It's time for deep cleaning - Powerful message to apply - Rabbi Alon Anava

[Music] let me give you a better example when I became observant H I didn't I wasn't observant yet I woke up to the reality that I have to become observant then I tackled it like a business like anything it came with a plan it's not that I was like okay I'll put a keep on and we'll see how it goes I okay let's make a plan here without a plan nothing's going to work if I don't have any some type of tragedy here my plan won't come to fruition and I'm not going to be able to do nothing so I had a plan and the plan was very specific I came to to uh I don't have to say the conclusion but I I said I'm not going to be so religious in the beginning because I can't because I'm 28 years old and I'm I can't jump into it right now but I'll do one thing from all the major things to show I'm on board but give me my time so I would put on I did K on Shabbat I didn't Mi mix meat and dairy that was the three my three things okay I and and and and I made sure that this is you know life or death that's how I was religious for a whole year just putting F in on Shabbat first I started with just doing K acknowledging it's Shabbat l l slowly slowly I started not turning the light off in the bathroom and stuff like that but why am I saying the plan was that I need x amount of time for the pre observant I wasn't born into it I need two three years to to drain the swamp to to to wash this you know horrible body and then just start filling everything in in I'll tell you a quick story that you understand what I'm trying to go with there was once a king who called his worker his right hand his advisor and he told him listen I'm going on a journey I want you to go down while I'm on the journey go down to the basement take out all the wine barrels and go down to the river and fill them with water I'm going to have a very big party when I come back we need a lot of barrels full of water no problem he gathers all his men they're all standing in in formation he tells them this is our mission we're going down we're taking the barrels okay the King goes on the journey and they all start working they take down all the barrels they go all the way down to the river they start filling all the barrels with water they put the barrels on the wagons and they start going up on the mountain the mountain was very steep all the wagons are like you know moving like this because of the the gravel and everything and suddenly they start seeing that all the barrels are cracked and water start flying all over the way all over all over the place then what what what are we going to do they're start trying to close the holes and it doesn't work the water's coming out some of them say let's go down fix the barrels and and and reill them and go up the second to the king says no no no no no the king is here in a few hours we have no time you bring it up whatever water is in there we have to do the King's Command and they're going up the mountain and the buggies are all shaking and the water is like flying all over the place by the time they reach to the castle all the barrels are completely empty the king calls them in did you do my command the guy says listen we tried uh uh but there's some problem and the barrels were cracked and uh we don't have any water he's already saying he's about to be put to death and the King says to him oh good that's what I wanted what says the man that's what you wanted he says yeah the barrels were sitting in the basement for years you know how dusty they were so I told you to take them down to the river fill them with water I knew the journey the bumpy Journey will shake the barrels like a dishwasher all the water will go out now the barrel are clean now fix the barrels I brought with with me from the journey 1,000 lers of good wine let me put it in the barrels so this story was told to me by my Rabbi in a different context when I first came to Yesa and I started learning Torah so the easy things came easy I had the language but when I started learning I didn't know much the Aramaic but half the in Hebrew I kind of understood the text but it took me about 3 years to understand the and I held myself as I'm a smart guy I'm not like some dumb I I couldn't understand it three years sitting with one of the best rabbis in the world I don't understand one word one day it opened and when I asked him how come I'm in Yeshiva for so many years certain things I remember how come I come to a class they Rabbi gives over the class I go out of the class I don't remember one word I told you already my wife was nice enough to send me to learn Tora when we got married she's like you go and learn how work I would come home from a day of learning the minimum of the minimum she was like tell me something and I would start stuttering and and and she would tell me me what did you learn today T tell me something you won't get it it's way way too high for you to get it that was my answers now tell me something Shabbat I'll tell you the Shabbat table I didn't remember one thing math science chemistry biology no problem Torah cement wall so when I I came and asked my Rabbi what's wrong with me so he told me that story so he says you are such a dirty Barrel that you need so much water to wash it before it's ready to put the wine in so the Torah is water and you need to learn a lot of Tor and you're not going to remember anything cuz it's just washing the dirty Barrel so I'm telling you the exact same thing we're all a dirty barrel full of junk and you think you're just going to was into into G or just come to do some and it doesn't work like that there's a process there's a process that needs to be done and that's part of humbling yourself can you imagine what it was for me coming with an ego from