KLM Easy Mitzvot Series 3: Eating and Greeting with Rabbi Asher Baruch Wegbreit

[Music] uh tonight uh first just mentioned that the sheer is dedicated um as always our torah learning is always the kind mrs barry to fulfill the will of our creator but it's also um with all that's going on it's also for the refuse shleima of a of a young man and the name is so i would like us to have in mind with the mitzes we're doing now okay just let's make a general intention that we're filling the mitzvahs of learning torah preparing for the shavuos and um the various you just like be open that all the missiles we're gonna do tonight please have in mind it is also for the refugee of david shai that's easy to remember who were waiting for someone by that name the son david ben gillatova will also include them in the tehran we save for the situation at the end okay so i just want to please have that mind that's the sheer's dedication um and uh this is not an easy uh shearer to give because it's a very happy sheer and filled with simcha and my revvy rabbit green once made it just he quoted a jewish a yiddish um saying that's very like uh if you're a parent you get it it says that um you're only as happy as your saddest child isn't that a deep thought you know a parent is only as happy as his saddest child so the truth is you know because we are brothers and sisters and you know our abba up there knows the suffering and difficulties and pain of all of his children and and and they're a family so you know it's a strange kind of time because you know it's tempered by that and it should be okay however on the other hand it's uh you know these are times of simcha there's no tahun for 12 days all because of happy reasons and we're supposed to express that we're thrilled about shabuos okay but i think um and i'll make one more point i once asked red nevinsol you know having been here for over 25 30 years there's is not the first uh conflicts and challenges and intifadas and this looks like this has been one of the worst in a certain way hashem your hem but the point is this i once asked reverend nevin saul i went up to him i said what's better to do you know to help uh learning torah or reciting to hillam okay you know what he said no if you don't know rev nevinsol is uh i may have streams different he said to me i don't know okay so i think we can learn from this that torah and to illum are powerful responses and he couldn't determine which more we're going to try to do both tonight we're going to start with torah right and of course besides we shave and gila toba let's have in mind that this effort bring nakas to karesh borohu uh towards the situation and then we'll also uh take the to hilum okay so let's let's get started and again i want to i want us you know what can we do right now like you're doing something very important it says the torah protects the torah provides protection right so everybody by showing up you made one step right and we're extending our hearts to the parts of the family or that are not in such easy conditions but um what i'd like you to do is try to step up your your involvement in some way take notes think about how you can apply just everybody let's try to do we can and let's again when we learn tara it creates a crown and we mentioned we haven't talked about this in a while but there's jewels you can place on the crown which are mitzvahs that accompany that so let's do this everybody just kind of join with me in this okay let's express the kashmir who we also have in mind the mitzvah besides talmud tara we have the mitzvah hashem meaning hashem the our primary motivation in all our services because we love you and now have in mind your ass hashem hashem we're aware that you're totally focused and present on our involvement in torah right now and we hope to do a good job simcha right we realize what a privilege it is to learn torah and to have this kind of action to help our our fellow jews behead the behind the choi the choice to immerse in torah and implementor and learn torah is a true choosing life which is a separate mitzo hashem commands you to choose life and finally very relevant to the times you should approach it with a freshness as if you heard it just now it's sinai harassing eye okay let's officially start the shogua's share okay so um i just i'm gonna set up the uh share screen uh yeah i think i'll go immediately to share this with you so mitch uh okay i don't know if everyone knows uh where that is you will know in a second okay but a few weeks ago um i taught i talked to you about malka right malcolm was this adorable young woman young girl she was a girl and her parents took her to amusement park and she was thrilled about that because there's a special amusement park that only comes around once a year but you know they just rushed through the park and she barely got to enjoy anything she was very disappointed right and then uh the next year the parents learned the lesson and they they they took her in they took their time they showed her every ride and they got it she had a delightful time right so he said the nimshal is that the uh the uh malka is our inner princess right the the shama who craves to connect to hashem in mitzvos the parents is us right and we're the ones who take her to the amusement park that shows up every once in a while the moadim and now shavuous has come right and listen to this so i thought to myself you know that's disneyland disney world not disneyland that's disney world okay now i thought to myself uh i i googled as follows how do you take advantage of disney world you hear that so i googled it and i'm just gonna read you what it says okay it came up they were ready for me so it says a step-by-step guide to planning a disney world vacation okay now listen to what it says it says planning a disney world vacation requires research and preparation yeah i think you know where i'm going with this okay listen to this okay disney world is a huge place it is 47 square miles which is almost twice