KLM Easy Mitzvot Series 2: Maximize Lag B'Omer with Rabbi Asher Baruch Wegbreit

[Music] welcome back to klm the movement for increasing our awareness of cavanaugh mitzvos listen to this story there was this adorable little girl named malka and last year maulka wanted to go to the special amusement park that only comes once a year well her parents happily agreed and they take her to the amusement park they pay for admission and then they just like run through the whole park and maka barely got to go on a ride mauka was so disappointed that she actually started to cry while the parents they realized their mistake and therefore the next year when the amusement park arrived again they took malka and michael went on every ride and she was so happy and she just loved the rides and she loved her parents for doing that what's the moral of this story what's the nimshal who are the parents well the parents are us the amusement park that comes just once a year those are the moadim the precious jewish holidays that just come by once a year and who is malka malka is our nesham our soul mauka is the inner princess that in messiahs yeshua me discusses that the soul this is based on the midrash rabbah the soul is like a princess who married marries a villager so malka is our inner princess and mauka was really really so disappointed why because last year we just ran through the holiday we showed up for the holiday we we got dressed we paid for a mission but we just ran through and we didn't have intention for the mitzvahs and we didn't understand the deep and beautiful meaning and we didn't infuse that into the holiday so molecule was crying now the next year the parents realized oh why did we do that and then they started to study and they discovered what the mitzvahs were and they had intention for the missus and they brought such delight to their souls to malka so that's what we'd like to do for the moe that's coming next and that is lagba omer right thursday night we start a new holiday and we want to make sure malka is delighted now before we go to logba omer there's a golden opportunity that is almost finished and i want to make sure that it is indeed golden okay we have to realize that since uh you know since hola muy pesach thousands and thousands of jews maybe it's millions millions of jews have not been shaving they have not been listening to music they have not been dancing no weddings etc right so many people are doing this right but the question is have they fulfilled the purpose of this are they just letting their hair grow are they just kind of i wish i could listen to music right so i just want to make sure before we you know for many people this um these observances of mourning are finishing in a few days so to make sure that you had intention kavanagh for them and that we kind of actually fulfill the purpose behind not listening to music and dancing and weddings etc okay so um probably most of you could tell tell me the reason the reason that we are in a type of mourning is because there was a terrible tragedy in the times of rebbi akiva right 24 000 students shemi rahim died of an epidemic okay there was an epidemic then and it was a terrible tragedy now the uh and and also what's also well known is that the talmud was able to reveal what was the reason for the epidemic you know with corona we don't uh can't say for sure what caused this in terms of hashem's perspective but by that epidemic they knew that on their level these great rabbis had not shown proper respect to each other okay so before thursday how about right now what i what i like to do in these classes and in our uh we're trying to live cavanagh and so what i like to do is make sure we fulfill the mitzvahs in the moment and then you have so much to celebrate so first of all as i always like to say everyone who's listening is learning torah so i have in mind the myth of learning tara but for the observances right you're not listening to music you're not cutting your hair so have in mind right now okay let's make sure we achieve the purpose of this period right now have in mind the mitzvahs the minhagen they're i'm going to talk the customs that became halacha have in mind that i am not shaving i'm not dancing i'm not listening to music i'm not making weddings the reason i'm not doing this is because you commanded me hashem right say that right now i'm doing this because hashem commanded i'm observing all these things because when you insert that intention that little thought or declaration you've just elevated the mitzvah to no end okay but we said there's a purpose to this there's a purpose to not shaving to end to to not being sad what what is the purpose of mourning why do we mourn so you know uh we're trying to not distract ourselves from the loss that took place and it was it wasn't just a calamity of 24 000 people is a terrible calamity but the these were the torah scholars that were meant to be the next generation passing on the torah the torah that started at sinai and passes to each and every generation they were the they were the generation that was supposed to pass it on it's not unlike the shoah hashem countless countless incredible torah scholars died in the in the holocaust right devastating right so in this time there was a loss and thank god hashem rebuilt it through rabbi akiva but let's just take a minute to think about uh this and by the way before we do this i want to do an exercise in mourning but before we do this you realize i want to explain something the more