Why God Takes You Through Storms You Never Asked For - Rabbi Shlomo Farhi

Good morning, good morning, rabosai. Welcome to breakfast on the class. Breakfast on the class today is dedicated for Rafael Fortunee and Yitzhak ben Mazal, Chaim Rafael ben Frida and for the continued health of Chana bas Melega. It's also dedicated for speedy and complete refuah sheleima for Neria dove ben Chana. Please make brachos for his refuah. Also sponsored anonymously and dedicated for the refuah sheleima b'sha'ah tovah of Esther bat Orly. Finally, the week of Kobru is sponsored by David E. Ash in honor of you and your substantial capacity to do good today and every day. So, today I want to tell you a little bit of a story, a story of the evolution of a character. Our parsha begins by telling you >> [clears throat] >> and Hashem says to Avraham, "Lech lecha me'artzecha u'moladetecha u'veit avicha. I want you to go, travel away from your from your land, from your place of birth, from your father's house and Hashem promises him that in the process or in return for taking this journey of faith in Hashem, Hashem will bless him." And he gives him the most beautiful, you know, a collection of brachos. "I goti'cha es shmecha, you know, and venivrachu vecha v'adamah." And what's it called? And "V'hayisa bracha." Just like one thing after the next, Hashem promises him so many rewards for lech lecha-ing, for going from his land. Now, to me, the normal way of understanding this commentary is that Hakadosh Baruch Hu says to Avraham, "I want you to do something." Avraham does that thing and Hashem rewards him for listening. But actually, uh as some of you already have intuited, the pasuk is saying here something much more profound. Um I love the idea that if you take a look at the words vehayeeta beracha, which means and you will be a blessing, Hashem doesn't say and you will get a blessing. He says vehayeeta beracha, and you shall be or you will become a blessing. Um a blessing in the lives of all of those around you. You will be given the koach to bless others, to uh to be a powerful and positive force in their life. So, again, on the surface level, Avram's being rewarded. But a deeper understanding encompasses this idea of lech lecha. I need you to go. Lech lecha, says Rashi, l'hana'atcha, for your own benefit. I need you to go for your own blessing. For your own uh you know, for this is for you. But our rabbis really saw something here that is a little bit perhaps more beautiful than that. And the question is if Hashem wants Avraham to become this wonderful person, this blessed person, because Hashem doesn't say to him, "I'm going to give you a beracha." He says, "You're going to become a beracha." Vehayeeta beracha. He wants him to become this person that is this level. So, the question is why can't Avraham do that from the comfort of his own home? The other day, I saw there was a company that's advertising that instead of going to the doctor to be able to draw blood and get a blood sample, they have a kit that they send to your home and you do it yourself. Now, you look at something like that and you think, "Okay, you know, a very nice idea, right? You're able to do it yourself. You put it on your arm, you push a button. Wild. But then the is that there are some things that you could do from the comfort of your own home. Let me give you an example. You order pizza from a pizza shop on Uber Eats. It arrives in your house. You think to yourself, how good is the pizza going to be? It's soggy, it's warm. There's not that you should even get the pizza that they sent you in the first place. You have to make sure it has the wrapping on it. You want to make sure it's kosher. But that might not have been the right the right thing to order on Uber Eats. Sushi on Uber Eats arrives exactly the same way that they made it for you in the store because it's room temperature. So unless you order it in the hottest of days, your sushi is arriving pretty much Can I tell you something else? My sushi arrived with a can of Coke. They took it out of the fridge, put it in the bag, comes to my house, cold can of Coke. Is there any difference between having that in the store or in your house? Some things you could order in the comfort of your own home and it makes no difference whatsoever. Please only answer amen if you're listening to this live. So the question is why does Abraham need to travel in order to become? Why can't he be in the same place? Why can't he become somebody without leaving where he is? It almost seems clear that a part of the traveling of Abraham required him to become a different person in a different place. In fact, according to the understanding