Rabbi Reuven Lauffer - Basic Judaism: Prayer - Part 11

right why so why are we doing all of these things right so yesterday we spoke about that you should you shouldn't go after your heart and after your eyes and we spoke about that incredible idea of it's your you know that it's your it's in your heart and that's drawing you to see the things that you want to see right and then it says right in order to to to remember all of The Commandments of God you should be holy to God right now I saw the most beautiful idea of says like this not not on this verse over here but you know we there's a there's a in the called who was kak kak was a very very uh very well educated he was a big he was very powerful he was very rich he was very charismatic and he came along and he tried to ferment a rebellion both against Moshe and Aaron right it started with Aram but his real his real goal was to be able to take over entirely and he comes to mosenu and he says to mosenu that kulam kados he's selling he's selling a bill of goods to the Jewish people he's telling like this you don't need Aaron you don't need a high priest because everybody's holy right he's not any holier than you are so what do you need him for you don't need a leader follow me that that was going to be next right but you know just bit by bit right break down the leadership so he says he says his words he says Kim everybody's holy what do you need a high priest for everybody's holy so asra really very simple question he says what what's wrong with that what's wrong with saying everybody he's holy so a few weeks ago one of the pasas that we have was Pas kados in the the portion of kadim it says kadim you you shall be holy so R says the God is commanding the Jewish people to always be in a state of growth within Holiness kados to you is in the in the future right that you will be holy which means that you'll never reach a point where you are ho holy because there's always more in Holiness there's always more to do you can't wake up one morning and say that's it you know I've done everything there is to do with regards to Holiness I'm as holy as they get and that's it rather the concept of Holiness is to be in a continual state of movement a continual state of growth so says Rush the mistake that korak made or rather the the the the the the lesson that he was giving over the the the incorrectness of the lesson was he was trying to teach the Jewish people that they should become complacent right and to say that they're already holy and says not like that says no to you there's always room for Holiness says over here that you should always be holy to God and I'm the God who took you out of Egypt why that you should take you should be for me that that uh that uh that I sorry that I should be for you a god Anem El I am the Lord your God and then we add on the word EMT now even though EMT really belongs to the next paragraph over here but when you recite the you should say and you should finish with the word right what is special about the word EMT so AMT of course means truth but the the uh the rabbis already explained the word a is something which which is really something very very fundamental right first of all a is spelled Al me which is the beginning in the middle of the last letter of the AL base of the alphabet which means truth is something balanced it's something stable right and the ALF you know if you think of how Alf looks so it's got two legs on the bottom the me has got a bar on the bottom and the tff has got two legs on the bottom as well which me it's something very stable something a is always a you hear the idea as opposed to she she which means a lie so says say say the sages that a lie has no legs so just simply when you when you write in a sa Torah the word she the shin comes down to a point at the bottom so it's got one leg the K has one leg the re has one leg she en rag the rabbis of course are teaching us a pretty basic insight into lying so today we're going to take off a moment we're going to learn how to lie I I appreciate that most of you over here could probably give me a lesson but nevertheless we'll just going to deal with the the ABC's the basics right when the rabbi say what are they saying the the words that the rabbis are using are pretty exact the LIE doesn't have legs what does it mean legs legs to stand on right however but it needs to have one regel if you want to lie to work right it's got to have some basis in truth otherwise why is anybody going to believe you right so if I tell you oh goodness me look out the window it you know the sky has gone you know bright purple yeah so you're not actually that's not true you probably will look out the window because any any excuse to be distracted will be you know gratefully accepted but in general no one's going to look out the window because you know perfectly well that the sky doesn't go bright blue uh purple whatever it was when I come from in England the sky doesn't go bright blue it's it's always kind of gray the sky really wait really yeah oh it's because of the clouds it doesn't the sun doesn't shine in London oh that's not true it does it's just above the clouds I mean that's a tradition that we pass on please excuse the the pun that's a tradition we pass on from father to son um there is a blue sky but the CL that's what we're told I can't say for certain it comes closely followed by the tooth fairy but it's you know these are things that are instilled in us when we are very young and we hold on to these Traditions you know that and the Easter Bunny and anyway and met is something which is of course it's it's something which is stable it's something which is going to be around forever right the Torah is the word the first letter of the Ten Commandments is is an I'm the Lord your God the first word of the mishna starts with the letter me from when do you begin reciting shma the first letter of the gar begins with a T T right so the word is the it's the written Torah it's the oral Torah it's everything together and then we say it's got 15 different descriptions over here of our relationship with however if you flip through to the evening service you'll see that it says something it's slightly different right the