you feel what they uh what people go through and then there's a relief of it it's just much more joyous you know the famous thing is by the base of migration it says everyone who feels terrible right now that there's no base in mig dash that we're not as close to hashem as we can be that that it's not obvious that hashem runs the world and loves us and cares for us all those things when you feel bad about that when the final redemption comes quickly in our days when it does you're going to be the ones we're going to be the ones rejoicing to no end the same thing with purim in purim there was a threat of genocide that the jews had never faced never to that degree unbelievable and the thing is this you know the more you would connect to the the terror they were going through and living under then when you see the miracle that unfolded and they're saved your your connecting to their joy is just unbelievable so it's in our best interest to mourn when the torah instructs us to mourn so right here the same thing you know um one of the reasons all these uh observances for the most part most people's custom is that on log by omer coming on thursday you can music and and haircuts etc are back right so also so we can feel a joy of the lifting of this morning let's right now connect to the morning okay so i just want you to take a moment you know maybe close your eyes and also again have it do this as a mitzvah hashem the purpose that you asked me to not listen to music and not and and to not dance and go to weddings your purpose is you wanted me to feel that loss and realize what happened right and also realize that on their very high level they had not treated each other with enough respect so let's take to heart that message right now so what i'd like us to do is now just close your eyes and think about that tragedy unfolding day after day after day after day just unbelievable think think about the pain in the suffering think about the devastation to the torah and then think about you know they didn't treat each other with enough respect and say you know what maybe i'm not treating others with the respect that i should okay so let's just take a moment to do that okay that is the avoda the service that we've been um uh commanded to do in this time period let's move to lag by omer okay a completely different atmosphere and let's approach lag ba umer to so that our inner princess malka will be thrilled okay so the first thing is this uh with lava omer what do you think of when you think of la uh lag omar so most people will say bonfires and they're correct and singing and dancing but the songs are uh about barychi all over and you think of droves of people going to to visit the caver those who can right these are the things you think of when you come to log baomer my question is are these activities actually mitzvahs is it a mitzvah to go around in a bonfire or sing these songs the answer is yes and since they're mitzvahs we want to have intention for them we want to have kevana right so these all of those activities are called minhogging right minhagem is translated as uh customs right so a custom sometimes you when you think of the word a customer minha oh it's just a minhog right you're comparing it maybe to a torah commandment this net well i think you should dash from your vocabulary justin minha that phrase okay because no minhog that um that torah observant people observe is just a minhog we're going to see it's a mitzvah which it's called a mitzvah medivh kabbalah now most people think of the word kabbalah they associate mysticism jewish mysticism that's not what we mean here the kabbalah means the torah bishops of the written torah and the prophets and the writers of the writings and kasubin so we what do we have here you know you would think if there is uh our our uh observance we do the commandments of hashem right so you would think that's our religion is based on torah commandments so it's already surprised if you think about it that hashem instructs these sages these rabbis make some commandments i want you to also participate make commandments okay now hashem says that explicitly in the torah that he instructs the rabbis to make fences and he instructs us to listen to them right so you already have the torah expanding from things that said explicitly in the five books to the rabbinic commandments okay now think of this then hashem it turns what does he turn into torah he says when the jew when when torah observant jewish people create a practice right and this practice or custom has some is meant to connect them to hashem guess what hashem says that's torah too the the gemara toastpost brings this out imar says minhaga israel torahi the minhagem are torah right it's really amazing and and it's not just a regular level commandment it's not it's not a torah commandment like like uh uh don't eat a pork all right it's not a dry set it but min hogging are the source of this it's a it's like a rabbinic commandment okay but fascinatingly it was created by the jewish people you know and that made the leaders of the times so it's it it's like a rabbinic commandment but it's stronger than a regular rabbinic commandment for example it's a rabbinic uh no that's also from the navi uh give you a good example of rabbinic commandment everything i'm thinking of is actually from jimmy cavanaugh uh or that might be a minhog uh okay yo how about this yeah okay thank you though rabbi um having four cups of wine on pesach that's a rabbinic commandment okay the