Leading a Mindful and Meaningful Jewish Life - Rabbi Efrem Goldberg

good morning I want to thank our bike Olinsky for his kind introduction and for this wonderful opportunity the beautiful weekend that we've had out here on the west coast here in LA although I do have to tell you that I am looking forward to going back to Florida to fill out a little bit to warm up I don't think we anticipated now don't apologize you're no more in control of the weather than we are in Florida during hurricane season so no apology necessary there's a story of a Jewish woman who schleps to the Himalayas in search of a famous guru you know this one she travels by plane train and rickshaw to reach a Buddhist monastery in Nepal and when she gets there Schmidt Singh exhausted having exerted great effort and spending a lot of money in old Lama and a maroon and saffron robe opens the door and the woman promptly requests a meeting with the Guru so the Lama explains it's impossible the Guru it's time is so valuable he's famous he's lost in meditation and contemplation he's in silent retreat he's meditating on a mountaintop it's impossible but she's not willing to take no for an answer she insists she absolutely must go see the Guru and finally the Lama acquiescence but gives her the following rules number one the meeting must be brief number two she has to bow when she meets and greets the Guru and number three and most importantly she cannot say more than eight words his time is so valuable he's so lost in meditation all she has are eight words and the woman agrees desperate to meet him she agrees so she hires a Sherpa and a yak and she sets off on the grueling trek to make it to the top of the mountain where this guru is meditating and with hardly an ounce of energy left her spiritual search brings her to the opening of a cave high on top of a mountain and keeping within the eighth word allotment that she has been given she addresses the Guru she takes a deep breath she sticks her head into the opening of the cave she boughs and having carefully measured her eighth word she simply says Sheldon it's your mother enough already come home now you all know this old Jewish joke and the reason I open with it today is because we're living at a time in which mistakenly we think that the concepts of mindfulness consciousness presence intentionality we mistakenly think that these are new-age newfangled ideas that introduced us and brought to us by Eastern religions by Buddhism and we could not be more wrong these are not ideas that are introduced or developed by modern psychology they are what our sacred Torah are all about they are what our system and platform of halacha are meant to generate and to promote within us we we are the originators of lives of meaningfulness and mindfulness of consciousness and intention our sacred Torah sources and texts are replete with these ideas and these messages and these lessons and these values not to exclude or to reject the modern formulation or vocabulary which has certainly brought it even greater to our attention and has elevated our practice of it but make no mistake these do not belong to the realm of the new but they are part of our sacred sacred tradition and that's what I want to spend our time this morning sharing with you is that leading a mindful night life a meaningful life a conscious life an intentional life they're not nice ideas it's not simply something that in today's day and age one should introduce and I'm not going to share with you all the research of which there's an endless amount about the benefits of a mindful life of being present in what we're doing of not being fragmented and scattered and distracted and divided but actually being immersed in whatever we're doing the benefits on our physical health a respiratory system or cardiac system literally benefits to our longevity in our health the benefits to our psychological emotional spiritual health and the impact that has on helping us not with clinically diagnosed anxiety depression the like but just the regular neuroses that most of us go through the benefits are not debatable and I don't want to spend our time on it but I want to show with you and tres with you through our tradition I didn't make copies I spared the oh you it's an ink and paper but I have about 44 pages of mokoros on this subject and I'm happy to email them to anyone who would like to see them or you can find them on my website posix says impartial see some item is differences of our system Muslim Torah tells us Moshe very succinctly is communicating the mandate mission to observe tauros martim keep this bris this is our covenant this is our commitment this is our promise to a Shem they are seasonless um they're not just in theory they're not abstract we have to put them into practice you have to execute them and why Moshe gives us the reason the tone is not shy it doesn't hesitate to share with us why we are observing Torah and mitzvot says the Torah lamont s kilo is Khoa shirt as soon which translates normally as you shall observe the words of the Covenant you should perform them Lamont s kilo so that you will succeed in all that you do this plastic which seems so benign and is often neglected at the end of precious cassava is actually the mission statement of why we do what we do our lives are so deeply regulated the details in minutia from when we wake up in the morning the first words of our mouth and how we wash our hands and what order we put on our shoes so the moment we fall asleep at night the last words out of our mouth Sh'ma and I'm a pill and how to sleep and so on and everything in between is so highly regulated and legislated exactly what to do how to get dressed and how to eat and what to look at and where to go and how to conduct ourselves in business interpersonal reactions and with God and how to interact with our diet and our food I didn't every aspect of our lives and the tourists telling us why Lamont ste Lou is Cola share toss soon Lamont a skillet Ibanez ro translate Starsky Lewis Kimmo tactfully ho so that you will succeed in all you do Torah and mitzvot