Tisha B'Av: Actions & Echoes - Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair

[Music] our actions have echoes our actions have echoes shortly before his marriage the young father went to one of the Gedaliah door as the young fellow grew up in Yerushalayim food was very very scarce the only banana anybody ever seen was in a photograph they were starving it happened one day the Rebbe went out of the room and he left a few coins on the stander he said okay who took the money nobody said anything okay I want everybody to line up against the wall and he went from each boy to boy checking their pockets and as he was going down the line this poor young fellow was terrified he took the money out of his pocket he slipped it in the pocket of the boy next door to him Rebbe passed over him he got to this boy pulled out the money and he said what's this he said rabbee rabbee I didn't take it I didn't take it there have you looked at him and of course after that this young fellow got a name of being a Galef and very soon he started to turn up less and less to class and the end of the story was that he went off the dareth and he became completely secular this young man said to this God Lord oh he said how can I get married with this on my conscience this God lador said to him it's interesting you should say that because I heard a very very similar similar story happened to me when I was young somebody took some money from the stand of the Rebbe came back in the room he lined us all up in a line and as the Rebbe got to the boy who taken the money he took the money out took the money put it in his pocket and he carried on searching the whole line of boys and we got to the end he said okay boys turn around Tom let's all to say say together Hashi Boehner I shared my lair father not sure bah ha - your main Lukic Adam said that boy went on to be one of the good earlier doors he said you weren't to blame you weren't to blame you were young you were hungry and whatever this young fellow did or didn't do a Kurdish both will have rack of him he knows the true Koechlin of what he had to go through and he'll judge him his wrath on him says well I'm the first I'm really worried about is the Heder maybe one foolish action one action of incense insensitivity and the whole person a light life of a whole person will be ruined our actions have echoes few weeks ago on the Shabbat afternoon I was asked to speak to a group of young secular Israeli teenagers now these kids they go through this thing called a a máquina kadam survey which basically means that they say they go round and they try and get experience of different groups of israeli society these kids were all very intelligent very bright very personable very nice and they want to have contact with different sections of Israeli society because as the potential leaders of society the creme de la creme they need to have this experience and so it was that they spent a Shabbat afternoon in up the road here and they had lunch with her 80 families and they brought me in to speak to them just before shadows shudders and I stressed to them I said how every Jew that to me every Jew whether he's secular or he's her ad whatever keeper he wears I have a mitzvah to love him and that her eighty Jews love their secular brethren not always as the media would like to depict us and I've really tried as much as I could to build bridges it's not easy when I was finished speaking the young girl inside turned to me and she said sister but you're not like other karadian I said well this is you're not a realtor ad so I said well I'm open she said no no no no you're not judgmental so I said what do you mean she said I was at a lunch with the karate family and my hostess there the lady of the house made me feel them she speaking in Hebrew she made me feel like a character ah Rekha which means an empty wagon now I don't know she was aware of this but this was the exactly the same expression that happened in the conversation between the cousin ish sega's of the broker and David ben-gurion the first Prime Minister of the State of Israel ben-gurion went to Bnei Brak to try and see if he could work outside a compromise with the cousin ish and he explained to the cousin mission that we were living in the 20th century and we had the Jewish state and the her ad world had to the crowd they had to come towards him a little bit make compromises so the cousin is quoted in a gomorian Sanhedrin that says there were two wagons on the alley on the pathway up to beg her on one was laden full and the other was empty the Gemara says that the wagon which is full takes precedence says the concept cousin ish we the her ad public the her ad world we are like a wagon which is full laden with listen and Yiddish kite and you are a wagon that is empty and you have to give us precedence now I'm sure that's what the cousin ish understood was necessary to say to them David ben-gurion but sometimes in our sincere desire to bring close our brothers and sisters who are not yet religious we can come off as very condescending oh you're so lucky to find yourself at this wonderfully ultra Orthodox religious table on a Shabbat afternoon where we are about to disabuse you of all your nourish tighten your Stuart no relationship has any value unless it's faith based on respect if you if you want to treat some of that your Shabbos table like an S rug you'll find there a lemon no relationship in the world which has an agenda call our but secluded over and even if that Arva is based on a sincere desire to be micariff people it only can start with the sincere respect I tried as much as I could to explain that this lady was outing acting out of sincere feelings but I don't know I heard afterwards that she really turned off her actions have echoes my son is a keen swimmer he usually does about 60 lengths and one few weeks ago he was swimming and he we got very very tired he's about 20 legs he thought that's enough he was just about to get out of the pool and somebody said to him you know I have to tell