source comes from the rabbis however when the source of the rabbinic commandment comes from the uh the the written torah like this one ready minhagem come from king solomon mela says altitude taurus do not let go of the customs of your mother which means the minhagen so it's a very it's a big thing it really is so now we're gonna uh look at all all the myths it's not a ton but let's look at all the mixes of vlogba owner we're gonna take a look at that and then we'll be able to connect to them uh with kavanagh and and appreciate their meaning our goal tonight as we said is we want um our souls to delight in the experience you know it's natural on lag by omar and holidays that for us to have a good time but we want the inner princess maulka to have a great time as well what we're really talking about is maximizing log baomera in an incredible way simply by having intention and aiming to fulfill the goal okay so this is what we just discussed here are the classic activities uh of logba omer attending bonfires dancing in honor of omer and singing barya high songs right now i want to bring another thing if you have children and you're taking your children to the to these events you have another beautiful midsole you have uh two mitzvahs you have education whenever you can put a sweet taste and a sense of joy to your children with anything connected to torah it goes so it goes such a long way so that's number one you have that mitzvah plus it's a kindness kids love bonfires you know if you see in your neighborhoods with it they're they're planning and building and getting the scraps together so i just on the side uh taking your kids to this is a couple minutes but let's just think about it so you all these three customs okay they're men hogging and we just said min hakim come from debris cabo they king solomon said all the practices that the jewish people adopt and logba omer has been oh by i could add going to if you're an eric israel to go to the cover these are um practices ancient ancient they go back thousands of years so those are commandments so and by the way this poster is aimed to help you fulfill so anybody would like a post or just send me an email but here we go so when you on law boomer night when you're going to the bonfire you're dancing or you're singing or even i know some people will watch uh videos of marone you know the rebbies are lighting and they're singing and dancing so if you're singing along if you're doing any of this say i'm fulfilling the mitzvah of keeping minhagey israel i'm observing these cousins that's a mitzvah that's torah so you're fulfilling a commandment so have it in mind and of course the i i think it's easy to say that these are what we call and we're in the middle of the series called so whenever the myth is easy have in mind the mitzvah have in mind to do also realize that you should feel love of hashem that he gives us misses like these that are delight right so i have another myth of loving hashem but in essence the main thing is don't let don't rush through the amusement park right make sure mauka goes on the rides and have in mind when she knows you're doing it as a misfit to connect her abba in the shamayim to hashem it brings her to light so be be kind to your neshama and make sure you have this in mind but there's a whole other aspect of misses we can do on the holy night and day of lagba omer log ba omer is a very special time why are we singing songs why bonfires it happens to be the yord site of the great tana review one of the most important works of cabal of jewish mysticism of all time so he passed away a yord site is an anniversary of the passing away of someone and it's a special time for them in a certain sense they're being judged again in the shamayam and they have a chance to go higher and higher so since it's his your site right and by the way what i'm explaining to you right now these are mitzvahs that you can or it's an overall central mitzvah but it's a mitzvah that you can fulfill any time there is a yord site for any drew and truth for you know loleno relatives etc but but really uh we all can do the following mitzvah for shimon bar yochai it's called hesed shel emes to do a act of kindness that's pure and true so we're gonna explain this okay what is the kindness we can do we can elevate a soul in certain ways when we do mitzvahs and we have in mind the intention to do it every minute we should always centrally have in mind to fulfill the will of hashem but then also when you you can attach to it and i want this to provide merit for the elevation of their soul that again this is a principle that applies to all your sites but what i'm saying to you for baryakai let's do this you realize what he's done for us okay so let's just explain this concept that it's called the hess hesitation it's a true act of kindness so i'm gonna this is based on the gemara uh but the uh marshall i'm gonna bring the maharisha's explanation of this okay the idea of this what makes an act of kindness truly uh absolutely what we call true is that you do it for the other and you do the kindness without receiving any reciprocation right so the martial points out that a person who like let's take rebbe shimon barya high right he cannot reciprocate okay maybe the midst of it doesn't count if you do a kindness for a person with no expectation of reciprocation or but whatever they can't reciprocate that's called hesitation it's a lofty it's a very lofty form of kindness i have to tell you this you know i'm mentioning