KLM: (Part #1) Maximizing Elul thru the Mitzvah of Ahavas HaShem with Rabbi Asher Baruch Wegbreit

[Music] i am for my beloved and my beloved is for me who's going first here we're going first now if you were someone uh and by the way we must welcome ybanet again to this year as well and that's pertinent i just said we're going first right i'm showing that i'm for my beloved we are showing we are for a kaddish boracay we go first now if you're a newcomer to klm then i'm not so concerned about this 40-day month that lies ahead of you because if you even take me half seriously rosh hashanah will be fine okay the challenge is for us old timers us old comers right for us are we going to be able to have the conflict that one of our loyal klm members had last year last year at the end of one of the classes sha'al we i was giving a class on rosh hashanah i spoke about this last night to newcomers it was right before rosh hashanah and i was trying to give over how we can have a good gazardin a good judgment on rosh hashanah and i i stress what the gemara says and what everyone stresses when they learn about rosh hashanah is you must feel humility if you want a good dee uh a good judgment you have to feel humble so being being transparent honestly says rabbi webright it's a little hard to feel humble this year because i mean i know about the five jewels of avas hashem and yours hashem and simcha and i'm having kavanaugh this and that in other words he was exposed and he embraced the material so if you compare his uh last rosh hashanah with this one it's a little hard to feel humble so again if you're new to this approach of klm you are immediately going to be upgrading me your minces from bitty evident to life gila or you're going to be alchemizing mitzvahs out of mundane acts you're in great shape but we have a greater challenge the ones who are now entering our third year okay and that's why the truth of matter is what we chose to work on which for this 40-day period we're going to work on avas hashem and yours hashem but avas hashem is really going to be the place where we're gonna make or god forget bid break all right let me explain okay first of all we have to realize that working on ava's hashem anila dodi i'm for my beloved it seems so my team it seems so fitting okay why is it a great thing for us to invest in this month and i by the way i'm gonna ask you please don't just listen to this year i'm begging you for your merit for our merit for claudius for el please live it as much as you can okay but let me explain why opposition is incredible to work on so this is uh when i share a screen with you now and i show you this i want to just kind of point out to you how many opportunities how many facets of your life avas hashem could uh apply okay um we good parrots yeah i have to thank my wife for the new technology this is a mind map so don't expect my goal here isn't for you to master this right now i just want to show you the level of life complexity opposition can permeate so many situations i'll just give you an example one example was the other day if you're living in eretz israel and you know i'm putting my head down and saying hashem please i don't mean to ever complain about anything but it's been so hot and humid so i came in and you know you walk like uh half a block and your your shirt's sweating already so i i i just thought to myself wait a minute obvious hashem because what does it mean to love hashem with an undivided heart is you don't question hashem's treatment so i said to myself hashem i have no issues it is hot and humid and my shirt is sweaty no problem i love you okay so look i'm sweating and i get a chance to do that i'm eating i get a chance to do it i'm doing mitzvahs there are so you're doing cure you're sharing torah you're spending money it permeates your life so obvious hashem is a beautiful place for us to focus there's so many opportunities but here's another aspect of it another aspect is this you've heard this uh if you listen to whatever the the current lingo so the uh productivity people the self-development people they're all talking about this year you wanted 10x your productivity i wanted 10x right you're gonna 10x things if you set your goals and your 10x you'll be 10 times more et cetera et cetera well we'll have the elf i can't promise 10x i can promise though 9x okay for those of us been with us it how many times has it mentioned avas hashem in the torah nine times and says rep hominer and please right now let let's start reaping the moment right now okay right now what is your motivation for learn for this year uh for doing this year have in mind you're doing it because you love hashem so since it says avas hashem nine times that means this one act of ava is times nine it's nine nine x it is nine x which means it's see this is where okay it's not ten but it's kedusha you become sanctified times nine and your kesher with the cash project times nine if you have that kibana okay sounds great sounds like i made a good choice but now i'm going to question this working on average hashem isn't is there has there's a bit of a problem okay let me tell you what we have to ask ourselves all