The Power of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai - Rabbi Lazer Brody

Besides the sham, what is the big deal about tonight? Up till now, no music, no weddings, no shaving, no old thing you can't play your guitar. And all of a sudden comes one night and everything turns topsy-turvy and it's happy and there's weddings and there's simcha and there's simchot. What's the difference? When Yakov Avinu came to Mitzrayim and there was famine on Yisrael and Yosef they found out that the viceroy of Egypt was really his son Yosef, his long lost son Yosef. And he comes down to Egypt and Pharaoh, he was very happy because in the beginning they thought that Yosef was a slave and now they see that Yosef is the son of a king. It's not just a viceroy for sure, son of a king. So what's the meet with this king of Israel is, Yakov Avinu, our holy forefather Yakov. So they bring this old man, he sees Yakov is very old man and Pharaoh asks him, "How old are you?" He says, "I'm 130 years old." He says, "I've been having 130 difficult years." Well, it might sound to someone like Yakov Avinu is complaining, but Yakov Avinu is just reporting something very objective. Well, he had his problems with Esau, had his problem with Dinah and he had a problem with Laban and every single day Yakov Avinu says, "Laban made me the in the winter he suffered cold nights and in the summer very difficult life. Now he comes down, it looks like it's bad. It looks like he's leaving Egypt, leaving Israel. But we know in emunah Yakov Avinu teaches us and it comes out this is the light of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. What's that bonfire related tonight? We went around the bonfire and it's light and it's warmth. We got close to the bonfire, we feel warmth. This is the warmth of emunah, this is the light of emunah. And this is what the Arizal tells us in the memory of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai before we have every festive meal Atkinu seudata d'menuta. We're now having a seudah of emunah. Tonight is a night of emunah. So Pharaoh tells Yakov Avinu said 130 years. Then what happens? Yakov Avinu is now he's got his son Levi and his son Yehudah and they make a coil in Goshen and Am Yisrael is multiplied and multiplied and multiplied and he's got children and grandchildren and great great grandchildren. How long did Yakov Avinu live in two? 147. He had 17 years in Egypt. 17 is gematria tov. So we have now 33 days tov. We have 17 more days until Kabbalat Torah. This is the simcha of Am Yisrael. These 17 days and this also turns around. When does the 17 days begin? On Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai's yahrzeit. What do we learn by Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai? When Kvod haRav spoke before, he mentioned something I had in mind to mention baruch Hashem it pre-revealed. When it was real Torah, real Torah gives birth to other Torah. Kvod haRav told the story about the Or HaChaim HaKadosh when finally with the Israel and with such trembling with kedusha, he crawled all the way up on the mountains. The God, the students of the Or HaChaim say if that mountain were paved with knives, the Or HaChaim would have crawled up on knives, a road paved with knives to get to Rabbi Shimon. Who was that Or HaChaim HaKadosh, Rabbi Chaim ben Attar? Ahem. He was the leader of the entire generation in Eretz Yisrael. He was in Morocco and the Baal Shem Tov the founder of the Chassidic movement is the Or HaChaim for the Ashkenazim. He was in the Ukraine, Ukraine now where the war is going on. And it was Shabbat in the afternoon, the time of Seudah Shlishit. And the middle of Baal Shem Tov, you don't cry on Shabbat. He had a tear coming down his eyes. They said, "Rebbe, what's the matter? The Rebbe shed a tear on Shabbat. The Rebbe is always so happy on Shabbat." And he said, "The lights of the west have just been extinguished." What do you mean the lights of the west? Then Morocco was referred to Morocco, but then Morocco was the west because it's west of Eretz Yisrael. Further west, it's the west of before where you get to the Mediterranean. And then at the all of the important was Europe and North Africa. He says, "The lights of the west, how did the Baal Shem Tov know that?" At that time on Shabbat the afternoon, he got the secret of the mikvah, the secret power what happens to a person when they go in mikvah. There's only one person in generation that knows this secret. And he got the secret, he knew that if as great as he was, the Or HaChaim HaKadosh was greater. But he says if shamayim they're giving up the secret then the Or HaChaim HaKadosh must not be here anymore. And they found out by the time the word came and by the courier, there was no telegram there. It came Tuesday afternoon that the word came somebody came across the Mediterranean. Tuesday afternoon