Shabbos On Fire

for thank you very much Mrs Capel it's an honor and and privilege Mrs Capel has persisted and asked me and I've pushed her off month after month for various different reasons but she was persistent enough and I am here and it's a great honor in and I yet again tip my cap to the holy women in K who make time at 9:15 on a Wednesday after a busy day to come and hear div so I want to share with you a perspective which I'm very passionate about and I think it's hiding in plain sight quite frankly because it's a perspective that is hidden in something that I don't think is talked about nearly enough believe it or not and that is chabus there is something about chabus that I think if internalized can absolutely alter our perspective on life but let's begin with a very simple question why is there in and chabas why is it prohibited to do any form of work on chabas so you might say okay well what second isn't it an explicit six days made the world and on the seventh day he rested right so isn't the reason we don't doab because hasem rested he rested so we rest well that's what we were taught in first grade but it's been a while since we were in first grade and I think it's healthy to occasionally ask some adult questions to things we learned in first grade so first of all what does it mean Hashem rested Hashem is perfect he doesn't need a rest he didn't exert one calorie while creating the world and then the buzz says V which means he was refreshed like he was drinking a lemonade on a hot day what in the world does that mean what is even the rudimentary understanding of that and secondly if shabus is all about resting then why does the Tyra allow you to do quite a bit of work on chabis how do you explain Caterers who work the entire chabas how do you explain waiters and cooks and party planners that only work on chabas and if it's all about rest then what's the big deal with taking the butterscotch flavored jelly bean out of a pile of regular jelly beans what's the problem with berer how is that not resting all I did was take a single bad flavored jelly bean out of a pile of jelly beans that's not work that's not exactly difficult it's like a few weeks ago I was in Bangkok Thailand long story why I was in Bangkok Thailand but I I was in Bangkok Thailand and I was there with my two kids and one of them is a 3-month-old baby and we needed to stay near a show that had an a roof but being that there's no aen Bangkok or within a th000 miles of Bangkok we had to stay in a hotel which had a sh on one of the floors so obviously we wanted a room on a floor that was closest to the sh so I called up the hotel and I said hi i' like to sleep on the fourth floor the floor that had the sh on it and of course we get there and the person said I'm so sorry I thought you said the 14th floor and we can't change it so I'm thinking to myself why in the world would anyone specific speically want the 14th floor of a hotel but anyway we just accepted the fact that we were going to spend a shabas walking up and down 14 flights of stairs many times throughout the shabas while holding a baby and lo and behold one of the times going up I see that the hallway door was locked and the worker had to open and then I knew the question was coming he says wait a minute I don't understand why can't you just use your hotel Key it's not working so I said no it's working just today is our Sabbath it's shabat I'm not allowed to use the key I can't work on the Sabbath so I knew the obvious follow-up question he was going to ask because they always ask it every time he looks at me and he says wait I don't understand Shabbat is your day of rest so that's why you're not using the elevator and instead you're walking up 14 flights of stairs while holding a baby how does that make any sense shouldn't it be the exact opposite that was his question what's the answer to this man's question obviously there is something far deeper in the is of chabas than merely resting the question is what is it so I believe the answer doesn't just give tremendous insight into chabas but it gives tremendous insight into to Y in general but first I'd like to explain with a story so I used to do Kyu in a state sponsored school which had a very easy acceptance policy they basically took kids from all over the place basically their acceptance policy was if you have a head on your shoulder then you can come to our school that was their criteria so kir was a dream in such a place because a nice amount of the kids' lives were very were largely dysfunctional and the kids came from homes that are largely dysfunctional the kids are on all sorts of drugs and completely undisciplined and had chaotic relationships with their boyfriends and girlfriend so yish was sort of a no-brainer yish sort of sold itself it's the normal calm life that they were looking for because their lives or a lot of them were very messed up so all I had to do was put up a sign that there's going to be Sushi and a class on ancient Jewish values and you could have 150 kids show up the problem was that I switched after a while from going to that school to teaching and being Masia in Princeton University Princeton is one of the best schools in the entire world with the top of the top the elite of the lead coming from all of the world to learn from their fantastic professors and they're the kids are all rich and they're all disciplined and they're all motivated and they're all extremely bright and they have all these lofty goals that they're chasing some people want to be CEOs and other students want to be senators and presidents and others want to be some Chief scientists at a mega lab either way none of them have any interest or time or need for yish their lives are very much in order their homes are for the most part functional their father is the CEO of Delta their mother has a law firm trying to get the attention of a kid who literally has billion companies considering them for massive executive positions and I'm sitting there waving my little toy shifer to try to get his attention it just didn't work for example I offered the students a free trip to Italy during their winter break if they learn for a certain amount of hours about you this gr a free trip to Italy guess how many people signed up a grand total of zero I was offering them free airfare free luxury hotels free tour guides food not one person was interested Italy I've been there three times winter break I'm shadowing the Attorney General of the United States Italy I'm going to Bora Bora I don't have time I'm being an intern at the White House basically none of them had any mental space for learning about yudish so I knew I had to think of something a little out of the box I knew I had to think of something to tell them that would Pierce their very soul that would make them completely rethink their priorities I knew I couldn't simply say come to yish K cuz there's trlin and Sushi I needed to Pivot from giving classes essentially saying that your life stinks so come