The Infinite Power of Making a Blessing - Rabbi Yoram Eliassi

Let me ask you a question. Why why do we make blessings? Does Hashem really needs me to make brachos, blessings? Hashem doesn't need me. Hashem is the creator of the world. I make blessings. Right? Hashem doesn't need my blessing. He's the creator. Why am I making blessings? Beautiful. So, on a basic level when you want to eat, right? You want unlock the food. You want to get permission from the creator of everything that is his to transfer that to your possession to eat it. And then after blessing when you're saturated, you say thank God. Oh, you enjoy the food. You're not hungry anymore. You say after blessing. So, at a basic basic level, you make a blessing to get permission and say thank you. On a deeper deeper level, when you make a blessing, you want to fill your elements of the soul, the five elements of the soul, with the blessing from the Hashem who constantly gives. And if you look at Tehillim, Tehillim kuf gimmel kuf dalet. Go check it out. In that Tehillim, David Hamelech says five times, barechi nafshi. Bless my soul. When you're making a blessing, five times. Each element of the your soul needs to be filled with the presence of Hashem. Right? With his giving. So, it says barechi nafshi five times. Why? Because you have five souls. And you want to feel Hashem. You want to feel his presence. Right? And that's the reason also we we pray. We have an amidah. Right? In the amidah, there are blessings. Right? Shemoneh Esrei. We say we call the amidah the prayer Shemoneh Esrei. Right? 18 blessings. What are we doing with our blessings? Our blessings is causing the worlds, right? That connect us to the higher worlds, to be filled with the presence of Hashem. Our blessings from the one aspect, we're filling our souls, the five level of souls. With another aspect, our blessing and prayers, we're filling the olamot with God's presence. I don't know if you've seen the there's some rabbonim when they make blessings, each blessing is like 3 4 minutes. >> [laughter] >> Every word, they want to feel Hashem. They want to feel his presence. They want to feel all the goodness that he does. They want to connect the worlds. They want to feel Hashem. People want to feel That's how you feel alive. When you eat a amazing Persian kebab, I don't know. Or ghormeh sabzi, I don't know. Persians, too. Right? When you enjoy the feeling, you feel alive. When you enjoy the food, you feel alive. That's when you make a blessing, you're really technically if you're focusing on what you're saying in the depth of it, you're you're filling your souls. You're filling the world. You're filling the world with the presence of God. Right? So, that's one aspect we focus on. Now, we said Rabbi Yochanan had two mishnayot. On one mishnah, he says what to attach to. And on the previous mishnah, he says the five students and their praisers praises now. On the mishnah where he says what to attach to, he picks a good heart, you know? Why? As we said, cuz that is the foundation of everything else. When it comes to the mishnah that he says the five students, which student he would pick, right? That can sway the whole balance, the simple opinion, the Tanna Kamma opinion, he says, "I would pick a cemented stirn." Right? Someone when you teach him something, he doesn't forget. Nothing There's no leakage. Abba Shaul, in his name, comes and says, "Spring flowing with stronger and stronger." What's the debate here? There's no debate here. If you're looking for a student who doesn't miss a miss a beat, you want a cemented stirn. No leakage. If you're looking for a student who can pump and sharp and he can debate, right? You want a spring flowing, right? Stronger and stronger. That's Rabbi Elazar. So, really in students, you have different kind of students. You have a student who doesn't forget anything. And you have a student who can drive things from his learn from from what he learns. And, right? And the debate. And the he's sharp, right? Now, when we say that the Torah is the blueprint of the world, we don't say it for nothing. So, if I tell you that everything is connected, that the root of it is a the is a good heart, I got to connect it to the good eye. Right? Where do we see Where do we see at the heart connected with the eye? Beautiful. I didn't think about that. When you say Shema, you close your eye. Right? You want to listen. You want to put it into your heart and you close your eyes as well. But there's another place. The doctors, they did research and they realized that the eye is connected to the heart. Now, I don't know how many years it took them to do that research. They realized that the heart and the eyes are connected. That's the in the physical world. Right? If they had looked in the Gemara, the Gemara already mentions that man's eyes are connected to his heart. How does that affect us? Why the Gemara mentions that? Why would the Gemara come and mention that? Anybody wants to guess why would the Gemara go out of his way and tell you your eyes are connected to your heart? Beautiful. That's one aspect. On another aspect, if it's Shabbat and somebody has an eye infection or the eye is really red, maybe a little bit bleeding, or there is some sort of pain, major eye pain, you can lechalel Shabbat. You can desecrate Shabbat and take him to the emergency room. Why? Because the eye is connected to the heart. He might be really having a heart attack or is about to have a heart attack. And you need to save a life because of nefesh. Right? And then you can take him to the hospital. See, when you learn Torah, you see everything is connected. What the person says a good heart is connected to the out good eye is not just in theory. It's actually in practice. Cuz the Torah is the blueprint of the world. You can't make a statement halfway. You got to prove it. Even the doctors admit to it. Right? Is that any questions up to now? Are we are we are we good with this? Nothing out of ordinary. Right? And that's the the blessing that one gets for having a good eye and a good heart is told to us in Mishlei. Tov ayin hu mevorach. A person who has a good eye, he's blessed. I remember I was in Los Angeles and my brother had a brit milah. He he was blessed with a son. And he says, "You make the blessing on the cup of wine." Right? And I looked at Maharal. It happened to be I was looking at Maharal and Maharal says, "You want someone with a good eye to be making the blessing on the wine." Why? Because you want someone with a good eye