that doesn't only mean to go for your benefit, for your enjoyment, but rather that there was a journey that Avram took lecha to become himself. There seems to be this incredible detail and emphasis placed on the nature that a person cannot become themselves from within their own environment, from within the home that they grew up in in the city that they grew up in. So, I want to take a look at that together with you and try and understand how that created in Avram that was viheye bracha, you know, uh that Avram will become a a blessing. He will become someone who is a makor a source of bracha in this world. So, I need to share with you an amazing uh story. It's like a story that reads out of the fairy tales. There's a man and his name is Patrick Moore. Where does the guy called Patrick come from? >> Ireland. >> Ireland, very good, Leah. Uh Patrick Moore is traveling on vacation with his wife from Ireland. He goes into a river and he's uh fishing near the river or he's swimming in the river, I don't really know, on a boat in the river, I'm not sure, something to do with the river. All of a sudden, he looks down and he notices that his wedding ring, his wedding gold band is not on his finger. Maybe when he was casting, maybe when he was rowing, market eatler, market eatler, maybe when he was swimming, I don't know what he was doing. Whatever he was doing, he lost his ring in the river. He's looking for the ring. He's so upset. Obviously, not just the value of it. He's married for 16 years. It means a tremendous amount to him. He does everything he can. He feels like it's a lost cause. The river is a fast moving river. Um if you can't find it, it's already gone. His wife does not want to give up so fast. She sees three men standing at the side of the river like the three Malachim of Avraham. She goes up to them and she says, "Do you guys have a pair of goggles? Maybe we could look." Uh they don't have goggles. They do have goggles. They're looking. They don't find anything. Anyway, she takes their number. She says, "Listen, it means a lot if you guys are locals and you happen to be able to look for it and you happen to find something or you hear something about it, here's our number." Well, these three uh jolly men sitting there in Italy uh in the source at the site of this location are joking around between themselves and their names are uh in an un- most unlikely way they even named like fairy tale characters. Their last names are Paggy, Malaggy, and Palaggy and Paggy, Malaggy, and Palaggy. Like like something that you got you only could make up like you know. And [snorts] and um these three Italian men, they think it's a a little quite a funny story. So, they tell them, "You know something we're going to they decide between themselves, we're going to find this ring. We're going to give it back. You know we're going to even though that's going to be an epic journey, we're going to return the ring to its owner right uh even if it's an epic journey of a thousand years. You know, they're going to get this back to the to this man in Ireland. It's going to be a quest, you know." And they fashion themselves on some version of the Lord of the Rings that they're looking for this guy's ring and they send them a a whole a whole joking text about how they'll do their best. Well, after this guy leaves, the three friends, they decide to themselves, "You know something, this is a real this is a real item. Let's let's double down." They get some kayaks. They're rowing back and forth on the river, they can't find it. They decide nothing's going to deter them. It's already now, they're committed to the bit like they say. They get ropes, they tie themselves to the boulders so that they won't you know get swept downstream and they're looking and looking and they can't find till finally all of a sudden one of the guys sees against all odds a little glint, a flash of light reflecting in the in the water, reaches down in the water, he grabs the ring. They send a text to this man Patrick and his wife who is still on vacation and they're now in Tuscany. And all it is is a hand holding a golden ring and they write Hi Smeagol. Gollum, >> [laughter] >> right? We found the ring. The The guy can't believe it. He's losing his mind. He's overwhelmed with emotion. He can't believe it. The guys who are obviously like I said dedicated to the bit, they dress up as three hobbits >> [laughter] >> and they travel to meet the family in Tuscany and they bring the ring with them to visit this this man and they become close friends since then. I I remember reading the story just with a smile on my lips just thinking about these three guys having the time of their life, you know, playing a game with this, having a happy ending, returning something, doing something kind for somebody else. But to me this friendship began when a group of people decided that they were going to do something that people don't normally do. Not only to spend the time and to get the boats and tying themselves to rocks and try you know, you want it, come get it. Put it in the mail. They're dressing up in costumes. I mean sugar, what are they doing? The answer is that that friendship was born because of the effort that somebody put in to be able to do something that is out of the ordinary. Abraham Avinu, we know is given 10 Nisyonot. 