to yish to classes that say even though your life is great and you're rich and you're going to be famous are you 100% sure that you're on the path to genuine happiness I needed to give a class pointing out that there is no correlation whatsoever between material success and happiness I needed to pop their bubble and I'd like to share with you part of the class that I shared with them that I believe did just that so I walked into the room and I asked four very simple question questions I said being that suicide is up 37% since the year 2000 it would behoove us to research it a little with four simple questions I turned to the class and I asked them which age group do you think suffers from suicide the most is it kids teenagers 30-year-olds 70-year-olds 90- yearold which group statistically has the most suicides so they looked at me and basically all said of course it must be teenag or people in their low 20s you know people who have to deal with school and friends and hormones and have zero Financial Freedom and they have stress and anxiety and exam they must suffer the most so I looked at them and I said dead wrong according to the Center for Disease Control the age group that commits suicide the most are 55 to 65 year olds now the question is why is that wouldn't you think retired people have the calest most tranquil life the knee-jerk reaction of the Princeton students sounds about right people dealing with stress tests and unknown Futures should be the ones suffering the most from suicide and yet they're not why is that then I asked him a second question I said which ethnicity or group of people commit suicide the most and their knee-jerk reaction was oh of course it's poor people or immigrants people of color you know the janitors dishwashers the people stressed about life and making money I said wrong yet again compared to the 497 Hispanic suicides that took place last year and the 1,379 Asian suicides and the 3,000 692 African-American suicides upper class wealthy white people had a staggering 36,6 181 suicides wealthier white Americans commit suicide close to 800% more frequently than any other ethnic group why is that wouldn't you think the group that has the most Financial stability and the group that has the easiest time navigating this country should commit suicide the least then I asked them which states in America commit suicide the most and they immediately BR okay this one we got if obviously New York New Jersey and California right and I said again completely wrong the state with the highest rate of suicide in America is Wyoming with 32.3 suicides for every 100,000 people then came Montana Alaska New Mexico South Dakota and Colorado the three states with the lowest suicide in the entire United States believe it or not are New Jersey New York and California huh how do you explain shouldn't the states with the most pressure and the most craziness and Wall Street and Broadway and big busy stressful businesses have the most suicide it's bizarre and lastly I asked them which month of the year would you say people commit suicide the most which month and immediately they all said okay this one for sure we got it's for sure December or November you know cold months people cooped up inside people with no Outlet no sunshine just rain and snow I told them wrong yet again the month that statistically people commit suicide the most is the month of August now why in the world is that isn't that so counterintuitive shouldn't the month with the most sunshine and the most vacation and the most time off be precisely the month with the least suicide so I turned to the students in Princeton and I said the answer to these questions is fairly simple when we were born out of our mother's uterus came a body and a soul the body is born and it looks around and it's thrilled it sees nurses watching Netflix in their lunch break it sees the OBG waym pulling up his brand new Acura and it sees a barbecue down the street with the pool party and it says I could get used to this the Soul on the other hand is confused it comes through the mother's womb and it looks around it's confused I came from that world to this I left that world for this so it begins to thirst and it begins to ache and it begins to yearn for something real but the body suppresses it by being busy and by chasing other things and by kicking the can down the road and that ache gets buried under the stresses of day-to-day life the human soul needs a certain degree of mental and emotional space to insert itself into the tangible conscience of man people who are still figuring things out financially or teenagers still trying to navigate life or immigrants who every single day need to go out and work just to survive or people who live in cities that are forever fast-paced and distracted and people in the middle of the winter busy with their jobs or their semester or staying warm have no mental space to give the soul there's no room in the schedule for soul searching you are simply too busy but when when One retires or when someone is no longer under Financial stress or when you live in a place like Wyoming or Alaska where life is super slow or when you're on vacation in the middle of August suddenly there's mental space for the soul to break free from the jail that's been placed and suddenly there's room for the soul to ask the million-dollar question why in the world do I wake up every morning the scroll the soul screams out why have I not been fed in 50 years and to some people that question is too powerful to handle so I turned to the students and I said very nice you guys are all here with great lives and looking to make tons of money but are you prepared to feed your soul are you taking steps to quench its thirst do you realize that you can't be happy if your soul isn't happy it's impossible I said there are two chemicals in the brain that make you feel good one is called dopamine the other is called serotonin dopamine is a chemical that gives you pleasure serotonin is a chemical that gives you happiness dopamine is shortterm serotonin is longterm term dopamine is activated by things like chocolate and ice cream and drugs and name brand clothing serotonin comes from things like graduating school or helping people in need or starting a nonprofit organization or marrying off a child too much dopamine leads to a mental illness called psychosis serotonin is Limitless and leads to the happiest lives on Earth so I turned to them and I said listen all of you are chasing money and Prestige and dopamine but how will that help you when you're one of the 47 million people who quit their jobs each year in America how will your money help you if you're one of the 29% of adults who are diagnosed with clinical depression how will your name brand clothing help you if you are one of the 18% of the people in this country who are diagnosed with severe anxiety how will a luxury car help you if you're one of the 50% of people in America who get divorced how will remodeling your house for the