they found out that the Or HaChaim is no longer with us. The Baal Shem Tov he felt this. This is the Or HaChaim HaKadosh. This is the Or HaChaim HaKadosh that he he felt this kedusha. The higher a level person is, they can feel the holiness. And what's the holiness? Somebody might ask a real question. Okay, it looked like Yakov Avinu Yakov Avinu is happy with coming down to Egypt. That's bad. But we learn he says 12 to 12 years and it looks like Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, they had the Romans chased him, they wanted to kill him. How did he get What What did he get? The Zohar actually gave the light of Zohar. He was in a cave for 13 years with his son Elazar. And they learned Torah in the cave and he came out the cave and he was so dry they didn't have clothes to wear. So what they would do, you have to can't you can't learn Torah without clothes. They would cover themselves in sand, they would dig a pit and it was sand up to their neck. The only thing outside was their faces, Rabbi Shimon and Rabbi Elazar. So when they finally came out, what they heard a bat kol came. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai could understand the words of the animals, the words of birds. Two birds came and two birds came and said that Caesar died and there's a new Caesar and they're not hunting him anymore. They were hunting Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai was so strong, we're not going to listen to Romans, they're going to do what Romans want to stop Torah. No way. No way. And they chased him, they chased him all over and they finally hid in this cave. When he came out of the cave, his whole skin had these tremendous deep rivulets that they get You know, if you ever get a a little cut and you have salt water in a cut, ooh, does it burn? This was Rabbi Shimon's whole whole body. His father-in-law, who was a kadosh, you know, Rabbi Shimon's father-in-law, Rabbi Pinchas Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair he was the father-in-law of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. He came and he cried and he cried and one of his tears it it stung Rabbi Shimon and he says he says he says, "Oy va voy, that I should see you with such suffering." He says, "Oy va voy, that baruch Hashem you should see me in such suffering. Such suffering for Hashem? Such suffering for Hashem? This all suffering, where did he get this from? Where did Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai get this emunah from?" You know who his teacher was? Rabbi Akiva. Do you know why we had Sefirat HaOmer? First 33 days, Rabbi Akiva's 24,000 students died. Why did they die? They didn't properly respect one another. So wait a second, hold it, hold it. Time out the field. The countries and the government, they know if someone does something really bad treason, high treason. And not every country has capital punishment. Capital punishment mean death penalty. No, they argue back and forth and Israel is a big argument. Now, if the worst terrorist that killed whole families, whether to kill them or not to kill them, capital punishment, not capital punishment. And we see Rabbi Akiva's 24,000 students, they get killed for what? Not properly respecting one another. They probably respect one another. She said, "What's the big deal?" They were holy tanoyim. They were holy tanoyim. They knew that Rabbi Akiva she knew that Rabbi Akiva is the greatest thing since Moshe Rabbeinu. Rabbi Akiva brought down the oral Torah. He codified the Mishnah which later became the Gemara, which later became Rambam, Shulchan Aruch. It all started from Rabbi Akiva. But you can't have Torah if you don't respect one another. They all died. So now Rabbi Akiva has five new students. He only has five new students. Instead of 24,000, it's 24,000. But Rabbi Akiva is 100 years old, his students died. Can you imagine if you got your life's work, you built a big institution, you built the yeshiva, you built a great company and when you're 100 years old, you want to give the company to your your son, your grandsons, your great grandsons and the company goes bankrupt? You say, "My whole life's work down the drain?" Rabbi Akiva could have said, "Whole life's work down the drain? No." With emunah he started brand new, made a new start in a 100. And this new start, what does new start bring? Rabbi Meir Baal HaNess, that was one of the students. Rabbi Yehudah bar Ilai, that was another one. Rabbi Elazar ben Shamua, that was another one. Rabbi Yosi ben Halafta, that was another one. But number five was Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. And Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai took the light of emunah from Rabbi Akiva. And when we light the fire in honor of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, we light the fire of emunah in our hearts. This is