Rabbi Reuven Lauffer - Basic Judaism: The Shema - Part 1

foreign aside from finish the cake is we are going to uh take a take a closer look at the Shema we mentioned it yesterday we talked about it yesterday um today we'll have a look inside and see what we've got over here um just at the beginning I mean first of all there these are these are paragraphs that are coming out of the Torah um the first thing that we begin saying is like we mentioned yesterday declaration we talk about God being one God is the only entity that can be described as one if you take a look inside of the sofa Toro there's an interesting thing the last letter of the word Shema is an iron and the last letter of the word which is the last word in the in the sentence is a Dullard and they're written bigger is here here in the sitter you can see the iron and the dalid have been written bigger as well in the safer turrets written like that so you know it's it's easy to see it iron and Dullard together spell out the word Aid which is a witness which means that when we come to recite the Shema when we come to declare is serving witness to the fact that God is the the the is everything right thank you the omnipotent one uh that was very biblical of you I think and uh and uh and we're so we're coming over here we're coming to give testimony to that idea to that fact um the first verse the first paragraph of the Shema which we'll look at it you know and it's Hashem shortly is talking about accepting upon ourselves God's Heavenly yoke what's called kabbalat accepting upon ourselves the Yoke that God is king um again what obviously what we need is to understand that if God is King then we really ought to do what God wants us to do right I mean as a rule you know if you've got some kind of a some kind of a kingship some kind of a rulership then it makes sense to do what that rulership wants you to do in order that you don't end up in places that you don't want to be so even inside of so-called democracies uh you should really do what the government wants you to do because otherwise you're going to end up in jail I mean if they can catch you right um when you live in in more when you live in more despotic regions it becomes even more extreme and becomes even more obvious is doing what you're supposed to do is going to keep you safe and not doing what you're supposed to do is going to make life very difficult for you um the the word Shema itself Shin mem iron when you flip it around it becomes an acronym for all malhot which means accepting upon yourself the Heavenly yoke and I think the idea over here is that why does it need to be why is it back to front I think the answer is that sometimes we have to get through something in order to be able to look back and understand it properly and over here as well we're going to work our way through the Shema and by the time we get to the end of it we'll understand the reasons why it's correct to be accept upon ourselves God's Heavenly yoke perhaps before we go any further maybe maybe a a little a little insight into the idea of a yoke it's interesting that the rabbis talk about accepting the Heavenly yoke they talk about accepting the Yoke of The Commandments as well um you know you would have thought that if they were trying to come up with a word that was going to describe the majesty and the beauty both of God and the Commandments that you would have thought that perhaps I could come up with something a little bit more exciting than a yolk a yolk and again we're not talking about the yellow of the egg you're like that yeah the the uh the yolk y-o-k-e is something that you know it's heavy it's a burden it's placed on top of the animal um that's how you harness an animal that's how you get an animal to be able to plow your field you have to place a yoke over its neck and then you can attach the various bits and pieces that go together with it and then you can use it to play your field why on Earth with the rabbis use a phrase like a yolk to describe keeping the Mitzvahs keeping the Commandments and you know accepting God's Majesty over us why would they do that it seems like it seems like a rather negative thing to do but the truth of the matter is like this that without a yoke you have no way of being able to utilize the strength of your ox which means if you want you want to play your field without without putting the yolk on the on the neck of the uh of the animal you're not going to be able to get that field plowed because you're not going to be able to utilize the strength that the ox has got in the same way the rabbis are teaching is something very fundamental that we do not we we are not able to utilize our spiritual strength unless we allow ourselves to be to be guided and to be channeled and have our strengths channeled into the correct direction and that's exactly what the yolk does um which means like this that somebody who's not interested in having this yoke it's going to be a burden and they're going to spend the rest of their time trying to get rid of it and trying to throw it off of them but for somebody who recognizes that the the uh the positives I mentioned of what the yolk is doing then at that point these people now have the ability to be able to utilize their strengths and to be able to channel them into the direction they need to go in in order to become the people that they need to become uh the truth is it's no it's really no different what we're learning over here is really no different from any any kind of you know any kind of something that somebody wants to go into any anything that somebody wants to succeed at is going to require taking upon yourself a regimen that's going to let you succeed at what you want to do and that's going to come at the expense of other things that you want to do