KLM Lovesick for Hashem (The 3 Weeks) with Rabbi Asher Baruch Wegbreit

[Music] zoho to be in the yebene basin midrash and yerushalayim and we want to talk about the three weeks the three weeks really are an opportunity to come so close to hashem and have indescribable bliss in the world to come okay so you hear that you want to know how do we do that right guess what how do you do it by being in a bad mood by being in a bad mood the you know the a very famous key to happiness is in parakiovos it says who's a wealthy person someone who's smacked the helco he's happy with his portion we're told now do not be happy do not be satisfied right now you should be in a bad mood okay these three weeks are different than for the most part the rest of the year okay so and this is just classic because you know the vilna golden says a principle that the greater a person is the greater his yetzer hara is right his evil destructive influence it has to be a match right so i tell that to my kids you must be great no the thing is this the greater the person gradiates to heart but also the vilnigan says the greater the zman the greater the yetzahara the greater the holiness of the time the greater the opportunity for spiritual growth and development the harder it is okay the the opposition is fierce okay for example these three weeks where's i told you you're supposed to be a bad mood what is everyone thinking about vacation where are we going to go for vacation you know it's right that's what's happening right now so that so that's uh that's what we're up well we're up against a lot here okay because like i'm i'm saying to you this is a huge opportunity it already started yesterday okay now let's lay out here there what the service of hashem right now is observing restrictions okay and i counted roughly i'm sure i could be corrected but about 13 or 14 restrictions will occur over the time okay from yesterday until we get to the rosh kodesh of ashkenazim and then on tisha bob okay now i want to point out to you the messiah charm explains that one of the best metaphors for our circumstance in life is that we're at war and we're in a in a battle we just don't see the enemy but he's very deadly okay so i want us to see with these restrictions what the enemy does to us okay because they they get um progressively more intense so here first period from yesterday the 17th of tammuz until rosh kodesh the following things are restricted no music right no haircuts no shaving no weddings and no new fruits you're not supposed to cause yourself to make a blessing on new new fruits okay so that's what i call stage one what's the opposition there we barely notice this okay we we have restrictions that can by consciously observing them they we can connect ourselves to god but we're barely even thinking about it okay that's that's battle number one if you love music okay then it is a little bit annoying okay if you like music and if you're used to being clean-shaven that's a little bit annoying okay so that's stage number one that's what we're up against then rosh comes right rosh chodesh of the nine days gets a little more intense it's very interesting the mogan abram says no simcha at all you should have no joy but okay that's i just say that to be intriguing you know but let's go to the other things no meat and wine okay no laundered clothes okay and maybe most challenging of all no bathing right no bathing in warm water etc again there's all sorts of complex um qualifications on these things but the bottom line is it's now getting irritating right so what do we feel during that stage it's starting to bug us it's starting to get irritating all right that's so so that's the nine days the nine days you know who likes their hair itchy because they haven't you know again getting to whole things about whether it's much or not for certain but but the bottom line is if you're observing it it becomes unpleasant so basically feel unpleasant okay the last one the last stage tisha bob tish above from the evening no eating and drinking no you can't greet people right uh you're sitting on the floor right there's no torah learning all right now it's getting miserable right so what emotion what what stance does the yetzer hara want there you just like i can't wait till this is over i just can't i just can't wait till it gets over you know well you know it's almo you're just counting the time you know it's you know for the men sitting on the floor you're just can't wait lot so you know you'll feel a little more comfortable and then the end of the day and you if i just make it and then it's summer vacation right so here that's the war strategy of the yate sahara from barely noticing it which is missing opportunities to becoming irritated but not capitalizing and finally just oh i can't wait till this is over okay we want to reverse that okay we want to i told you this is an incredible time right this is all building towards a crescendo period on tisha but uh but cilantro says you can achieve as much as you achieve on yom kippur on tish above if you do it properly right some unbelievable time building up so instead of squandering the three weeks that's what i call eternalize the three weeks all right so in order to do that i have a formula okay this is an extremely important statement from the gemara in tinus da flamin ahmed base i'll say it in hebrew in english al-urushalayam everyone who or anyone who mourns on yerushalayim zoha varroa they will merit and see the simcha they will merit and see the rejoicing of you shalom okay um we cannot fathom the joy that that will be it you know the world is in a state of clinical depression but compared to what jerusalem in in a state of joy will be okay so this is uh very important right and this is this opportunity that we don't want to miss all right so we have a little formula here okay we have to to to to achieve this we have to realize what we're missing plus mourn over it right so we have to recognize what we're lacking and then we have to be in a state of mourning right and that equals in the right time incredible rejoicing a rejoicing everybody will want okay now here's the dilemma what we do is we observe the restrictions of the morning that i mentioned right no music no wine no this and that but we may not connect the morning practices to what we're missing and then therefore we're missing out okay they become rituals right it's just a ritual like i said some of the rituals you barely notice right no if you're not shaving and you have a beard right or you don't care about music so much you barely notice them right so you but you observe it like a good jew right then you have others we said that are irritating and we focus on them being irritating instead of on what am i missing why am i doing this why am i doing this and then finally we said the most intense practices that we do on uh the ninth of ave those we just uh i can't wait till it gets over so we want to change that we want to go back