the power of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. And Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, where does emunah come from? You know there's a halacha in Torah, very important halacha. And it's something that invokes such divine divine You think with the Hava time, the greatest rabbi of the last 100 years, and the Hava time could have written about laws of Kashrut. And these laws No, he wrote about Lashon Hara. Wrote a book, the Hava time. Everything Hava time is Hava time. Think we're talking about evil talk. Hava time. Why did he do that? Cuz he knew how important one bit of Lashon Hara There's 31 mitzvot involved in it. 14 positive and 17 negative You knew how important it is for every one of us to love one another because any type of Lashon Hara it's a breach of V'ahavta L're'acha Kamocha. And it's a breach of Emunah. You can't love another Jew if you don't have Emunah. So, what's the question of love another Jew or have Emunah? You believe we say Avinu Shebashamayim. Avinu Shebashamayim, Rabbi Akiva He He They They made a prayer when the great rabbis Rabbi Akiva was a baal teshuvah. He was the son As the son of righteous converts, Akiva ben Yosef a ger. And all they prayed there was no rain in Eretz Yisrael. And the greatest rabbis prayed for rain. And Rabbi Akiva says, Avinu Malkeinu My father in heaven, give us rain. This opened up the sky and cloud. This is the power of Rabbi Akiva's Emunah. When Rabbi Akiva wanted Rabbi Akiva to tell us that Rabbi Akiva was dying. It was Erev Yom Kippur. And we read about this on Tisha B'Av. And the Romans made this excruciating torture. And while they were torturing him, he was saying Shema Yisrael. And he had a smile on his face. His students said, "Rabbi, how can you smile?" He says, "I waited my whole life for this moment of Emunah." He waited for the Shechinah to come This was Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai's teacher. Rabbi Shimon's whole life was devoted As much it was great bringing down the secrets of Shamayim, the holy Zohar. But Rabbi Akiva we see all through the Gemara when other Chachamim they're machmir, he is meikel. I'll give you an example. There's a halacha if girls can wear perfume on Shabbat. It's called Shemen Afarsimon. And they all argue. The Chachamim say, "No, no, no, no, no, no. This is only for a rich girl. Cuz a regular girl, a poor girl, they can't have This is only for a daughter of a king. Only a daughter of a king can wear this fancy perfume, Shemen Afarsimon, the oil of persimmon." Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai says, "Every bat Yisrael is a daughter of a king." Kol b'not Yisrael kulan Yisrael b'nei melachim hen. Yisrael b'nei melachim hen. But we see that in halacha and many halachot where I don't want to go into that particular halacha in muktzah where if the Sabbath dragon chair and the chair puts a crease in the in the sand if you don't have a paved floor, you can do it. You can't do it. Rabbi Shimon says, "No, no, that's no problem. You didn't intend to do it." Many times there's chumra, Rabbi Shimon was meikel. Ah, but now when you come to nistar, when you come to holiness Rabbi Shimon is the biggest machmir because holiness is the neshama. And in the neshama two things have to happen. The Emunah comes from the neshama. And loving another Jew comes from the neshama. Why do you look at a body? Guy looks at a body. This guy is This Even I remember then This is your here great neck and great neck They have the Iranian community. And great neck They're mostly Mashadi. And I go to Los Angeles and they're mostly Tehrani. And they have a joke amongst the Iranians. You know what intermarriage is? When a Tehrani marries a Mashadi. They both are ready to go. What's the difference? You Jews differentiate from one another. Well, I should To have Emunah, you can't look at bodies. This is Tehrani. This is Mashadi. This is Bukhari. This is Iranian. This Ashkenazi. This is Sephardi. This religious. This not religious. Back in Israel it's crazy now. When the war with Mashiach, the right against the left. The religious against the Well, I should I got one political party. Am Yisrael. Am Yisrael chai. Am Yisrael echad. Hashem echad u'Shmo echad. And we say, Mi k'amcha Yisrael echad ba'aretz. We're echad. We're one nation. We're one nation. How can we feel we're one nation looking at this one? This one's here. This one's this. Got this opinion. That's opinion. If you look at his neshama, that's your brother. That's your sister. And that's because Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai tells us in chapter in in Bereishit, the first chapter of the Zohar, he says that the neshama is chelek Eloka mima'al. Wow. You know what a neshama is? It's a tiny bit of Hashem. Every single Jew in this room is walking around with a tiny microchip a spiritual microchip