10 challenges. In fact, the Mishnah and Avot says explicitly that with 10 tests was Abraham tested. However, most of us, when we think about Abraham's tests, and indeed, when we think about our own tests, we imagine a Nisayon. An impediment. Something that's getting in the way. I have to live my life. I have to get to there. And you know something? There's a Nisayon, and that Nisayon is in between me and the destination I was heading to anyway. It would be better if I didn't have the Nisayon. I would have got where I was going much faster. But you know what? Life has challenges, and we need to get through them. But what we're learning over here from Abraham Avinu is that we don't go through challenges, we grow through challenges. The destination on the other side of the Nisayon is not the same place that you would have gone to without the Nisayon. So, instead of reading it, Ba'asara Nisyonot Nitnasa Abraham Avinu, instead of reading 10 challenges that Abraham was challenged with, the word Nes means to uplift. Right? This concept was that in 10 ways was Abraham lifted. The very first way, so to speak, that we're reading about in the Torah, is the lifting of Abraham by challenging Abraham to leave. Now, there's a challenge that Abraham faces before he leaves. Which challenge is that? We already read about it in last week's parashah. Excellent. What Adina said before. Right? What Levi said now. That um Haran dies of Pnei Tera Aviv. And he dies in this place called Ur Kasdim. And this place Ur Kasdim is a place of fire. It's where Avram decides that he believes in Hashem and he's willing to jump into a furnace of fire in order to prove that point. Well, what's fascinating to me is that Avram, after proving that point, leaves the place that he lives in. Now, remember, Avram's mission, what is his mission in this world? He wants to teach people about Hakadosh Baruchu. He wants to prove to them that God is real. I mean, talk about wasting an opportunity. You just showed a public miracle in front of the eyes of all of the townspeople. You're going to leave now? Why does Avram leave after Ur Kasdim? According to some opinions, by the way, this was the test of Lech Lecha. It's not just that he traveled somewhere. That would not be big enough a test to uh consider one of Avraham's challenges, one of his uh uplifting moments, was traveling somewhere. How many of us have a lot of us mean, raise your hand in this room if you haven't moved in your life? Everybody's moved. >> Yes. >> So, it's no biggie. Not everyone sacrificed was commanded to sacrifice the Yitzchak. Not everyone was asked to be thrown into a furnace of fire. So, Lech Lecha is not a Nisayon on its own. Some of the commentators say that the challenge was that this was Avram's like, but this is my moment. This is my chance. This is going to build my Yeshiva." And Hashem says, "Lech Lecha." So, I wondered, I get that it's a challenge, but why did Hashem challenge Abraham with this challenge? It seems counterintuitive. It made me think of the words of Rambam. Rambam says that the reason why we believe in Hakadosh Baruch Hu is not because of the miracles that we have seen Hakadosh Baruch Hu do. We do not believe in God because of miracles. What creates in a person an understanding of Hashem? Two different places in Rambam. Rambam says in one place, "Histakel b'maaseh u'v'ru'av u'v'nefl'av, you should uh gaze, focus, look into the world with all of its complexity, with all of its beauty, with all of its design, and see the Borei Olam." In another place, Rambam says that a person learns to come and comes to know Hashem by studying his Torah. But in neither place does he say that our emunah is based on miracles. Why can't our emunah be based on miracles? Number one, that would require a constant stream of miracles. And what does that do? That depletes and takes away the entire purpose of the world and the will that is supposed to be free that we have. If there was miracles at all times, humanity would not be given