to step one the morning practices are about missing and this is a beautiful thing they say in the name of rabbi weinberg said sal all right we have noah weinberg he said what is a mitzvah a mitzvah is a way to put your ideals into practice is that not beautiful but everybody all human beings are made in the image of god and they belie they have deep down side they value things and they have ideals right but hashem came up with this system that we can put our ideals into practice constantly it also helps that we recognize we're obligated to okay so if if we want uh these mitzvos of mourning these restrictions to be putting our ideals into practice we now have to think about and understand more deeply what we're missing and then we'll connect it back to this and then please god will be an intense rejoicing okay okay if we're going to go from a ritual to putting our ideals into practice and understand what we're missing what we need to do is take the famous things the objects or the people or the roles that we're missing and understand what it's all about and and to describe that you know right now uh in a certain sense spirituality is on the rise okay and people are into meditation and mindfulness and and and those things and you know it's definitely a step in the right direction and it makes people you know more connected etc but you know again we're just so lucky to be jews because we're just another step completely beyond that which is we have a relationship with the creator of the universe that's like we're his children and we're also like a husband and wife love affair okay so what everything's really about in in in this period the reason we should be in a bad mood is because of what we're missing with the relationship as children and as husband and wife with the the love that's what it's really all about so i want to show you how the the the things like the bass and migration the ob the things we're missing what that really in a deeper sense represents and then we'll know uh uh how to not treat it like a ritual okay so let's just take a look at this here we are we have three things that we know we're missing and we're praying fervently we should be on every day to have return so you have the base in migdash and the base of mig dash of course the temple is famous for miracles open miracles that's one thing then what we had and what we pray for is the return of prophet's prophecy and the judge is the sanhedrin okay in the show shoftenu prayer that's what you're praying for you want the prophets back and you want the sanhedrin and the judges okay so we're missing that we want it back we're going to understand what this has to do with our relationship with a cottage boracay and finally of course what's in the base of mcdosh what's the main feature corbanos sacrifices okay so we all know i i'm the base of nicknames the profits right but let's understand more deeply what they offered and what we're lacking now what we want back okay so first of all the the thing about a miracle a special especially an open miracle an open miracle we have to understand i i heard this point from a rav rooven leuchtter based on the nefer shahaim it you know it's not a magic trick right you you may just think wow it's like a um unbelievable you know magic trick the miracles that occurred in the base of middash and in mitzrayim you knew they were from hashem in other words along with the overturning of nature was a palpable recognition hashem is here hashem is doing this so what of course what makes a relationship is when they're present right so hashem was really present that miracles let us understand his presence feel his presence recognize his presence okay now look at this situation right now so i mean again for for many of us who are lucky to be connected to hashem on some well on some level to live in israel to be in yerushalaim so we feel like we have something but there's so many of our brothers and sisters and the non-jews etc the world you know they're suffering they're depressed you know the the the with teenagers you hear about um young young teenage uh girls cutting themselves and just hor these heartbreaking things that show there don't realize that they're in the presence of hashem and that hashem can be here so so we need that desperately we need that relationship the whole world needs it all of us will be so connected to the one we love okay so that's one aspect let's talk about another thing prayer right the miracles ambition the base of magnesium in prayer was such a if i say this is why i saw one commentary you would have let's say uh let's see if uh uh you want um let's make it you wanted a home or something right or you wanted even something small you could pray even not in a minion you could pray by yourself your prayer your little minor prayer quotes would hook up with the nation's prayer and the sacrifices and be responded to me almost immediately you know the cohen guttal had to pray against the people who were didn't want rain uh when they were traveling back you know a single our prayers wherever we were would hook up through the base of magnesium the core bonus and be answered so again a relationship responsiveness right we had presence of hashem the presence of the one we love and a responsiveness it's unbelievable right so that's what we're missing okay that's one point now the prophets and the judges okay let's go to the judges first this is what everybody knows right now and and everyone knows that what's holding us back one of the main things is sinister right baseless hatred factionalism argument distance contempt all the you know this terrible stuff right says the rambam do you know when they had a sanhedrin and the judges he says there were no disputes in israel there were there weren't even disputes that had to be settled most of the time do you hear that there was the judges and the justice was so profound you know it says when you you're asking for the just judges to come back in that prayer it says please remove agony right pain anguish and agony right there is no groaning because the justice just brought us together and removed the fights we're not missing that we're not lacking that right and then the prophets right you know the prophets were playing hashem's role as a loving parent right what does a parent do the parent you know especially if the parent really shows the child they love them and they correct them the child knows that they love me they want my best interest they know what i need and then that's what the prophets did you know did avodah zara terror you know he did terrible things i'm not judging him but but the point is when the navi spoke to afa rob miller points is that when the navy spoke to apha he wore sackcloth he wore this prickly sackcloth and did chuba right because he knew that this is my abba wants me to correct myself for my own good right so you know we do our best people go to psychologists and uh take medicine you know er you know right people