How to Start Off Your Day — the Secret of Modeh Ani

the yeshiva.net first and foremost this lecture is dedicated in memory of Mayor Khan rakov mayor Ben reban hakan one of South African's most respected foremost businessman headed a multi-national corporation president of Miracle Drive of fundraiser for the kabad house of Johannesburg and in his honor kabad house Johannesburg has been running the Moda an program so this is dedicated in the loving memory and for The Unique soul and in tribute to Mayor Khan also in loving memory of someone who I also had the privilege of knowing RAB K Baker Kap Ben Hali Bak of blessed memory he was the chairman of the laich foundation of South Africa and in whose honor kabad House of South AFA recording in progress in whose honor kabad House of South Africa will in the coming months be publishing the great work known as the essence of inas May both of their memories be a blessing to all of us and may their souls continue to be sources of light love inspiration to their families to their loved ones to the entire South African amazing Jewish community to all of us to all of the Jewish people and thank you very very much let's delve in to the topic that we want to explore today this evening here it's this afternoon by you it's this evening and that is the meaning of the prayer of mod which is essentially gratitude gratitude for a new day it's today in today's era that we can truly appreciate the wisdom of our sages who told us that the first thing when you wake up in the morning offer gratitude and the way we do it in the Jewish tradition is you open your eyes before you went to the bathroom before you brushed your teeth before you showered before you attended your needs before you made your bed before you even washed your hands washed your face got rid of all the things you want to get rid of in your eyes after you wake up I'm still in bed I didn't even get out of bed and the biggest Miracle before you check your phone before you check the news before you send a WhatsApp or listen to a WhatsApp in the Jewish tradition we open our eyes we just experience the first glimmer of Consciousness and you know how a barrage of thoughts you know hits you or could hit you and before anything we give a special gift and it's a gift of gratitude it's a gratitude prayer and it consists of 12 words in Hebrew translation I Express gratitude to you the Eternal and living King for restoring and returning my soul to me with compassion great is your trust great is your faithfulness what's the purpose of this why do it the first thing when you wake up go to the bathroom take a shower brush your teeth get dressed look like a mench put on your suit put on your tie and then you'll go prayers you'll say thank God for your soul no this is in bed before anything and the answer is because as the B said the first thought that we experience in the morning sets the tone for the entire day it's like those who speak give lectures or speeches know that one of the most important things is how do you start you know how the plane takes off crowds give you a approximately 12 seconds to show them that you're a captain of the ship that can be trusted or you're a captain of a ship who is insecure when you get up to speak you have 12 seconds to show the audience that there's somebody here with full presence who's going to take control of this moment and will bring the audience with God's grace to a beautiful Majestic place or to demonstrate that you don't know why you're there you're incompetent you're inept you're not confident you're insecure you're overwhelmed you're stressed you're anxious 12 seconds and either they're with you or they're back on their phones mod has 12 words 12 seconds or a little less in which we set the course of our day what type of day is it going to be is it going to be a day of gratitude a day of bliss a day of focus a day of meaning a day of purposefulness a day of emotional health and well-being or will just be a frivolous day a chaotic day a day in which I'm trying to catch my tail a day in which I'm trying to do everything and do nothing a day in which I allow Stress and Anxiety to overwhelm me a day for I'm not sure I'm coming I'm going because I'm always trying to catch something else and I'm responding rather than coming from a place of being proactive so the first message in is to be able to identify who you are who is it that just woke up who is it who Am I who is this person who woke up I woke up this morning you woke up this morning who woke up who is it and the first thing we say is I'm grateful for the soul that you have given me you have given me a soul what does that mean you have given me a soul what it means is that at my core I'm not an isolated broken lonely human being at my core I'm a deriv of infinite Consciousness I'm a pece of God I'm a fragment of infinity I'm a spark of Hashem I am a derivative of the consciousness of allness of the consciousness of what the cabalists call a Infinity I am a direct link and a manifestation of the infinite love Bliss light wisdom intelligence in the universe which I am manifesting when you say that you have a soul you were given a so essentially means that essentially your life force is divine Consciousness that is cruising and vibrating through your body and that you and I and all of you and every one of us has an opportunity to live and facilitate and breathe and embody during this day why is this so important because it right away puts perspective on who I am and who I'm not I could basically see myself from two perspectives one is I'm a needy person and I need everybody's validation in order to fill my void I'm always chasing and looking for another way of filling my voids by Cravings that will in my own mind fill those voids so one person is addicted to their food another person is addicted to their alcohol another person is addicted to their iPhone another person is Addicted to Money to power this one is trying to people please this one is seeking validation this one is just anxious and overwhelmed and stressed but what if I can go into a much deeper place and the first moment when I woke up even though there may be a lot of thoughts swimming inside my brain and a lot of different emotions and a lot of