as large as manhattan okay so with so many things to do and see you know the person reporting after 40 visits you don't you're still just beginning do you hear that that's disney world now i you know it was i was preparing you know everybody's trying to help me uh launch klm is saying we need to shorten the classes make them more masterable and i believe that or i'm not doing it but when it comes to modine it's impossible okay the what the richness and depth and breadth of a mode is unbelievable it's absolutely unbelievable i hope to just get a little taste of it tonight okay but you have to realize if you have to prepare to go to disney world to capitalize on that right and uh if we want our shamans if we want mauka to delight on shabbos we're going to have to prepare we're going to be aware of all the the attractions if you will the hob deal okay so that's what we're going to do and at the end i have a i'm going to print out the printer i'm going to post a pdf that gives you a map to all the the all not all not like i shared with dr setzer but there's a map that has a lot of information on it i'll share it probably tomorrow and i just suggest you that you get that map ready if you really want malka to delight in the uh in the young toe okay so um uh okay so ready the uh let's start the actual share let's leave disney world and go to the real disney world la hop deal okay excuse me one sec okay that that sound you heard in the background is a lot better than what i hear read alerts all the time you may hear if you listen carefully you may hear there it goes on to your computer even if you don't have like the the internet classically on telling you where the missiles are filing and you can hear that i i think it's good to keep in mind okay let's start off uh the easy mitzvah series within shavuos are some easy mitzvahs and i'm gonna highlight uh two of them and we're gonna try to take advantage of the easy mitzvahs and face the challenges so in a certain sense this year is continuing the easy mitzva series okay so here are a couple of things i consider easy on shibuyas good yomtav right so greeting right this is written in the mishna brewer there is it's a min hog that has become which is tara which is divrei kabala right when you say good young you're doing an important mitzvah that's that's close to a dorisa because it's a minha that became halacha so i'm going to talk about greeting what do you do good chavez all right so that's one easy mitzvah the other uh cheesecake blintzes right uh milkix right who who doesn't have a special place in their heart for the milkick minhog on shavuot i i doubt many people you know uh don't have a special place in their heart for that okay so that's an easy mitzvah in a different sense okay the the saying good young simple you just utter the words right but the um do people hear that but that's red red alerts just to keep us focused um so anyhow with um eating milk kicks that's an extra dimension of easy it's not merely easy like simple to do it's pleasurable it's intensely pleasurable okay so that milk x but let's also that's not all that's going on in schwioz you have sudos right you have meals you have festive meals and you should and you should have the best meat and the best wine you really you know yomtov with clothes and and the food supposed to be higher than shabbos you hear this it's a big mitzvah to have a yummy sumptuous meal okay and the finest drinks etc etc okay i think you'll agree with me then that these are easy mitzvahs okay so let's review up at the top the the first thing that the versus real by the way for anybody who's new to to this concept of easy mitzvah it's based on perkiavos where in mishnah uh fourth peric the second mission says uh run to an easy mitzvah rats so the the the easy mitzvah the first instruction what does it mean to run be very enthusiastic which means uh do it with simcha and this is how i'm translating these reasons with energy and simcha it's easy after all right so there's a three-step process though look so okay ready so look the first thing if you look under have in mind right because the big difference in an easy mitzvah is having intention to do it as a mitzvah you make it ideal it's a choice thing you send up to hashem right so before you say good yomtov to the person next to you in show or to your family right have in mind the shame mitzvahs uh greeting right the same misfits uh minhage israel so the the midst of greeting right have that in mind number number two since you're gonna do it with excitement right so look when you look at the person next to your control or you're you go walk in the house you open the door if you're the wife or the spouse or the friends whatever you are looking at the people coming in the door right the shame it's the greeting of me you can just think it you say it it adds more kaducha but you can just think it but think lachey mitzvah and but you're also going to do it basimka right you're going to fill yours with joy right so it's easy right good yum tub have in mind serving hashem okay that's the second instruction in the run the the first way to run is simple and energy so have in mind the mitzvah have in mind you're doing it right the okay and do and finally hashem we said you say good yomtov and you realize that there's some palace in the eternity do you realize there is a shepherd that hashem releases into the world he enables more closeness for you for others such good comes out of simply saying good young tough that's love if you realize someone is sending sending you love bombs right then bomb them back so i have in mind officer shem i can't believe you made this a mitzvah okay right that's greeting same thing let's move over to the mill kicks right and the sudas right have in mind the shame in haggai israel to eat milkings okay okay have that in mind do it have in mind this feel ava have in mind ava and then the same thing with the sudos the shame it's as soon as youngtow the shame it says etc right have it in mind