it's as simple as that there's no you know there's no uh there's no two ways about it so here for example you're talking about wanting to go along the what's it called the Appalachian Trail um and you know doing that means if it's going to take six months to get from one end to the other that means that you're going to have to give up on all kinds of things within that six months in order to be able to achieve your goal of having been able to do that and that means that you're going to accept upon yourself the Yoke of going along the Appalachian Trail again it's a yoke it's a burden somebody else who doesn't like to do these things will look and feel that you're crazy uh people other people that love to do these things will look and say wow I wish I could do that um but it comes down to what you're prepared to do and what you're not prepared to do yeah in the world of like economics like if you're studying as a subject that that is called opportunity cost you know what what the price you pay for spending six months hiking all the things that you can't be doing as a result it's called opportunity opportunity costs okay good right I mean I think opportunity cost is something which fits into almost everything that we do um and even if somebody dedicates his life to not doing anything at all that also has an opportunity cost because it means that they're not doing anything in the meantime they're not they're not they're not they're not fulfilling anything that'd be a very boring way for sure I I read years and years ago I read a uh the interview in South America there was a fellow escape from prison and he went out into the uh he was out in the jungles and he was actually he is he escaped for quite a while I think I can't remember how long ago but many many months he was on the run from where from some South American prison I can't remember the country but I just remember that the the the things that he said were quite fascinating they uh they captured him they finally recaptured him they brought him back and he was being interviewed for some kind of a newspaper and they asked him what did he do I mean he was out for months he was out right so they asked him what did he do so he said he was out in the jungles and he was living first of all he had to sleep in the trees because he was scared of the animals down at the bottom and he was scared if he was asleep he wouldn't be able to hear the animals coming and they might make a little bit of breakfast out of him uh and secondly he couldn't light fires very often because he was scared that the smoke would be detected from above right they were still looking for him and he subsisted on all kinds of of you know rather I don't know I don't know what you people feel about these things but I don't think they sound very interesting certainly don't sound very tasty he subsisted on bugs he subsisted smaller animals things you know little things that he could catch and when they asked him you know why why did he do that why did he just stay in prison and finish up his sentence and then leave um and so he said it was an interesting phrase he said well out there I was free now I don't know you know I think the definition of freedom is something which is a little bit open to interpretation I'm not sure that somebody out in the jungle who can't live a normative lifestyle I'm not sure is that is that really the definition of being free you know the chances are that in prison he was probably being more constructive I imagine in prison they make them do things whether it's you know making license plates or sewing mailbags that I don't even know if people have mail bags anymore actually um but they do I don't know what they put in them but uh oh yeah interesting um the the uh but the idea is you know is it a fascinating thing that a person can be in jail and be living a much more constructive lifestyle than somebody who's out free in inverted commas what what are we what are we you know what are we bringing upon ourselves what are we what are we trying to do over here I read just to give you a little idea I think I've mentioned this in the past but to give you an idea of Just What a Sad kid I was um really sad and pathetic and I know you're going to say that nothing has changed and it's true except for my age I'm not a kid anymore but uh um I I uh read there was a fellow there was a fellow called Mark Spitz Jewish kid from California who up until the last Olympics held the Olympic Rebel the the Olympic record for winning the most amount of gold medals in one Olympics in the 1974 Olympics in Munich he won seven gold medals for swimming this guy was you know absolutely brilliant and I read a little bit he wrote he wrote a biography so because you know this is how sad I am I mean why would anybody read a biography of a swimmer I have no idea you know we got in the water and it was wet and we swam from one side of the pool to the other and then you know the next chapters and we got into the water and it was wet and we spent around but he says over there that you can imagine he was growing up as a teenager in California at the end of the 60s in the beginning of the 70s now you can imagine what that means right for those of you that have any idea of you know what was happening American history in the 60s and the 70s it was a very it was a very um what would be the best way to describe is it with a very interesting era no doubt about it and of course he couldn't do anything that his friends were doing he was on this incredibly strict regimen of going to train he was in school so when he finished school he had to go to train and after training he wasn't allowed to eat what everyone else was eating he'd eat only certain foods and he had to go to bed by a certain time you know everybody else was was out doing