KLM The Mitzvot of Chanukah - Mastering Appreciation and Gratitude with Rabbi Asher Baruch Wegbreit

[Music] welcome to the kavanagh mitzvos foundation klm for short and we're very happy to be here on hanukkah in the base midrash of yubanet i wanna for there's some newcomers here and hopefully there'll be newcomers uh online so i wanna explain the incredible significance of having kavanagh for mitzvos and again what i'm first speaking about is having intention for the mitzvah before you do it now what does that do first of all this is very popular now it makes you conscious of what you're doing mindful that helps a lot because a mitzvah is not just an act it's a relationship it's a relationship with hashem and it makes us a commandment right mrs commandment hashem's telling us to do something so if before we do it we have intention then we're responsive to hashem when did when did hashem command us let's say we're learning torah right now okay haven't mine in the midst of learning torah when did he command us to do it when did he command you personally when when you were 13 when you became religious etc when were you commanded the torah says today you we are commanded today and we're supposed to relate to as we just heard it on sinai learn torah give respect for a base midrash and abate knesset that's another mitzvah to have reverent fear for abet knesset okay so when you do this you prepare yourself and those thoughts get you what am i doing right now i'm learning torah who am i doing this for i'm doing it for hashem so it's very significant for your relationship and i'll just say you feel great and the pay is great when you do mitzvahs with kavanagh uh the pay is handsome hashem values it so much because you're there responding to him let's move to hanukkah and i'd like to what i'd like to do tonight is to explain how to use hanukkah as a master class for character perfection for those who are not familiar with a master classes they're uh subscription classes you have where experts in some field teach you how to do things let's give some examples like negotiating so they'll have an fbi negotiator teaches you how to negotiate gourmet cooking so they'll have a master chef teach you that now the purpose of those classes and if you pay for the subscription it's not just to learn information it's just begin to become a master at what you're doing now i need to say lahav deal of course but this is a very helpful way to look at jewish holidays the moadim in effect they are master classes to cha to achieve character perfection in certain areas for example on sukkot right sukkot is if you will you have an eight day master class to learn how to attain joy and and connect to hashem that way good on yom kippur is a master class for removing your deficiencies and doing repenting to hashem their master classes the mitzvahs are guiding you how to really at the end of the period of this holy period you're a different person but i wanted to explain why is a maui the jewish holiday far beyond a master class a mere master class let's say you took a master class for negotiating you take it and now you can negotiate better wonderful and you can use that for good purposes for sure however let's say you are taking and let's go straight to hanukkah hanukkah is a master class in gratitude gratitude and deep praise uh hodon vahalo so now what's the difference if you master this the difference is as follows first of all you'll be able to do the things effectively but more importantly there's a difference inside your neshama your soul is in a completely different place if you work on gratitude as a mitzvah during hanukkah there's a tremendous i said if we could only if there could only be an x-ray that shows you how much sanctity you attained in a mitzvah could you imagine that but it's incredible we we are if you will we're glowing when you if you work on uh the mitzvahs of hanukkah you will be glowing not just the lights will be glowing you will be glowing not only that says the ram khaled hashem the world will have more light the world will be a better place when we do the mitzvahs especially of the moadim of the jewish holidays and when we work on perfecting our character though as a mitzvah the effect is profound it's just we it's just like the kedusha the sanctity we don't see it now and we don't realize the effect we're having on the entire world how much light we're bringing to the world by working on this now let's just focus on hanukkah like i said it's an eight day master class but we only have five more days so if you signed up now we still have a five-day master class in perfecting our character in particular gratitude here's something very important that's not so well known is gratitude of mitzvah of course did you know that it was a torah commandment it's a mitzvah darisa i i just thought of a new way to put this there's inside information that it's a torah commandment if you look inside rabbenu yona the author of shari chuva and a very sa famous safer called safer haradium he talks about the myths of the torah he says thanking hashem is a torah commandment where is this this is in davaring in the uh eighth chapter the second posix says uh moshe is reporting that remember the 40 years you wore in the in the mid bar why because hashem did a lot of kindness and miracles and wonderful things so it says if i'm being told to have uh to remember the kindnesses hashem did for other people all the more so ourselves it's a call the homer he says you hear this so when you feel gratitude and and we know a lot of our tafila is structured that way gratitude's in there a lot but right now it's a whole other level and when you feel gratitude you're fulfilling the torah commandment and as we said mitzvahs require kavana having that intention beforehand so now whenever you do whenever you are thanking hashem in the different context have in mind i'm fulfilling the commandment to thank hashem and feel gratitude so i just want to set that in line now let's learn how we can perfect ourselves in this area achieve a certain spiritual perfection and development so i want to show you what i call the scales of gratitude you know when we talk about perfection people may say uh well i mean we can't be perfect no one's perfect except for hashem and you're correct however the if you look at perfection as attaining completion becoming more