you something I really enjoy you swimming I really enjoy watching you really you really swim so nicely he turned round and swam another 40 minutes never underestimate the power of a word even if it's inadvertent our actions have echoes Micha Bruce's father-in-law Rob ice into our boss once said the grandchildren of the price you get for not killing your children but once in a while you can even have knuckles from your own children I was at the kiddush a few weeks ago and a friend of mine came up and said I have to tell you a story about your son he said a few years ago quite a few years ago now my my son was getting onto the the tender when they couldn't English the bus to go to the Heder and it was his first day your son was a bit older than him and you know he was so nervous you could imagine the first thing these big boys and and he started to cry so your son came over to him and he pulled out a sweetie from his pocket a candy and he said here take this don't cry I saw that son I said you two terms another man that's not the point of the story now in our house at the beginning of every school term I am making sure all my children go up onto that tender with the sweetie in their pockets our actions occur an echo as a young fellow from a religious family and bnei brak and he decided one day to turn his back on religion on yiddish kite he moved out of his home and he moved in with his secular uncle in Tel Aviv Tel Aviv is as close to Bnei Brak geographically as it is distance religiously but when this young fellow started to date a non-jewish girl and things started to get serious and he told his uncle that he was going to marry this girl that was it even the secular uncle just that's too much and try as he might to persuade this boy not to marry this non-jewish girl he failed so his last-ditch attempt he said look at the very least the very least is you owe your parents to go to Bnei Brak and to tell them in person that much you have to do so this fellow's agreed with certain conditions and the conditions were that he was going to have his Shabbat the way he liked it which basically meant on Friday night standing out on the veranda on the mere passive with a cigarette in his hand with the neighbors on the opposite verandas Shabbos morning found him there with his iPad his iPhone and come shall shew us the father said to him rabbi mange Steinman is giving a shear the chalice Judas why do you come so he went and after a shallow Judas after the sheer other so his father brought him over to a iron laid and introduced him he said this is my son he's no more he's not sure Machado sinning so I related to this felon he said how long is it since you stopped keeping Shabbos so he said about two years he said and in those two years how many times did you have here who ring of children so he said four times and those four times how long were they about ten minutes sir our innate sense so it comes out that in the last two years you had 1440 minutes of the mahkum Valley Chuba and tsadikim gomorian condom sham for that I envy the chance he went back young fellow said this the words of a Pilate keep going around in his head couldn't let it go he persuaded the wedding eventually he broke it off completely and today he's from our actions have echoes as parents and teachers how careful we have to be to use our heritage to use the coal Yaakov to encourage to inspire to give love and not determine to the sword of criticism parshas debarment we read yesterday in shoe halo had to borrow my share deep emotion al khali Israel but a bar yard then the safer cinema broke him says the word Abraham osseous as sweet arrived the Torah has to be sweet very often I think speaking is about children but I see that many of my friends and I'm not saying I'm innocent totally of this because we come into Yiddish guide with tremendous enthusiasm that sometimes for our children who are Suffolk all from from birth and we expect from them the same degree and they're not like us every Belcher is a pioneer every ball sugar has had to cross a difficult road a difficult line not everybody can do that and when we can inflict on our children the same standards and we end up being mocked near where we should be make up a maker where we should sometimes be mocked me that's a recipe for disaster the Torah has to be sweet the Torah has to be sweet Bravo big the milliseconds of the bracha said that a person wants to have saprykin is learning he should have qivana in VII Reznor that same Bravo bara Revlon in the morning we say them because I heard that the Torah should be sweet we have to learn the Torah that's a few it doesn't say anywhere that it has to be sweet we have to dub him for that and you also used to say that and I've heard two versions of this that the the Torah is like eating a steak you put a piece of steak in your mouth mmm very nice mm-hmm that's a steak the more you chew it the more your Casa the more you got over the more the sweetness comes out and that's the second meaning of the word RA of Horus means like by the eruv mixture a person can only be mixed up in something when it gets into his kishkes when he it becomes part of them and that only comes from going over and over things the ate Sahara always says to us when he want a house of this you know it wait till you've forgotten it then he could've hassle the sweetness of learning is all in the and we live in the world where we've been taught our whole education is now this now this now this now this you know it's a miracle to me that I can still teach ptosis two children two boys have been brought up on a nine diluted diet and MTV where the cutting rate is is in nanoseconds this this one this one is because learning Gomorrah is all about holding card holding cup being able to focus being able to contain an idea in your head for more than just a few seconds and everything about our culture our so-called culture teaches us to D focus now this novice I've often thought that learning Gemara is a bit like juggling in your head you know you go omar abu