that's different between a live person and a person b'mikan chas v'shalom is that divine spark. And when Hashem wants a person up in Shamayim, he takes the divine spark up in Shamayim and the shell, which is stays here. Can you imagine go to Kennedy Airport? This is great big 737. Great big 737. But there's a problem. It's got these big wings and this big fuselage. No engine. Can it get off the ground? You take a body without a neshama, it's not going anywhere. What takes our prayers up is not our arms and our feet and our hands and we we dance and we dance and sing, but it's the neshama. And where Ahavat Yisrael comes from, a person cannot have Ahavat Yisrael if he or she looks at bodies. You have to look at the neshama. Look past the body. Look at the smile of that other Jew. The The The The The The The good word. And you smile at another Jew, you get a smile back. It's automatic. The The The most contagious Not contagious disease. Rashi says that a good measure is 500 times more powerful than if a person frowns and someone feels insulted. When you smile, you make the person feel 500 times better. And how can you smile at another person? You're colorblind. You don't see Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Bukhari, Caucasian. You don't see this. You see the neshama. That's what Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai teaches us. And you love the other person. And the power This is the power with all the love explained, the power of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai to For the people that don't have kids have kids. For people that need refuah have refuah. And as I'm saying this, anyone should need refuah, they should have refuah shleima. And everyone needs children to have children. Everyone needs good shidduchim for their children, wonderful shidduchim. And everyone that needs fantastic parnassah parnassah, be able to marry all your kids with keys to apartments in Eretz Yisrael and no debt. I always wish you the best. When we love every other Jew, that's V'ahavta L're'acha Kamocha. That's what Rabbi Akiva And this is what Rabbi Shimon says, Kol Yisrael b'nei melachim. He says they're all the sons of melachim. It's just not something nice. According to the Zohar, it's the real thing. Okay, so by physical DNA I got the DNA. They checked my chromosome chart. And again, okay, the DNA of my mom, the DNA of my dad, may they rest in peace. But if someone would check the spiritual DNA of my neshama it's from Hashem. It's Hashem. It's divine. And if we had a stethoscope that could hear the neshama, it's the neshama that's making our heart beat. People say, "Where is Hashem?" Hashem is right there making my heart beat. If I would put a stethoscope to my heart it would sound like this. Yud Kay Vav Kay. Yud Kay Vav Kay. Yud Kay Vav Kay. That's Hashem in the heart. It's right there. It's not That's Hashem. He's right there with us. So, that's the Yud Kay Vav Kay in me and the Yud Kay Vav Kay in you. And as Yud Kay Vav Kay we're seeing each other and right away, that's my brother. That's my brother. That's my sister. That's my sister. And it's the most beautiful mitzvah. That's Rabbi Shimon. And this has When you have Ahavat Yisrael, ah Wow, got lots of mothers and fathers here. Let me ask you, mom and dad. What makes you happier than anything? Imagine you come home. You don't know that you got You got Moishele is in the fourth grade. Moishele can't understand his math homework. He's not asking anybody. So, she's already in eighth grade. So, we come home and you see So is sitting at the table with Moishe teaching him his math. Mom, don't you feel so great? Look at my kids. Look one helping the other. Or your kids are already married. And you know one of your kids had a difficulty. And you go to visit one of your kids and the other one is there and helping them. They got a leak in a roof and they're helping repair. Look at Wouldn't it be so good the way they help each other? They're They're with each other. Okay. How do you feel when your kids are fighting? Does anything get on your nerves more than when your kids are fighting? Well, just know that Hashem is a more loving parent than any of us. And Hashem doesn't have nachat when we fight. The power of Lag B'Omer, when we're together with the flame of Rabbi Shimon on the flame of Emunah is the power for refuah. The People say, "Well, I see people are still sick." Somebody had a kasha on Lag B'Omer. True story. Family goes up and they have a brand new SUV. Let's say it's for a that family vehicle. What do they with the brush? They don't know what is really called an SUV, but the utility vehicle. It's like a family We used to call it when I was a kid a station wagon. They say it's a station. Yeah, van. Okay. Good. And they go up to Meron. They live in Beit Shemesh. Family from Beit Shemesh from outside Beit