fifth time help you if you are one of the 41% of men and 39% of women who will get cancer how will your money and your power and your prestige help you if you are one of the 70% of people who are unsatisfied with the amount money they make no matter how much money they actually make how will your money and your power and your prestige help your starving Soul which is pleading and begging and desperate to be fed I looked at the stunned audience in Princeton and I concluded by saying are you living a life chasing serotonin or are you living a life chasing dopamine you see without time to reflect and Ponder and think about the unbelievable gift that we have embedded in our nishas we wouldn't ever realize it we would run down the marathon of life and run ourselves directly into the grave without thinking about and exploring and appreciating our nishas we would run right by it in life beinging being foolishly satisfied with the pathetic dopamine offered by ice cream shops and clothing stores and mink coats and miss the Titanic dose of Serotonin and Sim and Anda and man buried in our souls without stopping to think about depth and meaning and purpose and Holiness we would enter ourselves into the rat race called life and we would never get out and therefore Hashem created shabas the word says this means hasem and chabas created the and implanted it into each and every person it's the day where Hashem gave us meaning and purpose and depth and the potential for greatness and because he gave us chabas any form of creation is banned on chabas as a humble way of saying saying it is not I who creates in this world but there's a Creator who created this world and we pay homage to that fact it's a day where we refrain from any form of constructive work as a way of telling ourselves it's not all about this world there's a whole another world out there that we don't want to miss out on it's a day where we do nothing but think and Ponder and rejoice in our nishas in spirituality it's a day where we don't do a single creative act that might delude us into things that our creative worldly Pursuits are the end goal and not just the means instead we refrain from it all and we tap into our the spark of that's inside of us because hem wants more than anything else for us to be happy un like says it's 100% impossible to be happy unless one's n is happy I'm going to say that again it's 100% impossible to be happy unless one's the Sha is happy you can run you can chase you can chase you can chase you can chase but it's impossible to be happy unless one's n is Happy shabus is when we remind ourselves of that having anab forces me to ask myself am I perhaps overly reliant on externalities for my happiness am I chasing dopamine when I should be chasing serotonin am I missing out on massive massive doses of happiness and Sim life shabas is a day to spend at home thinking about one's Nish about real life about real happiness not the fake materialistic plastic pressure cooker life that many of us experience the rest of the week but real life like tilila and the para and gum and Tyra and stories and songs and giving children real long undistracted attention and dancing and singing and having over people that have nowhere else to go and thinking of lessons to bring to the shabas table and bringing them to life in an animated way and learning Hal yes women need to learn too shabas is when we have a because it's the day we are meant to tap into the Holiness of shabas the Holiness of Life the realness of life now look at the BR that bam gives the Jewish people after bam failed to curse the Jewish people he gave them a he said and Rashi comments he said how beautiful are your tents referring to he saw their tents he was pointing out how beautiful it was that our doors and windows aren't built adjacent to our neighbors doors and windows you ever thought about that that's his major BR that's the difference between us and the non-jews that we have we don't have our bedroom windows adjacent to other people's bedroom windows that that our front doors aren't built so that we can see directly into another person's front door that's our greatest praise wouldn't any half decent non-jew do that any self-respecting non-jew isn't building his house with the front door Direct overlooking the bedroom window of his neighbor so what's the big braa the answer says RAB hoer my wife's grandfather is that it means that the Jewish people have homes in which we are so happy with the light and beauty and happiness that's on the inside we don't feel the need to pry our neck and see what other people are doing on the outside we are so comfortable and confident about the serotonin about the Sim on the inside the on the inside we don't need to keep up with the latest trends of dopamine on the outside do we feel like that in our homes are we confident about the happiness in our homes shabas grants us that ability to appreciate the unbelievable magical dazzling world of depth hidden in our homes shabas forces life to come to a halt for us to think about our Nas and if we're tapping into them enough because far too often life gets in the way of life and we run around chasing our own tail only to look back and realize we were running after dopamine instead of true happiness perhaps the single most Vivid example of this in all of Jewish history was what happened in mitan the yid and mitan were beaten and whipped and worked mercilessly day and night they worked backbreaking labor you couldn't have a group of people more shaku in their work than the yiden living in m and yet when shows up in and screams out I've come to take you out of here and bring you to Freedom where you can serve hm and learn and live a normal life they didn't listen to him they didn't listen to Moshe why the says from the very difficult work they didn't listen to mhe now does that make any sense that's why they didn't listen to Moshe shouldn't it be the opposite shouldn't theha the hard work precisely be the reason that they do listen to him weren't they desperate for a savior the answer says dno is that they didn't have the mental space they were so completely absorbed in the rat race of life that there was simply no time to address the Nisha they convinced themselves that this was the ultimate life so they didn't listen and finally in peric Bay gimel it says the king of died we screamed we cried out we realized this is horrible this is ridiculous when the king of isim died that's when they cried out now why are they crying the day the king died shouldn't they have been happy perhaps a new king will be elected and he'll be nicer to them and theha the hard work will will go down says the mcover that the day the king of MIM died was a national off day out of mourning for the king that was the that was the Min they had in MIT and it was the first time the Yen had a day off in 2009 years suddenly there was a time for the yen to think suddenly there was time to reflect and Ponder and contemplate and the shallowness of their lives