do it basimka have it mind simcha do it with love and have in mind love that's the easy aspect of the easy misses run okay the second dimension which we're going to go to now is a little more facing the fact that there's danger with these men do you think there's going to be no catch when you do a visit you think it's that easy that you just boom you do it you get the journey so the truth of the matter is the yate zahara says that tavares is hero when you decide i'm gonna do a mitzvah this and by the way the kavana to do it as a mitzvah that is an essential aspect right when so when you say i'm gonna do a mitzvah he's gonna try to derail you so let's look on the left the when this is quick and simple right we're giving until greetings right i'm on the left side of the slide what's the danger mindlessness we will be prac he will have us practice mindlessness this right we'll do it without thought and feeling good yum good young oh good job it's good yum good yum too yeah hug somehow right that's what he's going to try to do he'll try to get you not to remember to have in mind the mitzvah and then i'll have you do it uh without any thought okay all right thoughtlessness okay we're gonna talk about how to uh face off that uh danger and fix it okay but let's just go the other one as we said eating and drinking on shabbos but now we're talking about milk eggs on yom tove and yomtov meals they're so pleasurable that we can uh someone said that the food is before me not hashem that's what happens right that's what the atari does he wants us to become completely absorbed in a pleasure experience and lost in that and forgetting why are we doing that okay so that we have to address that too okay so let's do them one at a time yom toe greetings all right it's amazing how the simplest acts have so many dimensions okay so when you give when you say first of all some the reason i told you it's like a big disney world shibuyas is such a big thing is one of the i'll call it the big three okay you'll understand what i mean right now i hope it's a both a hog and a moe aid okay we've discussed this before a hog is one of the schlosri golem and it's really not about giving the torah and anything like that that's not what shawwas is a festival or regal is three times a year hashem says come before me in the base of mgdosh and bring a corbin and appear before me leave your homes and come to uh to the base of midgash okay that's a rego visa now what's it about why these three times why is it time shabu's time in sukis because those are times of agricultural bounty and blessing these are propitious for our our our fin our parnassa and things like this they're times of blessing so hashem says when you when you reap your uh here we have wheat right there's a stage of wheat in schwa's time right and the trees and the left and mission come to me connect your bracha to me and then i have an excuse to give you more blessing right so that schwa says right it's true as one of the slosher galling the rejoicing is connected to the blessing that occurs in this time okay we haven't even talked about uh uh about matantora nothing to do with it in quotes okay so when you say so one thing you can say it's a festival so you're doing it with what is the solution look at the remedy underneath the mindlessness under the first thing the remedy stop think and feel the mitzvah so one thing is to realize the what you're actually expressing you're saying is a festival celebrating bounty then you have good yom tov good young right so good young but yomtov is is a different thing is celebrating what hashem did his intervention in time to take us out of egypt to give us the torah to guide us in the midbar to judge us judge us to forgive us right those are the moadim right you can say that on yom too yeah moadim you could say good good yomtov or modi masimkas the point is this is that that's another thing have kavanagh when you say good yom tov your yom tov is about matantara the torah being given okay so first of all stop and think about what you mean when you say hag samaya good yomtov simka that's the first stop but when you greet someone don't you it's not just a greeting let me show you the next part okay give me a second here we go what you can do this is ben adam mccavero when you greet people you can create a gsp connection okay greet smile bless greetings are not just acknowledgements they can be blessings if you have kavanagh all right let's take a look at this uh we did this a long time ago when you greet someone you're giving them honor and that's the mitzvah of ahafta kamoka the rambam says that that myth is fulfilled by concern about their dignity and respect and esteem as if it's your own also their finances as if it's your own okay so when you greet someone you're acknowledging their presence again i love to mention rabbit green's definition of honor honor is showing people you're affected by their presence right that's why you stand up for uh a rabbi things like this or your parents etc but also honor is when you acknowledge their presence if you've ever been in a place where people are don't have a culture of looking at you smiling at you green you know you americans are spoiled i'm speaking to myself of course you know it's not in the culture everywhere and you know they if we grew up their culture we would probably walk by with a sullen look on the face too you know it's not that we're superior in any way but the point is this when you look at someone and greet them and smile you're giving them you're giving them honor and respect so have in mind the haftareka kamoja g sb gsb smile right we had a whole class about smiles because smiles is kindness and when you smile at somebody you're doing a great kindness right so that's a lot of dracula that's walking in god's way so have in mind the message of kindness but of emulating hashem and we pointed out i had some medical backing backing from dr setzer that when you smile you're doing a kindness to yourself okay you're releasing