KLM: Brochos with Kavanah Tip the Scales in Our Favor with Rabbi Asher Baruch Wegbreit

[Music] like to welcome back to listeners of Tor any time and Y to the kav mitos foundation km everyone would like to know with Russian shine being in two days everyone would like to know what can I do to tip the scales in my favor what can we do to tip the scales in our favor it's been a rough year and I think everyone could use a sweet good year with braa right to move out of this bitter to the Sweet everyone agrees what can we do what should we focus on now don't ask me I I'd rather not tell you what I think I'd rather tell you what one of the greatest gdolim in recent history things okay RAV yaa one of the great Mish in in ER Israel one of the greatest so what did he do to figure out what should we do during El what should we do before Russia sh to be prepared he didn't say what he thinks either you know what he did he asked or R told him the following work on having brus with kavana that's the solution okay so I those are pretty big shoulders to say that working on bras making bras with kavana is a great way to tip the scales in her favor now this is what we have to ask ourselves you know with all due respect to rashan that's one of the hardest things you could possibly ask us to do to make broccol with kavana why cuz things just broccol how many how many you have to do only a 100 right and it we do the same thing again and again and again roote road is a big challenge so this is going to help us get a good judgment if we have cant yeah I hear it if we succeed but that's not so ping and you know what to make matters a little more concerning the gar says peeve it's an is to throw blessings out of your mouth you hear that you know you know it's funny there's one r i I don't need to name him even though he said it live he was in the he was in a army of uh in Europe not not a Jewish Army and he was uh I think from from birth and he was making bras and the non-jews that were watching him they said why are you blessing the food meaning they he they thought he was making an incantation on the food you hear blessed are you food now so that's what happens to us right um what is it we're really supposed to be uh blessing hasem uh connecting to hasem being feeling his presence but we're also you know blessing the food and and just whipping it out like Rob so you know what when I shared this with myus he says you know maybe it'd be better that we don't have to make a 100 bras right you know if that if it's user to throw them out of your mouth why why are we being told make a 100 a day what a challenge and and for those of you who are even know basic arithmetic okay revain Zeta one of the great Cur rabbis in in in past decades so you know if you don't feel like you know we tend to want to feel like I'm in pretty good shape I'm trying I'm doing mitzah and thing and believe me I'm not trying to uh uh say that that's incorrect you're probably you're doing great things how you say if you want to feel like maybe maybe we're a little bit in the dogghouse with Hashem he says count right take think of how you have 100 blessings right think of maybe how many of those might not have been with cavana let's be really generous let's say three a day right 97 are great three a day not the greatest here's the you ready you want to feel in the dogghouse multiply by 364 you hear you hear that that's a lot that's a lot of throwing the bras out of the mouth okay so this is a central uh challenge I think everyone agrees and I'm thrilled to talk about it why CU this just Taps into the whole reason in history that um I decide to open the kav the mitzell foundation and I'll explain so first of all I realized that you know let me speak historically I mentioned this in the first class I gave on T any time that is I was uh I my life changed about eight years ago8 nine years ago I lose new track now what happened well you could say say what do you mean your life changed your life was going great and that would be true I was I was in The Old City in Isa called biras Torah I was teaching Torah I love Torah you know I was close to the cotel I loved gamar and must Torah was thrilling and enjoyable and I think most everyone who's listening finds some Torah that speaks to their heart and the enjoy it and they get you know uplifted however if I have to be honest when it came to bras I was tossing them out of the mouth okay and the thing is it wasn't like I didn't care about it and didn't try I did in fact as Mish we made a VOD we made a VOD muser and I remember one l oh that's right we were M we spent an entire L working on how not to throw bras out of our mouth okay what happened on Kipper I'm doing this because throwing the BR was out of my mouth and I was trying and I cared so we all have to realize that you never know when AEM is going to break things open in the heaven and help you well he did to me about eight years ago and that's what changed things the secret was that I discovered there's the says there are those who say requ oh let me say the other wayana mites don't require cavana sounds good but it goes on this Aviation Marine and there are those who hold MIT do require and here's the punch line and that's the the is it doesn't matter if you're asazi maybe I don't know about the I haven't studied there post it but mitzah require Cent and that changed everything okay how and why okay so the thing is this before I explain how that changed everything I also want to bring up why is the advice of to make uh to work Onana why is that what the absolute most amazingly perfect suggestion for rashash Shana a little bit of a brain teaser okay why is it so good so we have to look at this do you notice something that let's take physical experiences all right you you have a food that you've never tasted before and you taste it and it's delicious okay then you have it again the next day and again it seems to be that anything um that we experience is really great the first time we experience it and it becomes more and more dull you hear this the more you experience a