here till tomorrow and H hauling myself as a wise individual and then I'm sitting there and and and everybody understands and the like iant okay yeah yeah yeah you know what a hit to the ego that is that I don't understand anything and I'm like and then of course had to come the humility no RAB I didn't understand can you explain it again so the process of refinement of your character is not overnight when I became observant I told you I had a plan I had a plan when I I I told you this story many times I used to do K on Shabbat that was my thing on Shabbat I used to drive not 60 miles 58 miles to be exact on the odometer to the koser supermarket where I live to buy kosher wine and I made a whole stick out of it I bought this beautiful tablecloth and beautiful kadush cup and I would cook made myself such an amazing meal that was my Shabbat and I told you the story that one once my friend came to visit me I told him it's Shabbat we got to do k k okay I told him sit sit down eat the food just answer them in and we do K finish the K finish the food and go out go out to to a party not not go out of the living room so one night we do K and we go out to a club 5:00 in the morning we're coming back home from the club my friend tells me you know I don't I don't get you like a few hours ago you dooky you put a K on and now you desecrate Shabbat in any angle you can just think of so I told him listen if you go now to a playground and you see a 10-year-old boy jumping up and down from one thing to another you you don't give it any attention because all the 10-year-old boys do that but if you see a year old baby standing up and taking two steps I get guaranteed to you within 3 minutes the internet is flooded with 5,000 pictures of that baby and all the WhatsApp groups and everybody's going crazy cuz he did one step what's the big deal cuz it's a baby I told my friend in hashem's eyes I'm a baby I cannot do more than this that's my step and then I fall one day I will keep Shabbat I don't know one year three years one day I'll get it I know I'll get it I don't know how long it's going to take me but one day I'll do it but in the meantime I told him you know how hasem looks at me he calls all his angels and he says look look look look look look look what he did he drove 60 miles to get kosher wine and look at this beautiful table how he set it up and he's dressed nice and he's standing all happy with the wine I told my friend hashm is now ignoring all the mess around and he's focusing on the two two minutes that I'm focused on him and that's my shabat and that's what I can handle so I had a plan how to move my forces I knew I can't observe Shabbat when I became observant I knew I'm not going to have a beard or a yamaka or what everything only after 3 years no actually less a year and a half later cuz when I was in jail I started putting amaka to annoy everybody but but the point is that you have to have a plan you have to have an approach going back to the phones since we talked about that and I'm happy we talked about that somehow helped us step on a very important detail that most people ignore I've been saying that for at least a decade that's the disease of Our Generation now there's nothing wrong with having the smartphone is how you control it if you cannot control it then you decide what you want to do if you can control it then good you'll do a lot of good things you can do a lot of good things with it so the first challenge that I'm telling anyone I told you before whenever you have the urge to open Instagram why do you open Instagram what do you want to see you want to learn how to cook you're looking at cooking videos fine there's a benefit for that put that for five minutes watch your cooking lesson and move on you want to do yoga you want to do stretches that's I can tell you fine sit your five minutes do your interaction cooking Sports whatever shopping that's what I do I also do dance on Instagram I have a bodysuit and took you a lot of seconds to what I don't dance on Instagram but I do go on certain platforms to find what I need if I need a how to do it something and I go to YouTube I also go on YouTube I just don't get sucked in to all the nonsense and even if some nonsense attracts my eye then my system will know how to shut it down within two three minutes that's it so I would start with a challenge that every time next time you have an urge to open Tik Tok Instagram whatever it is don't open open a book of and read one chapter of at least in the eyes of God you said I had the urge I fed my now let me go feed the a little bit but I guarantee to you with the power of thean chapter of you'll have less the desire to continue on the app that's for sure I'm telling you do this challenge to yourself but if you want practical advice first of all disconnect the notifications from your from your phone cuz the reason why you open all these apps because they send you a notification shly liked your picture and you click who cares if shly liked your picture why do you have to click on it and that's how you open all these apps all the time remove that I'm guaranteed to you open the phone half the time that's my rules I do not open my phone email anything till middle of the day I don't check my emails in the in the in the morning I have a private phone from for my wife and kids and private matters that's my phone that to communicate I don't check my messages early in the day I don't go on any of the Platforms in only at the end of the day my platforms don't get open during the day why why do I need it I can do in 10 minutes at the end of the day what you do in five hours during the day you can do it too you summarize the junk to 10 minutes and that's it and when you start realizing that it's not benefiting you in any type of way do