whatever they wanted to do however they wanted to do it and he was left you know just swimming and training and training and swimming and swimming and training he said there were many times on the way that he wanted to give up but he had a coach who wouldn't let go of him um and he said when he stood on the podium to receive his first gold medal at that Olympics he realized that it was all worth it at that point he realized that it was all worth it everything all those years of of sacrifice that he'd poured into becoming the best swimmer in the world all of that became worthwhile on the first medal that he received of course by the title I don't remember I don't think I got to the end of the book where it talks about the seventh medal that he got but you can imagine right the idea of accepting upon yourself a yoke you're accepting upon yourself something that's going to direct you something that's going to allow you to succeed it's true in everything that we do every single thing and it's true in Judaism as well which means that if a person wants to succeed at being Jewish if a person wants to become a successful Jew so they need to accept upon themselves the Yoke of keeping the Commandments and the Yoke of accepting God as the king in order to be able to become who they need to become again you know to put it into into easy easy to understand analogies I have a brother who's a surgeon and I remember at the beginning of his of the you know at the beginning of his uh we finished his studies and he went into into um what's it called when you were intern right it became an intern and the hours were crazy and you know it was it was ridiculous and he was working working 36 hour shifts and then and then you know coming home sleeping for a little bit then going back to the hospital again and he it was it was unbelievable what was going on and but at the end of all this what happens you come out you're qualified you you are ready to start your career in the way that you know the best possible way that you can and that's the only way to do it does that come at a sacrifice to other things that a person might want to do of course it does it's very difficult for a person to be able to do everything that he wants to do there's a there's an interesting interesting Insight there's a mishna in ethics of the fathers it describes somebody who's rich says who's a rich person somebody who's happy with what he's got it's interesting I mean first was an interesting Insight that wealth is not being described according to bless you wealth is not being described according to how much money you've got or how much real estate you've got it's being described according to your state of mind right somebody is wealthy as somebody who is happy with what he's got one of the foremost personalities from about 180 years ago he was the uh he was the closest student of the great vilnagan back in back in Lithuania he writes somebody who's happy with his khalik is somebody who knows that he's only going to achieve some of what he wants to achieve then he's able to be happy but somebody who imagines that he's going to be able to achieve everything that he wants to do then he's never going to be happy because it's really not something that can be done and if I want to do one thing then it's going to come at the expense of the second thing if I decide that I want you the second thing is going to come to the expense of the first thing and that's that's just the way that it goes when we say when we recite the Shema what we're doing is we're accepting upon ourselves that we are prepared to make the sacrifices required in order to be able to draw closer to God in order to be able to live our lives according to the way that God wants us to live them and that's really the significance the idea of saying Aid that we become a we become Witnesses we're giving testimony to the fact that we're prepared to do that there is a an interesting the the sages say an interesting little insight over here into why the dalid is big in their heart because I don't know if you're familiar with Hebrew letters but a dollar a race are very similar to each other the only difference between the two is that the race has a rounded Corner up on the top and the dalid has an angular corner and if a person were to read with a rage instead of a dollar that would come out as shmai hero Israel the Lord Our God Hashem the Lord is somebody else which is uh I don't know a little a little bit heretical I guess right um so the dalid is written big in order that we shouldn't come to make a mistake however the sages also say something very beautiful which is that if somebody makes a mistake when they're reciting Hebrew they mistake they make a mistake and they say things in a mistaken fashion so long as they did it because they weren't aware of the correct way to say it then God will listen to their prayers and God will accept them for whatever they were supposed to be which means that if somebody makes a genuine mistake and he says over here and he makes a a somewhat heretical statement that God is somebody else then if he meant it only he'd be meant to say echron and he mispronounced it then that's fine God will accept the prayer for what it was supposed to be which means god Peaks peeks into your heart and has a c sees what's going on over there um so the whole the whole of the first paragraph that she might split up into three paragraphs we might mentioned that yesterday the whole of the first paragraph of the Shema is revolving around the concept of against accepting upon ourselves the Heavenly yoke and it talks about love that you should love the Lord your God right how do you love somebody anybody know it's completely absolute silence you give you give thank you the the how do you how do you show somebody