physical thing right it you just you stop even connecting to it right so it seems like the world was rigged to become more and more boring now we come to the Torah laav the holy Torah and the mitsos and the rabbis what the rabbis say repeat the same prayers not 19 blessings say the exact same ones every day say them three time but they're not helping us are they right I mean change the situation change it variety how come everything gets dollar and dollar with repetition so this is the yod this is and you'll see I think immediately why this connects Russia sh the answer is this two options are available to you Hashem could have done it two ways either the situation CH changes or you change if the situation changes you stay the same because it's easy to connect a new experience right you're not growing and I'm going to say a minute you're not alive but if the situation stays the same and you change you're alive remember this uh this is so funny you know my Reby would say so many uh U tell us so many stories and and colorful things of shiman uh green schita so and I would only you know takes 40 years you only start to understand their depth you know a bit later so one of the things he told this thing about Jack Japan there was about 30 40 years ago 30 years Japan was like in the leading World economy their cars were better and the Americans cars were you know American Products were just getting whipped by the Japanese so they asked some Japanese I I I think it was some autom uh you know Auto automanfacturer so they asked him uh what do you think the reason is so he said says for Americans to be or not to be for Japanese only to be you hear that for Americans to be or not to be for Japanese only to be now Hashem says to us ready there's a Mitzvah daa and what is that Mitzvah daa it was in uh this past week's para choose life okay I put before you life and death choose life now think about that that's a choice right why ishen saying you know does Hashem want us to choose death we're his children why would he why would he say here I put for life and that choose okay so he's coaching us that way the answer is that he's saying that only to be in other words there's no choice to choose life there's what hasem wants you to say is I want life and to choose life but he's not going to force you to and guess what the default position is you don't have to be alive and I'm not talking in physical sense right to be alive in a physical sense that's a gift no effort on your part okay maybe it's take your but generally speaking right now you don't have to do anything just keep going right but spiritually that's a choice are you going andem says I'm not going to force you you can either be turned on and engaged in the moment the midst of the moment or death you can just not it can be boring it can be R everything has to have the potential of being boring for us to be alive otherwise otherwise sh's living right he's constantly pumping existence in into the world and making things exciting and I'm just okay like this but no sh says I'm going to make it boring I'm going to make it that you have to call forth yourself to do uh to be connected to life okay now what are we asking for on right please give us life now there's many many many and explain that doesn't mean physical life okay there's different calculations I'll just give you melander they say saying give me the opportunity to be spiritual Al give me set me up to choose life okay so now we go back to or he says BR with gavana cuz you have a at least a hundred options to choose life right and if you are bringing forth your U the of yourish and you're and you're having guess what you're showing you want life the real life okay that's the pet talk but now how do we do that okay is it just I want life I want life broke so I tried that in that vot and it just doesn't work okay so I'm going to give you and I'm going show you now we understand I'm going to show you why cavana L Mitzvah changed my life the cavana everyone thinks about is called kavanas Hal and that's uh what we say I had good cavana when I made the braa or when I DAV or I had bad cavana what do we mean if we had good cavana we were focused and connected if we had bad cavana we were distracted disengaged bored God forbid okay that's called cavana salave but there's a cavana that comes into the picture before that and it's not about focus and concentration Hashem say say there are those that say require and that's the you know what the is what does kavana mean it means intention to do the act as a Mitzvah all right meaning before you make a before you learn Torah before you smile at your spouse you're not supposed to just do them it's a stop stop and have intention for what you're doing and I've seen great uh great think modern thinkers say intention is great for attention Okay so first of all first of all the the that to fulfill that my you have to stop okay before you act that already opens you up to be present and alive in the moment and guess what the mere of stopping is a Mitzvah it's what's the Mitzvah called preparing the higham brings the source this is a Caba what does that mean I don't mean mysticism I mean from the nvi it's what's what's the mitvah prepare yourselves to greet your God Israel when you uh let's say use the rest before you do in right when you do any Act of preparation you're fulfilling that Mitzvah so already to stop is huge okay it's already a Mitzvah okay so here's the secret secret uh number one uh of how km can help with this [Music] is ready H and here's here's the new secret formula haana plus kavana equals the vas equals life H preparation and cavana we'll explain so first of all I want you to say stopping is already Mitzvah and if you think that okay how big a deal is it if I stop before do mitzah so let's ask the okay everyone's heard of the hay he's one of the greatest post game in the N 20th century 19 no he was any it's one of our greatest pokin still the he's quoted left and right in the Mr Brewer his safer is so hush of in fact the high utum lived in vilna at the same time as the vagon