Came Crashing Down on them and they realized how superficial their lives were and how suppressed their nishas were and they cried out is like says VIs remember you were an there's a direct correlation between being an evid being a chabas because when you work forever and don't think you lose out on your sh you just don't even realize it when we sit and don't do work on shabas the entire purpose is for us to create mental space for us to realign ourselves to the beauty and purity of our Nas the entire purpose is for us to ask ourselves do I perhaps work too much perhaps I put too much energy and keeping up with the trends have I convinced myself that my life is all about chasing and running and looking at others to keep up it's a time where we remind ourselves that what's important in life is far beyond trivial materialistic Pursuits we remind ourselves that we are the luckiest people on the face of the Earth only because we have the holiest nishas now listen to this a few weeks ago I was in Japan with my wife and two kids and I was traveling on a bullet train from the city of Tokyo to the city of Kyoto being that Tokyo is the largest city in the world with over 40 million people in it you would expect that the train system to be pretty efficient and it was in fact the trains in Japan are the fastest trains in the world with bullet trains that travel close to 400 m hour so here we are traveling on a bullet train that's going basically 400 m hour to a city called Kyoto and about 15 minutes before we arrived at the station an old Japanese man who was sitting next to me turns to me in broken English and he said I would advise you sir to put your stuff together before we arrive at the station because it doesn't stay at the station very long so I looked at and I said thank you very much but I thought to myself like I got this you know what I mean like I assumed it would be like America you know in America you pull up to the station people are still sleeping people can get off they get a hot do they get a slurpie and then after 20 minutes they keep on going so I assume Japan was a little shorter maybe 7 8 minutes but as we begin pulling in I realized that I made a big mistake I see all the Japanese people line up with their little Handbags and they're ready to jump off the train and in the meantime here we are with our 19 Gourmet Glock bags and two strollers and there's bomba everywhere I said if we don't get off this train this second we're in big trouble it's not like in America where you miss a stop and it's no big deal because the next stop is only 20 minutes away and it's only about a mile down the road in Japan on trains that are going 400 m an hour the next station is in another country so we frantically get our stuff together and the train stops and people literally run off like their pants are on fire and we are still in the back and we can't find my son's shoe anywhere we're missing a shoe but we don't have time to find it so we just decided you know what forget the shoe and jump off the train and we made it by the skin of our teeth but unfortunately because we didn't have a shoe for my son we had to spend the next two hours finding the shoe store for him now this isn't lakid where every 15 ft is another kids shoe store this is Japan they don't have kids and they don't wear shoes so we're searching forever for a kid shoe store and we ask this person and that person we go up go down go left go right until we finally found the shoe store and we got him a pair of shoes and I remember walking out of that shoe store thinking to myself if I would have just listened to that old man's advice and taken 60 seconds to get myself in order I could have saved myself a whole lot of money and I could have saved myself a whole lot of time life is like a fast moving bullet train it can whiz byas shabas is when we pull into the station and stop if we take the time to realign ourselves and get our life and our priorities in order we can save ourselves tremendous heartache down the down the road in life perhaps the most Vivid example of a man who chose dopamine instead of Serotonin a man who traded spiritual Pursuits for material ones was a man and this week para a man by the name of ASF we you don't know the story ASA runs home one day and he's fished he's starving and lo and behold yob is sitting there and he's making lentil soup and the says storms through the kitchen door and he's starving andov is making lentil soup give me some of that red stuff over there because I'm starving the says that's why asov was called Edom now did you ever think about it for a second asov was called Edom because he called some lentil soup the red stuff how does the name Ed encapsulate his entire Essence how does that whole story sum up who he is why does this story give Asa his name so listen to this idea the answer says elephant in the mirror is that this exchange revealed aso's entire Outlook look on life ASAP doesn't refer to what he saw as food he didn't run into the kitchen and say okay give me some of that soup he didn't even call it give me some of that nourishing stuff he picked the single most irrelevant and external part of it namely its color to refer to it as this says R elephant is indicative of asf's entire outlook on life it's a focus on externalities it's an obsession with externals that run so deep that only the outer shell of something is noticed and cared about only the color it's a life where materialism Reigns Supreme and delving deeper than the mere color of something is completely shunned we are living in a world of ASF we are living in a world where the emphasis is the externals where all we care about is how things appear on the outside we live in a world where it's more important what your house looks like than what goes on inside of it a world where it's far more important to smile for the picture than to actually enjoy the moment you're in a world where what your kids wear is far more important than how they act a world where the money and Prestige of the last name of the girl your son might go out with is far more important than the content of her character a world where it's far more important to appear from and religious than actually being from and religious the way the world lives is like buying a phone and forgetting to put the SIM card in and you polish the phone and you get a screen protector for the phone and you have a fancy leather phone case for the phone and you love how it looks and you show it off to your friends and the whole entire time you forgot to put the SIM card inside of it you idiot there's no SIM card in there it's a useless piece of metal without a SIM card that's the world we live in a world of people forgetting about their souls a world of phones without SIM cards because we are living in a world of ASF a world of externals and superficiality there was an article not long ago in a major newspaper describing a car accident that occurred between a Lamborghini and a Rolls-Royce now these two cars by mistake