to be making the blessing. And that person is blessed and he will bring blessings. Right? I didn't even know that. But the idea is a person who has a good heart, he's blessed. And he should be given to be making blessings. He should be given the opportunity to make the blessings. Why? Because his eye is probably connected to his heart and it's flowing with blessings. He's bringing blessings. And that's for a good eye. And then for a good heart, right? It says, "Ohev tahor lev chen sefatav re'ehu melech." Someone who has a good heart, he's loved. Right? His inside is good. Sefatav chen. Not just his inside is good. What he brings out of his mouth, of his lips, is grace. Chen. Right? Not only he's above, he's loved in this world, but he's also loved by Hashem. Right? And he a good heart has it all. The root of everything is a good heart which is connected to a good heart. Now, the exact opposite what we said what we said, evil. Distancing oneself from even evil, right? We have the evil eye, the evil heart. What's the problem with that? The problem with being evil, someone who's evil, he doesn't really exist, right? He's taken out of the world. Now, you tell me what? There's a lot of evil people that exist and walk in the world. Right? They're walking. They're talking. They're doing business. They have a lot of money. Um it doesn't mean they really exist. They're really not enjoying the life as it should. They're They don't feel chaim. What we want is a real life. When you make the blessing with a pure eye, with a pure heart, right? You're bringing blessings to the world. You're feeding Hashem. That's real life. But who has a Someone who has a evil eye, an evil heart, he's really not feeling it. You know, he's constantly in his heart and mind obsessed with what other guy has, what he's missing. In essence, he's lacking. He's incomplete. Being evil, the problem with being evil is you're not complete. You're incomplete. You might be walking the world, but you're lacking. Right? You're incomplete. And that brings the person out of the world, right? That's what Rabbi Nachman wants to teach us, right? That not to be lacking, not to be incomplete, right? To really be in the world, right? That's what we should be aiming for. A lot of people, right? Don't realize this is Torah Chaim. When you learn Torah and you connect the dots how to deal with situations, how to look at things in the world with a good eye, how to help people when it's appropriate, that gives the people the true life. The exact opposite brings somebody out of the world. Go ahead. I can give you examples of people that are evil that don't feel lacking or incomplete. They're numb. They're numb. What do you mean they're numb? They're disconnected. A lot of A lot of people you see them smiling. A lot of people, I promise you, you see them smiling and laughing. If you really spend time with them, you see they're empty. They're empty, fully empty. It's all a fake show. They're not You see, what's the They say that if if a person in the Torah says if you do this X, you get this the you get karet. Karet means being disconnected. A lot of people are disconnected. Doesn't mean that because they're walking and they're smiling, they're happy within. Happiness you don't see it on the outside. Happy is in the inside, right? And that's what a lot of people think by looking at them outside, "Oh, they're going to the this place. They have that. They have a boat. They have a house." Or you see them, they got the car, they got the They're happening. It doesn't mean that they're happy, and it doesn't mean that they're connected at all. They might be totally disconnected. Right? To be connected, right? You need to be connected to the real source. There's a lot of fake sources, you know? There's a lot of hacks. And if you look at the same I think the argument here is is really so relative because you you're saying that that this is the the definition of happiness and and good life and and really be and real life. And he's saying that those people they'll tell you, "No, my definition is what I have. I have a better life than you." So what Why not it becomes more relative? So what's the maybe deeper answer to that also? The to answer that question. Is that Is that where you're coming from? Yeah. The so so some people, right? Um are evil, right? They have no banking on the next world, right? So Hashem gives them the reward in this world. Okay, a little fake laughter, you know, get get them some car, give them a house, I don't know. Make them famous for a few years, you know? They're going to get their reward in this world, but that's not in this world is the final The next world is the infinite world. You might get a finite reward, but it might not be the infinite, right? This world is called a pros door, meaning you're here temporarily in a hallway, right? It's not the final destination. We are looking for the infinite final destination. This world doesn't offer a final destination. This world is the preparation. That's why you see we say that everything you need a vessel. This world is a vessel to make you ready for the next world, right? And so some people don't want the next world. So no problem, Hashem gives them something in this world to pay them off, right? There's different bank accounts, right? So that is one one of the reason that you mentioning, you know, you know, these people are happy with they got. They're happy with they got in the finite world, but they're not tapping into the infinite, right? A person who knows what let's say as an example, knows until the fifth grade, right? He learned up to fifth grade and stopped, right? Did he miss the 12th grade? He missed it. In 12th grade he would have learned something more. If somebody wants to learn up to the fifth grade, Hashem gives them up to the fifth grade, but doesn't mean he tapped more. The mind, as we said, you can tap into more. I can tell you I've I've met rabbis their mind is so sharp, they've tapped into so many layers. If you talk to them, the answers they give you blow your mind away. Blow it away. Why? Because they have reached higher level, you know? They can look at a Gemara page. I can read it 10 times, and they can read it three times, and they know 10 times more than me, right? It's different levels, different layers, different tapping to different orbits, right? We have many worlds, right? So that's the point. We want to prepare ourselves, right? With these good character traits to attach to it to take us to the next world. Yeah.