KLM 5 Mitzvot Packed in a Glass of Water by Rabbi Asher Baruch Wegbreit

[Music] welcome back to klm the awareness movement for having cavanaugh for mitzvos cavanaugh mitzvos now uh this whole um topic of kavanaugh missus and klm i went public about several months ago about a half a year ago i went public with this and started to try to spread awareness and bro hashem i'm very excited that people are really really excited about it really very very excited and i'm thankful to hashem for that but the question is what's causing the excitement okay because what we're talking about the the the main thing we're focusing on here is just before you do the mitzvah to think i'm doing the mitzvah right i'm doing this mitzvah i'm doing it for a shin that one thing is very big and i think it's the reason why people are so excited why because if you think about it what does what does everybody want really i think i can generalize here everyone would love to have wonderful relationships number one and be successful i think i covered it correct who doesn't want a wonderful relationship and to be successful okay so now what the burning question what makes a relationship wonderful okay say like this you're present and they're present right there's presence right that's why the the phones can be a little bit of a challenge for relationships right but the thing is there's presence and i'd like to add this responsiveness when you're present for the other and when you're responsive to them it makes for a great relationship okay in comes kavanaugh the missiles with hashem okay right now we're doing the myths of learning torah okay so let me ask you something when were you commanded to learn torah when okay so the answer is going to depend right if you're if you were born religious so when you hit 13 you're commanded right hashem asks you to do the misses right okay let's say you became religious later in life were you converted okay so that was when you were commanded okay let's say it's a mitzvah like making a blessing right so perhaps when were you commanded when you learned the mission of brewer and you realize oh i'm supposed to make a blessing before i have a drink right you know when you're commanded when were you commanded to learn torah this second this second hashem commands you to do the mitzvah okay so if i just learn torah at least i'm listening to a torah class and doing this so when did i respond to hashem okay was it made the decision week or two ago or when so when you have kevana right and let's do it right now hashem you command me to learn torah so i'm i'm doing this activity right now this class i'm learning torah kashir tv hashem as you commanded me just now have the relationship when you're responding in the moment and you're also thinking wow hashem is present and wants me to be involved and respond to him you hear so do you hear this every time and that's that'll explain you know it's a very big deal in the halacha if you don't have kavanagh mitzvahs let's say um you were listening to chauffeur blow a very very big mitzvah so if if you did not have intention to hear uh to listen to chauffeur yeah you have to repeat it or the krishma it has to be done again the act was meaningless there are some things that are bitty have it etc but the bottom line is it's so important because it's the difference of being involved with hashem right now or a long time ago and what does it say about the relationship if it was a long time ago it's old you know you hear so that's why it's so important and that's why i think people are getting excited they're saying wow i can make a very wonderful relationship with hashem by really thinking before i do what he asks that he's asking me and responding right now okay that's one point the other thing we said what most people want is to be successful right everyone wants to be successful whatever however you define success you want to be successful so i'd like to suggest that one way you can know you're succeeding is by the way in which hashem rewards you for what you do not necessarily saying that we're going to be motivated because of the reward but still hashem's reward tells you a lot so in previous times we made a blessing right we learned how to make a blessing the myth isn't a blessing so let's say um we have a glass of water here oh by the way i encourage those who are listening and watching to please get ready a glass of water we're gonna make a blessing but more importantly we're gonna drink the water just stay tuned but here let's say you make a blessing on the water because you know you're supposed to make a blessing you make a blessing right but without intention for the mitzvah okay now you'll say to me well that's a rabbinic missile so i i have two answers for you one is it seems like according to mr brewer all mitzvahs even rabbinic commandments require kavanagh beforehand and guess what every rabbinic commandment is a torah commandment hashem says do what the rabbis tell you do with the bastion and knacks and don't rebel okay so either way there's kavanah that's required okay so now i wonder what's the difference between making that blessing without kavanagh the shame mitzvahs making a blessing before drinking okay um and uh just and and yes having the kavana all right so we gave the following metaphor i have a friend who's a diamond dealer and he uh