that you love them you give to them right um it's not enough you know within a relationship everybody here I'm sure is absolutely perfectly aware that within a relationship it's not enough to just imagine that the person that you're in the relationship with knows that you love them you have to show them that you love them right how do you show them that you love them you tell them that you love them you can buy them you know little gifts for example things that they've always wanted so for example maybe you know like a new tire for the car or you know that that kind of that kind of thing um that the uh that when you that's how you show somebody that you love somebody but I have to it's Hashem we're commanded to love God how are we supposed to show God that we love him tell him you could you could tell him right which means that you could go outside and you could sort of shout out to the into the sky you know I love you I love you and you could keep doing that until they come to take you away right that's that's one one possibility um you know there was a famous bit of a famous bit of graffiti it says if you speak to God then you're Pious and if God speaks to you then you're schizophrenic so I'm not quite sure standing out in the garden outside screaming I love you up into the sky I'm not sure which one that falls into exactly but uh you you could definitely do that the other alternative which is perhaps a little a little less um a little a little less socially awkward shall we say is to do the mitters right God wants us to keep the Commandments how do we show God that we love him by doing what he wants us to do so there I have this Hashem will do whatever we can do you don't have to do them all it would be nice if it'll be nice if we were able to do the wall right but a person can take upon themselves you know mitzvot and Commandments and they're like this one so they'll do this one they'll like that one they're like you know they'll do that one the other one is too difficult for them right now so they won't do it but the idea of showing God that you are that you are prepared to do what he wants you to do that's your way of showing God that you love him and then it says like this a very interesting little phrase over here how are we supposed to show God that we love and we're supposed to show with all of our heart with all of our soul and with all of our resources now it's getting a little detailed but I want you to hear this because it's it's really it's a very beautiful idea something very very deep is coming up the word that levagra is spelled lamad bet bet half and the rabbis point out that that's not the way to spell heart your heart should be Libra there's an extra bet over there now we need to know what that is because again in in the Torah there's no such thing as a letter that's there for no reason there's no such thing as a letter that's been missed out for no reason everything has to be learned so the gemara the the town would learn something very very interesting of it says that we should serve god with both of your inclinations what inclinations have we got so we've got a yet sahatov we've got a good inclination and we've got a yetara we've got a bad inclination right some of you may not have been aware of the fact that you've got a good inclination but you do right everybody's gone the camera is coming along over here to teach us something very very fascinating I'm not sure anyone's picked up on it yet though the gamara says that we should serve god with both of your inclinations which is coming to teach us what that our task over here in this world is not to uproot the yet Sahara the evil inclination and to get rid of it rather our task in this world is to take the the power of the yatesahar of that evil inclination and to channel it into the good so it's most incredible idea he's saying like this that there is no such thing as good or bad traits there is no such thing as good or bad power that God gives us it's what we do with it that's going to define whether or not it's good or whether or not it's bad which means that the same the same you know to take jealousy for example jealousy is normally a very negative trait but jealousy when utilized properly can spur us onwards to become bigger and better people than we were right desires desires are neither good nor bad right what we do with our desire is going to define whether it's good or whether it's bad which means a person can have tremendous physical desires and can lead a a beautiful and fulfilling married life or a person can have tremendous physical desires and lead a divorged life it's the same desire it's just being channeled into something which is going to be positive as opposed to something which is going to be negative that's what really what it's saying over here when it says we should serve god with our yet Sahara with the the the more the the more bad dimension of who we are it's telling us don't try to uproot but rather you take that harness that power and utilize it for the good instead I always I always tell people like this you know I I think I think again I think it's a fundamental mistake that people make people uh you know if you're trying to become a better person no again looking around the room there's not too much evidence of this but maybe you know somebody who wants to become a better person I don't know um but if you're trying to become a better person what what you know what should you do don't very often people make the mistake of thinking that they've got bad traits and they need to uproot those trade they've got to get rid of them they get rid of those great they can break that trait then they'll become a better person I think that 99 times out of 100 that's not true which is 99 times out of 100 what a person really needs