Kavanah L'Mitzvos: How Mizmor L'Todah can help you increase Simcha in Adar by Rabbi Wegbreit

[Music] yibbani base midrash nothing is more frustrating than realizing you have an incredible opportunity right in front of you and it passes you by some of my friends who are entrepreneurs during corona the past couple year a couple years when there was all this economic turmoil they told me that they wished they wished they had invested in the bitcoin they were kid now they're kicking themselves right they had a chance and they let it go by and and it's over the truth of the matter is as jews on a daily basis when we dab in we are often passing up opportunities uh to get a bitcoin before it's ready to explode it's happening to us all the time that's why tonight i want to focus again on the mitzvah of ian tafila looking deeply into our prayers because by ian tafila you can capture those opportunities and let's apply that let's look at again let's look at mismo or the soda let's reflect on this and i want to show you because let me explain this i'm not just i'm giving uh hyperboles okay there are buried treasures in the prayers in the tehillim they're written with ruacha kodesh and prophecy they're buried treasures and what does the treasure give you it helps you transform yourself while you're reciting the words now let me explain how that works okay it's if you if you uh internalize that you'll realize that bitcoin a bitcoin is nothing compared to what you can achieve when you're davening okay so here here's the uh basis of this idea um in the gemara brachas uh daf samahamad base very very famous statement a dramatic one rebbi kiva is a the one they attributed to it says a person always needs to say everything hashem does he does for good the everything the merciful one does he does for good now rabbi fran brought this rabbi schleser and he asked a great question you know the torah is known for being concise and to the point no extra language in the written torah no extra language in the oral torah so he asks why did the gemara present the instruction like this you should always you always need to say everything god does he does for good why do you have to say you should always do that you always need to say this and the answer is so important so beautiful the purpose of uh you know when do you need to express to yourself that everything god does he does for the good when it doesn't feel good when it doesn't look good okay that's when you need it now the truth of the matter is if let's say god forbid there's some sort of trouble or calamity or problem and a person they remember the gemara and they said everything god does he does for good now if they just say it in that moment when they're facing a very heavy thing it's not going to mean much however if they always train themselves to say everything hashem does he does for the good for example you know he's making toast and it falls to the floor so he says even there everything the hashem does is from love and compassion and then let's say he's in traffic and uh he wanted to move forward and another car went in front of me he goes everything hashem does he does for good so he's training himself and then if needed when things get really tough he'll say everything hashem does he does for the good and it'll go in his heart and he'll really eventually see the good in it okay that's how tefila works we discussed this before why would hashem tell us to the ancestor or the people wrote her prayers why do they say repeat the same thing again and again and again and we discussed that for most people when you repeat things they become less meaning meaningful right why is hashem telling us to do it why are sages telling us to do it why because they're helping you to integrate it so it'll be there for you when you need it these are deep messages that we're getting in the tephila and it's through interview from understanding the depth of those words that you'll be able to now train yourself for the greatest things so let's with that in mind let's do this with miss moore the soyda so with miss minnesota we discussed there are mitzvahs buried i don't know if it's buried there are mitzvahs in the tafilam in the tohilum and the one we've been discussing is hashem that's a mitzvah it's a commandment how important is this commandment to serve ashambasimha well it's hard to believe this but in parshas kitavo when it's elucidating these really terrible curses that could come upon the jewish people god forbid right so it says there why would this happen because you didn't serve hashem with joy now that's a man that you is saying that all the calamity is because we didn't serve hashem with joy i understand if we didn't serve hashem that there be some troubles okay but why is it that we didn't do it with simcha so first of all we see from this serving of shemashimba is not a minor mitzvah it's super important question is why is it so important i'd like to say like this and it's because you know as a famous statement that we lose sight of why we're here you know we think we're famous things says we think we're physical beings having spiritual experiences you come to a sheer you listen to the torah and now i'm being spiritual but i'm a physical being it's the opposite we're really spiritual beings that we have a physical experience and we forget that our souls came from the heaven and they came down here from for a purpose they came to this world to seek and discover hashem even though his ways are hidden it's our whole purpose here is to seek and become close to hashem so if we're not enjoying the main conduit service of sham mitzvahs are the way to achieve this purpose of our existence if