he explained to me you know the idea of a diamond a rough so a diamond is basically in a mineral called carbon okay so you have carbon and the carbon in there is a beautiful diamond ready to be cut okay but the value of the carbon versus the cutting you know sometimes there's 20 steps of finally chiseling and cutting it incredible difference in value i mean you hand the person carbon or you hand the person the diamond there's going to be a different thing right so this is an attempted metaphor that i think is fairly reasonable if you do a mitzvah without kavanagh it's your your it's like you're presenting shem carbon right but when you have intention okay there's a lot of facets to it but still when you have intention it's a chiseled diamond okay so if you just add this like before we make the blessing i have in mind the the mitzvah to make a blessing before i drink right you just chiseled the diamond okay and we also discussed before about making a blessing this is a worthwhile review i think you know these rabbinic commandments have a lot of torah commandments embedded in them especially a blessing when you make a blessing and you say blessed are you who are you speaking to you're speaking to hashem and when you're constantly conscious that you're speaking to hashem that's a mitzvah to racist the first commandment of anoki of having a muna in hashem right then when you say hashem eloquenu and you have in mind his names right adona cole for hashem your kevke ello kenutake when you think of his names guess what mitzvah that is torah commandment you're a shem because you're having reverence for hashem's name look look at all that's going on i i'm in the middle of the sentence right king of the world that's that's an insult you do you may this little earth ball you know the nine planets the solar system the galaxies the spiritual worlds he's king over all that that's also mitzvah of yours hashem because you're tapping into hashem's exaltedness you're in awe when you're in awe of hashem you fulfill the myths with derisive fear of hashem right and then finally you shall call the ebro it's an awesome idea too it's also if you're but also you're thanking hashem and that's also a commandment okay rich right so when you make that blessing and you add these intentions you're carving this incredible diamond okay so now let's say we're about to do this okay but let's say you have a glass of water and you did it right the shame that's making a bracha i'm listening to the rabbis i'm a muna in hashem fear of hashem thanking hashem right boom boom boom then you drink down the hatch now it's your turn right now now i get to enjoy are you kidding there's so much more available the drinking is incredible it's another thing we we talked about carbon to a dot to a chiseled diamond the drinking is alchemy now i everybody's probably heard of alchemy you've heard that so alchemy was kind of a bogus science they tried okay it was a theory that you could take base metals and you could turn them into precious metals okay let's take tin tins of pretty copper tin and you could turn it into gold i i looked up um i used to think that the most valuable mineral what do you think the most valuable mineral or or stone whatever so i use things platinum like platinum is more valuable than gold but now it's called palladium okay i'm not so familiar but here's the thing they couldn't do it physically spiritually alchemy works you have to realize something there is so much going on when you drink a glass of water right now if you just drink that glass of water and your kavanaugh stopped at the blessing okay you've got a lot awaiting you in the world to come and blessing in this world etc but what about the drinking it's either just was a h2o and it goes into your system and eventually out of your system enzo or it's palladium okay you can convert it the actual act of drinking so many of the mundane activities are mind-bogglingly spiritual and filled with menses okay and we're going to focus on particularly drinking water but when i want to focus on right now eating drinking sleeping okay i would call these activities right they're either activities that are for pleasure or self-care okay and self-care in our generation with a lot of people is lacking okay there's this one uh guy yeah i think he's summarized he says most people are either dehydrated sleep deprived stressed or overweight or all of the above right and he says he says who are you going to blame whose fault that you're dehydrated or you're sleep deprived okay so self-care is important period right and i think it's a challenge sleep you know i remember years ago a doctor told me and it's been borne out i mean i heard this 20 years ago in the mikvah this one doctor said to me he says do you know that most people most illnesses are due to sleep deprivation he goes the worst illnesses and he also it says like if a person like operating on let's say they say below seven or for sure below six hours of sleep it's like you're like a drunk driver that's your consciousness right so the these issues i think are anyhow important but i want to show you that there's so many mitzvahs in caring for yourself all right and tonight we're going to practice i encourage you but let's get a glass of water okay those who are listening or get a fruit you know get a vegetable get something healthy