language that's used it says at the end of the and then we say thought right and all this is true right it's all we we we you know we believe in all of this in in the morning we delineate this whole description right all of these things that uh God God is true and certain established enduring fear faithful beloved cherished delightful all of these things and yet at night time we say that God is true and then we say and faithful is all this we believe in all of this what's the difference between the two so I think we spoke about this once before in the past that uh that the the shakar the morning service the day represents Clarity night symbolically represents the concept of um of being in Exile of being of being uh of being without that Clarity so in the morning when we come to Define our relationship with God a God is and then we explain because it's the daytime we've got Clarity we can we can see these things we can Define these things at night time however when we're relying on oura that we have this relationship with God even though it's difficult for us to be able to identify it and to see it so then we say right we use a different kind of a language in order to describe all of this right um and then when you say the word a you're supposed to kiss your and you're supposed to keep kiss one more time as well which is when you get if you look down over here in the article it says in you get down towards the end of the paragraph and it says and on the word you're supposed toiss as well so you asked a while ago it's a very cabalistic in it's a very cabalistic concept of why we kiss but apparently when we're kissing atit from the time that we begin the shma from that third paragraph of the shma until this word somehow or other are are are kissing the are being are being focused on the TD is building a spiritual being it's building a spiritual Dimension and the head of this spiritual Dimension is brought into being with the word don't ask me to explain this to you right again it's cabalistic you're too puny I can't share it with you it has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that I don't have a clue what it means are you just p no no even even if I knew what it meant I wouldn't tell you ref so I don't really understand this stuff very clearly at all but it says that when you when you kiss your titit on the word that creates the head of this this being this spiritual being that you've created anyway moving onwards we're going to move in now towards we're getting very close now towards the towards the silent prayer the the really the uh the sort of like the the central moment inside of filler inside of prayer we recite it three times a day just that you should know that when you get to the word on page 96 when you get to the word at that point you're supposed to get up you got to get ready to start reciting the amida um and then you recite the few little words over here now what you'll see if you're ding in a synagogue if you're ding with a minion you'll see that when they get to the last paragraph of so at the end when they get to the final they don't say it out loud and what you'll hear is like normally the will say and then it'll say and then his voice will just begin to fade off and you won't hear him say the final word is why is that because you're not supposed to answer aain to the BR right the gamar explains that when you come to this little paragraph over here we're supposed to enter from the BR of who redeemed Israel into the amid without any breaking between the two right they should flow one into the other so there's a concern that if you say the words is if you say the word you say the word is out loud somebody will make a mistake because they'll have heard the BR and they'll say a and they'll say and that will make a break between the BR and the recitation of the amid right that's why the the normally dies out or in some communities you may hear everybody reciting the broa together that's also a possibility right and that way if you all recite it together nobody hears the BR at the end to say aain to it and then you begin the amida how you supposed to begin the amida so over here we've got some little practicalities over here you're supposed to take three steps backwards and three steps forwards now really you're taking three steps back backwards in order to take three steps forwards in order to move into the domain of the of the divine presence when you come to pray the am you're praying in front of the divine presence which means that you should be giving this a little bit a little bit of concentration a little bit of focus would not go am Miss doesn't seem to be any any uh understanding whatsoever to what I just said so we'll just we'll just move on shall we uh I guess focus is not exactly uh here right when I mentioned Focus your head pops up because you're thinking cameras but that's a now I was I was I I had a question I it um it it has to do with but not not its transition to but I I had a question okay okay um weekday schma doesn't mention that the part in the third paragraph where you um pass it with your eyes so that you may see do you know do you know why say that again um if you look at chakras for shabos yeah third paragraph yeah it says you know you kiss tius and all of that pass them from your left to your right all that but it adds for shabas that when you get to the part where it says that you may see it um you're supposed to pass the tius in front of your eyes and my question is why why is it on shabas only why why is it not um this actually I don't think it's even said on here it says over here I in my in my on page 94 right yeah it says exactly the same thing it says a kiss at each mention of the word tied and at the end of the paragraph and a pass before the eyes that or oh yeah I'm sorry I was I was at Mar when I asked that question oh because at Mar time you know there's no obligation to be waiting to too because it's night time because it says right you should see them but some people sleep in their tits yeah some people have special titstit that they wear for sleeping and they don't wear the same titstit that they're wearing during the day but they put on special titstit to sleep in them that they should