to do is a person needs to recognize what their traits are and work with inside of who they are right so you've got somebody who is very impetuous so to decide that they don't want to be impetuous anymore well it's a very that's a very Noble decision to make but it's probably not going to change the person's personality at all so what do you do you have to learn how to utilize your impetuosity to for the good right and how to how to learn how to control it a little bit rather than to imagine that you could wake up one morning and you'll just you won't be the same as you were you won't be impetuous anymore it's the same with all of all of these traits that we've got you know if a person is an angry person it's it's it's very unlikely that the basic fundamental character is going to change what we've got to learn is how to control the various characteristics that way a person can become a better person a person can become a Kinder gentler more thoughtful person with inside of who he is not not trying to be somebody else altogether not trying to step outside of the Persona that God gave him but rather to work with inside of what God has given and to become the best person that he can become you know the uh there's a there's a there's a medrish medish rabbit in cohelet rubber which says like this very very famous marriage it says somebody has a hundred so that the nature of human beings is that you want to have 200. huh it says the Madras if you've got 200 you want 400 right it's an interesting thing it's human nature why are we never happy with what we've got right if you've got you know be sure there's the model whatever time so he gets his 200 now he's not happy with his 200 anymore because now he wants to have 400. first of all that's a very interesting Insight of huntsman Evans the late Russia in the mirror used to say like this you notice that your dream is getting further away which means when you've got a hundred you just need another 100 to get to your dream but when you've got 200 then you need 200 to get to your dream and if you've got 400 you need another 400 to get to 800 it's just it's getting the more you've got the further and further away what you want is getting but on top of that what's the idea why did God create us in a way that we are full of desire for things that we don't have so the answer of course is very simple because the the desire that that that desire to have more is neither good nor bad the desire to have more is just that's it's just raw material what am I going to do with that desire is going to define whether it's going to be good or whether it's going to be bad which means I can Channel my desire for more into the world of Mitzvahs for example the same way that if I've got a a hundred I want 200 if I've done one mixer I want to do another mitzer and if I've done two minutes as I want to I want to do four Mitzvahs and that desire it's the same desire it's just one desire is pulling me in One Direction and One desire is pulling me in the other direction but it's exactly the same thing right a person can take the desire to always want more you know there's certain kids in it they're never happy whatever you give them they're not happy they just they want to have more and more of whatever they've just been given and they're never looking at what they've got they they're always looking at what they don't have that translate into something positive so when you're a kid it can be very frustrating it's frustrating for the parent and it's frustrating for the kid as well but if you take a look studies that have been done of people who are running enormous companies and fueling economies all around the world normally these are very driven people and whatever they've got it's not enough I mean what possesses somebody who's got a hundred million dollars to want to carry on going to work every day like at what point at what point do you have enough at what point is it okay to say you know what I'm going to take it easy most of these people they never do because they're driven and their Drive is fueling the economy and their Drive is giving livelihood to hundreds sometimes thousands sometimes tens and thousands of people are getting livelihoods from the businesses that these people have established yeah certain framework um zero in here it's um character traits from our parents right some positives yeah um so say take a negative trade for instance wouldn't you want to eradicate that trade as much as possible rather than work within the framework for fear that history could possibly repeat itself yeah yeah look I think the question over here is is is what what what do we mean by eradicate which means the trait to correct which means I don't I don't think I don't think eradicate is is the right way of looking at it which means if a person imagines that they're going to be able to eradicate a person a personality trait that they've that they've got or they they received genetically I don't know is that I mean a person receives it genetically how's he going to get rid of it right however what what the correct way to deal with it is to work out how it can be utilized for the good right which means that again a person a person who is passionate about everything is sometimes a person who's not always in control of his temper right but it's possible to take that sense of passion and to direct it into positive things we've all come across people that are doing incredible things here in the world right they've established the most unbelievable the most unbelievable things in the world whether they're Jewish or not doesn't make any do it doesn't make any difference you know Jewish not Jewish and these are always very passionate people they believe absolutely in what they're doing and they're able to change things and