these desired endorphins serotonin doping the most popular uh mood chemicals around but it says you can also release endorphins in them when you smile when they receive a smile so you're doing a big hesit okay look at all this we're just in greetings okay and then finally blessings okay again you know um we have to remember when you say good morning or good evening i loved it when i uh this was based on a michele it talks about you know most people uh most cultures their greeting is a blessing however it becomes perfunctory and it just remains a greeting and no one has a mind a blessing right that you're praying to hashem that they have some good thing i was just telling to somebody you know you know if you say good yomtov right and you mean a blessing and you're praying hashem who knows if if you didn't have kavanah he gets home and he's trying to recite kittis and the kids are punching each other right but if you say to him good yomtov yomtov and you mean it i want hashem to make it no tsar no difficulties you know the kids are a delight the parents are a delight you get kids give give brothers a good yum tube so that the parents don't uh drive the kid crazy okay but a bracha is a big thing you hear you're not just saying good young if you just say good young okay but if you say good young to me make sure it's a good yanto form make it sure he delights in it okay finally i pointed out when you do this in kitchen all right good so let's review that we said that um one of the easy misses is greeting okay and giving a good yum tub haksama so we said do it have in mind the mitzvah of it have in mind simcha and ava and have some khanava that's the easy aspect the other aspect is realize you could do this mechanically mindlessly and and lose out so the solution is to think about what you're doing and feel what you're doing and we said that's done by realizing what a hog is a festival realize what a yomtov is what you're actually the deep meaning in the blessing and then filling giving them respect and honor after effort smile giving them imparting emulating hashem by being kind and funny another act of kindness and emulation hashem giving them a bracha okay so that's the way you infuse it and you fight off mindlessness okay now we have the second thing is let me go off uh screen share for this okay now we have the food right the eating so we have milks and we have uh we have milks and we have um give me a second the um meals okay so there there's a lot of thought that needs to go into the experience and i mentioned you know this isn't food for thought it's thought for the food okay we have to think about what we're doing eating is a profound can be a profound mental and spiritual expression okay and we're gonna talk about that let's see yeah you know what let me do it let's do it now give me one second please i'm gonna go back to share screen so we get the uh i think this will be the best way to get the point across okay one second i'm back on the screen parrots uh yes good okay ready okay this is the big list but uh you know what i think it's too big i'm gonna go off screen and just explain okay so we said eating and drinking can be self-focused and all that's before you is the food and the pleasure and you get lost in that and that wasn't the full idea of eating now so how do you do this how do you solve the pitfall of self-focus when the mitzvah involves pleasure so we said the solution is by um seeking to vacuum in the eating okay seeking attachment to hashem so this comes from expressing certain thoughts and emotions to hashem through the eating okay now first of all by the way with the milk x all right i want one thing you can do when you're eating the milk okay that you know it's funny one of the most important halacha books but it's just basically rulings it has notes is the shmira shabbas you know uh right so it's funny it's all halacha except one very touchy feely uh a gutter point he makes he was talking about gefilte fish and he says you know me israel he says gefilte fish is such an expression of the holiness of the jewish people why because they made they made a fish that doesn't have bones right and because it doesn't have bones you don't have the risk of doing bore air of separating you know doing a serious god forbid shabbos malacha so he's saying look how beautiful the jews designed halachically safe food right and so it's a beautiful thing that you you realize the yerusha mine of the jews so let's have some feelings of obvious israel and appreciating who we came from right the greatness of the jewish people you know i heard a fantastic talk on um in the pesach maui time by some rob who's a mashiach here for israeli um boys and he said something that i'm speaking to parents or parents to be bashanta valmatzlafa he said something powerful he said you know one of the ways to get your kid to stay connected to torah jerusalem is he has to realize that he's related to some of the greatest human beings that ever walked the face of the earth your kids have to know they're related to the time to rashi to the rambam you know to to some of the most courageous jews to people who are so loving and giving and sacrificing you you connect them they they're they're part of a big family when they're jewish right so we have to realize you can really instill a sense of like connection they say wow i'm not just a you know a kid who wants to go do x y and z i'm connected to the these are my this is where i come from it's beautiful right so anyhow one thing that's gefilte fish but let's talk about milk kicks okay the milk ex there's i saw the htora had on their side like there's seven reasons for the milking seven very interesting ones but what the most classic one was that when they discovered on on the on har sinai uh on the day on shabbos when they discovered about the laws of and all this stuff basically their pots weren't in condition to cook kosher meat they couldn't do shrita because the torah was given on childbirth etc right so they ate milk