right are we romantic enough to work on avas hashem now you may think i'm kidding okay i'm not kidding all right let me explain to you why i'm not kidding you know it's interesting i i've had more contact with my review recently rabbi green and so i've you know i hop in for you know things i'm working on with klm so i said rabbi you know uh isn't uh with obvious hashem isn't it like um abba is like based on gratitude right you know hashem does something really nice for you and then you feel loved he goes what was uh ravi grant's expense no no that's not it no that's what he says to me he said that's not it okay and i said well then tell me what's the definition see i was having a problem because the rom bomb which we're going to discuss he talks about like um you know unders recognizing the spectacular sunsets and mountains and wisdom in the world and tar and all this and he says you're like thrown back from it so i said that sounds like all of a sudden it doesn't sound like almond but anyway i say isn't it like you know you feel appreciated he goes no no no it's amaz hashem is being meshuggah you you're meshuggah okay he said you're you're like crazy for hashem so let me read you the rambam [Music] did you hear what the rambam said a great extra powerful very extra powerful odd shitty nacho kashura ava until your mama your soul is tied in love to hashem benim and your shoga you're like shaking in the suga constantly as if your love's sick okay and the rambam basically says the same thing again okay and then i realized you know i i should know this point you know last night um my wife and i went to the sheva brothers these israelis and you know i thought i was just gonna go shake hands and leave and then this rob gave me a big introduction and asked me to speak to the hussain and this so then i told them the story of my uh not sean rashona shavuo rashona of my marriage okay so you know you're you're not in yeshiva at that time you're spending a lot of time with your wife hashem wonderful and it was i promise you so you know things are going great and hi how are you good morning you know my eyes are lit up etcetera so maybe let's say like four days into the shabu arishona you know a little tired and people know it and if if not if not please you should be married soon but you know the chevron's a little tiring right so i i gotta be honest i was a little tired right so but i still said you know hi poker toe and my wife looks at me like mommy tone what's wrong with you i said what do you mean what's wrong with me so you know i was giving her a hundred percent affectionate excited smile right each and every day now i'm on day four okay it's like 80 percent i'll give it 82 right and like she's like looking at me like what's what's happening what's wrong with the goal i go to school and guess what or or no i'm sorry i'm davening and i open up krishma and what does it say with all your heart not eighty percent but call nash willing to kill yourself but call me oda very very very much and i realized whoa ah i see and also that's love are we romantic enough you know now again it takes the gemara says it takes uh 40 years to understand your rebbe so you know i heard him rabbit green speaking about this okay not bad as like 30 years ago about 20 25 years ago you know he was saying he says you know no one's romantic these days you know you see how people date and how they know they're so like okay if they have a resume they went to an ivy league school they have a perfect complexion they are x height and they um have a emotional stability and you know he says they're not romantic at all he says romantic use you're crazy you're a little bit crazy you know i i i i heard um um you know i'm not gonna say who who who i heard this from but he was talking about you know people nowadays are very sensitive to how things are described and you know we don't we the truth of the matter is the sensitivity to labeling people is a very torah principle because on us tomorrow we're very careful not to offend people however this person was talking about everybody has a victim thing and they they said you know sticks and stones will break my bones and names will never hurt me right so the um uh so the they were trying to say you know why through the names but he goes he goes you know if if you're a kid and you're riding a bike you're you're gonna break a boat or two so what you get it set and fixed it's not a big deal all right are we willing to break some bones for hashem right you're here are we able to willing to be meshuggah okay that's what that is what opposition is and i suggest anila dodi this month we want to be so romantic and we want to really go for this okay so anyhow i'm setting that is i'm setting down the uh gauntlet whatever we want to say i'm setting that as our goal of hashem we're going to see it's all described in the extreme let's be a little you know i was a little crazy i mean because uh this this this year um rosh hodish ello you know the the in quotes real month of ello was on yom michonne so it's after shabbos and you know after shabbat yom richon is not an easy time after all the food and malava malka and all the stuff and you