the chance to actually play the game we were designed to play, the game of finding Hashem in free will without miracles. So, if we need emunah b'otot, if we need faith in the evening, faith in the morning, Hashem would required be required to do miracles all the time. Good, one answer. Second answer. Yes. It would take away our free will, correct. What else? Well, it depends which. The Eliyahu does one miracle that actually does help. Eliyahu Behar Carmel is a miracle that actually does help. So, the question is how long it lasts. Not only that, what happens when something else happens which seems to be a miracle in the opposite direction? Do you then lose your faith? Is your faith fickle? Does it depend on what happens? Number two, the nature of Nisayon is finding Hashem when he's not acting in all of your obviously best interests. He's always acting in your best interest even when terrible things are happening. But imagine that we were only reading signs that showed Hashem when a miracle was happening, where would our faith be? So, regardless, Rambam says that Emunah does not come from Nisim. That's Hashem's answer to Avraham. You want to teach about me? You want to rely on the nest that they all just saw? You're going to give them an Emunah which is faulty, which is flawed. I want you to give them an Emunah that comes the way that you've experienced it. He sits al ba'al habirah. He looked at the building and he said, "Where did this come from?" And he discovered God. Take people on that journey, on that discovery path. Lech lecha. Don't be here. Be somewhere else. And then you'll be forced to be able to teach them in a very different way. My friends, Abraham's journey, his willingness to do something extraordinary time after time, is what created Abraham Av Hamon a father to many nations. A father to the world's oldest and longest-lasting religions. And as well, someone that his actions and his children would influence the moral fabric of society for the entire duration of our world's existence. All of that comes from Abraham leaving his place. Now, I must say, the story of these three people that you never would have heard of if not for the fact that they uh took this uh story on, this epic quest on, this journey of a thousand years, which wound up taking two days, okay? That to me is Gadol L'Shemcha. Your name will become known. Not for the fame of it, not for the kavod of it, but to recognize and to understand that these actions that happen require a departure from your normal day-to-day. For most of us in life, we are seeking comfort. The Torah says, "Not only do I not want you to not seek comfort, I actually want you to seek discomfort." >> [sighs and gasps] >> There's a man, his name is Andrew Allen. He's 53 years old. He's a night custodian in a school in Boston. That means that he cleans empty buildings at night. And he sees one of the teachers who's in the school and she's looking very upset. And he says to her "Lama nafsh lupan echa?" What's the matter? What's the problem? What's going on? And she says I have a 21-year-old brother. He needs a kidney transplant. There are two people, the donors from our family who went and got tested, found out that they're not a match and uh they can't help my brother. This man, this janitor, decides that he's going to go get tested that same night. He winds up saving the life of this person. Now, I thought to myself, when we think about Abraham, we imagine this like again, the words keep coming back to me from the story, this epic quest, this unbelievable journey, moving across the world, traveling through the desert, running from the That's how we think of it. But a journey, a "lech lecha", doesn't have to be that a person goes very far at all. Sometimes, the only distance a person needs to cross is like the words of the Mishna. The Mishna says "Al ta'dun et chavercha, don't judge your friend ad she'tagia limkomo, until you reach his place." How far away from you is his place? You're standing right next to the person. It's not a journey of makom. It's a journey of the mind. It's a journey of the heart, a journey outside of yourself. On a certain level, what we're being told over here is that if a person wants to find themselves, the last place they could look is inside themselves. Lech lecha. What does that mean? What does it mean for someone in 2026? What does it mean to go to yourself today? To try and push yourself out of your comfort zone. Now, I want to say something that I believe is very beautiful, very powerful you sold. Our rabbis tell us that the words lech lecha lamed kaf is 50. Lamed kaf is another 50. Lech lecha, Hashem says I want you to go travel. What