omar over okay got a Moraga omar over i'm a rather a biomatter moreover okay dragon bomber over over over at bay oh ma about cake come up here o morado Omar Ivana a bio ma honorabie sera are moraga a Bahama and then we start and then of course you haven't even got to the the flaming torches there is shining the acronym and it's all going on in your head but it's not easy and we're taught we live in a society which teaches us that things that are not easy are not worth our attention take two people one just got to the top of Mount Whitney the highest mountain of the continental US I think and you know he probably should stop Mount Whitney for a good two or three days and another guy he gets a helicopter and he lands up there in 15 minutes now which of these two people has more satisfaction from getting to the top not talking about fun and talking about genuine happiness the guy who climbed up there why because he invested in it because he worked in it we've taught we are taught our societies teaches us that things by definition should be easy and this removes one of the biggest weapons there is against lack of self-esteem which any mechanic will tell you is probably the biggest battle that any Rebbe or any teacher faces today lack of self-esteem what builds a person's self-esteem when they take on a challenge that's durable they can do it and they succeed when you teach a person the challenges by their nature are unworthy the life should be simple simplicity is an ultimate value you have removed from them one of the Iker main tools of giving people success self-confidence and happiness in life we live in a world where everything has to be instant I won't drive in food I won't drive in marriage I won't drive him divorce I don't want to get out of my car Reid's a society which has no word for challenge in its vernacular there's another aspect of our brave new world which gives us serious problems I want to read you something that a friend of mine sent me for those of my generation who do not and cannot comprehend why Facebook exists and trying to make friends outside Facebook while applying the same principles therefore every day I walk down the street and tell passes by what I've eaten how I feel at the moment what I've done the night before what I'll do later and with whom I give them pictures of my family of me watering the lawn taking the dog for a walk gardening taking things apart in the garage standing in front of landmarks and driving around town having lunch and doing what everybody does every day I also listen to their conversations and give them and give and give them thumbs up and tell them that I like them and it works just like Facebook I already have four people following me two police officers a private investigator and a psychiatrist I use the modern parlance Lord I laughed out loud when I read this but after little reflection I thought to myself how sad how superficial are these relationships the pass for friendship on our brave new web a person has three relationships in this world with other people with a college Bravo and with himself in other makam and other cavero then I do not smoke when a dead person doesn't have when we live in a society which breeds superficial relationships with other people inevitably this will breed superficial relationships in his other two areas of life with a shame and when itself friends Hashem when there's no real relationship there no sense of commitment no sense of consequence no scar no honest friend a nice Scottish poet who I'm gonna friend you I like you and I could equally well unlike you when that disease creeps into our personal relationships it extends to our relationship with Hashem and it also extends to our relationship with ourself because a superficial relationship with ourselves means I have no self-respect no self-worth I just friend myself until I unfriend myself and end up in front of a psychologist based on meekness tradition was net broth for the three cardinal of errors because domum murder about Lazzara idolatry yelu ER is sexual immorality ramesh appear as a kid the son of live raka once wanted to say told me in here from personally somebody told me he said this that these three the three relationships of the person had correspond to those three of eras or the opposite they should be anyway they in autumn the kuvira that's that's obviously the antidote via the opposite of that is she has done the kill somebody is the the nadir of personal relationships the absolute author of opposite of avodah Zarah is been Adam lahmacun my relationship with the shin and he said the opposite of veal we arise the relationship the poison of Guillory arise is the poison pain aden la adds my because he loses his source of autumn he becomes an intelligent speaking animal he loses his story to Odin I was thinking to myself I didn't see this anywhere maybe if somebody could point out Akasha that's fine but I was thinking that maybe the three always parallel those three relationships Avram El Nino is Bernardo Mahavira it was the oil patois from four directions of arena was who went out the pillar of Casa to bring people Takas can fire Shekinah Yitzhak Aveeno is connect it about Azara that's when Adam lahmacun yes a Covino is the alert a Mima who was prepared to offer himself as the Cobra says a for our show it's a Covino mu knocking they're placed in front of a Shen the whole time Michelle sees it Savino as as a Corbin and yeah Covino I was thinking to myself must come out then that a broom Avenue is connected you know urias the Diaco Vivino is that surah Sodom and today it struck me in the kingdom that we said the first Kingdom this morning what is the source of them which is stamped on the kiss they are covered the face of yucca poppy Yakima vino is surah Sodom Hillary arises the opposite there Hagar I was also thinking it's the surah of Yaakov of even there the picture above Iranian when it was also the picture not other so yahoo Aveeno it's also the picture of Yaakov avi knew that side saved Josephus addict in the