know whatever i got to bed late and i said but you know what i'm going to dive in nate's right so i went to bed very late and got up very early and i felt terrible for two days but i still you know that's what you do you go a little you're a little meshuga okay anyhow that's just a general picture now let's get down into brass tacks and how do we do this okay so now for that i want to show you the next uh that we're going to get to how do you uh love hashem and also we want to just get an overview see i taught this to you for the old comers i taught this to you two years ago and you saw the complex tree that my my wife just uh presented right so what i what i want to do this month is we're going to try to master that material so in order to master it we have to take all those details and get a an understanding of sequence and understanding so i want to give you the map and we're going to do the first part we're going to start it this week or uh shall i say tonight okay so let me just share this with you all right we're gonna take that complex tree and make it more uh uh understandable about what we need to do oh here we go all right give me a second did i share it did i do the share screen parrots or not yet not not yet okay give me one second please there we go are you in attendance i am okay take it away please sing okay so i was actually thinking essentially you read my mind i was actually thinking that uh you know the lyricists of the musical american musical theater most of whom were jewish uh you know they pick up on this idea of being crazy i mean one of the most favorite songs i'm wild again beguiled again a whimpering simpering child again bewitched bothered and bewildered am i so you know look at all those attitudes wild again beguiled again a whimpering simpering child am i right um uh uh but now did you get by by the way did you get my message though about the particular request i made of the song no i didn't that's why i brought you in uh okay play you know to no no no you know what i'm talking about you know that song yes yes i do that's i just wanted you to leap in with that please do that now you know uh requests have to go through my agent okay uh i i know that's a little that's a little contemporary but he went to no no [Music] that's all i know okay and so i'm just gonna add this what you're looking at on screen you see the screen right parrots okay so turn off yours for now okay um can everyone see the screen okay good so ready we're just gonna add another uh verse thank you show to know hashem is to love love love hashem is to serve serve serve hashem from love okay this is those there were nine different separate ways to fulfill ava hashem in that tree and this is the process first of all the first part is to uh the rambam says crystal clear he says i'm just going to read it to you says it says for it's only if he knows him the the only way you love hashem is by knowing him according to your knowledge of hashem will be your love hashem whether a little or whether or not so before we actually attain office hashem we have to noise him which is great for us at klm because there's so many wonderful misses that we can achieve okay so let me show you the next uh the next part okay the this is an overview we're gonna work on this for at least a couple weeks okay but here we go um the process and this is based on the rom-bom in ilkus chuba okay you hear we have a 40-day month ahead of us and and if we attain ava that that's the last words the rambam says in hilkus tuba okay it's the pinnacle okay so it begins with thoughts it goes to feelings and then it results in actions and that's the process by which we're going to work on this okay so to know hashem the the um uh reptile cable brings this out from um a fortune so one of the best ways to know hashem is to fulfill the commandments that guide you to no hashem okay so we have anoki which is the first of the ten commandments the mitzvah of amuna and take careful note anoki is fulfilled whenever you see a description of hashem's providence okay anything having to do with or an awareness of shem but we're talking about knowing shen guess what by the way hint for the end of this year and the assignment guess what's a great place to know about hashem's providence how about pasuki to zimra okay next no other gods right by realizing it's not the coffee right it's not the car it's not the x y and z that but really there are no other forces other than hashem that's that's a knowing of a shin that's critical okay see elaine and then finally hashem being okay so first of all the map is here let's any one second of thought about hashem is the meshiach who took us out of mitzrayim right and is doing everything in the sustaining and he gave us the target any thought like that you're getting to know him right rejecting other things as being a source and then so that's you hear but and what is the random based on the midrash says it's all this is all contained in krishna it says love hashem because in other words it's by putting um putting the words of torah on your heart right right that means it's we're not talking superficial we're talking about really putting the uh