we're not enjoying that it shows we've lost sight of our purpose where if you will we're unplugged so if we're unplugged hashem has to you know do something about that that's why eve does hashem simply is so important and given that it is let's let's go over the lessons of how do you do it how do you serve hashem simcha we're going to review that and then we're going to discover the depth of the very next line in the tejum okay let's remember this very deep mitzvah that's embedded in miss mor the soyuta what does it say evdu serve hashem with joy that's a mitzvah we said it's a very important one now to get ourselves to do that we have to understand why why should i serve hashem with joy and there were two reasons and let's go over them the first one is it's a chance to give back we are overwhelmed uh we are we have a debt of gratitude to hashem for life for family for for breathing for eating it's countless and when a person is always receiving it doesn't feel that great if you don't have a chance to give back and that's according to robin uh the hover solavus reindeer bakaya according rabbi miller that's why hashem has a servant we sometimes forget it and we feel like we're doing hashem a favor by serving him and if we do that we're not necessarily going to feel joy but if we realize he's doing this such a favor to give back for all he gives to us then we'll serve hashem simcoe so that's number one is it's a chance to give back which is a great great way to experience gratitude and express it okay the second is what are mitzvahs they are gifts heavens and gifts the zora taught us this that hashem sends us these gifts uh of these mitzvahs you know we do these activities they make us better people they help us reach the height of human perfection and they also give us delights in the world to come so how do you feel when you get a gift you know just today i got a gift from my granddaughter and she's a you know she's two and a half years old and she uh she's always shy when she first comes into the house to see to see us so but this time i said to her i said elisheva would you like to see her gift and she said yes yes you know that she was so excited there was no shyness no nothing like that right because she's so excited to get a gift right so the zorus says that that's what's happening if a poor person comes before you and you have a chance to help them what you were sent a gift and guess what it doesn't stop there since it's a gift hashem is watching to see are we going to have the excitement of my granddaughter the joy of getting a gift and if we do he just guarantees us more gifts he gives us a delightful world to come so you hear this two great reasons to serve hashem simcha one is it's a chance to give back he's giving us a wonderful opportunity to say thank you not by just words not in our heart but with actions that's what service of hashem is so let's do it basimka and secondly is it recognition that we're receiving gifts every mitzvah is a wonderful gift from the shamayim isu and withdrew sounds wonderful of course however when i first taught this i this is about the third class focusing on mismo the soyda when i first taught this point and i showed isn't it beautiful you have a chance to give back and and we know gratitude just makes a person even feel good physiologically it makes you feel good and and what about these gifts so there was a woman in the yibbanishier and she said she was definitely she says yes that's beautiful but i have a question she said what about when things aren't going well what about when i'm really upset i'm despondent you know how do you serve hashem the simpler in those circumstances you know what the al-shikha kodesh in his explanation to him says that's exactly the reason that the next verse in the mismo soda comes it comes to teach you how you can serve hashem simcha no matter what in all circumstances so she's right on it was so important to know how do you do this you know in those times that the next verses comes to do it so now we're going to do even to fella on the next verse and discover how do you serve a shempha at all times okay let's look at the next verse and then how it teaches us as we said sir this is our goal no matter what and the al sheikh points out there's really three things that distract us from serving hashem simcha let's look at them one at a time and let's see how is it that the pasik helps us with each circumstance to overcome it and to connect all right number one he doesn't look so happy right feeling troubled that's the cla that's one classic reason that how do you serve hashem when you feel troubled you're having troubles and difficulties in fact how do people feel when things are going very roughly they often feel like some someone's out to get them or something they feel they don't feel so connected to hashem they feel disconnected they feel persecuted they feel like wow this is so heavy everything is so heavy right that so now certainly at that time it's going to be hard to serve hashem and that's why the passage says this [Music] means know the following that hashem is god all right now the way you discover the depth of the verse is is you say wait a minute who does we don't know that hashem is god what what is it teaching so the word do is the secret here tau means integrate intensify intensively integrate the following point hashem and see we also have to understand the meaning of hashem's names hashem uh which we say he is elohim what does that mean so the uh the word elokim can mean the meda the attribute of justice it also it's a word for a judge right so we experience when we're experiencing difficulties it could be coming from this