to not violate the torah another amazing thing yeah yeah yeah they that let's just use that right so you know having milk eggs was an expression of their immediate interest in serving hashem their uras hashem right so you're looking at food that is part of our great rich heritage of ancestors our relatives were amazing right so that's one thing you could think of you know me israel while you're having the milkicks and and to think and and here's the vegas hashem i can't believe you let me be part of a people like this so noble and beautiful you hear this and and also you can look at it as yuris hashem that you know i'm reminding myself and when you're careful about milk and meat i'm reminding myself that i have to be careful with meat and milk i have to worry about meat that's not kosher etc so it's it's like you can infuse feelings of yours hashem to remind so don't just stuff the uh blinds down your face think about these things and then it'll become uh an act of devakis and attachment to hashem okay now let's go to the suda okay the suda this suit is young how do you make sure it's not about liquor that's me you know in my honor wrong down the hatch of wine and the big david rachman steaks etc how do you do that but he pointed out was not just one two steaks okay but the point is this what how do you make sure that eating onion is an act of the vacus and attachment to hashem okay this is there's so so there's two aspects uh based on the two aspects of shavuos it's a hog festival one of slosher golem and it's a moe celebrating montantora okay let's start with the hag this right i mentioned to you that's not about giving the torah it's about that this time of the year the cross good and we know when we're getting bracha in parnassa this it's thank hashem for that so the the commandment to rejoice is to rejoice with hashem in the food that you have on the table you're so could have a steak and wine or whatever you love right yours with hashem rejoice with him and see that this food this is a blessing from hashem and i'm acknowledging at these propitious times that's one way in which you can channel your uh the eating experience towards hashem secondly so that's the hog the regal now let's go to the yum tub the moe aid moadim now there's a famous thing and this is a different mitzvah right single that one of the things hashem does to just shower us with merit and connection is that single acts can be several myths the same eating can be right that glass of wine or that eating of the meat can be vissa mata vegeta but it can also be this a tsaris legend another mitzi dorisa for people probably have heard of this uh it's sarah's will translate his festival means stopping etc okay but the one the famous gemara it says in beta it's uh hashem it should be a festival for hashem well wait it should be a festival for you you and the plural right so there's a whole how do you resolve this so it's interesting there's the the time have two approaches one is it's really up to you you can make it all to hashem what does it mean and it's sarah's to hashem learn you can learn torah and all you want don't even have to have a meal that we don't i don't think we possibly like that but in theory it's it's optional okay oh we don't own chaboos we'll get to that okay but anyhow that's one way now by the way please take note of this it's on the long poster that i'm going to lean at or share with you please take note when you learn in davin uh on the uh yom tov you can fulfill you're doing a festival for hashem so i have that in mind and you just sanctified to another degree but now let's go to it that position says you can eat you can spend the uh the holiday uh the yum toe of eating and drinking you don't have to learn so much and et cetera et cetera so there they go through all the jewish holidays there's purim is discussed there's rosh hashanah there's all these different holidays but the gemara says clearly you must make shavuos you cannot do it all for hashem right same thing with shabbos we'll see it's connected you must also do for you you can't make that option you don't have that option on shibuos okay why not okay because i saw this like is it rev eliza cutler okay this is he he was saying another greeting you can give a person is uh coppola's a taurus of mayor you should have a happy composer so he's saying i just love this he said you know uh why is it so first of all this is rashi why is it so important to eat and rejoice on shibuyas because you want to show hashem that you don't look at the torah as a burden and instead you look at it as a pleasure because how could you look at this is what this rabbi i said you said you know when you asked a kid to do homework did you do your sherry bite to your homework right so like oh i got to do my homework do you realize the turn can be viewed as the biggest homer homework assignment of all time you realize it is homework and it is uh work work whatever it's a huge homework assignment right so the whole thing is we want to say hashem we're going to look through the veil you know what kills people in enjoying torah learning they ex they associate i feel so bad for my kids and the kids they link it with school and that's just no kid likes school you know but it's torah right but we have to make sure that we we express this is not a burden i can't believe what you provide for me by torah and learning and fulfilling the mitzvahs and commitment and all the hawakas and the panemias and everything that's what you have to convey in your eating right you hear this so you have in mind this and all the brah that you're getting physically but then you go over and do it you're you're eating right and that's a mitzvah doris also first of all but you're i'm i'm doing a festival for myself what i'm showing what a joy it is that we have the torah by the way the same reason by shabba is because the on shabbos the torah is given side point okay that you hear that's how much you can accomplish in greeting and eating [Music] it's oh