Shemesh. They go up to Meron. And they go to a beer. They go to Rabbi Shimon. They lock it. And they're on the way back. And a truck runs them off the road. And the car flips twice. But baruch Hashem, the airbags they They could have The airbags saved There was a mother, father, and five sons. The mother and the father they come out without a scratch. Son number one, no scratch. Son number two, fine. Son number three, son number four, son number five, 7 years old. He's unconscious. They right away take him to the hospital this and that. And they see check him out this and that. They think he's got a concussion. They do a cat scan. What do they find when they do a cat scan on his brain? They find a malignant tumor. They would have never found that. This little boy he didn't complain about anything. He didn't feel anything. The neurologist said, "Had they not found that tumor in a matter of 2 weeks, that little boy would have started having excruciating pain. Because that tumor it was still small, it would have been growing, growing, growing till it crushed the brain. In a matter of 4 weeks that little boy would have been blind. In a matter of Hashem Hashem Hashem Hashem 6 to 8 weeks, he'd be on a wing angel's wing to the oilam haba. But look at this, the kid This is what we learn from Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, the light of emunah. Sometimes a seeming difficult This is Yakov Avinu. He's not complaining with his 130 years. This is not Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai when he comes out after 13 years. And then they come after 70. That's 70. This is power of the 70 days that we now have the school of Rosh Chodesh and then we receive Torah. But sometimes before we get something really, really good, there is a difficulty and this difficulty is a test of emunah. But one thing Rabbi Akiva taught us, kol mai de Rachmana tav tav, la'avdi letav avdi, that everything Hashem does is for the best. Who said, "What's a car total loss? Brand new car costs I don't know. American prices cost $150,000. And Israel, you buy a car in Israel, you have to add together you might pay taxes and buy a jeep for the army. It's not like the prices that here. It's like double the price. Pay big taxes." And the car is totaled. What's that little boy's life? An operation. They had brain surgery, successfully took the tumor out. Also a miraculous thing. Little boy I said this story in Beit Shemesh. So a woman comes up with a 14-year-old boy. She says, "I'm the mother." Rabbi Kesselman says, "If anybody thinks the story's not true, I'm the mother and this is the boy." It was already 7 years later. Ben Porat Yosef, the light of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, it is the light of emunah. It is the light that fires our souls. It's the light that ignites our souls. What is the power of emunah? The power of emunah is our own connection with the Ribono shel Olam and our own connection with each other. Cuz once again, if we don't have emunah that we're all the sons and daughters of Hashem, we have the same father in heaven, then we can't believe we're brothers and sisters. The moment we know that we're Am Yisrael Am Echad b'lev Echad. And that's why we got Torah. This is the one time where Am Yisrael didn't have machlokes on Har Sinai. Am Echad b'lev Echad. We're together. Holy brothers and sisters. I love Briarwood. I love the Bukharian community. I got to say this again. I'm very Bukharian certificate. I have I love this kehilla. When it was me come play Israel, if Am Yisrael is is wonderful, but the kehilla Bukharian no words. No words. But I ask one thing. So people say all do the spitzfor and you take a kabbalah that you're going to learn Torah with that. I ask one kabbalah b'zchus Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. That no one in this community should say something bad about anyone else in this community. Let's start with the team. Let's start that Briarwood should see Ahavas Yisrael. And you know what's going to happen when Briarwood has Ahavas Yisrael? It's going to spread to all of Queens. Then it's going to spread to New York. New York, the Jews in New York for the love of What's the percentage of Jews in the United States that live in New York? Maybe New York is at least half of the American Jewry. Okay? And good and it'll spread all over. By this Ahavas Yisrael in this community, it just starts we light the spark. We just lit the bonfire like the same spark of emunah that we're all brothers and sisters. I'm not going to say anything bad about a brother or sister because it makes our father in heaven sad. And by this spark lit here, and we'll have achdus here, we'll be together here, it'll be all of Am Yisrael. This fire will spread to all of Am Yisrael and Hashem will bring us Mashiach Tzidkeinu and our holy Beit Hamikdash b'meheira b'yameinu.