the knowledge of hashem on your heart what does that lead to it leads to loving hashem very much again right now all we're going to try to shoot for is uh meaning feeling love of hashem okay but let's just go into the middle section feelings right so the knowledge leads to the feelings the thought leads to the feelings of please god uh and very much but ready when you attain that you will be able to fulfill these other two misses which is loving hashem in the hard times okay that's one of the reasons i think rabbi green rejected the oh you've got a nice little uh gift and you say i love you hashem it's not there is something to that but what he means to say is what if it you know any love that's based on something you take that away that's what he's arguing he's saying you know what if you're not getting nice little goodies in the mail and you're having hard times right so ava has to be something more than just a sense of a warm fuzzy feeling when you receive something so you hear you see here this is when you're receiving difficulties right it's hot and humid or you're having some other god forbid problem right so there so when you which when you know hashem well enough it leads to this ava and then you can work on those okay and then finally so after you know him and you love him you want to please him right you want to bring enough by serving him and that leads to the bottom three mitzvahs there's more involved there just giving you overview is that your motivation of all your misses is ava that's number one on the bottom number two is called mayo def you know it's total dedication and then thirdly is you love him so much you want others to love and serve him okay that's the map and now we're gonna finish this year uh with an assignment okay um if you have readily available a sitter um fine if not let me just tell you how we're going to end and i i want to thank uh rabbi aryatsvi setzer because he he i knew this was somewhere but he found it in the mission of where it was in mishka you would think that if it's going to talk about avas hashem it would be in hilka's krishna but it's actually not it's in hilcas to fill in and but in a surprising way listen carefully to this you know uh you shouldn't i um one has to be careful with to um where be wearing to film when you recite the qrishma why because it says over there that if you're reciting something that says and you should and you're going to bind them on your heart and you're accepting this instruction from the king right you're declaring your acceptance and that you're going to do it if you can and here you could do it and you're not doing it so that's called you're testifying falsely about yourself so in the mission of brewer the huff of time brings the safer horadine who says you know what what are you saying uh two times a day hashem i love you with all my heart all my uh call naturally etc right you're saying that he says it's important that love enters your heart either when you're saying it or shortly thereafter you hear this this is elaborated upon in schmearas in the very end you hear this we when you recite so i'm giving you everybody like i said i implored you i'm imploring myself let's be meshugga let's push ourselves i'm not saying be perfect right now i'm not saying do everything perfect i'm saying let's push ourselves and let's implement i beg you to implement please share with me implementation stories successes failures i welcome them all but here's our assignment take this assignment seriously i beg you for your and my and claudia israel's goodyear shana toba ready here's the assignment it says like this what you can do ideally is when you come across find at least one pasek in the pasukid of zimmer that you're reciting and stop for a second and reflect on it like you know hashem makes um uh the tsipor khanov he makes all these glorious birds right so and and you're and that's two things it's torah nature together right so you reflect on on birds for a second or he makes mountains and hills the suki doesn't work or he he rebukes kings for our obvos right just take some idea take some idea and know that idea on some level and then when you say and by the way mark up your sitter like parrots does okay that you know just get your pencil by opposition just like put a little heart there that you want your heart to feel the love says the time if it's difficult for you to master that in the process of the diamond and feel genuine affectionate love of hashem when you recite those words you know he's saying if you didn't get that chance to reflect here is plan b plan b he says before you go home and eat you hear this or women before you do your next holy duty right you take a minute after you've prayed and maybe go back to the basuki zimmer or think about some gorgeous thing you saw on vacation or think about some deep beautiful thing that makes you feel a little love and most importantly have in mind harini i i'm the cayenne the mitzvah of avas hashem as hashem has commanded me this is our assignment please god hashem should help us uh everybody have a uh and really let's show hashem that we're more romantic than he thought we were okay that's it [Music] is