collided head on at full speed on the highway and both were completely totaled and the article went on and on and on about how drastic this accident was how the combined value of the loss of money was close to $2 million how historically this never occurred how rare it was that two luxury cars will be on the exact same street at the exact same time how unfortunate it was that these cars would now have to spend so much time in the body shop and on and on and on and on and buried all the way at the bottom of the article was oh and by the way two people died that completely secondary completely irrelevant that's called misplace priorities that's the world we live in but we don't need to live in that world because we can live in the tent of Yakov we can live in the yov yov lived for depth Yakov lived for meaning he saw beyond the color of the outer layer of things he saw the depth and symbolism and the spiritual Sparks laying beneath the surface of Life shabus enables us to be in the tents of Yakov even while living in the world of ASF shabas makes us think about the world we live in shabus makes us realize that life is short and perhaps all that dopamine chasing is robbing me of Serotonin perhaps all the craziness is robbing me of a life of bliss of realness of meaning take last week's para the come to aam with the news that SAR is going to have a son after waiting for almost a century and aam serves him a feast and then they turn to him in and they say where is s your wife he says she's in the tent now why did they ask AB that why was that relevant besides they were they know everything soash brings the that says of course knew where she was they wanted to make known and publicize that she was Aid SN up of course the Mal knew where SAR was they were trying to make a point for us readers for generations to come they wanted us to scream out the words sah was sah was the were telling yes you are about to become a great nation a nation that will change the face of the world a nation that will reach tremendous prominence a nation that will cure diseases a nation that will win prizes a nation that will win Awards a nation that will produce some of the smartest and best best people to ever walk the earth yes you are about to become the single most influential family to ever live on Earth but don't forget that Sarah is B don't forget that you're that's the secret to happiness that's the secret to the Jewish success that she is B that she maintains the the theim of the bias of course she ran K seminars of course she ran of course she ran classes and G and and she also mainly was she was the Bedrock of tent the were telling women of all time without a home that's filled with and happiness everything else is meaningless like it says the Jewish women for eternity to know that you want real success in life you want to contribute to kville you want to live a life ah happiness it starts at home it starts with appreciating On's the shama it starts with recognizing the power the grandor of having a house of purity of Harmony a house that's fueled by serotonin a house that generates its own happiness it doesn't need any external person place or thing to help it out here's another dramatic example of this from Jewish history ever wonder who yahushua's wife was the great Yeshua benon who did he marry so Yeshua married a woman named ra now here's what happened a few days after Misha dies yosua sends two spies to go into the land and check it out again he sends Pinas and K and they decided to stay at R's house Raa was the single most prominent Harlot prostitute of her times she at that point had a 40-year career of being an extremely almost unimaginably immoral person now you might ask yourself what in the world were Pinas and K doing staying there the reason they stayed there was because they assumed that being that she had let's just say an acquaintance with every major King and politician in the region she would have a good lay of the land and they would be able to get good information out of her so that's why they decided to stay there so the problem was that they were found out and their lives were in danger and the King sent an army to find them and long story short she ends up saving them and hiding them in her home and as they were leaving Rahab turns to them and said you should know that I've done cha and I see the Godless of the and I've developed deep respect for and his people so please in return for saving your life when you come and capture the city of Yuro and kill everybody save me and my family and that's what happened a few weeks later yua marches intoo kills everybody and saves ra and says that she was M she converted and yua married her now think about that for a second does that make any sense I think it's fair to say that yua was the very best B in brisk he was m priz says he could have married anyone in the entire CL he could have married some great girl the daughter of some rich rashash from who went toov and BJJ and instead he marries ra I don't care that she was M she was a why would he marry her you want to know the answer he married her because she was on fire he married her because she had the right perspective he married her because she was so disgusted with having lived a lifestyle of immorality and leading a home swimming in filth chasing dopamine drenched in superficiality that when she finally saw the light she rocket it out and was on fire ready for realness she was so ready and determined to build a home of light and Kucha and depth and meaning that no one was going to stop her she rocketed out of her Darkness with such spiritual energy that Yeshua married her he married her because she was so incredibly intensely focused on feeding her starving Soul says Yeshua said that's the type of woman I want leading my house and you know what Yeshua was right for what came out of RA eight of the greatest who ever lived like and because when we realize that life is so much more than the externalities than the externals We Begin really living life and chabas is what gives us that perspective having the proper perspective is the difference between living a life that's meaningful and A Life That's meaningless did you know that every single organ in your body grows bigger as you get older except for one every part of your body when you were born was significantly smaller than what it is now your fingers your ears your legs your stomach the only organ in the entire body that is the exact same size the moment you're born till the moment you die is your eyes because in life it's not about waiting for our eyes to grow it's not about waiting for us to see more and try more and explore more and perhaps I'll be happy in a larger house or with a different car or with a different wardrobe or with a different husband or with a different school for my kids happiness is not waiting for our eyes to see something else it's about using our eyes correctly it's about having the right perspective shabus gives us that perspective shabus allows us