complete the only one who's completely complete is hashem however every bit more that you complete you become you fill up yourself with a certain character trait from the torah you are becoming more perfect now the scale of gratitude so there's three levels and what i want to point out this is going uh we're going up we're looking down but we're going up the first level uh uh when when it comes to ho dawg is you know in fact i'll go over here i hope people a feeling inside gratitude is a feeling inside and it's a great stepping stone to important things because when you feel gratitude you're in a better mood with people but not only that it's a stepping stone to get closer to hashem you know when a person's not feeling gratitude it's hard for them to open up and get close so ah excellent so that that's a wonderful question yes the question is what's the difference between feeling gratitude and knowing okay so the word we use in hebrew is hakarata tov recognizing the good so really before the feelings can be developed you have to recognize the good that was done for you and then that can stimulate feelings that can arouse your heart and that's very important and i thank you for that we're gonna see how that plays out okay so first is feeling level one eventually we're gonna go for the pros level level two is expressing appreciation you see that's another level you can feel it inside but does the other one know have you said it to them have you made them them feel the appreciation you have so that's expressing gratitude is level two so this is inside this is one step out but i think this is obvious what's the greatest way with the highest level with the pros giving back giving something back that's the highest level to give something back now with that in mind we're now going to look at the mitzvahs of hanukkah and what you're attaining because this is what you want to work on we have a five day master program left where we're going to consciously work on this so i'm going to head over here here are the three main mitzvahs of hanukkah reciting in the in the prayers and in mentioning halal every morning and lighting the menorah guess what the scales of gratitude fit like a glove with this first of all as we said you first have to recognize the good ala nissin the text of alanisim is recognizing what hashem did for us the by the way it says that hashem had tremendous compassion for right abund to mercy and compassion why is that why was hanukkah what they did tremendously compassionate on hashem's part because there was a handful of people that were willing to sacrifice their lives and fight for the torah and fight for the base of english and because of that few hashem made the miracles for everyone okay so you have to recognize and reflect on the words and you're already you can feel gratitude but it's more than that alanisim is expressing appreciation but this is something we're going to talk more about this we're going to talk about hanukkah parties as well but we just have to realize it's not as easy as we think in the sense that there's somebody who's trying to undermine our spirituality and our connection with him the eights are hara so this is why the following comment is relevant there is a rabbi who was hosting a shabbos meal and it was time to bench and he says by the way when you're benching don't forget to thank hashem here you can actually recite the text and forget what was i doing i just had a lovely meal and but okay now it's time to bench so feeling feeling gratitude and expressing authentic appreciation is an achievement don't take it lightly okay so but you have in alanisim you have both you have the ability to feel gratitude too while you're saying it that's called kavanaugh slave the focus of the heart and to express it hallel is for sure what is the word hollow mean this needs to be publicized as well this is inside information if you look inside rabbi victor miller explains halil is enthusias enthusiastic praise it's not just praise it's enthusiastic and and hollow is so appropriate when hashem does pro big things mere open miracles that's why we're supposed to express enthusiasm so of course you have to feel gratitude you have to feel excitement over what was done and you have to express it in hollow and that's why it's very beautiful when they sing it or it's said so slowly you can accomplish that so that's what you get here but guess what here's something very exciting the menorah is a way not only to feel gratitude to express appreciation it's a way to give something back to hashem now that sounds a little philosophically difficult how do you give what do you give what's the gift you give for someone who has everything right how do you give back to hashem in other places i've discussed is there's one thing hashem the talmud says hashem really wants rakhmana liba boy he wants your heart but you know what this is the lighting the menorah is giving something back not just a heart it's doing something very very wonderful for hashem and what's that if you help someone achieve their purpose isn't that fantastic what if you're fundamental in helping someone achieve their purpose what is the purpose of hashem creating the world it says hashem created the world for his glory now we have to understand that because hashem doesn't need hashem is not glory seeking god forbid hashem wants all of mankind to realize how gloriously good and kind the world is he put us all here to experience that and to connect to him right so his purpose is for everyone to see the world as a gloriously good and kind and amazing place we can help hashem it's called pirsumi nissa publicizing the miracles that's what you do when you're lighting a miracle you're letting the world you're reminding and informing the world that it's a glorious place that this people that were religiously persecuted and were about to be spiritually extinct guess what their their god came in hashem came in and rescued them and restored our temple restored closeness for the whole world right that's what you're doing when you're lighting the menorah you're not just feeling gratitude expressing appreciation you are you're giving something to the one who gives us everything you're publicizing his glory you're publicizing the miracle so this is what i call a master class that you can work on in in the remaining time of hanukkah feel genuine