different triggers but what if I can actually in Stillness and silence I can focus in a very meditative and Serene and calm way on this truth and the truth is I am more than anything else I am a soul what the calls a literal piece of God above if that's the case essentially I'm whole essentially there is wholeness inside of me Psalms describes God and says confidence and joy is in his space how do you know you're in touch with your soul when you're in a space of confidence and joy this doesn't mean I have no pain this doesn't mean the world is complete this doesn't mean I don't have work to do on the contrary I was sent down here because I have a lot of work to do but it means that essentially I'm in a place of very very deep confidence and Bliss I may make mistakes I'm not perfect I have flaws but in my deepest core I'm whole I'm fine I'm perfect I'm Ace of God and that's non-negotiable that's absolute all of my anxiety all of my overwhelmedness all of the emotions and thoughts that come in to hijack my soul have to be understood as hijackers they're here and they can easily hijack me from my inner serenity now this is much easier said than done as I'm talking about it I'm aware of the struggle even within myself because we have so many thoughts that give us different perspectives no you failed here you were miserable here you made a terrible mistake here you're bad you're not good there's so much shame in so much blame and you should have done this and you could have done this better you should have done that better and it's remorse mixed in with guilt and self-loathing and lack of self-respect and lack of self-love and internal negative emotions whether it's resentment or anger or frustration or jealousy or animosity or just terrible fear and dread and being overwhelmed and it's always anxious so these are natural thoughts that we all deal with but as the great kic Masters explain we always have to distinguish between the core and the shell between theum the essence and the kipa the husk I have a lot of shells and those shells May hijack me and may completely capture my brain and now they want me and my heart to be incarcerated by their powerful powerful intense triggers what is come back to the core come back to the essence I'm grateful to you for the fact that I am a soul not only I have a soul I am a soul you know we always say the soul is inside the body but really it's the opposite the body is inside the soul the soul is in the body but the soul is also above the body the soul is divine Consciousness the body is one aspect of the soul the body is inside the soul the soul is not inside the body the body facilitates and channels and manifests the soul in a physical way a healthy body is a body that's aligned with the soul rather than a body that is in dissonance with the soul so the first thing I want to go back to that core self and now it's an experience of gratitude because the soul is always grateful the soul is grateful for the opportunity to serve for the opportunity to be a Channel of infinite love of infinite Bliss of infinite light of infinite hope of infinite healing and here again this is a litmus test am I in the space of my soul or I am I in the place of my shells my husks in the soul there's gratitude there's gratitude because there serenity this calmness because the soul knows that its entire function is to be a channel for God's light and it's grateful for the opportunity wow what did I do to deserve this what did I do that I woke up this morning and I was given a gift of channeling the Creator into creation what did I do what did I do to deserve this this is not my world the oxygen that I'm inhaling I didn't create the 70 trillion cells that make my body function 70 trillion cells working in perfect synchronization don't belong to me I did not design them I did not mold them I did not conceive of them in fact the structure and intricacy of a single cell in your organism is more complex more intricate designed in a more purposeful way than the entire infrastructure of Johannesburg Melbourne Sydney Moscow Aviv London Paris New York and Los Angeles put together the crazy insane complexity and intricacy in a singular cell is mind staggering it's mind blowing it's astounding it's astounding beyond what words can even describe I made nothing of this and yet I was given the privilege to manifest the infinite Creator inside this miraculous body this morning once again wow wow that's pretty awesome that's pretty intense now as we say this but there's other thoughts other thoughts say yeah but you failed you didn't give a good class oh you're boring oh they're falling asleep oh they're texting oh what happened yesterday at the business meeting oh what happened between you and your spouse this afternoon oh what about this child what about that child and what about this failure and what about this issue and then what's going on in the world we have an elections day we have elections happening today right crazy world I can go to all these places and have so much to do and what's happening in the bank and what about this debt on this issue and I have this issue crazy to do list who has time for gratitude who has time for prayer who has time for serenity but then we slept through the day with such heaviness and it's not to judge ourselves so to judge anybody it's very natural to go there because it's so easy for us to be slept down by all of these different types of thoughts that want to derail us from the truth and how does it derail us from the truth it diverts us from focusing on the real real issue here and the real real issue is you're good you're safe God loves you in fact you're a piece of God you're a derivative of God you are a manifestation of hashem's light that's what it means that you have a soul that is the soul it's not that you're a good guy because you achieved a lot or you're a great woman because you fulfilled all your duties it's the opposite you're essentially and intrinsically whole the Tanya says that the soul is perfect it doesn't come down for TI it doesn't need to correct anything it comes down to lift up the body and to lift up the animal Consciousness which is the physical life of the body the life that lives in the blood so we thank and we're