because i want to show you how many mitzvahs are involved with in taking care of yourself so let's illustrate here we go this is not a rembrandt this is not a van gogh i suggest it's much more valuable because you see here there's a glass of water right here and this glass of water you see the balloons right so i i mentioned right here five mitzvahs right let's say five balloons right now imagine a balloon that's a helium balloon that's going up to the sky but it's unbelievable level of helium and it keeps going higher and higher and higher and higher and out of this universe and it goes and it transmutates into a mitzvah which the zoro says our mitzvahs stand before hashem in a supernal realm and they have a crown on their heads and they say our own made me plony uh benjamin made me right it's incredible so i want to show you with all the again we're focused on self-care water is indisputably healthy and important right hydrating but if you have a fruit or vegetable this will work great so let's look on the left the first mitzvah is finished it learn it says in the torah parties hashem commands us you should take very good care of yourself very good care of yourself right so the kids are shulk and ark explains anything you do for your health is fulfilling this commandment of taking very good care of yourself but let's understand this commandment a little more deeply in what context is this said it's in context of the commandment to not forget harsinai the revelation of sinai in other words as moshe was preparing everybody for the revelation we get this commandment take very good care of yourselves why what's the link between taking good care of your health and the sinai revelation says the rambam it's because what did hashem do before sinai were there any blind people at harsinai no he healed the blind he healed the death he healed it he healed everybody he gave everybody a refusal because the rambam explains to the degree that you're not feeling well and you're not healthy and all your senses are not working less revelation of hashem less ability to perceive and experience hashem so isn't that isn't that huge do you you realize if you're half asleep how much are you integrating torah if you're sleep-deprived how much torah are you getting if you're dehydrated right how much are you going to be able to experience hashem so the first mitzvah when we when we have a glass of water when we take care of our health is to be very careful with our health because it's very important for us to experience the revelation of hashem mitzvah number one okay i'm now going to go to the top balloon if you will the next mitzvah when you have a glass of water you should have in mind this the ahafta s hashem the whole of avaha you should love hashem with all of your hearts really it needs an s here what does it mean how many hearts do you have the answer is two if you will you have a yates or tove an inclination for good and you have a yata an inca nation it says for evil but the the commentaries explain you have physical drives your physical drives come from that part of your heart the yates of heart right so when you have a glass of water you can be expressing obvious hashem love of hashem with your yates or hara with your physicality with your physical drives okay now we understand when you have water when you do something to make yourself you're obviously strengthening yourself and you may conservation but why is that ava's hashem why is that loving hashem okay i think the answer is like this you know we said if you want a wonderful relationship right if you love someone you'll be responsive you respond to them in the requests so how do i like giving this example let's say you you you know your wife wants to have a conversation with you an important conversation and you're exhausted or you're hungry so are you going to be present are you going to be able to respond well no so you say you know honey i really want to give give you my full heart and attention can i just take a nap for a minute so why are you taking the nap it's for her right you want to be there for her so when we take care of ourselves when we eat and drink right uh to be ready to ascend every request we're showing love we're drinking for him not just uh for ourselves so that's a second mitzvah of self-care you're showing love because you're possessing yourself to do what you're the the one you love wants next and this next one is very important very important actually for how you treat other people okay it's a surprise i think so let's look to the right when you have this glass of water you're also fulfilling the following mitzvah it says in michele gomez someone who bestows upon himself he does good for himself he does he does like he takes care of himself he's a kind person that's what it says now by the way this is brought down the safer horadium this is a divrei kabbalah means a strong rabbinic commandment to be kind to yourself and i want to explain this a little more because it's so beautiful and so important okay um i i first heard this from a talmud of rabbi kellman a doctor rosemarin a torah psychiatrist and they developed a whole scheme and they said like this relationships either move towards connection or disconnection right and the first relationship you have to work on is with yourself okay now look how shin set this up this