and the vagon said he should be the POS all right now that doesn't mean the gr could have been the posing but do you realize what level he's on he's in the neighborhood of the fota he's the he's the mar asra okay so what does the haam say he not only says that preparation is a mitzvah the higham testifies about himself and everything I read about the high atom when it comes to uh the vacas and kind he was on fire he was alive he was to be okay so you know what he said every time I did not stop and prepare before a Mitzvah I didn't do it fittingly hear this stopping and preparing is already huge let me explain when I was in that bot muser trying to um not throw blessings out of the mouth I was focus on kav Sal I say okay let's let's study the blessings it gets more insights that's what we do to improve our prayer it helps but then it wears out because you you're starting to that same new idea becomes old and there you go hasem says I it's up to you I'm I want you to choose to be alive you're not going to be able to rely on that anymore so the first step is stop okay and the and and kavana mitzvas means intention to perform so before you do the ACT you say you think to yourself okay let's just take the BR um okay so before I make it I go I even Advocate just like even taking a deep breath beforehand like it's hard to stop mentally alone in fact I saw very a hush of R do this um before he would make a prop you go you stopped and you I call this esasy if you want to be an Esty stop and then think what am I intending to do I'm intending to make a braa to fulfill the r on of hasem that's think and then the last step okay you been live demonstration coming up the last step is to concentrate now here we go I'm going to help you concentrate as follows okay thank you all right so ready um please grab a glass of water wherever you are and you pause the video but the first thing is to not throw this blessing out of your mouth the first thing is you you're picking up stop think about what you're doing I'm making a Mitzvah of berus and N it's really daa cuz any rean is um also daa but don't worry about that I want overwhelm stop I'm about to make a brashem because he commanded me to okay that's that's the first stage Stop okay but here's the the next part concentrate on the words now that's so the first part is when you stop and think you fulfill the Mitzvah of having kavana for the mitah intention cavana means intention there but now when you say right when you say that kicks it and now your job is different STC stop think what cavana have it concentrate okay but I'm not going to just tell you grit your teeth and focus but that's all right great if you realize Hashem has task tasked me to concentrate now that's that's great in fact I think before I tell you my secret on how to concentrate I want you understand the mour of all of this okay what's the service in the heart what will most of you say as what aod is in your heart that what's the aod hasem wants from you in your heart this is the second paragraph of the well according to the gar and the ram it's teila right aod means work and work is usually done physically yet we're uh we're told work your heart so how do you work your heart R pray but the ran the says no he says to is okay he makes a big argument like that okay I'm not going to discuss the but I am going to discuss this we have to ask the r the we have to ask him if is not referring to then what does what is the what is it we're supposed to how do you work AEM how do you serve AEM with your heart ran in the the Mitzvah of the r Mitzvah he says kabana how do you Ser serve AEM with all your heart two l two hearts with kavana and the says that even the mandar that says MIT don't require cavana meaning you don't have to have intention beforehand and you still get credit for the Mitzvah everyone agrees that's not ideal but even that mandar says that if you don't um have intention when you're doing the Mitzvah you you of not serving hem with your whole heart so serving hem with your whole whole heart according to this m in the high is with kavana and I remind you there's two types of cavana the first cavana is stop prepare that's one that's thinking what and aligning your intentions before you act that's cavana lius intention and then kavana Sal means Focus your heart okay so this is what so in my uh thing of STC and by the way if anyone wants I'm constantly producing all sorts of tools to help with this so please contact me at uh either our website Comm M Foundation or just Rabbi webr gmail.com just message me and I'll get you these tools because you can learn them and then forget them but let's just go back to this okay so the first so we have STC this is my the first strategy stop that's a Mitzvah preparing think have intention k mitzah for the Mitzvah and now and then we have right concentrate that's C okay so now what we have to do now what we have to do is we need some help concentrating I told you the classic way people improve their concentration is by learning new insights into the words you're saying day in and day out that's called parish and me understanding it it's it's great but it has a certain problem it's prone to wrot you know the the the okay look you can keep doing that but I have an idea I want to give you um certain if you have a task to do you're more focused all right so if you're doing the bras and and your only Tex is to read it and connect okay but what if you had other jobs to accomplish in the braa that are themselves Mitzvah that helps a lot so I'm about to present you with what I call the art of a braa okay three tasks to achieve in every braa if you do this you are right on with what the BR is for okay I call it the art of a blessing and here here here we go and by the way we'll demonstrate okay we we will demonstrate in a minute but all right those what did I just say you blessed are you all right the first task is awareness that you're speaking to hasem a for awareness okay raught it you so here's another one to be or not to be is Hashem present well if Hashem isn't present in some