gratitude work you you will be different i told as i mentioned uh for the people who just came in when you do a mitzvah you don't just improve yourself your soul becomes sanctified you start to if you will glow there's a spiritual glow and more importantly you're bringing light and goodness into the world so if we work seriously on feeling genuine gratitude when we're saying alanis and hollow with enthusiasm and expressing appreciation and then having mine i'm publicizing the miracles and that will be a very profound expression to hashem the greeks knew how to party we know how to immortalize a party by the way we're referring to the greeks just look at any university they still have the greek fraternities etc so how do you immortalize a party first you have to realize that there are two guests that will show up at every single hanukkah party you attend including tonight there's two guests one of them is trying to ruin the party to spoil the party and that's the yetzer hara he is a party pooper of the highest degree he he is going to be at the party but there's a very much more important guest i think you know who it is hashem our divine parent hashem will be at this party as well and what we need to do is what we'd like to do is to give nachas to make hashem feel great about us at the party it's a chance to express appreciation etc right so remember beware there are two guests the yatahara will be there and hashem will be there and let's see we need to see what is the unwanted guest going to do to our hanukkah parties if we're not careful and then how do we get around it that's what we're going to see right now okay here we go the these are i i identify these as the three main activities i'm sure you could add more eating latkes and sufganiyot right depending where you live or both okay singing hanukkah songs right and thirdly attending the party it's a hanukkah party now by the way the unwanted guest the azahara wants you to have a party on hanukkah hashem wants to have a hanukkah party so let's see let's see what we're up against eating latkes and soup ghanaia here's the take home reflect don't just gobble you hear i repeat reflect don't just gobble because what is the atahara gonna do he's gonna i mean it's sweet it's sugary he's gonna draw us in and that's always mitzvahs that involve pleasure there's always a problem of self-focus and you forget what you're doing it for remember because we want to immortalize this party who else on earth can immortalize a party that's unbelievable but if we gobble without reflecting it's not going to happen so there's another mitzvah that you should have in mind besides thanking hashem as we just discussed the other mitzvah is feeling love of hashem the rambam says and the safer uranium brings that one of the ways to feel love is to reflect on hashem's wondrous treatment of us and the miracles it's a mitzvah of avas hashem and avas hashem is so important how do i know it is by the number of times we are commanded to love hashem in the torah nine times you hear this now that reflects that it's important to hashem but it also you should just know we talked about mitzvahs um create a sanctity in your being and they bring out light and good to the world hashem when you do a mitzvah that is commanded nine times it's as if you're doing times nine right so when we reach our parties we want to think i'm fulfilling the mitzvah of loving hashem by utilizing the oil in the food to remind you of the miracle of the oil of the milk to remind you of how uh yahood it just triggered the military defeat right think i love you hashem for these things and i thank you and they're both mitzvahs okay and feel gratitude good next singing what's the problem with seeing well i here's my again my take home is the words are where the gold is we get caught up in the tombs you know and by the way this goes back to greece i remember myself you can sing songs with complete non-attention to the words and sometimes that's better depending on the songs but still how can that happen it goes all the way back to the greeks you've heard the expression art for art's sake right so that's what the greeks did uh we do art for hashem's sake right for making the world a better place but when you take god out of the picture it's just our first things who cares i just enjoy the tune right but there is so much chance to perfect the the characteristic as we said to perfect the media of gratitude to feel and express gratitude if we just pay attention to the words and again sing them feeling hashem i love you i love you for what you did that's the mitzvah and and reflect the words will speak for themselves the famous songs are hallel which is to illum or alanisim finally what's your mindset about the party oh tonight i have a hanukkah party with some friends oh tonight our uh our shule is making a hanukkah party how about this i have a more profound way to look at it and it and it's true okay uh i lived in the old city let me just tell you this i lived in the old city and i saw a sign on hanukkah now now the if you look at the hanuk the dreidel right it says uh nun gimmel uh hey shin uh right nace guddal hayasham there was a great miracle there in the rova in the old city it said naiso there was an incredible miracle here meaning for those of you who are in israel where was it where did they break in it was right it's not so far from here but i what i want you to do is is what are we so you imagine firstly imagine they they when they got the wall of the koto back you the ecstasy right so imagine that they didn't just get the kotel they went in onto the holy uh temple et cetera they rebuilt the base of magnus but here they bro it they got into the basement megawatch they got to clean it up they got to sanctify it they got to bring it back to its glory and then what happens they they see the names of the cannon but here's the point if you have in mind that the celebrations of hanukkah are about the rededication of the temple you hear that the temple was in disarray it was tummy impure and then it was brought back to life and we could bring we could serve hashem again have that in mind that's your intention have in mind that i'm going to celebrate the rededication of the temple and when you do that it's a whole different party it's not a party on hanukkah it's a hanukkah party and i wish that for everyone [Music] is