to see in a world of to look inside our homes instead of outside our homes to take what we have and be happy with it a few years ago I went with my wife to Alaska and being a young couple with no money we decided to save money by sleeping in our car instead of hotels we would pull off the road every night near some farest deep in the middle of nowhere and it's darker than dark there's no light pollution there's no street lights because there's no streets so of course my wife Falls as sleep in about 15 seconds and here I am and I can't sleep there's no blankets it's 12° -0 and every few minutes I turn the car on blast some heat turn it off cuz of course we have to you know can't use gas we're trying to save money here I'm to sing turning I can't sleep so I simply gazed out of my window and after my eyes adjusted slightly to the absolute utter Darkness I was completely a struck at the amount of wildlife that was hopping around in the middle of the night in sheer complete darkness owls coyotes bats axes Flying Squirrels how do these animals see in the dark if there's no light then there's no light it's not like they have built in flashlights how do they see if there's no light the answer is that there is light you just need special eyes to see it you need special eyes to pick up the small Sparks of light floating through the air dancing off Stars those animals have such eyes the Jewish people live in a dark world yeah we have eyes that can see the light we have special eyes part of the reason we're still here and No Other Nation lasted this long is because we have eyes that see what's real in life we don't trade our lifestyle for some new fed we don't sell our soul to Greek culture or French culture or German culture or American culture because we have eyes that see through the superficiality shabas gives us those eyes now here lies a problem that I think most people run into the problem is that yes shabis you're right is a day where our Nas are supposed to be ignited and it's a day where we're supposed to use use shabas to tap into our souls agreed but how do we tap into chabas shabas for many people has become simply an extension of the rest of the week it's just a day where we're just trying to keep up with the trends of food that everyone else is eating and the magazines that other people are reading and the shavas CL that our people are wearing and it's rush and it's hectic and everyone else's house seems cleaner and nicer and calmer and more elegant and mine is a mess and everyone's arguing I almost wish that shabas was over so that my kids could watch the video and I can get some peace how we make sure to make chabus in our home something special something magical something our kids feel in the air something that actually gives us the perspective it's supposed to give so here's a very simple idea that may or may not help some people whatever you do on chabus do it with unbelievable almost over-the-top positivity put tremendous effort in coming up with ways that there is a noticeable POS positivity in the air in your home on shopas instead of focusing all your energy on what you serve focus on how you serve it do you bring the food to the table or do you dance the food to the table instead of focusing entirely on what you wear focus on how you wear it do you throw on a fancy dress and then you sternly walk down the steps or do you Dawn royalty and smile from ear to ear engulfing your home with happiness Sing Out Loud dance smile put in tremendous emphasis on positivity prepare beforehand special stories to tell your kids hang up their shabas projects on the wall and make them stand up on a chair with pride and explain each project be the house that your kids want to stay in and not run away from is only activated when people are happy shabus is precisely the time when we should focus on happiness real happiness happiness that comes from the inside not from the outside and when and only when we are in a state of Happiness we can begin feeling aramas now let me tell you a story that illustrates this point beautifully in the late 1700s there was an island in the Atlantic Ocean near Bermuda this island was inhabited by people that did a horrible thing to passing ships being that the island was right near a trade route many ships would frequently pass by there and the inhabitants on the island played a nasty trick on the passing ships they would arrange a massive party on the beach with loud music and delicious looking food and women dressed inappropriately and there would be alcohol and they would attract passing ships filled with tired and worn out Sailors and the ship would stop off to see what was going on and the moment the sailors would dock the boat the island inhabitants would attack the sailors and kill them and take whatever was on the ship this is going on for years and everybody knew about it the problem was that there was no going around the island because it was situated right in the middle of a trade route so captains were scratching their head trying to figure out a way to stop their crew from viering ing off course and stopping off at this island so they would beg and plead with them and tell them it's just a trap but the sailors wouldn't listen they were just too tired they were too starved for excitement and fun so some captains tried blindfolding the sailors whenever they would pass by the island but trying to get a bunch of grown men to we blindfolds for half hour it was impossible so then some captains tried simply putting their crew into chains and handcuffs just for the half hour that the boat passed by the island but again that that didn't work you can't just go over to randomly say I'm going to put you into handcuffs for half an hour you'll start a Rebellion so finally a captain came up with an idea that actually worked he said listen they're all enticed by the party going on on that island you know what I'm going to do I'm going to make a better party on my boat and so whenever his boat passed by that Island he went down to the main area of the ship where all the sailors were and he whipped out a tablecloth and spread it out over some barrels and he whipped out some wine and he whipped out some beef jerky and he whipped out a guitar and he began singing and telling stories he began asking the sailors to tell him about their childhoods they played games they would laugh they would dance before you knew it they passed by the murderous Island and they all got up and they went right back to work this is a mushal for Life the American Ace of world we live in Forever entices us and our kids with a life that seems better than ours it will offer us food that's better than ours clothing that's more stylish music that's better than ours entertainment that's better than ours if our only line of defense is to lock our kids up and ourselves up or to try to put on blindfolds we're we're going to lose the battle the only way to pass by the island called is by making sure that our party is better than their party and