ultimate test of Guillory urias just at the moment when he was about to give him to the advances of Potiphar's wife the dewclaw shall have appeared the picture I'm reminded of something Rahman Bullman said many years ago is like it's on the brothel he said that the first gathering together of a good assess where they founded mesh appear a found that we got for yo me that was a they wanted to get on the Rabbani together to take a picture at the end of the a good of the convention and they got a photograph of a photographer and of course you know those days they had the big flash powder and the big thing and as he went under the shadiness half of the people half of the rabona did this Romare Shapiro said rabbi sign my masters there's a generation coming that it's only the Duke no the only the visit of your high League opponent which is going to keep them attached to you discount the eyes are such a powerful portal in the body the eyes which can see the open ocean can also be the portal that can admit model it's lung the greatest tumor that can be that's the battle we're fighting attend the kisum the hina the here the kingdom any egg Pelican Bahia the Doyles what is a big here the Phenom my son have no wanted to save it what really they were saying was that they didn't just the shame it was a bikina nobody a behemoth a better sorry about him and the Phenom means they laughed they lost their Munna they lost their batata it was behind him because they had no reason to do that and our test he said is now in the long long nights of a goddess that's when our Munna is going to be attested that's the tickin for that bethere the Hinnom and needless crying we're all fine when things are going well but when things start to get tough that's when I really moon and that's well before the talk and really kicks in a few years ago but a few years ago now my daughter came home from school and told us that a teacher taught us a magic then in the days just before mushiya Hashem will stretch a rope from one end of the world to the other and everyone will have to grab onto it and hold on very very hard because Hashem is going to shake it very very hard and only those people who have really Mona and Batak them will hold on as she said to me daddy daddy we have to find the rope where's the rope where's the rope is he gonna go through I say appear yes and it's gonna go through London and it's gonna go through Tel Aviv it's gonna go through the neighbor at the South Shabbos table yesterday afternoon Shabbos which is also Tish above it's a strange conversation no available for Hessian but obviously people's minds conversation came up and owner Haddad that if you had five minutes to live you knew you had just five minutes to live and you had your children gathered around you what would you say and the same daughter said I did tell them my children fight for your amudha Emunah is a fight in muna isn't either people tend to think that you either believe you don't believe that's not true a person can believe that cos is a very very bad thing but anger is a very bad thing but you'll stay an angry person he'll stay on a casa till the day he dies unless he's prepared to work on it and Munna is exactly the same there are things that strengthens a personal movement and there are things that we can the persons in I did something and I said to you now because maybe it'll help I wanted to I printed out some cards and actually some fridge stickers magnets and I have something if you'd be interested to get one but you could write it on yourself I wrote this I want to be close to a shed because he made the world and he made me too and he wants me and he wants to be close to me so I want to be close to him too and I know it seems sounds kind of trite but two or three times a day I would pull out this card and read it and it works let's try it you know but it works I want to finish with the story there was a poetry competition in London defeat the London a few years ago the poetry competition was everybody had to read the same poem the poem was the Lord is my shepherd Psalm 23 the Lord's Prayer as it's called mizmor Lord Abbiati Hashem Rollie was in English one by one the contestants stood up and they recited the Lord's Prayer and there was one young fellow who stood up and he was clearly Milas about him everybody else he finished and he sat down and the entire audience rose to their feet with his standing ovation and the judges called him up immediately and gave him the prize clapping everybody was starting to lose to leave the auditorium and this short little Jewish fellow walked up to the dais and he said excuse me judges but that wonder maybe I could I could I say my version would you mind so everybody looked around I mean okay so he comes up on the stage he starts to speak within two lines everybody in the auditorium is crying their eyes out finishes the whole of his mother David and he says thank you very much walks off the stage and out onto the street and this young fellow on the prize runs up to him and he says you take the prize this is your prize so no please you won the prize you did very nicely you did very very well I don't want the prize should not take it no no no I'm not taking the prize shimmer so this young fellow said okay fine but I want to ask you one question why is it that when I said Miss Molotov it when I said the Lord's Prayer everybody clapped and when you said miss Hubbard of it when you said the Lord's Prayer everybody cried and he said the reason is that I know the shepherd the job of a Jew is to know the shepherd to find the shepherd to look for the shepherd to do actions which bring other people closer to the shepherd we're in very dark times now dark dark times just before machine comes it's our job we feel the Jewish people a miniscule point but a point of bright light which very soon there's not a she'll illuminate the world the next year rather than sitting on these plastic chairs will be marching together thankfully share hard to the base of make though [Music] [Applause]