they're able to make the world a better place because of that passion that they're pouring into the world I just I think personally I think the idea of saying look I I have this and from now on I don't want to be like this anymore and therefore I'm going to change I'm going to I'm going to take that and uproot it and get rid of it I don't know it sounds very nice I just don't think that's practical we're better off being realistic with you know being realistic with what I with what I've got right some somebody for example somebody who's a very passionate person is not going to wake up one morning and be you know I don't know completely passive it doesn't work like that so the question over here is how can I use how can I use that passion in a positive way instead of in a negative way you wanted to say something yeah so um I've spoken to a few from uh a religious uh Millionaires and I asked them okay you have so much money why do you why do you go to work good questions he said he'd answer one of them gave me it was like interesting he's like I don't enjoy me I mean I have enough money for me and my children but I enjoy doing the business I enjoy I enjoy making deals I enjoy meeting with clients I enjoy selling these things giving Plus so for him it wasn't the maybe our baby was lying I don't know for him it wasn't the money it was good I think I think I think that's that's very possible I think a person gets to a certain level of wealth where the money has very little that the the you know exactly how many dollars there are has very little very little meaning anymore you know whether you're worth 40 million or 80 million or a billion right so you know a billion maybe that's not fair because people people want to get into the billionaires club right so they can say they've got a billion but when a person's got an awful lot of money um they're not they're not doing this anymore necessarily for the money itself the money doesn't really mean very much to them anymore they've got everything that they could ever possibly want um so yeah it could be the drive the drive they enjoy the negotiations they enjoy doing the business that gives them that gives them the drive right it could be utilizing the money to fund all different kinds of philanthropic things that that's why that's what that's that's their motivation for going into work right um they're all different kinds of things you know I I spoke to somebody once who was a very wealthy fellow in London and I asked him why you know I sound like what at what point are you going to slow down he told me something very interesting he said I wouldn't mind you know slowing down a little bit he says but I've got an office full of workers he says it's my responsibility to them to give them their salaries he says if I slow down then that's going to have a negative impact on their income at some point so maybe that's another another you know insight into why some people never seem to want to slow down because of their responsibility to other people it's a big responsibility somebody who's running an office and he's got 10 20 100 500 people working for him um you know he's got to be he's got to be concerned for all of these people to make sure that they're getting paid the desire is there um I don't I don't know I don't know what I'll tell you I think I think I would imagine if you stop if you stop each very wealthy person and ask them why they're still doing what they're doing um that you'll probably get a lot of different reasons Hayden yeah I remember um years ago I was reading about and this was at a time when most people they begin a career they'd like come out of college and go to a join a company and that's it like for it's very likely that for the their entire career yeah that's that's it um and um this story was about you know motivating people under those conditions and they found that a lot of people you know after a while when they get you know every now and then a promotion or a salary increase because of the cost of living or anything you know that affects income that everybody they didn't have to have 80 million or 50 million in the bank it was anybody it was it was a source that people they outgrow they you know they no longer motivates yeah no matter what they do and so then they would come up with um Corner offices or yeah the quality of the carpet in the office are um you know who has the coat rack next to the door yeah all these other things that higher hierarchy right these These are these are superficial hierarchies they did a study in England uh for businesses the the most successful businesses long term were the ones that gave share options to their workers which means include everybody even the cleaning stuff everybody had share options and those were the most successful businesses because the minute the minute you've you've now got a vested interest in that business it's a part it's a part of you and you are a part of it and and everybody's now working harder to uh to try to make the business succeed even better and that's a that's a much greater motivation than whether you get the corner office or whether you don't um I think anyway um my my father I love a salon he told me a story he once worked for a very a very powerful uh very powerful personality in England and uh there was somebody the business was growing by Leaps and Bounds and uh there was somebody who wanted a rise one of the one of the directors actually kept badgering for a rise and he kept pushing him off and one day my father was sitting in the you know in the office of his boss and uh the secretary phoned through to say that this director was waiting outside so my father got up to go and uh his boss told him no he says sit down he says I want you to watch this and it was a very big office and my