grateful for the fact that we can go back to this inner inner place of Serenity and calmness beyond all these thoughts beyond beyond beyond there's that Stillness what Elijah calls what the Bible calls cold madaka that still inner voice of the little child inside of you and the little adult inside of you or the big adult inside of you which is a piece of divine so that's why the first thing we say is I want to thank you m eternal and living and enduring Consciousness that you gave a piece of this Consciousness into me and I can be a flow of that light and that's what I want to be today I want to be today an ambassador of Love Light hope truth Clarity healing Redemptive Consciousness we add something else in this prayer we say what does that mean literally it means you're Trust trustworthiness is great why are we talking about your trustworthiness one way of saying it is maybe God decided to give me back my soul after my sleep that's true but there's something much deeper and that is Moses at the end of his life in the end of the book of Deuteronomy he calls God kale amuna a trustworthy God a god of Faith what does it mean God is a god of faith that God has faith in God I assume that God believes in God if he's God he probably believes in God I don't think God is an atheist or an agnostic what does Moses mean when he uses those words in the the par ofu the end of Deuteronomy right before his passing the last day of his life God is a god of faith God is a god of amuna so the the midrash says as [Music] follows God had faith in his creation he had faith in his world he created it that's the idea in great is your faith in whom in me great is your trust in me you created me another day you gave me another day you believe in me you trust me you know I have flaws you know I have insecurities you know I made mistakes you know I have transgressions you know there's things that I need to fix and I need to heal and I need to repair but beyond all of that amuna you have faith in me you have trust in me you say come let's start over again I want to share something with you that I heard myself from the laich this was in the summer of 1990 and he asked a question he said why did God create our systems in a way that we need so much time for sleep every single 24-hour cycle my man's wres that a person should sleep eight hours if you need more you should sleep more he feels that the healthy lifestyle of a person is to sleep eight hours now I know some of you get away with seven I know some of you get away with six and I know some of you get away with five and some of you get away with less and I guess every person has to see what works for them but very often when people are sleep deprived they think they don't need to sleep but they become passive aggressive they're angry they're dysfunctional or certainly they're not optimizing their creativity and their potentiality so as much sleep as you need but we all need many hours of sleep and some of us would do well with getting the full Seven 8 n hours of sleep especially when you're younger and the brain is growing and the Reb asked the question what a waste of time you say well we need to sleep for our bodies to replenish for our souls to regenerate for our psyches to be able to let go for all the dirt to get recycled and dealt with and the debris all the processing in our dreams we need it I get it but God could have created the biological system that we would need an hour of sleep a half an hour of sleep maybe 5 minutes of sleep no it does not work some animals need much less sleep right some animals just sleep a few minutes at a time what is the meaning of this and the Reb said something very profound I'll never forget it summer 1990 he said because God wants to give us the ability every day to start life as though it was completely new and for this we need to be able to interrupt the old and be open to the new if sleep would only be a half an hour an hour or even a little more than that there would be a constant Continuum in life God wants to give us the ability to be able to experience newness freshness we say in the prayers he renews the creation every single day the B says every moment the world is recreated from nothingness into somethingness that means to be fully alive it's always about being present in the now now is always the most important moment there was a great mentor at menal futas a great he used to say the most important place and most significant and Majestic place you'll ever be is the place you're in right now the greatest moment you will ever experience is the moment you are in right now and the most important and fascinating person you'll ever meet is the person you're speaking to right now that means I'm talk sping to myself what is the greatest and most important lecture or class that I will ever give in my life and the real answer the B says is right here right now you are the most important people I'll ever meet why because it's now cuz if I'm living in yesterday or I'm living in tomorrow I'm not living at all life is a constant flow it's a dynamic Flow It's Like Oxygen you inhale and exhale not yesterday's oxygen it's constant you inhale you breathe in you breathe out the word comes from the wordima which means breath the end of Psalms is every soul will praise you so the mid says every breath is another way of expressing gratitude in other words what is really life what is Life Is Life pressure is life anxiety life is the breath of life that I'm taking right now that is life there's nothing else to life everything else is my thoughts my imaginations my worries my anxieties my projections what I impose on you what I impose on me what I impose on him what I impose on her but it's a distraction of life life the B says is being created right now God is giving the flow of life right now so it's always in the now that I'm alive completely and specifically every day it's a new life it's not just another day it's a new life so the Reb said if there wasn't sleep everything would just be on and on and on sleep is really the ability to say it's all new you say yeah but our memory keep Keeps Us stuck in the past this is where M an comes in m is the ability to say today you gave me back my soul and that soul is perfect it's like the