Kavanah L'Mitzvos: How to Maximize Tu B'Shvat with Rabbi Asher Baruch Wegbreit

[Music] welcome to klm the kavanaugh mitzvos foundation and we're zoho to be in the yibbani base midrash to discuss tubercult how to maximize tuvashvat tu bishvat with kavanaugh mitzvos will be a game changer so let's let me just open with a question that's really important eating fruits on tu b'shvat is it a mitzvah or is it a a min hug you know a tradition a nice tradition or did i present you with a false dichotomy the answer is i presented you with a false dichotomy it is a min hog a tradition but we have to understand minhagen jewish traditions are mitzvahs and what's beautiful is this tradition of eating fruits on dubasha it's an easy mitzvah and you're supposed to run to an easy mitzvah so it's easy because it's easy to do and pleasurable but we have to be aware of the yetzer hara because his job is to undermine our mitzvos and he when something's easy he gets us not to think about what we're doing and when it's pleasurable he gets us lost in the pleasure so tonight we're gonna learn how to actually take these easy mixes and make them deep and beautiful connecting experiences how to maximize tuberculot as we said in the beginning that yes tu b'shvat is a practice the mogan auburn brings this in the shulkin ark that there is accustomed to eat fruits on the new year for the fruits of the tree so it is a custom it is a min hog but we said that that's much more than we think and that's what we're going to see but first let's focus on two types of minhagen that that we do on tu b'shvat first of all there is a practice to search for a new fruit that would get a blessing of a shahianu right a new fruit that you haven't tasted this year there's a lot of halakhas speak to your local rabbi on that but it's a tradition to find some new fruits that you can make about brachavashianu that's number one and another common practice on tu b'shvat is eating fruits from the shiva's minimum right the seven minimum the species that uh are mentioned the fruits are mentioned connected to eretz israel we're going to discuss the beauty of both in one minute but first of all let's just understand how can we eternalize this event so the first thing we mention is it's a minhog and we said a min hog is not just a tradition not just a sweet tradition a min hug as tosos says in kazoo torahi a minhog an accepted practice right when the rabbinic authorities um validate a practice a minhog it becomes torah that's very very significant it becomes halacha you know a lot of what we practice a lot of what's mentioned in the are actually men hugging you know in our sitter the sitter is filled with minhagim adonalam elenu those are not rabbinic commandments those are minhagem but they have become but now we have to understand what level of what level of torah is a minhock so listen to this let's bring a famous uh uh the source for it okay it says in michele in other words and that's in the first para passacres so it says there do not abandon the torah of your mother so hazal the torah of your mother the mother is canesis israel don't abandon her torah traditions her practices so we learn from this when you do a min hog you're fulfilling this i injunction don't forget the torah don't abandon it so from this we learned that uh minhagen are mistress medieval kabbalah now the rambam actually says when you do a minhag you have a missus assay to listen to the rabbis and admits this law sase to not rebel against them so he holds there's two commandments the other others say that it's what we call mitsubishiri kabbalah now let me explain a famous mitzvah medievary kabbalah is the missiles of purim and it says in the shokhan ark the following situation if there was a person who was a mourner in the day and a mourner is prohibited from drinking wine but what if it's purim can he drink wine on purim says well the prohibition to have wine um on when a person's a mourner that's a rabbinic commandment right and saying a rabbinic prohibition does not push off an assay a positive commandment because because simcha on purim is it says it's derisa it says it's kain darisa so we see that something that makes the status of a a torah commandment alluded to in the tanakh is a very significant mitzvah right minhage israel or mitzvahs and the mogan avram says eating fruits on tupesville is a mitzvah so here's what i want to stress to you for a few seconds thought the ron says as follows you know a lot of people will be eating fruits on tu bashvi now wouldn't it be a shame not to stop one second saying wait a minute this whole act of eating fruits in tupesville it's a min hug and therefore it's a commandment of hashem and so therefore misses require kavanagh and when you just stop for what a few seconds and think i i have intention to fill the mitzvah of observing minhage israel the customs of claudius you just according to the ron one who observes a custom or does a mitzvah without kavanagh versus one who just takes that moment and says tubishev i'm going to do this minhag as a