way there's no there's no existence okay now I this is very funny to teach this point about awareness of being in the presence of Hashem so I would ask people as follows I'd say did anybody in the room uh pay attention has anyone in the Room 5 minutes ago been were they paying attention to their breathing so almost everyone I did this in front of I spoke in front of many many groups they no no one was paying attention that they're breathing but one guy is like this mindfulness guy he was he almost killed it right all right everybody let's do it right now okay draw attention that you're breathing okay you had to stop and do that ready everybody get ready for a Miss of daisa the first commandment The Ten Commandments I'm your God who took you out of Egypt that's the mitzah of believing in Hashem one of the highest expressions of believing in Hashem is recognizing you're in his presence awareness of his presence okay so that's aware okay so let's let's do that we had to focus on our breathing let's focus on the fact that right now in this room and wherever you are hasem is present take a second I hope I'm behaving myself okay that's awareness the second are reverence reverence when you say Hashem Holy Name adoni Elohim [Music] so especially aem's name when you say that name K and you're mindful that I'm saying adona you're treating the name with reverence when you say elu and you think about it and you say it with a spre MIT rice of Yus Hashem literally Urus Hashem reverence for the name of hem you hear this so the first Mitzvah when you draw when you make any falls into this category when you say you and you draw a Shem into your awareness and you have intention to fulfillment of MAA okay that's a awareness of Hashem amazing you should be shouting from the rooftops I just fil filled a m f right the first commandment when I made abah I look I just want to prove that that that you should be like that you should be you should faint with joy after all how what can you be paid for for for doing a Mitzvah nothing in this world matches it okay so do you realize what you do when you do single Mitzvah okay then we go to reverence so you say aem's name and you thinkon when you say the when you treat it with respect that's the midst of yours hashen Mora hashen good one more so that's AR of art finally T thanks what are we really saying reiller says thank you for creating and supplying this wonderful thing you hear it thanks right the I love saying this see you could be concentrating really serious and you know the parish ofing you know everything comes into his word but what could the what could be missing so here's one my favorite um jokes okay there's a big chabas table rabbis running the table it says by the way everybody um before you bench don't forget to thank AEM you could have kavana you could be focused on beaz but not be gushing with gratitude well thank youm well I mean May been supporting me took me out of Egypt you you should be feeling gratitude that's thanks that's the art of a blessing so all right now everybody oh yeah we're going to zoom in on this all right uh again just uh like I said please get in touch if you would like one of these beautiful uh designed by my daughter a little proud uh things a r t aware Wess that you're in the presence of Hashem you'll see if I memorize this okay a for awareness that you're in aem's presence it's just like noticing your breathing you have to stop and and have in mind that Mitzvah then reverence right reverence uh when you say A's name and and last but not least t for thanks the the the purpose of the Mitzvah is really to Express gratitude Okay so try this okay let's go back to the beginning all right let's go back to the beginning and remind yourselves what can we do to tip the scales in our favor the answer says say bras with kavana okay is it hard yes by Design yes why because it's another mitah called choosing life being alive physically no brainer but is a mitvah because designs every experience with the option to be present engaged and connecting to Hashem or to opt out if you choose to connect you're choosing life and then wow you get the saying are they serious well if you're doing this you are serious ious okay and therefore you'll you'll do it now we said though we still need help by the way the big the reason I'm in business right now is because Mitzvah don't occur in a vacuum the Yahara is busy trying to derail our the Yahara wants our death right it says he spends his whole time seeking the death of the righteous okay well death again best explanation spiritually okay and therefore we have to realize it's not taking place in vacuum so we have to be very very clever about this and pray to for help okay so what we have to do is to review we have to reach a state of easy we have to stop which is H then we add kavana plus kavana and okay and what does that equal the Vegas all right so now we get there's two types of cavana right the first one is intention to fulfill the Mitzvah right that's think what you're doing stop think the shame MZ this beus and all and then see concentrate how do you concentrate by the art of a Braha and that is a awareness that you're in the presence of Shem and have in mind that mitah reverence for hashem's name say it with care and respect and you fulfill Mitzvah of yours hasem and T thanks thank him and that is for sure a way for you to be in a state of deus okay I'll make the braa okay you'll just try to review uh what I'm doing the shame all [Music] right alar if we really exert ourselves to improve our bras and have every wishing everybody a sweet and amazing year filled with BR success in every way and most importantly the Jews that are still suffering the Jews whose lives are still in danger right let's not you know it says the famous yish yisha saying you're only as happy as your saddest kid so this Russia Shana let's pour our heart out for the hostages for the sold for the people who are wounded for all the suffering let's let's put them in our hearts and uh and eared for the G and the healing and joy of all clel [Music] oh n