soul of a on day old child because the soul remains pure untarnished unscathed the soul is not filthy even if you went through difficulties and challenges even if God forbid you went through abuse even if you experienced emotional neglect even if you grew up in a dysfunctional home your father was a raging alcoholic your mother was mentally challenged or other types of struggles that you endured and you know and heaven knows how much you struggled and how much you may be suffering and even if you had wounds and deep deep traumas that have left their scars embedded on your body on your psyche on your brain on your heart on your soul the truth is is that just like nobody can abuse God nobody can obliterate God nobody can destroy God nobody could contaminate God nobody can cause God to go into a depression nobody can do that to your soul they can try to and for many years I may live in that shell I could live in a bubble of crazy self shame and crazy self-blame but that's a cover up of my soul so every day I wake up in the morning and with all my energy I reclaim that truth of my inner inner Purity that needs nobody's validation and even if I made many mistakes and I'm not perfect I'm good I'm fine I'm pure I'm whole I'm a piece of God and now I want to show up to life from that internal space and that idea of why there is a new morning a little story my father was a journalist and in 1971 he visited the former Soviet Union it was then illegal for anybody to go in and come out you had to get special permission and have protection to get in and he went in as a journalist so he was allowed to visit as an American journalist the laich had an under ground Network in the Soviet Union connecting to all of his disciples students who lived there and the underground operations of Jewish schools synagogues social programs mikas daycares Yas ritual slaughterers maym to make circumcisions prayer books learning Torah all underground everything was illegal you're talking about the dark communist years so it was all underground it was clandestine it was secretive and the rebba had a whole very impressive and intricate literally underground network with thousands of Jews living behind the Iron Curtain so before my father left he was 4 hours by the Reb who gave him a lot of missions of weird to go what to do what to deliver what to say messages to give over Etc when my father came back from the Soviet Union this is in the winter this is I think December 1970 or January 1971 the of 71 he shared this he went in to visit theab for a 4-Hour audience which lasted from Midnight until dawn break and he basically shared with the reb all of his experiences and his encounters with hundreds and hundreds or dozens and dozens of Jews living in the Soviet Union some of them suffering terribly and committed to Jewish observance and Jewish Education under unbearable circumstances remember if he didn't work on shabas They confiscated They confiscated your work ID you could be sent to Siberia if they found out that you weren't sending your kids to the public school you send to Jewish Education you could you could be imprisoned I it's crazy country a sick country a toxic country what the Jews in the Soviet Union suffered was unbearable people don't even know about it and my father was sharing with the reb all of his experiences the people he met and their families and the Reb asked them questions and he said that during the night there were times that the Reb literally put down his head and just started to cry because he had a personal and intimate relationship with so many of the people there and it was a difficult 4 hours just reporting on the this story and that story and this family and this community and this Troll and this synagogue and this underground Network and then he says it was time to leave he finished his report and he walked out from the Reb's room this is in on eastn Parkway in Brooklyn and as he's walking out he's about to leave the room he hears the rebba speaking to himself and the looked out the window of his room which faces Eastern Parkway if you're familiar with Brooklyn geography he looks out and he could see that the sun is about to come up it was already Dawn break and soon would be sunrise so the the ra the sun already cast cast its Rays on the part of planet earth that laich could observe from his Chambers in the crown height section of Brooklyn New York and the United States of America and speaking half to himself and I guess half to my father because my father was already leaving the rebba picks up his hands and he says in Yiddish ah a tug ah it's a new day and my father walked out of the room and it was such a powerful lesson because here lived through a night of challenge of pain of suffering of Anguish he heard the stories of countless Jews suffering under the burden and the tyranny of Stalin Len and trotsky's regime he heard the episodes he heard the tales of Anguish he heard the tales of deep deep suffering and it was a long night an exhausting night not only did he not sleep at the night but it was a night of hearing how much his people are going through and yet God sent new Rays the sun was beginning to rise and just in a natural instinctive expression of reab says Ah it's a new day a new day meant there's new hope there's new possibilities there's new opportunities there's a new energy carp sees the day this requires a lot of letting go because if I'm stuck in Old patterns in Old voices and old triggers it's not a new day it's SOS same old or same old Sushi it's the same s so same old day yesterday repeating itself again and again and again is the gift of talk it's a new day and here we come to a very powerful Insight in this unique essay that was published Back in 1970 called on the essence ofus on the 19th of KV 1965 the 19th of K is the day the the alter Reb the founder of kabad was liberated and the Reb held his faing in his Gathering and he dedicated a major talk to explain what was the contribution of kism the B the founder of theic movement who was born in 1698 died in 1760 he revealed to the world the teachings ofid as they're called his student the mag of M Rich who died in 1772 succeeded the B and then you had theic Dynasty and branches that branched out from the mag of M