mitzvah he says you cannot calculate the reward so that's number one game changing point number one okay so that's before you do the mitzvah you want to have in mind the minhog uh that you're observing the min hog of eating fruits and tuberc now the second mitzvah has to do with during the eating okay so if you you just positioned your eating incredibly when you just had that in mind but what about while you're eating remember we said mitzvahs that are easy that are pleasurable you can get lost in the pleasure and forget the deeper connections available and i just want to say for all of you hibernate people you have a tremendous clueless because robritowitz next week is going to be conducting a tuba swat seder and for sure the eating experience will be very spiritual i want to also discuss a mitzva this is another mitzvah to have in mind game changer if you do it while you're eating while you're saying a shakianu and eating a new fruit while you're eating the seven men and what's that we've learned this we've discussed this several times in klm thanking hashem is a torah commandment according to rabbenu yonah we have a mitzvah to remember all the kindnesses that hashem's done all the way from the beginning of us becoming a people but all the more so for us personally if hashem wants to remember what he did for them of course what he does for us so that's another mitzvah i want to have in mind while you're making a shakiano and doing the shiva's minion but in addition to having that mitzvah in mind remember minhag and thanking hashem remembering the kindness in addition to that though let's think about what we should reflect on while we're making a shakianu and eating a new fruit and while we're eating the shiva minimum let's understand that more deeply and then this mitzvah remembering the kindness will be much more profound okay so let's look more deeply into the second major mitzvah of eating fruits on tuvashvat and we said it's the mitzvah it's in devarim to remember hashem's kindnesses okay but now there's two things we do here we the part of the minhog is to search out find a fruit that you haven't eaten this year a new fruit and make a shakianu so listen to how important this is there is a gemara show me that says something and those of you who've studied maybe messiah shashank might be familiar with this it's it's a shocker it says in the gemara yoshami the talmud yoshami that when a person goes on to the next world they're going to have to give a din and heshbun they're going to have to do an accounting or reckoning of their behavior and then you know what they're going to be asked was there a fruit that uh you could have tasted and you didn't taste it you're gonna you're gonna be judged for whether or not you had these fruits now that's a little surprising i understand i'll be judged on how i treated my neighbor whether i learned tara but whether i tasted a fruit that's a little surprising so i'm going to focus on one that will help us and understand that help us for tu b'shvat so the corbin ada famous commentator on yoshami he says that behind the requirement to taste a fruit that you haven't tasted or certainly this year is is saying that you're go you're going to be held accountable for not making a shahianu on a fruit when you could have in other words it's really a remarkable thing so in other words a shakianu for those who are not familiar is basically a blessing where we thank hashem for having the privilege to be alive and to merit the experience we're about to have it's usually um a special blessing for new experiences and here for fruits so you hear this according to the court messiah we are expected to make hashechiano so now why would it be that making this blessing of a shechiano on new fruits is so important that we're going to be asked about it later you hear the question so let's go to another gemara that's actually maybe a little surprising to you gemara and chavez and it says anyone who says by a hulu on shabbos on the night of shabbos is considered a partner in the misa of gracious in other words the the passage in the torah that describes hashem finishing off the creation of the world if when you recite that it says you're partnering it with hashem in the creation of the world so let us ask a simple question i don't know anybody that was around in the creation of the world even otto marichon when he was when he was created okay he was great before he wasn't involved at all he came in after all that so how could it be that by declaring this uh the fact that hashem created the world and finished the war how do we become partners from that how did we get promoted to such a position so my review rabbi green he explained like this what hashem made the world for a purpose and he it's true he made it it's his mice it's his creation however the purpose of the creation is that people will recognize what a beautiful kind wise tremendous world hashem made for us to connect to him through the beauty of the world so recognition that hashem created these wonderful things we find here that