am I going to do? I'm going to make you big. I'm going to build your family. Hashem was hinting to Abraham already from now that the building of his family would happen at lech lecha at the year at his age of 100. So, from the word go, Abraham is being told that his destiny is tied up in his traveling. In his mission note. The child he's going to have ki bi Yitzchak ki kare lecha zera. When is it going to happen? It's not going to happen in a time, so to speak. It's going to happen in a mode, in a modality. Now, I know a lot of people who cry, who moan, who are upset in this life because of something that they miss from some previous era in their life. But, Hakadosh Baruch Hu is communicating to all of us that what was in your life was taken out of your life for your future life. In fact, it's not only that you don't mourn the loss of that thing, but you need to work out how the loss of that thing gave you something greater in its aftermath. Avram now understands that leaving a place where he teaches emunah through a miracle, he could arrive at a place where he teaches emunah through understanding. In the way that Rambam teaches is the road to true emunah. So, in leaving Avram actually doesn't lose, he gains. In losing, he wins. What does it mean to travel to yourself? I have a very interesting metaphor. You know, tells us that in the story of Yona, when Yona runs to the boat, they're on the boat amad sholsh shibayam like the Gemara says, a storm arrives at sea. And the people decide, what are they going to do? Right? They got to They got to lighten the boat, right? They got to figure out what's causing the storm. Anyway, comes the moment where they decide, they see Yona is sleeping in the bowels of the boat. They pull him up top and they tell him, "What are you doing? Call out to your God." They knew who his God was. Kiyigid lahem, cuz he had told them that he was Ivri Anochi. Ve'eta Elokei Hashamayim Ani Yarei. I fear Hashem. And anyway, what does Yona say? >> I would find you sister and throw you over or something. >> He doesn't just say throw me over. >> There's a lot. >> Huh? >> There's a lot of things. >> He says, >> It was because >> The storm is for me. Throw me in the water. Now you read this and maybe even Yona, when he said it, what he meant was that the storm is a punishment. This is my fault. This is my punishment. Throw me in the water. You don't have to suffer for something that's my punishment and it's my fault. But actually, what happens when they toss Yona into the water, Vayamin dag en hakadosh baruch hu brings a fish. The fish comes along and the fish swallows him up whole. And he's in the deep, dark recesses and bowels of the fish for how long? Three days. Until the fish spits him out on the shore. Yona does teshuvah and he goes to the city of Nineveh. Well, now we could look back at the words of Yona. Not the storm is because of me, my fault, my punishment. But rather bishvili, this punishment is for me. Not only for my benefit, la hana'at chalil tovaticha, but bishvili, in order to bring out me. Yona eventually goes to Nineveh and the crazy thing is Yona's legacy, his nevu'ah le'dorot, the book of Yona is what? IS YONA'S JOURNEY TO PEOPLE OF Nineveh who ultimately do teshuvah. So, when we say bishvili that the storm happens to me, what do we really mean? Not only that it's for your benefit, but rather the storm creates who Yona is. Famously, the Midrash says about Adam Harishon, Mipnei Mah Adam nivra yechidi? Why was Adam Harishon created alone? If he was going to have a wife, Hashem could have made him from the beginning there was a man and a woman. Could have had a wife from the beginning. Why did he need to be created alone? And the Midrash answers, in order that Adam Hakadmon, Adam Harishon should look around and see that he's the only one in the world and say, "Bishvili nivra ha'olam." For me is the world has the world been created. Now, the word bishvili translated al derech hapshat means for me the world was created for me. Rav Noach Weinberg zatzal used to say that a lot of people think that, but not in a good way. Everything is for me. Everything is mine. Everything is coming to me, entitled. But he explained that bishvili nivra ha'olam means that the whole world is my responsibility. I would take that teaching of Rav Noach zatzal and expand it. The The shvil in the Torah, in the language of Lashon Kodesh means a path. >> [snorts] >> Bishvili nivra olam means in my path was the world created. Everyone has a path that they're supposed to be walking down. And the world and all of its occurrences, the universe and all of its twists and turns were designed in order to be able to reveal