throughout all the generations until this very generation one of them was of course the alter who founded theat School of kism and the seventh generation was La who in 1965 dedicated a talk on the day of liberation of the AL what is this what is is it just some cute nice inspirational insights and he explained then to say it really in one sentence that there's five layers to the soul and there's five layers to Consciousness has five layers there's the most basic level of Consciousness which is physical Consciousness the life of the body the nervous system the nine systems of biology whether the urinary system the respiratory system the digestive systems the circulatory system etc etc there Ru Ru is the emotive Consciousness the emotions connected to the lyic brain the first one is connected to the mdala you have Nish connected to the pre prefrontal C cortex the cognitive consciousness you have which is the spiritual consciousness the Curiosity of the human being to spiritual truth the yearning and the longing for spirituality and then you have the deepest the fifth level called means Oneness because it is one with God because it is God it's undefined you can't define God you can't Define that it's at the core of the Soul where you're completely completely one with God that's why y we have five prayers because each day we try to reach one level of conscious we reach all five in a very conscious way the fifth one the Torah also has five layers is the most basic level of Torah study the literal interpretation which is always the foundation and then you have what's called remes d s remes are homolytic interpretations D are all of the profound intricate expanding of the sages the work of the tal and the work of the midash both in the terms of of Jewish law and the stories and the ethics then you have S cabala the esoteric Dimension and they correspond to the different levels of the soul and then there's the contribution ofus which wants to come to the essence and the essence always doesn't create something new it just reveals what is the essence of everything and the essence of everything is that you're really a Channel of infinity and when you let go you are infinity and then the Reb said he wants to take one subject in Judaism and demonstrate the process and he chose M an and he explained mod on four different levels the four different levels of Torah study and then the fifth level and I'm going to go straight to the fifth and he said this is a great teaching of theic Masters and he said it's the only prayer we say with unclean hands we always before we pray we wash our hands it's called neas the first thing you do in the morning is you wash your hands because the hands are impure it was a whole night I don't know what I touched where I touched the hands could be physically dirty and sometimes spirit unclean and there's a spirit of impurity that comes down when I'm asleep so you wash your hands always in the morning we wash our hands and there's a special blessing and this is the prayer we say before we wash our hands and by the way that's why we don't mention God's name because you don't mention God's name before you wash your hands in the morning mod is one prayer that doesn't have God's name that's on one level but then the Reb said let me share the deepest interpretation and that is you could say before your hands have been cleaned because you're touching a place in you that could never be unclean you're touching a place in you that can't be contaminated so many different parts of me can be contaminated they can become burdened with different types of emotional and psychological burdens but the M of a Jew could never become impure the M of a Jew the core purity of your soul remains full of life and BL Bliss and vitality and Clarity and wisdom and empowerment it could never become tainted and therefore you could say it when your hands are impure because on that level there's no impurity no impurity can touch this space and by the way that's why we don't mention God's name because this is beyond names this is God's Essence Beyond names now think about what this message is telling us mod an is coming and touching that place that can't become impure wow there's a part of me that can't become imp pure Rabbi why why are you real I mean come on I know me I'm a mess I have anxiety I made mistakes I did this I can prove to you that so much of me is UNC is contaminated but the truth is there's a part of you that could never be contaminated and therefore you could say it when your hands are impure because that level can't be impure I don't care if you were sleeping I don't care if you were up I don't care where you were that's space was present in all your pain but it cannot be contaminated ever and that's what you're connecting to from the place of midani and this is so true in all of our relationships because when we approach life from this place let's talk for a moment about marriage if you could connect to your spouse from the space in you that is not damaged what type of relationship is it going to be you know so often when we're talking to our spouses they trigger us because they trigger our wounds my wife may say something to me and it may trigger my insecurity and now either I find myself in a space of flight or fight or freeze or fa why am I responding this way why do I have to be aggressive why do I have to emotionally disassociate and disconnect why do I need a Stonewall why do I need a gasl why do I need to become a people's pleaser why do I need to run away from the situation why and the answer is it's too painful I'm wounded and this is my way of surviving but what if you could remain in the relationship connected to the space in you that's not contaminated that can't be contaminated the space that no contamination in the world psychological emotional spiritual physical can affect then you remain whole and then you could reply to her or to him from that space you can watch all these thoughts in you you can see all the triggers in you you can hold space for them and have compassion and empathy for them but you don't step away from the core self which is safe which is whole that's the maida on the inside of you that can be said before your hands were clean before your hands were