there a whole there's a whole deal in the gar about whether a person does sleep with their TI on whether they don't sleep with their TI on according to the more cidic approach so it's a it's a pretty accepted thing to do it's based on again it's based on D cabal I apologize for uh for not being able to explain to you uh but uh your puniness is just uh you know ref overwhelming quick question you just said U so there a Sit sits to you use in the use in the morning afternoon and when you going to sleep you wear a differences yeah is that for yeah well well I tell you what the reason is because when you get up in the morning in order to be able to make a broer of your tit so if you've been wearing your tit whilst you're asleep then you never took them off so you can't make another broer in the morning right so that what many people do is that they if they're going to wear their Tod at night when they're asleep so they wear a different Pier that means that when you get up in the morning and you take them off and now you're putting your other pair back on your your daytime tits it back on so then you can make a broer over them okay yeah so you mentioned that we don't wear T at night or we don't we're not obligated to because yeah we we could see our T even if it's night time yeah so the EM is like this this is going back into a time when most people right if you go back into tamic Times most people lived lives that that revolved around the sun right they got up they got up just before they got up at dawn and they would go to sleep pretty much after Nightfall because uh it was very expensive to have light sources of light was very expensive and uh and uh people you know people just work their ways around you know the cycle of day and night nowadays of course I mean nowadays already we're going back a long time the idea of being able to see things at night at night is not such a big deal with the Advent of electricity for sure it's not a big deal um here here in you know in in every Western Country you go out into the streets you can see you know it's like there's there's Street lamps everywhere um one of the things one of the things that's always always amazing you know when you go some where and you're in the middle of some kind of a rural area where there are no there there are no lights at night is that the the uh the the clarity and the the sparkling of the of the night sky is incredible yeah here we we don't we don't you know yeah so you see you see things in a in a completely different way because things are just so much yeah I never knew that there were something sharper and clearer I mean I knew that there were so many stars in the sky I'd never seen so many see them it's like it's like it's most it's unbelievable like like a blanket of stars right where here in cities what happens is that we we uh we can't see the sky so well because there's so much peripheral light around that it's blocking it's blocking our our uh you know our appreciation and our ability to see what's out there um that's why by the way you know today nowadays already for for many for many many generations already um the Jewish people have accepted upon themselves to wear they tied at night anyway right even though there is no obligation to wear to sit at night because it says or e that you're supposed to see them right nevertheless everybody carries on wearing that titit because there really there really is no there really is no problem seeing your titstit at night another thing about the yesterday I think you said that it was for us to be able to see our own t and remember okay we're not supposed to sin but is it also maybe for other people to see us wearing the T and be like okay that's that person's holy so for example a woman who sees a man W to se is less like you to approach that man and try to entice him into maybe bad things maybe it's definitely definitely idea I I think I think I think it it works it works in both ways actually which means that a person who's wearing tited now has an obligation to behave in a way perhaps that's better than he would have behaved otherwise because he's identifiable it's the same with wearing a yamaka I I always tell everybody what years and years ago there there is a a non kosher restaurant here in Jerusalem which name I not mentioned but it is has received International accolades and uh I was once walking past it and I saw somebody who'd been in the shear in the morning was sitting over there in that restaurant with his Kip on and uh I understood exactly what had happened straight away because this this fellow had just come to the Yeshiva he wasn't the least bit Orthodox but he'd wore his kipa right as a sign of respect whilst he was here you know having having classes so he warn his kipa and I guess he just walked out of the Yeshiva and gone off to try out this you know this restaurant without realizing without even paying attention to the fact that his kipa was on his head so it's fine for me to make that conclusion is fine because I knew who he was right but for everybody else it's a problem because people are walking past and saying wow you know who look at these look at these from people look at these Orthodox people you know they they they're such Hypocrites or even worse somebody's going to say oh gosh I never realized this place was coer I'm going to go eat there too right and you know it's like so they're going to be they're going to be in ordering all kinds of things that they shouldn't be eating because they're going to be under the premise it it must be okay right um there's a there's a concept in the H called marit marit is doing something which is permitted but looks forbidden so for example bacon yeah huh fake bacon fake bacon bacon is actually pretty good well one of the one of the what the classic example that's used is somebody goes into a store on shabbath to ask what the time is it's nothing wrong with that right you're walking down the street you got to get to Shaw you need to know whether you have to speed up a little bit so you go to ask what the time is what's the big deal but somebody sees you walking into the store on Shabbat you know and you're obviously Jewish then it's a problem because it's Merit iron