the The Chain Reaction math that's what I do I I sit and watch a stupid video and my will tell me you had a long day relax a little bit you know watch something funny hey you know it's funny to see people crash that's the funny videos people fall and break their limbs and jump from roofs and and then a cat suddenly dancing I mean this just this is the the the the level this generation came to I'm happy we that it's a little bit off our subject but I'm happy we touched it because it is a landmine to each and every one of you and when we are on the subject to come to some type of and he says that the Purity will bring you to let go of things then you'll start letting go of all this junk you start letting go all this junk you don't need it if you summarize a day how much hours a day you are on Netflix Facebook and everything together if you come to more than an hour your situation is very bad very very bad an hour and a half Max that you should be on all of them combined not one unless you're watching a t class on YouTube unless your Tik Tok is only rabbis and every time you go like that it's one minute of inspiration then go ahead do whatever you want that's what you need need the phone for but one we want to take from that after all of this long class is the importance of anava and you need to seek at any given moment where you can apply humility in your life by not answering the person that just insulted you but not putting your wife or husband down because they did something or your kid or your neighbor or whatever it is I mean you are going to get attacked daily with ego from your kids from strangers it doesn't matter if you are not going to read it yourself or watch the video now 10 times and then make notes and write the plan you wasted your time you're not going to remember one thing from what I said now you'll remember that I told you that I dance on Instagram with a bodyit that's what you'll remember that's the reality when you want to practice something it's you have to put it down in writing you have to make a plan I I I I'll give you an example one time I went to the in New York to the Lich rebi grave okay so there was aik there who told me the order what to do first you do this then you do that then you do this okay I follow the rules so and then he tells me now you ride a p you write a letter so in the beginning I was like I don't need to write a letter I so he says no no write a letter okay so I write the letter if you ever been to the oil and queens there you see everybody's writing letters and I was uh two and a half days religious I told him why we writing a letter why can't I just if I'm already praying to God why can't I just talk why do I need the letter and he says when you write down your concern your needs your desires your weakness whatever you write down you're pouring your heart you are taking it out of your system out of your reality and you're putting it now on the paper your problems your desire whatever it's on the paper right now you kind of let go when you go to the sadik and you pray to God not to the sadik and you bring the paper and the custom is to rip it and to put it down in the whatever gravel there then you you removed your problems now to the sadik let him pray for you let him deal with it let him help you you moved it to you come to the to the adviser right the sadik to come to the blessing which okay made a perfect sense but that also brought me to understand because I constantly have great ideas if I don't write it down it will never happen ah one out of a thousand will happen I have a notebook next to my bed that I wake up in the middle of the night and I write something down happens too many times that I dreamed on something and in the dream I wrote down but the the reality is that if you do not bring down to practicality on something physical what's in your mind either you won't do it at all or it won't be efficient in any way everything that I do I put down on a piece of paper and I write down that I can review that I can move the order that it's out of my head I have an idea if you don't put it in writing then it stays in your head and after a day or two you'll forget what you thought so when it comes to T and don't worry we have a few more classes to go at the end we'll do a very thorough summary with practical what to do but I'm telling you now if you want this to apply if you don't write it down today I'm doing this next month I'm doing that by the end of the year this should be accomplished all this is extremely extremely important to your spiritual growth and to your uh refinement and needless to say that whatever effort that you do coming from the positive side it reduces from the negative side and I apologize if we H sidetracked with the phone thing but I think it's very very appropriate and we'll take that as the message of the class because I it's the thing is it is a disease this phone is a disease and eventually very soon they'll start using this device for much worse things much much worse things now it's just getting it so under your skin that you can't live without it then they're going to lock everybody with it uh you have to be already very very free from your device start with don't sleep at it at night like I told you I wasn't joking at all put in in a microwave buy a cheap microwave for 100 cheel better if you put the microwave outside of the apartment or the house or put the phones there at night if you can put your router there even better anything that radiates your router for Wi-Fi the Box the cable box all this stuff it radiates and Records you put it all in the in the microwave that's it you reduce 90% of the radiation that night you'll sleep better you'll wake up with more energy less frustrated less angry less agitated just start with [Music] that