washed what if you can relate to your children from that space sometimes your child May trigger you so heavily your teenage may your teenage girl or boy may say something that you feel is rude or obnoxious or self-centered narcissistic or unappreciative and you want to lash out at your son you want to lash out at your daughter you want to say in this house will not be tolerated you are so unappreciative but really what's happening is my own wounds are being triggered my 17 year-old or my 15-year-old is triggering the child inside of me who never got recognition or never got validation or is so deeply scathed or so deeply wounded or the child inside of me who is scared who's trying so hard to make this perfect family and is failing again and I feel like such a loser or maybe my child is teaching me that I'm a failure and I don't get the nas that I deserve and they're triggering so much anger in me and I get it but what if you can respond to your child from your pure untainted soul that is a derivative of divine Consciousness and is whole it's full it's confident it's joyous it's Blissful it's calm it's Serene you know why cuz it's a peace of God Now respond to your child ooh it's going to be a different response you'll hold space for their pain you'll hold space for your pain with empathy and compassion but you won't be derailed you won't go down a rabbit hole of anger resentment frustration anxiety being triggered you'll be able to choose a reaction that is expressing your desire to connect and to remain attached imagine you could respond to your own triggers from this space from this inner soul that is whole and untainted you don't have to blame yourself you don't have to scream at yourself you don't have to tell yourself I'm such a loser I'm such an idiot try it right now can you just hold space with compassion and empathy for all these critical thoughts inside of you for the harsh inner critic inside of you that's constantly always trying to derail you just hold space for it and say I'm so sorry you have to go there but always have in mind that inner core that remains safe remains calm even if your brain is not letting you experience it the same is true when you go to work and when you meet friends and throughout our relationships and even the way we relate to the news and the way I sit down to eat a meal because at every moment I can choose either to be aligned in aligned with my soul in the space of my infinity or to be detached and Drift Away I'm going to conclude with a story and the story is about a great Lithuanian Sage his name wasat abramsky rabes abramski and now as you know much of the South African Community was built from Lithuanian Jews Jews from L from the Lithuania that moved to South Africa and that's why some of the great Lithuanian sages used to come to South Africa like the ponich ra Khan man who came very often I think to South Africa because so many of his people back in Lithuania even those he married who moved here Etc and he raised money for his Yeshiva and his institutions in Israel but South Africa and Lithuania had a very deep kinship probably still do even though it's new generations so one of the great sages of Lithuanian jury his name was Rabbi abramsky he was the rabbi of slutsk and he was exiled to Siberia by the Communists ultimately he made it out he moved to London and then he moved to Israel he had a son who became a real real left-wing communist oh my God a real real communist but he himself was a Torah Giant and he wrote a lot of books K I mean he was a very interesting personality he was in Siberia for 3 years he came out and he went to visit the previous lab RAB whose namesake I carry I I'm privileged to have his name y y why is y and he visited a previous laba who ran the underground Network in Russia in the 1920s and 1930s and he shared with him a memory of Si from Siberia and he said as follows every morning he woke up in the gulag in his Barrack what did he have garnished nothing but he said my thank you hem Eternal King enduring king living King for giving me back my soul with compassion great is your trust great is the amuna great is the trust in you great is your faith great is your amuna and he said one day he asked himself why am I thankful why am I grateful why am I grateful what do I have here I don't have my wife I don't have my children I don't have a home I don't have safety I don't have a shelter I don't have security I certainly don't have a job I don't have my health in optimal shape I am a slave Laborer of Stalin of Joseph Stalin a victim of the Communist hell a slave laborer in Joseph Stalin's Gulag where Stalin managed to murder between 20 and 50 million people dur during his Reign of Terror from 1924 until his death in March 1953 in the week of Pur Stalin killed tens of millions of people he killed more people than Hitler killed why am I thankful why am I saying my what do I have what do I have here that's what he tells laav and as a I'm saying it I have all this ambivalence and all this guilt like I'm a hypocrite I'm inauthentic no I'm not grateful my life is a curse my life and then he said to the rebba these words he said and then I came to the last words great is your amuna great is the faith that you have or great is your faith or the faith in you and I realized Ah that's what I'm thankful for I'm thankful for the fact that I have faith I'm thankful for the fact that I have RAB I have my faith in you I have my trust in you wow I have you and at that moment I could cultivate the frequency of trust and surrender that despite the fact that so much in my life was difficult and so much of my life was incomprehensible and I did not know the future and I did not control the future and I was deprived of the most basic necessities of a human being and deprived of the most basic things that give us our dignity and our freedom and our Liberty first and foremost that I can move according to my own will and I was it was all taken from me one thing they couldn't take from me my trust in you my faith in you my relationship with you my ability to show up with my full authentic self and the rebba looked at him and said wow sometimes it takes a person to be 3 years in Siberia to reach such an insight and to share it with me what a