father sat there was a sofa at the back he sat at the back and this fellow came in and the desk at the front and the director comes and sits down and he starts making his pitch that he wants he wants a raise and he thinks he's worth more and uh he's not my father told me that the the boss you know put on this rather Soulful look on his face and he says you know he says times are very tight right now so the business has been expanding it was it was unbelievable like every week they were moving into bigger bigger and bigger premises since it's very tight right now he says but you know he says here's what here's what I think I can do he says I think I think we can probably I think we can probably afford to give you wall-to-wall carpeting in your office and the fellow stopped and he says really he says uh well what kind so immediately my father that immediately the boss says well not the highest level of course obviously even in carpeting there's a you know hierarchy and he said but you can he says go go to the whatever the carpeting department and tell them that you want level number two and you choose the color you want to put it in and he said this fellow left the room he was so happy and uh my thought that my father's boss turned to him and he says to him as a fellow close the door he says there goes a fool what did he sell out for he could have got a raise if he would have just pushed a little bit more he would have got it right but what do you sell out from the ends on some ridiculous little status symbol that has no meaning whatsoever because in a few months time they're going to move into another premises anyway and that carpet will get left behind right we we uh we do we do tend to sell out for uh so you know we do tend to sell out for ridiculous things that's for sure um sometimes as a carpet sometimes it's something else sometimes it's a you know piece of cake in the morning whatever it is that get gets us going yeah um but that's the whole of avocado to take take up personality to take our traits and to try to channel them into a more positive Dimension and then it says it's easy like we should be prepared to to dedicate our souls to God that shouldn't be such a difficult thing to do God gave us our soul to begin with right so hopefully it shouldn't be so complicated to say here take my soul I'll give it back to you the last of the three things that I mentioned over here is which is with all your resources It's the Most Fascinating idea over here the the rabbis point out that things are going up in levels so we start off with the easiest with all of our hearts and then with all of our soul which is a deeper level and then with all of your things material abundance that's the highest level of all now if I were to ask you myself included we would probably all say it should be the other way around no that you know the physical and then get to the spiritual and that's a better a better order of doing things but over here it's working backwards in a certain way it's it's ending up why is that because the hardest thing of all that we have to do is to give away our physicality our material wealth that's the hardest thing that a person can do okay somebody once mentioned a very interesting phrase it's easier to die sanctifying God's name than it is to live sanctifying God's name hold up to put it that perhaps into a an easier way to understand it it's easier to fast to sanctify God's name than it is to eat to sanctify God's name which is oh Yom Kippur and the day of atonement when everyone's in the synagogue and everyone's fasting and everybody's innocent you feel a certain sense of you know if if the synagogue you're in is doing it the right way there's a certain sense of urgency over here you know we got to get something done we've got to become better we've got to become bigger than we were so it's not it's not such a big deal to tap into that into that feeling right to become one with that particular feeling because we're sacrificing we're not eating we're not drinking we're we're in the synagogue we're trying to follow what's going on a lot of sacrifices going into this however to eat like on Friday night to eat the Friday night meal to eat it in a in a state of sanctity to eat it in a state of Holiness that's a lot more difficult to do so to live what's called al-kida shashem to live in a state of sanctity by sanctifying God's name is far far harder to do I don't want to you know giving charity giving charity is pretty fundamental with inside of Jewish inside of the in Jewish life and giving charity means that uh it's difficult for everybody that the thing that connects giving charity connects everybody together is that it's difficult for everybody to give you can be a real wealthy guy and you've got a million dollars to give away or you can be a not so wealthy guy and you've got ten thousand dollars to give away but for each one what they're giving away right now that's difficult for them you know the rich guys looking the poor guy and he's saying wow that guy's only got ten thousand dollars to give away for him it's easy and the poor guy's looking at the rich guy and saying gosh I gotta go away ten thousand dollars is a fortune for me this guy's giving away a million dollars you know why because it's easy for him right but the NSS it's difficult for everybody this idea of of giving away our physicality being prepared to give away our physicality in order to draw closer to God is something which is truly very difficult to do so I think we're going to stop over here with Hashem but you know if anybody here is is inspired enough to want to give away their material physicality so I might know somebody who uh is is prepared to you know to help them out 20 is 20. 20 or nothing is something okay we're gonna stop over here oh