our party starts on chabus and if our chabus isn't filled with fun and love and light and song and dance and smiles and positivity then we'll lose the war our kids and our husbands and ourselves will end up on the murderous island called hen as will eat Us Alive chabus is our party it's when we realize that the small thing things in life are what we deep down really want the Nisha the love the genuine happiness and that's what we get on shabas a few weeks ago I was walking like I said in Bangkok Thailand and I bumped into another person with a yamaka rare that you're in Bangkok and you see another guy of the so I stroke up a conversation I said rabid where you from he said he's from Brooklyn I said what's a guy from Brooklyn doing in banock he looked at me and said it's a long story but he got divorced recently and he running away from his wife and family he said his wife hates him his kids hate him they can't stand him I said I'm very sorry to hear that he said yeah it's rough and then he said but there's one thing I just can't understand I took them all to Disneyland I took them to Europe I bought them fancy presents I bought my daughter a car I bought my son World Series tickets how could they hate me like this true I was a grouch and I hit them from time to time and I probably didn't give them positive attention but look at all the big things I did for for them I just don't get it and the man walked off into the streets of Bangkok now this man didn't understand that in life it's not about the big things it's about the Small Things nobody deep down cares about the big things happiness has nothing to do with how much stuff you have or where you vacation that's called dopamine it comes it goes it has to do with All the Small Things That Go on in your house the positive vibe the celebrating Milestones even small Milestones the laughing out loud with your kids the cuddling up and reading gum stories to your children the sitting on the porch with a cup of hot chocolate with your husband the million small things that make a home an oil the single smallest thing in the entire world is an atom and yet with enough of those atoms you get the single most powerful thing in the world which is an Adam Bomb because all big things are really the product of a million small things shabus is when we take the time to stop and ensure that we are focused on the small things in life which after we stop and think about it for a minute we realize are really the important things in life shopus enables us to have a home filled with happiness and love a home that's meaningful not meaningless now here's another story my that I learn with every day is a nam he told me that at hiski the great son-in-law ofi got up to speak and he said you want to know what a is listen to this a woman recently came to his b and she said that in her bank account they only have $50 left to spend and she wants to buy a gift for her husband the problem is that he's planning on using the money to buy a gift for her he says it's his money to buy her a gift she says it's her money to buy him a gift so she would like to summon him to bezon to force him to allow her to buy a gift for him that says roladki is the type of house you should have cuz that's a house that teres the Small Things a house that's filled with light with a house that's filled with Harmony a house that's filled with Spiritual music do you know who the single greatest musical composer of all time is the single greatest musical composer of all time was a man named lwig Van Beethoven Beethoven's music has been played in every Concert Hall in the world his music was talked about and listened to and danced to perhaps more than any other single person in the history of humanity he has the most instantly recognizable music on the planet Beethoven is considered to be the single most impactful and successful composer in world history now here is the most incredible part Beethoven was death yeah you heard that correctly the single greatest composer in the history of music was death he could not hear the music he was playing Beethoven while living in Vienna in his early 20s began slowly losing his ability to hear and after several years he went death completely Beethoven at that point was having a decent career he was giving concerts here and there but the moment he went death he completely removed himself from public life he was embarrassed what good is the composer and musician that can't hear so bethoven ran off and lived in a Shack on a hill in the Austrian mountains but after taking a break from music and he overcame thoughts of suicide Beethoven pulled himself together and he sat down at a piano for the first time in a long time and began composing again he reached deep into his mind and heart and from memory and from Brilliance and from sheer unadulterated creativity he made a new composition and then another and then another and what transpired next is nothing short of Sensational the compositions that Beethoven composed while able to hear were good but the compositions that came from him while he was deaf changed the way people view music forever they reverberated around the world they are not only his most famous compositions they are the most famous compositions of music ever written they are played in every corner of the globe they are the standard music taught in music school they are the songs played at the most important events they make up the most successful pieces of music to have ever been played all composed by a man who was death what happened what transpired How could a man who is deaf compose such beautiful music the answer is that when Beethoven went entirely de he no longer composed music with his ears he composed music with his soul he no longer had ears contaminating his music with the music of others with the white noise of the street he blocked all the mediocre sounds of the world out and let the music he felt in his soul gush forth he was deaf to the way other people did things he was deaf to the status quo he was deaf to what other people considered nice he was deaf to what that peanut gallery was up to and because he was deaf he was free to live in a world where he gets to set his own rules and from those rules came the greatest music to have ever graced the Earth the Jewish people are the single greatest composers of Spiritual music on Earth we sing 3,000 years ago we sing a thousand years ago we sing last year we'll sing today we'll sing tomorrow we sing at history's highest moments we sing at history's darkest moments we sing walking into theik we sing walking into torture chambers we sing when the world was good we sing when the world was bad the Jewish people are the single most successful composers of Spiritual music in history and you want to know why it's because we're deaf because we know how to close the door to our homes and are deaf to what goes on outside of it we are deaf to the noise of the street we're deaf to the peanut gallery we're deaf to the Billboards and media and