an the infinite one then of course God needs nothing and God has no Shas to the world and God is just there's nothing so so he doesn't need anything he's above everything like it says in the verse in if you do a Mitzvah if you did righteousness what do you really give Hashem the answer implied in that P verse is nothing nothing so the God's Essence is beyond our grasp absolutely beyond our grasp when we pray we don't we can't pray directly to the infinite an the or we can't pray directly to ano because it's too far to reach explain that there's no letter no word not even a DOT that can represent him so there's no way to bridge that gap between us and the an to say the an needed us would be would be uh worse than idol worship would be absolutely stupid and foolish and also idol worship M so what are all these names of Hashem so the names of Hashem represent a limiting result of Hashem hasem say I'm infinite what I'm going to do is I'm going to kind of make myself smaller so to speak I'm going to make myself accessible I'm going to yog I'm going to come down and become and manifest my my Holiness my godliness in the world and that's what we have an access to Godliness we can connect with but the a not so that's the solution so when when when you hear some Rabbi say that God needs us so he's not talking about the an he's talking about the idea which is verses to prove it all over the place that when God limited his Revelation and manifestation in the world so in that sense this world can either go up or down there can be an increase or decrease of of Divine Light and that means that God can become strengthened or weakened the verse in the in the Torah say it clearly we can weaken the we can weaken Hashem so to speak or we can strengthen Hashem so that's the reality so now that we understand that when we talk about sh hasem V K on that level we can affect we have to connect and we can cause increase of blessing and increase of divine flow or a decrease of of divine flow and a decrease of blessing so on that level we have to ask ourselves Beyond asking hasem what I what what I can can I have give me this give me this give me this we have to what can we do forem how can we help how can we help build build up ourselves in this world that that's the mature love and the giving that we're speaking about over here so ultimately prayer prayer is in fact uh built to resemble the holy work in the BET mikdash aside from the bet mikdash that it maintained the entire world and all of the all of existence received its its nourishment and its ability to exist from the the mdash there's a saying that if the nations of the world knew how much the BET mikdash was beneficial to them Not only would they not have come to destroy but they would have guarded themselves from destruction prayer is in the in the place of the of the BET mdash everything we do when we pray is exactly like that so what are we trying to accomplish when we pray we're trying to actually do what what I just mentioned we're trying to rebuild up this world in a spiritual sense and facilitate an increase of divine flow and blessing in the world so when we pray we actually strengthen the side of Holiness we actually strengthen Hashem on some level and this is what's implied in these verses if you want to see a source for what I'm saying theim explains that we can either weaken or strengthen the the realm of Holiness our Good Deeds are most and we build we build olot our speech through prayer build OT where we are partner in Creation with Hashem when we use our power that he instilled within us shohim to build and of course unfortunately if we're fools we destroy so we we have more destructive power than any wicked rule that ever came and Rose up against us tetus the Russia that thinks he destroyed didn't do anything you know what what thear compares to what tetus did to the BET mikdash what do you take when you get ground wheat and grind it the point of the gamar is that all tus did is take a destroyed bet mikdash and destroyed which means what does that mean in the simple talk he did nothing he doesn't have access to the upper Realms to to either strengthen them or weaken them but we the Jewish people do so the end of the day is what Hashem wants from us is aside from obviously to take care of us and that's why we pray and ask him for all of our needs he wants from us to become mature and responsible and do our job to bring this world to where he wants it to fix and bring the world to its Perfection and then we get the greatest gift of all Hashem could have made this world Perfect all on his own instead he said I want to make it together with you because then it becomes our world the that we're working to get to and that we will eventually have it's going to be our hasem said I'm going to make it together with you I don't want to make it by myself I can make it by myself but then it'll be just all mine it won't be yours but when I let you make it together with me then it becomes ours and that's what Hashem really wants and needs from us is to do our part to fix this world that we're in and bring us to our final destination