try there's all sorts of efforts to help people and heal people and they do pretty good in a world that's lacking hashem's friend but can you imagine the healing and the development the personable development we get when we have the profits right we're so lacking that if we think about it finally okay i you could say a lot about the corporates i want to say two things okay why we should really feel bad we don't have the sacrifices okay number one you know i saw this i couldn't find it the last time i tried to look but you know the term guilt right right so there i saw one time in a dictionary it had a special thing jewish guilt there was actually a category called jewish guilt right so we have guilt you know because we in some deep down our soul knows what we're supposed to be doing and if we're not doing it we feel guilty okay but the corbanis they took away guilt that's just such a what a what a desired thing you know okay but that's the not the main thing i mentioned to you we have our our relationship with shem can be described more than these two ways but the primary ways we're like children and we're like lovers okay so we mentioned it says bani matem right it says that explicit you are my children okay and then the other aspect is where do we see husband and wife like a love intention shira shearing right the holiest of holies right so what was it about sacrifices what did they provide so i'll just give you a metaphor uh my my rev hobby green was the first one i heard this from is um let's say there's a couple they just got married they don't have a lot of money the husband found a job and uh he's really struggling to make the the rent and uh just he ekes out enough money past the rent and he buys his wife a vase okay and then let's say he's working several years several decades and now he's very wealthy right and he buys his wife alexis right now what do you think moved the wife the most the first the first one the vase right because it was from sacrifice right he eked out what he can and gave something right so you know i titled this class you know that the three weeks is a chance to express that we're love sick for hashem now here's the thing do you realize that a corbin is the most profound expression of set of a loving sacrifice you know it says when we gave a corbin we brought hashem why because it says like this the rambo explains run the run bun you didn't just bri you know what was the point you bring this animal you don't just say here's a gift you know take the animal and you know use it for the base of vignesh blocks you kill it and then you you know sprinkle the blood right you're off of the blood so the idea is this is you were you really realize you're saying to shin i'm really i i love you so much this is as if i'm giving my life to you so this is you you're giving your life and getting to live that's the beautiful the beautiful bonus right and i'm sure you feel bad at doing it i mean at first you know right right but if you feel uncomfortable right right but but but when you understand what see that that animal is so thankful for that that it got selected to do it but it's such expression of love he's saying i'm willing to give myself to you and that's what you do and that's what we're missing to fulfill ahatas hashem because to love hashem with all our soul that's what we could do when we offered a corbin okay so just to summarize here this time we're being told let's not focus on what we have let's focus on what we're lacking let's go out of the rim realm of uh the sameach helco okay and i just want to finish off i want us to make sure that we mourn during the third three weeks so the very final part is we're going to do um we're going to do the the morning uh together with the loss with cavanaugh for the mitzvos that's how we'll finish okay to finish um what the what we're trying to do or create an awareness movement of the importance of having kavana for the misses we do because you could do a mitzvah with lots of your heart and focus but if you forget to have in mind i'm doing this as a mitzvah it's not the same okay so what i want us to do is all of us to accept these restrictions right as mitzvos okay and let me explain what type of mitzvah this is most of the practices like right now okay like no music no wine all that they're called they're minha game okay but a minhog it sounds like a very minor thing it's not at all okay there's three levels of commandments there's rabbinic commandments roughly speaking rabbinic commandments and there's torah commandments and in between and close to torah commands are not available abandon the customs of your mother which means canesis israel and it and ptosis explains a minhag becomes torah it turns into tara and it's a high-level torah okay so so just think or say say right now i have in mind uh to uh fulfill the mitz the the minhage israel the minhogging the practices of the three weeks which include right just as a basic list no music no shaving no uh laundering at the right time no meat no right just have in mind i intend uh to observe these as a commandment from the from uh hashem okay as diveree kabbalah so that's one thing we just sanctified these actions that we're doing anyhow okay but now let's let's take a one that's current okay and this will be a model okay i call this sanctifying the silence okay no music right now right there's no music so you're not listening to music i told you the music not shaving you barely notice right and and next in the nine days when you're not shaving you're gonna be irritated but let's sanctify it all right so i want you to right now we're gonna have in mind that uh you know what i'll kind of express this and you can uh kind of think it or feel it and then i'm giving you kind of a sample of what you can do and say okay so as follows right so hashem um i have in mind with the mitzvah of not listening to music and not uh shaving in this period and not uh making a shakianu my intention by this is so that i can stay focused on how my life is lacking without you hashem i don't have the base of mig we don't have the base of migdash where we can feel your presence and your responsiveness to our requests and prayer we don't have the parental the divine parental guidance of the naveen we don't have peace amongst us because we're always at each other we're missing this so badly and we don't have really the ultimate ways to express love to you by bringing sacrifices okay and uh it's a it's our intention now in these three weeks to use these deprivations to remind us to stay focused because what is this world no matter how joyous this world if you're not here if you're not in your home if you're not with us you know what is it what is it all for and please god we should deepen this and stay focused and as the restrictions increase our pain of the law should increase and please god let's you know we have a chance that maybe tish above will be a holiday and we'll see the final redemption [Music] is