media but we can never forget hashem hashem's main if you will the name that represents him the best is and it stands for mean compassion so it's saying know this know that that the one who is judging the situation you see something so important to realize the the contribution of judaism to the world is there no they're not two sources in the world not good and evil that doesn't have a single source you know if you will they um there's this expression the devil the devil sounds like a free agent right in fact that's not the jewish explanation satan the satan means and uh it's like a prosecutor a lawyer or someone who's trying to prosecute and bring about justice now right right so pro the prosecutor who's sitting on the court hashem the source of love and compassion so what that means is if you're experiencing trouble you have to realize that the one it stems from someone who loves you know that hardships stem from hashem's love if you recognize that in fact sometimes what you're hoping for the blessing the wealth the money would be a disaster so therefore hashem verdict is to go with the prosecutor and give a person a challenging situation because he loves us okay so how do you uh serve hashem simply even when your troubles realize what i'm experiencing is coming from hashem he loves me and again this is the point of ian tafila this is why we're supposed to repeat this on a daily basis if you keep integrating that then when you face difficulties you'll know it's coming from love so that's the first thing so we have feeling trouble know that the source of the trouble is the one who loves us secondly let's say we accept that hashem the the one who represents love and compassion for his children and his creations right so hashem dealt this out but we can't help sometimes and saying why me what am i doing wrong i try i try to be a good person i learn torah i give charity you know i ha i i bake challah i do all these things sometimes we feel like we don't deserve this judgment that maybe really like why is this happening i know you'll love me but why this the next phrase in the pusic helps us with that who asanu he made us the lower noctua and we're his okay he made us which means like this the one who made us is saying we need this you need this experience right now you have to realize a parent a parent wants the best for their child clearly but maybe they make mistakes okay but hashem first of all he's a perfect parent but but he made us that's beyond apparent a parent didn't design uh the child you know and create the whole thing hashem made us and he made us for a purpose you know rabbi muller says if you look at a bee it's clear if you study a b you realize he was made for a purpose right he made the bee to pollinate flowers and to bring us honey and all these things so if he made a bee and for a purpose right does it make sense that the crown of creation mankind he made for a purpose he made us and therefore he knows this is what we need this is what we need for elevation this is what we need for perfection this is what we need to shake us up and become better people he made us so when we feel like okay i know this is from hashem but i really don't understand like what am i doing wrong right just realize this came because he made us and he knows what he knows it more than father knows best maker knows best okay so if we integrate that right ian to fela if you recite the words every day and you keep working he made us he made me and that's why he he decided this is going to bring me to the next dimension the next step we do that then even when we get that feeling comes up we're human we say we'll feel like i don't deserve this think into it that he made us and he knows that this is perfect for us okay one more and i think this next one is probably what most of us face the most which interferes with uh serving hashem simka being busy and stressed out you know the top clock sticking i have to make a lit you know i have pressures at work i don't have time i'm just so busy right we all know that so it's hard to be in a state of joy when you're um anxious when you're stressed when you're feeling overwhelmed when you're busy right so what's going to help us get out of that now that's a key one if we want to serve his embassy and we certainly do it's the reason we're here reflects we get the point amo were his people but so morisso were the flock he shepherds now we have to understand the torah is not poetry it if it gives a metaphor it's for a deep divine truth okay so the shepherd right so we have to realize that let's just think about this a sheep is in a flock and he has a shepherd what does the sheep need to do to get the grass to eat he just needs to follow the shepherd the shepherd is going to take him to where he needs to eat right so if we realize that hashem first of all wears people he knows that we're meant to be role models of morality in the world we're supposed to make to help the world recognize that there's a loving caring god who loves all his creation so we're as people he's not going to take care of us but even more we have to raise the experiences like a shepherd you just have to move your feet where he's he's pointing you towards of course i'm not saying you don't make an effort but you don't have to worry about it he's setting this all up he's going to really take care of our livelihood our income our situation and just you have to realize when we think we're in control or we need to be in control that's the source of stress and unhappiness and we realize he's control i'm just in the flock being guided into a beautiful place then we will also be able to serve hashem simpler [Music] if i got foreign