it's giving it's giving the wrong impression so you should know when I was growing up they first they first introduced parv margerine non-dairy margarine up until then margarine was was probably the most unhealthy y thing that you could possibly imagine because was it delicious I I don't know but uh it it was it was I guess so right but um it was Dairy it's unhealthy it's probably delicious for years for years and years it was Dairy that's how they made it finally they come up with some kind of way of being able to make it without any dairy without any milk in it and uh and it came out kosher margarine P of margarine and the rabbis issued in London they issued a ruling that if you're going to use kosher margarine on your Shabbat table or at any kind of meaty meal you should bring it out in its wrapper it look because it looked like a block of of butter right didn't look very different from regular butter so in order to people should understand that this is not butter hold on a second in order to understand you've got a rather a rather uh Wicked smile on your face but in order to understand that it's not butter it should come out in its original rapper people should see that it's margarine what is that based on interestingly enough it's based on a ruling in the sh in the Cod of Jewish law which says that if you're going to cook meat or chicken with almond milk you should sprinkle almonds on top just so that people should understand that this is not regular milk because alond milk is like a cloudy white liquid and anybody who doesn't know right they'll imagine goodness me you know they're busy they're busy cooking meat and milk together which of course is forbidden so he said that you serve it up with almonds on the top that way everyone will know that it's really milk that's coming out of almonds I would imagine today that would be a quck you know to today I don't think we have to worry so much about it today because first of all the concept of being lactose intolerant there are so many different milk Alternatives around you know Armond milk and soy milk and and coconut milk and you name it right and they even have something there something new on the market called cow's milk apparently um which is some kind of white white liquid uh it's it's a it replaces a need for armor milk for people that have you know if if anybody has a some kind of an allergy to armad or to Soy so apparently they can use this new stuff that comes out of KS apparently and yeah yeah sorry you were waving your hand around looking very very I'm not sure do we do we want to hear this oh okay I it's a coule a couple questions in one like if you always serve par of stuff in a certain color container can you use the color container yeah yeah also can you is an announcement efficient like if it's just your family yes I think so too I think that over there you know you could just turn around to everybody and say listen you know everybody should know that the the the margarine is power of over here you don't have to be you don't have to be concerned I remember the first time I went to America and uh we we uh they served up we went to my wife's cousins and they they served up pizza and after you know whilst the pizza was still on the table they brought out a succulent delicious steak and I'm thinking to myself you know like I mean these people are FR you know but I don't know I've never been to America but maybe they do things differently over here I don't know you know is this is it so so my my obviously that was the reaction I you know obviously I said to myself the pizza must have been parro right but actually the steak was tuna steak that had been barbecued and it tasted just like tuna steak is good look looked and tasted just like regular steak of I if I would have known it was tuna steak I wouldn't have eaten it because I don't like fish right but it was I you know I work my way through a few of these things and only afterwards that I find out that they pull a fast one on me and uh the the pizza the pizza could tell it's so delicious couldn't tell you're supposed toy you know you know what the chat is when when you're expecting something to be what you think it's going to be so it's okay right if you would have told me this is tuna steak taste it it tastes just like regular steak so I would have tasted I would have said no it's not what you who are you kidding this is it is a little similar but not really but uh and it was it was so I I think until today I I think that they should have made an announcement that as they were coming out that these things were you know that these things were uh were tun States and they weren't regular of course okay but at least not to imagine that I'm meeting me milk yeah resign there's a there's a big Avenue in Queens in New York Queens boulev so it's a long it's but six Lanes six six six you know big bigue so a lot of people dur the week they will go underneath the subway to grow to go underneath and come up from yeah says not to do that don't do that says walk extra it looks like you're taking the subway so I wonder today I wonder what the ruling is today where today when I imagine that probably it's probably much more accepted nowadays just ensuring the week as well for people to cut underneath and to go up because it's probably a you know it's like it's a bus thing and it means walking down till you get to the lights or something but yeah that's a that's a that's like that would be a classic a classic case of Morris a right for sure for sure my my grandfather who was quite a zealot actually um so in his in his era on rashash yam Kip most sches had a choir and the uh the choir came wom Rabbi also no no no a male choir not not uh please please already please uh so he said what one morning Ian I I never this was before my time but one morning Ros sh morning is's on his way to Shaw and he sees the members of the choir coming out of the underground to come to the to the synagogue okay obviously they weren't the least bit from and you know it was it was just a parosa for them so they uh so my grandfather who really he had no no inhibitions whatsoever about pointing out people's well okay I was going to say pointing out people's you know their their their