gift you're giving me the rabbi said sometimes a person could be three years in Siberia and it's that's when they can reach this level of awareness there re was thanking him because here was a Jew who took his negative crazy experience and it gave him such an awareness such an elevated Consciousness that he might have never had and was thanking him for being this person and for sharing it with him and I thought to myself you know in each of our lives there are struggles there are challenges there are things we have to work through and sometimes the greatest thing we can be grateful for is R the fact that I could show up once again with faith with courage with resolve with confidence saying I'm going to be your channel in this world the ability to open myself up to my vulnerability to my trust to my surrend not because I understand I don't understand not because I could control I can't control but it's the gift of surrendering to that which we know is the source of all love the source of all Bliss the source of all intelligence the infinite we can't comprehend we can't grasp we can't make sense of it because if we do it's not infinite it's only what my logic can comprehend what I could do is I can open myself up to it and surrender to it and in that surrender there is so much gratitude and yes there is so much Bliss thank you very much WoW Raba that was absolutely profound you know in Johannesburg in our community we recently had the privilege of hearing two hostages speak and uh your last thoughts now the resounding takeout was their ability for gratitude even in the worst most despicable hell on Earth um so so that really really resonates I think I speak for everyone I know we we don't have much time so I'm going to I'm going to invite uh if if the audience have any questions please uh post them in the Q&A we we we might have a minute or two to take them but uh after hearing you speak I really feel a true sense of calmness so many insights so many messages um and like the title of of of of the talk I honestly feel awake so the first question is um you know you mentioned we all live with anxieties we live with challenges we live with obstacles people pulling us in in different directions um can I only say m in the morning I mean I feel like after hearing well you know the the formula for for connecting and and and and feeling at one with ashem the power of the pray mod can I say it at any point great question why only say it in the morning when we have these challenges throughout the day and that's exactly the point the statement of modani is not meant just for the morning it's meant as a tone Setter to define the trajectory it's like knowing the direction in many ways you know if you get any into your car and you're taking a long trip I don't know you're going to Krueger National Park or you're taking another trip maybe it's a 4-Hour trip a 6-hour trip you driving to Cape Town whatever it is and you put in the directions and they say okay this is the road and they show you the destination and say you'll be there in 4 hours and 59 minutes so you don't shut off the map then you don't say okay we know where we're going no you said it but now you follow it is the trend Setter it's creating the trajectory it's saying where I want to go today today I am going to be and I want to be an ambassador of Love Light hope healing Redemptive consciousness today I want to be a channel today I know need to be in my ego place I don't to be in my insecurity place I don't need to be in my narcissistic place today I'm going to be open just to be a channel so now you set your destination but now there's the way to get there right take a right take a left go straight avoid that road there's a lot of traffic avoid that road there's a ditch so myani is really setting the trajectory but it's really a whole day experience a whole day I want want to channel the m i want to always go back to that M and saying is this taking me to my destination did I just get distracted maybe I sat down by breakfast and I maybe got overwhelmed by this Danish you know that's what happens to me I got overwhelmed by this cheesecake and I forgot who I am you know I just fell into this trap maybe I went into a business meeting and I just got so triggered by my partner or by my competitor I just lost it I lost it you know maybe I went to the bank and I got overwhelmed maybe I got a call from the principal's office and I'm now anxious you know maybe I got a call from somebody else my relative or this and I'm again anxious so it's always you know going back to the which is the trend Setter it's the trajectory it's def finding the destination and matching it you know synchronizing with it so yes absolutely and if you feel like you want to stay in the middle of the day that's perfectly fine there's no problem saying my whenever you want that's really the objective to set this tone for the whole day fantastic I think on that point teaches us that every soul has a unique Mission um so how can reciting help with that this awareness to connect and fulfill one's individual purpose great great great question you know we all have an individual purpose besides our Collective purpose how does modani help facilitate that the answer to that is how does one know what their individual purpose is you know not every one of us gets that message so clearly the answer of course is a few things number one you have to look at where you were born where you live the circumstances of your life the gifts you were given the resources you have the challenges problems and struggles you have and the circumstances that Define your life now because those are usually essential to your mission so that's number one number two you have to look at those things that you know are important but they're very difficult for you because usually that's part of your mission that's why there's so much resistance and number three you have to ask yourself is there a passion or skill that you have that is also a need for the world because usually where your passion meets a need in the world usually that's where your mission is sometimes I may have passion but nobody needs it it's useless sometimes there's a lot of needs but I couldn't care less for it but often when there's two things