is so beautiful you have a soul and your soul is supposed to have a a parental care and love for the body it's such a beautiful thing in other words how do you how do you how what's the the heart of kindness is you pay attention to what someone needs and then you try to provide their needs that's loving that's kind right so that's the job of your soul is to say you know i noticed you're speaking to your body but i notice you seem a little parched maybe you would like a glass of water so when you train when you have that first of all it's beautiful you don't have to be selfish you can eat and drink and still be selfless because you're taking care of the other your body your soul is taking care of your body right so what's beautiful about that is you're training yourself for being almost you're training yourself to be caring about others now rabbenu yonah says this on initially he says like this how you treat yourself as how you treat others if you're neglected and neglectful with your own self you're going to be callous and insensitive with others it's so important you hear this it says on the other side of that initially it says gamelan you do but you'll be so good you're kind it says but someone who is like uh hurts his flesh is a cruel person in general they're not just cruel uh neglectful of themselves they're gonna be cruel to others god forbid super important one glass of water what one one balloon goes up because you're taking care of yourself and you're reading yourself for the revelation of hashem another blue balloon goes high in the heavens because you're showing to shame you love him i'm going to just get myself ready for you to do whatever you want because i love you hashem the next one says i'm going to take care of this body you gave to me like it's my child i'm going to be duchess i'm going to look for what it means and give it what a beautiful thing and this is all in the drink you know we we had four mitzvahs when you made the blessing but what about the drink it's not just down the hatch it's up to the heavens it's up to the heavens okay and the the the beautiful thing is this is there's another mitzvah just we're almost done here but those are the keys i want to focus on again taking care of yourself so you can um perceive hashem loving showing your love towards hashem and training yourself to be a caring person about everyone by being caring for yourself two other ones it says also what if you make the healthy choice instead of having like uh coke you know or a bag three bags of potato chips says the ram the ramban kadoshan you're holy when you separate when you don't when you avoid indulgence and you just take what you need or you avoid that you're becoming holy because a spiritual being is not being drawn in and down by the physical the farther the more in control of yourself and the less indulgent you are the more you're like an angel as opposed to an animal right so when you have a glass of water instead of a you know like a whole bottle of coke you could have that in mind too okay and finally and this really sums it all up you know i came with a little mnemonic for this tlc right everyone knows what tlc is tender loving care right so t take care of yourself ish martin l love hashem see do kindness tested to yourself if you do tlc you will have k you will know hashem in all your ways it's also initially it's also diver kabbalah it's in the shokhan ark this is brought down rachel ahmed alef it says eat drink sleep rest relax enjoy everything do it for hashem and you'll know hashem you'll get you get an awareness and intimacy intimacy and the soreness is the vacus attachment to shem in everything you do so you hear this this is all the drink we had the blessing and now we have the drink okay so what we're gonna do right now is i want everyone to uh try this and i'm going to what i'm going to do is uh if anyone's interested and i encourage you to be interested send me and contact me on the on the link or said send me the thing and we'll send you this a pdf of this poster because i tell you every time i drink and just look at this with intention i just have in mind these mixes but i don't even have to speak as i'm drinking i'm saying yes hashem i haven't i mind your mitts but right now of this martin etc it's unbelievable you're sending worlds up okay so let's just uh set this up okay everyone now we're going to put our this drinking or this eating into eternal action so what all i want you to do and this is so easy but so profound what you'll accomplish is as you're drinking right maybe make a blessing and now you've made a blessing pick up your water or your food and just let your eyes circle around this poster perhaps start from the left for the english speakers and i want you as you look just have in mind i have in mind hashem nish martin taking care of myself by drinking this for your sake i have in mind knowing you in all your ways and as i drink this i have in mind loving you with my physicality and doing kindness to my body i have a mind amidst the of kindness to myself and finally by drinking or eating something healthy i'm acting i'm moving towards the kedusha or holiness of an angel as opposed to the baseness of an animal so all you have to do is while you're drinking every time just look at this poster and let it sink in and let it soar to the heavens [Music] is