negative characteristics should we say uh he waited until they got to in Shak in the kadha and they you know they they're really belting this stuff out and he gets to kadosh kadosh kadosh Holy Holy Holy and they start singing this very melodious you know kados kadosh kados and my grandfather stand stood up straight as can be and he starts shouting out the top of his voice holy holy holy underground choir and he just kept repeating it over and over again until at at the end the choir had no other alternative but to stop singing didn't go down very well it must be said actually my grandfather was like an archetypal Jew he lived in an area there were five shs he'd always fallen out with four of them and uh he only started making up with the last one with the next one when he was about to fall out with the last ones and he was like you know you know you've heard of crop rotation this was like synagogue rotation but uh Mar married I it could be that wearing wearing titit is something which is supposed to keep us on the straight and narrow because if we are identifiably Jewish then we've got to be careful what we're saying we've got to be careful where we're going we got to be careful what we're doing right so you know it's just something something to keep in mind I I told the fellow afterwards you know this fellow that I saw in the non kosher restaurant I told him I said you know it it would be better if you you know I said Jerusalem is full of restaurants which are Kosher and of course it would be better if you chose a kosher restaurant to go to but I said if you feel that you want to go to a non- koser restaurant at least you should try to remember to take your K off because at least that you know of course he's doing something he shouldn't do but at least it's not leading other people to have you know bad thoughts about what's going on yeah but unfortunately there's a lot of people secular people that are not religious they do want to keep Kos they think that every restaurant in jerus is Kos yeah okay it's a problem gotta keep it gotta keep an eye out that's for sure yeah um I had an experience right when I got here and and I was new to wearing zes and everything I was um there was like a pattern my days I would take about an hour between classes and I would go up to the local Falafel joint and um order takeout and I would sit you know in you know the apartment buildings here have places you can sit inside like a par and I got every day I'd go there and I would eat my Falafel and um I would get looks no one ever said anything to me but I I guess it they it was it was apparent enough to me that you're you don't do that you don't you don't like eat in public um that way I I don't you don't see many people around here um it's just so beautiful outside yeah I know I know but you you it's really not something that you see much of going out to E from from Jun like you take out take some go to restaurant go to a park sit down and eat a meal picnic yeah you don't see it very often and and I um someone told me that that was the reason why maybe maybe they were just maybe they're just looking at you because I've never seen anybody eat pizza and falaa without spilling it down though this was like some kind of a new some new ccept Mar related to the concept of yeah very much so which mean it's not it's not exactly the same thing because is desecrating God's name so it's the consequence marit is something which has a potential inside of it even though again means you've done something you shouldn't have done right so you see an orthodox Jew you know cutting cutting off somebody you know in the line or whatever it is right that's that's a that's a hasem marit is I'm doing what I I didn't do anything wrong at all but it looks wrong which means it's not it's not on the same certainly not on the same level they're related to each other but it's not on the same level is the word is is a fascinating word it comes from the word kalal AAL means a vacuum right which means that when a person when a when a when a Orthodox Jew does something which they shouldn't have done it's as if momentarily they've drawn God out of that place they've left a vacuum where now God's not there because of the way that person has reacted with the way that person has behaved and it's it's a it's has it's the most terrible thing it really is because obviously we're supposed to be filling the world up with God and not emptying the world of God so we do have to be very careful is something we got to be very very careful about you know like I said the way we speak the way the way the way we act when we're in public you know that we should try to just try to remember that we're ambassadors of God and you know our task is to try to enhance God's Majesty in the world and not to have people point at us and say gosh you know look at the way he's behaving what about if you're walking down the street and you have a bottle of water um and you're in a public place yeah that's okay that's all right that's fine but you really can't eat outside that does I I mean you can wait what's I don't know I'm I'm I'm surpris the truth is I'm surprised to hear that that people gave you a hard time about that one but they looked at just just just the the body language and I don't know I'm surprised to hear it I really am would they think but even even like a you know drinking from a bottle of water that's okay that's absolutely fine you'll see people will turn around they I I don't know why I mean here you know you've got to stay stay hydrated for goodness sakes I mean especially you have to eat I've seen from people like drink yeah yeah I've seen a bunch of couples like the old C are you sure that the fful place was kosher that might have been the problem oh it could have been the pig's Trotter that was hanging out the uh you know hanging out the side of the Peter over there maybe that's what they were looking at they weren't looking at you at all or maybe they were just hungry and the pav really good well we're going to we're going to stop over here M tomorrow we're going to start we're going to start wering our way through the uh through the amida right which of course again is something which is very very fundamental