my past with this but i realized something you know i remember i i want to give my uh grandmother leia shalom i want to give her an elevation of the soul i remember when i was a teenager she used to take me out to get a sandwich you know and she would always take me there i love these sandwiches i love the food and um the truth of the matter is i was a teenager i'm going to confess this that you know teenagers sometimes are in their own world so you know i just went there to eat right and so the truth of the matter is uh you know just the martial says a person who's dead cannot reciprocate but a person who's in their own world unfortunately they're not capable reciprocating so my point is this if if you ever um it could be a child it could be a teenager whatever it could be anybody that when you're kind to them and they're just not capable of giving back to you reciprocating that is a pure kindness a kindness of truth and why is it so special because you know all acts of kindness are rooted in the following torah commandment to walk in god's ways to emulate hashem to be like hashem does hashem can you reciprocate to hashem no impossible the nature of the god we worship needs nothing and can receive nothing in essence right so when you do that when you give without getting getting back or having expectations it's such a beautiful pure and true act of kindness okay so let's take a look here uh first of all so in truth by observing the your side of shim and barya high with the intention of giving him an elevation of the soul in these ways you're fulfilling a torah commandment because the all acts of comments are as we said they're rooted in walking god's ways a torah commandment let's again look at what you can do uh on logba omar so first of all you can make blessings with ilya nishmas right you make a blessing on food or wherever you can say to hashem but this is remember please don't skip over the fact that your motivation number one is you're doing it as a commandment okay but it's beautiful we can attach prayers for the sick and we can do the kindness of elevating the shamans so you would say you know you say i have in mind to fulfill the mitzvah of my creator and i want this to be for the ilya nishmas for the elevation of the soul of shimon bar yahai right you would you just did a kindness and again what he brought the light he brought to the world it's it's really worthy of us to to reciprocate as best as we can learning torah okay learning torah provides us a profound elias neshama but there's a special if if it's a rabbi like this when you learn the torah that the rabbi produced that's even a greater alias neshama the gemaran bracha says when a rabbis torah is being uh learned down here their lips are if you will moving in the grave at least figuratively okay so learn to the degree you can learn some zohar or some gemara or some midrash rebbe shimon fills our oral law so that's another thing and have in mind the mitzvah of uh bringing a hesitant of emis finally your site candles now this was i did some research on this i couldn't find any any answers at first and i asked the uh you know very distinguished post sake and he didn't know i asked the following question when you light a candle for the person who's passed away we would call the nere neshama or yordsay camo [Music] what does that do exactly what effect does it have i mean it seems to be you're honoring them but but does it does that is it is it merely just an act of honoring their memory or does it affect them in some way so i give credit where credit's due there's a fantastic um halacha email called ben olamaba and he does a beautiful job i encourage you uh so anyhow i i discussed with him and he brought me two sources uh first of all rebecca says right a great re-show and a great commentary he says when you like the nashama on the your site he says the neshama gets a sublime pleasure because it we it says initially that narashem is compared to a near so it's not just a metaphor in other words it br it brings this incredible sense of delight so you're bringing delight to the shama of bar yohai do you realize what a privilege that is or with anyone that's passed away so no more it causes them a delight and then he also brought out that the rush says that on air for example when you light for a nifter or an arab yom kippur it brings an atonement so you hear again we see there's so much going on in these minhagem you know these tr custom light your side candle so what you should do is that's also on the list right so on uh and again i remind you if this will help you you won't forget if you if you'd like a poster let me know but here you go this is what you say i'm fulfilling the mitzvah of hessid shel emmas to do a true act of kindness which is a fulfillment of of walking in god's ways emulating his kindness which is so profound so i i as we said we opened up with a metaphor which is there is this adorable girl named malka she goes to the amusement park that she's been waiting for all year the parents rush her through ah so disappointing right what was what we said the nimshot is is don't let a moat appear and uh rush through it without having intention for the misses and appreciating the death because if you do do that if you stop and you have intention and you're connecting you make sure am i fulfilling the intention behind this mitzvah when you do that you bring such delight to your inner princess and when your inner princess is happy i assure you you'll be happy as well [Music] oh