to you your path. But our biggest problem in life is that we look at nisyonot as things that bother us, as mosquitoes to whack, instead of as signs that are guiding us to a place. The storm in Yonah's life is not just a stopover on his flight to where he's going. Yonah's running away. And Hashem says, "Don't run away. Run towards." "Don't run away. Run towards." And the concept is so beautifully illustrated in the story of Yonah. The fish swallows Yonah until Yonah does teshuvah bime'ei hadagah. That's one of the things we say in the selichot. Answer us like you answered Yonah bime'ei hadagah. Yonah Yonah understands he does teshuvah. What are we learning from here? Until we recognize that our nisyonot and our challenges are taking us to a place, our challenges swallow us up alive. SO, IF YOU'RE GOING THROUGH something and it threatens to kill you, to drown you, to swallow you. It feels like you're completely overwhelmed by it. The answer is to stop fighting it. I love this line from the Orach Chaim. I quote it all the time. Sam adi suri the solution, the potion, the medicine for yisurim, for difficulties, for suffering, kabuli, is to accept them. The Orach Chaim is not a masochist. The Orach Chaim does not want you to relish and enjoy your pain. The Orach Chaim wants you to accept and not fight these yisurim. To accept that this is something that's taking me to a place. It doesn't change the yisurim themselves in the moment. But it changes you into a person who's capable of receiving them in a very different way. I want you to imagine just for a second a person who has a uh a uh a thermos. Anyway, they want to take some coffee with them to their early morning drive and they're pouring the coffee into the thermos. Nothing is going in. And it's spilling all over the counter. And then you start laughing cuz it's 5:00 in the morning and you're so exhausted. You forgot to take the cap off of the thermos. Most of us experience yisurim and it's yisurim like that. We're closed to what these surim are doing, not to us but for us. So therefore, it just spills everywhere. And we get nothing from it, and nothing goes in. Hashem gives Avram the kindness of his life by telling him, "Honey, I'm going to take you to a great many places, but they're not in spite of you. They're making you." The result of this will be not that you'll give berachot, but that you will be a beracha. You will be a berecha, says the Rabbeinu Bahya. The root of the word beracha could mean a blessing, but a brecha means a deep pool, something that contains within it a tremendous amount of water. He says, Rabbeinu Bahya, that the root of the word beracha also carries within it the word berech. Lifnecha tichra kol berech. Berech means when you bend the knee. When I humble myself to my yisurin, then my yisurin fill me like a brecha. They turn on switches inside of me. They build resilience, and they build compassion, and they build kindness, and they build patience. You take a kid out of high school, out of college, goes into work early, has three, four, five successes. That person who's had three, four, five successes in a row as a young man before, right right out of college, that is the most dangerous person to invest money with. Cuz he never lost money. And in truth, no matter what anybody tells you, you only learn how to be careful with money and how to be cautious in investing if they you lost your pants in investing. Whether it's your money or someone else's money and you were investing on their behalf. I wouldn't give that guy a dollar. Tell me what you lost. Perhaps we could understand that the true measure of a person is not in what they have, but in what they've lost. Asara nisyonot nitnasah Avraham Avinu. 10 challenges, 10 difficult these 10 sufferings are what raised Avraham into Avraham Avinu. So, if you don't want to be swallowed up and you want your tzarot to spit you out on dry land, recognize that that tzara was given to you specifically with each of its details to be able to read carefully with instructions to understand where Hakadosh Baruch Hu is taking you and what he is making you. Lech lecha. Baruch Adonai le'olam, amen ve'amen. Hazak ubaruch. I just uh want to end by saying mazal tov and mabrouk to uh the very, very special couple who was zocheh to have a brit milah in a baby today. Congratulations uh to Rifka and Philip Shafer on the birth and the Brit Milah of a beautiful new baby boy Yossef Noah Ben Nahum Michael wow beautiful memory. Yossef Noah and as we sang this morning Yossef Noah is a big from his to his those are Arabic and they mean from his head to his feet. Yossef Noah is a big can you remember the the to be Mazel tov.