where you have a passion and there is a need usually that's where your purposes and that's where is so helpful because it helps on all three counts first of all it allows me to embrace my circumstances my journey where I was born how I grew up where I am today as a result realizing that this is exactly where my soul needs to be number two it helps me crystallize the fact that if there is resistance it doesn't mean I have to back off it means that my soul has the gift and the opportunity and the empowerment to be able to Prevail and number three it asks me to always tune in to what my energy and life light is so I could give it to the world wow profound profound I think um perhaps the the last question you you definitely need to touch on it but I think it's it's worth clarifying um is the faith faithfulness hashem's faith in us or our faith in Hashem excellent question excellent question when we speak about R your faith is great what does it mean is it his faith in us is it our faith faith in him and you guessed it we're good Jews we like the cake and we eat it too it was written in a way to include both interpretations great is your faith in me you gave me another day you believe in the world you believe in me you believe in why why Rabbi y why Jacobson or you believe in you or you or you every person who's here with us God believes in you cuz he created you he conceived you he conceived your soul implanted it in your body every moment is a miracle so that's his faith in you his trust in you despite the fact that I may have made mistakes and I still have a lot of work on myself that's number one number two it's the great RAB great is the gift of faith that I have in you and of course you guessed it both interpretations really are one they're deeply connected because God's faith in us is really our faith in him because what does it really mean that God has faith in me what's the faith that God has in me the faith that God has In Me Is God sees in me what I may not see in myself God sees in me my faith my beauty my Holiness my glory when God looks at me what does he really see it's like when you're looking at your little child you know what do you see you see an angel you see the Purity you see the fortitude you see the depth you see the ma Majesty you see the Angelic face you see their soul shining what's the challenge the challenge is when your that child is now 14 years old could you still see the same Angel Michaelangelo was once asked how he sculptured David and you know what he said I saw the angel trapped in the marble and I chiseled away on the marble and I set the angel free that is what faith is Faith is the place where you and God meet where God's faith in you and your faith in God join to become one and the same that's the place where the two meet God's faith in you is unshakable because your faith in him is unshakable w and with that faith I think we can tackle anything that comes out our way during the day so what a what a message to end off one I think um certainly for me and I think I speak for many others in the audience I can see the comments coming in that uh certainly going forward um I will be saying more with a renewed sense of understanding of gratitude and intention RAB thank you it's really been a privilege and an honor to to even listen to you and thank you you know to talk to you is is is one of my my highlights so thank you for your profound wisdom for your passion and for your inspiration to us all thank you thank you thank you everybody the gift the gift and I want to thank everybody who came here today this evening and who's part of this initiative and this program and thank kab of Johannesburg kab of Johannesburg for putting it together and I also want to you know I want to tell all of you when we wake up in the morning it's a very very powerful moment it's a very very special moment if you could learn this prayer because you don't want to go and schle a prayer book but if you could learn it's just 12 words you could say it in Hebrew or in English or in both and really open your eyes and just let going and I'm going to say something very personal and very vulnerable for a lot of years in my life right when I woke up in the morning very negative thoughts would come into my brain I don't even know why but they would come into my brain and I would go to the bathroom you know brush my teeth do whatever I got to do and these crazy thoughts would come into my bra I didn't know how to get rid of them like I didn't ask for them I didn't control them I wasn't looking at my phone I wasn't reading the news I wasn't reading a I wasn't watching a horror movie but these crazy crazy thoughts came into my my brain and I had to do a lot of work around that really like a lot of emotional work a lot of crazy stuff I had to deal with with these thoughts and one thing I recently started to do is I say right and then as I get out of bed I will repeat those words I will like say you know there's nothing outside of him there's nothing outside of him I'm part of him it's good everything is good and I found more and more that these these thoughts so slowly started to banish and in each and every one of our Lives when you wake up in the morning it's a very very powerful moment if you could just let go and tune into those words and if you have to repeat them repeat them have to repeat them a few times repeat them a few times but to say them to say them with presence and intention you could see how powerful it is that six seven eight hours later and you're having a hard day you're in the office or whatever you're dealing with in your house or in the office or on a jog or on a walk or dealing with some crisis and this it gives you like a reference point and a Center Point a paradigm to come back to wow thank you for sharing that vulnerability I think good night to everybody God bless you sending you my love and blessings and may we all see a new day a new Awakening for us individually collectively for our homeland for our people it should be a year and a Day of Victory and Redemption amen amen thank you thank you everyone thank you good night this class is brought to you by the yeshiva.net please help us continue the classes make even a small contribution at w.the usa.net donate