makes us partners why are we partners because we're helping him achieve the purpose of the creation so with that in mind we can understand hashem says search out find new fruits find new experiences and tag them tag them as coming from me teach the world to experience joy and appreciation for what i've made and realize that i made it for you so you'll connect to me so according to that a shakiano is a very deep thing when you're when you're tagging this fruit and saying thank god i arrived here to have this new and beautiful experience and your world is beautiful so that's number one remember the mitzvah you do while you're eating is to remember hashem's kindnesses and here's how to do it behind her in a beautiful way think about that i'm making this min hug of shakianu and new fruits is to partner with hashem and help him achieve his purpose by recognizing his beauty okay that's the shakianu now let's talk about some fruits some very special fruits that we are um we are also have a practice in a min hug in tu b'shvat to make blessings on and these if you'll take a look these are at least six six of the seven species that eretus rail is praised by okay so here uh it says in the passage all right i'll i'm gonna bring this back in one second it says in the torah in devarim i think this one is uh a parakas pasaques and the other was bet so it says there mosha is bringing the right the jews are about to enter at cecil and moshe it wants to do he he's promoting how great eretz israel is and he says i'm bringing you to a good land and then he mentions that there are springs and fountains and that's a beautiful the reason that that's part of the goodness of the land is beautiful but we're not going to focus on that we're going to focus on the next pussac saora it mentions these fruits these species of fruits and that is meant to show us how good erits israel is so what are the fruits let's take a look there's seven so you have we have wheat here and then there's barley we couldn't find barley for this okay i'm not necessarily going in the order of the tour verse but you also have look at this this is a leftover from the ear of the spice this is a giant pomegranate so you have wheat barley pomegranate uh geffen you have grapes right and grape products and you have uh shem and ziyat olive oil and figs be careful about eating figs figs um often have bugs so you have to just make sure that you can but then and then the other is um what's called which they understand means that the kind of liquid that flows out of a delicious date so here's the question look at these fruits there's seven of them the question we have to ask is why these seven why are these the tremendous advertisement for the goodness of the land of israel that's the question and i'll bring you two responses to that the abarbanel says that maybe i'll keep this going within this package of uh the seven species remember there's wheat and barley and the others he says it has all the nutrients and and nourishment that a person it's like a tremendous collection of perfect nourishment in fact i spoke to a doctor and he told me that he says you could a person could live very well just having these seven healthy healthy wonderful experience of living okay that that's from these seven men that's one but here's an either that's from the abarth now here's another reason that's amazing that the chuvas elected brings it might be the shiboli like it he says and i also spoke to some scientists about this he says you won't find a land that has all of these fruits in such close proximity because we have an incredible terrain here with mountains and valleys and and all the different climates and you and and this one this one uh expert i say he says you can go to the most amazing places you could go to south africa and they have these incredible fruits in one region but you'd have to travel incred you'd have to take a plane to get to the other fruits and all in this little land of eretz israel are all these incredibly nourishing fruits so that's why the chevaminim is it's a big deal we make a special blessing after we eat enough of it etc so this is an other mitzvah where we're remembering let's understand that moshe said wanted to educate us he says i want you to fall in love with the land of israel and here's how you do it look at these beautiful fruits that are all available in near proximity look at these and then what's the purpose of falling in love with the land of israel to fall in love with and have gratitude to hashem so there we are this is what you can do game changer i hope life changer on on tupesville you're eating you're going to eat fruits anyhow how about putting it making an eternal act it's a mitzvah to observe a minhog and finally how about this how about the these these practices of seeking out new fruits and making shakiano and eating the shiva minim reflect as you eat enjoy for sure it's an easy mitzvah enjoy but let your mind delight in the kindnesses of hashem and make sure you thank him with a full heart and with kevin and misos [Music] oh god