the people endlessly chasing another dose of dopamine the Jewish people make up 1% of the world and yet make up 100% of the world's sweetest holiest children the Jewish people make up 1% of the world and they make up 100% of the most loving caring nourishing mothers on Earth the Jewish people are 1% of the world and yet make up 100% of the world's holiest purest light filled homes on Earth and you want to know why it's because we're deaf because we know how to close the door of our homes and generate our own happiness we don't borrow ideas from the streets on how to be happy we generate happiness ourselves and it's chabas that teaches us how each and every person right before they come into this world are approached by a Malik that hands them a seed and said see this seed this is called a n it's the secret to a good life it's the secret to a happy life and you take the seed and you put it into a box and you make sure that it's protected and then a few weeks later you paint the box to make sure that it looks nice and then a few weeks later you heard that Gucci came out with a new box so you ran out and bought that new box for your seed and you make sure the lighting on the box is in style and you ensure that the box has good air fresheners near it and then you see other people's boxes and they have all different colors painted on it and you run out you switch the color of your box and then you get a new type of cardboard comes out oh I need you just saw that people started getting wooden boxes you got a wooden box that people started getting metal boxes you got a metal box and this goes on for 100 20 years until you go up to shamay and they asked to sh okay so where's the tree that came out of the seed you were supposed to plant and you tell them well uh I took such good care of the box I stored it in the right climate I painted it I got inst styled cardboard the Mal look at you and say you fool you idiot we gave you a seed you were supposed to plant it not store it in a box who cares about the Box how foolish what a waste of a life shabus is a day when we remind ourselves that we are seeds and we need to be planted we don't want to spend our lives taking care of the Box we want to actually plant our seed none of us want to be chasing narish our whole lives and yet a lot of us do shabas is there to write the ship to make sure that we are tapping into the Holiness that's waiting in our souls it's embedded in our souls it just needs to be tapped into here's another story there were two families that live next door to each other and were friendly their wives would smoo the kids would play the husbands would talk one time the families got together for a Friday night suda and in the middle of the suda one of the women told the other women I need to show you something she said basically my husband last year asked me if he can come home an hour if if he can come home an hour later than he normally does from work each Friday to work extra because he was making so much money at that time he doesn't want to lose out on that opportunity so I said okay and a year later a year later from that hour a week alone he made $150,000 and this week right next to my shabas Candles there was a box from Tiffany Jewelers and I opened it up and there was a $25,000 bracelet inside of it and here it is you want to see it and the woman pulls up her sleeve a little and shows everyone her new $25,000 bracelet and the husband of the woman who was watching noticed that his wife seemed a bit deflated and maybe even jealous and he felt bad about it but no no what can he do he can't afford a $25,000 bracelet he can barely afford a $250 bracelet so he just let it go many months later this woman went to light shabish candles and she sees there's a box from Tiffany Jewelers and she opens it up but there's no jewelry inside instead there's a letter she opens up the letter and this is what it said to my dearest wife after I saw our neighbor what I after I saw our neighbor show you her brace that my heart filled with a desire to give you a gift as well you're the champion you're the rock of our house you're our everything being the the beacon of Y in the home I wanted so badly to give you something really really nice so without you realizing it every Friday for the last year I would leave work an hour early and drive to our son's Yeshiva and we would learn chabas together week in and week out month in and month out I told him not to tell you and after learning for months and months and months we finally finished and we hereby present to you our gift to you with love that knows no bounds your dear husband that is a proper Jewish Home because a Jewish Home is so much more than money and paintings and name brand clothing it's a beacon of light it's a cocoon of Happiness it's a place where a Nish can feel well fed and nourished and the Jewish Home gets its Holiness on chabas I want to conclude with reading you a quote from the New York Times you ready in the March 6th 2011 edition of The New York Times in the weekend review section on page three the New York Times described a fascinating research project they conducted they decided it would probably be quite interesting to go out and ask thousands of people if they're happy and try to figure out who the happiest people are in America they figure people could benefit greatly from learning who the statistically happiest people were after months of research their finding surprise them here is a quote from the article you ready March 6 2011 weekend review section one page three look it up the New York Times research staff called thousands of randomly selected adults each day and asked them about their emotional status work satisfaction eating habits illnesses stress levels and other indicators of their quality of life it's part of an effort to measure the components of the quote unquote good life the responses are plugged into a formula called the gallop healthways well-being index and the results show that the single happiest person in America is an observant Jew the single happiest person in America is an observant Jew this article shocked the world you know who it didn't us because we have shabas because we have a time to ensure that we are chasing the right things in life that's why there's no shabas because it's a day when we ask ourselves are my priorities correct my chasing a life of dopamine or a life of Serotonin my nourishing my soul or am I just nourishing my body am I living life to its fullest or am I simply taking care of a box Shamus is a time when we remind ourselves that we are playing chess in a world that's playing checkers it's a time when we remind ourselves of the unbeliever ably dazzling magical spiritual homes that each and every one of us has the ability to create homes that will make hm proud may we all use shabas the way it's meant to be used and may it fill our homes with and and and I thank you all very much for listening amen 100% 100% hopefully I won't push you off as much kazak kazak be well much