are their halakhah is a framework to empower us to lead a successful life to be successful and to lead a successful life but how do you measure success what does that mean what does that look like his success health and wellness is success having a lot of things is success getting into an Ivy League school success living in the largest home is success knowing the most success finding the greatest happiness and pleasure what is tactical what does success mean so the targa Mira Xiaomi translates that word Lamont oscul differently it says tasks Alou ditches bounine Alaska madam is a Burin guard the words of torah observe mitzvahs and halakha why it is bounine 'm what is dis Bonin and his Bonin us it means so you will be contemplative so that you will contemplate so that you will be mindful so that you'll be conscious and aware and awake and immersed in everything you do for the tarragon LeMond tsuki who doesn't mean you'll be successful and if it does it's translating what is success you know what success is being present in everything you do enjoying every moment savoring every opportunity taking extracting drawing out from every act of eating and drinking and conversation and time from every sunset from every moment with a child a grandchild it is taking everything out of that experience it's being fully present and immersed in it this is bone Alaska mother sovereign a life of his bonus of contemplation of mindfulness a conscious life of awareness of presence see most of us are living lives that are exactly the opposite we're on autopilot we're creatures of habit and custom of tradition and of routine we are pre-programmed several years ago we lived in one home in bulk and we moved to a house closer to the shools goes back many years and I remember it was a good two weeks after we had moved and I found myself in the driveway of my old house I don't remember if I was coming home from shul or from an event but I was on the phone of course and I found myself parked in the driveway of my old house belonging to someone else and I was startled by just how embarrassed and humiliated and ashamed I felt of how unpleasant I was in the act of driving that literally the steering wheel and pedals just as a creature of habit and routine brought me back I didn't remember one moment of the drive one turn I made or one red light i sat at or how much I accelerated probably too much or if I break too quickly because we are lives on autopilot and that metaphor of finding ourselves in the wrong driveway just out of habit is also true in so many other areas how many times do we find the sitter is closed we finished opening and we don't remember saying one word how often do we find ourselves in the bottom of a bag of potato chips late at night and we don't remember actively choosing to eat even one chip or we said we'll just have one and we find ourselves on the bottom of the bag we're mindlessly and frantically going through life in unprecedented pace and speed and were absent present for most or much of the time sociologists psychologists coined that phrase several years ago absent present absent present was coined much earlier by the Ramban in a letter by the baal shem tov made it famous who said we are wherever our thoughts are absent present means your body may be one place but if your mind and your thoughts are elsewhere that's where you truly are walking to shul and you see people who are absent present who might be able to check off that they dive in chakras minho or Maariv but if they were playing on their phone or their mind was wandering they were never really there walk into a park and see parents pushing a child or grandparents a grandchild on a swing but looking at their phone distracted by their text messages checking out the latest score or news and their body may say and may register they were in the park they may feel good that they spent time with children or grandchildren absent present go to a restaurant and see a couple who were supposedly experiencing a date night and quality time together but each under the table or on top of it and that's absent presence and so much of our lives are filled with absent presence we are mindlessly and carelessly putting food into our mouths which is why there's an obesity epidemic in this country we allow the passage of time thoughtlessly we're not mindful and president all that we're doing we are asleep even while we are awake and being a creature of habit and routine leaves us with a feeling as if we can't change or grow that we're stagnant or stuck that our car is always going to take us to that old driveway as if we lack the autonomy to change directions or trajectory or to go a different path when we do that helplessness and hopelessness of the result of mindlessness but if we can learn which is what I want to speak to you about the attribute in the trait how to be present in all that we're doing then we can drive ourselves wherever we want to go and we don't have to feel like we're passengers in someone else's car Harvard professors Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert published a study in the journal Science what they found is mind-boggling 46.9% of waking hours people are thinking about something else other than what they are doing nearly 50% of the time half of the time that we are awake half the time that we're awake maybe some of you are guilty of this right now half the time that we are awake we are thinking about something else other than what we're doing now okay if you're thinking about something else while you're brushing your teeth the stakes are on high now dentists might argue the opposite that we'd all have much better dental health if we actually were present while we were caring for our dental hygiene but the stakes are not enormous lehigh but while we're at work or while we're working on our relationships with the rabona with others 150 percent of the time were absent present instead of fully present think of what we're missing out on the opportunities and the joy and the pleasure and the Baraka and the meaning so since the Taliban Targa Mira Shami lamont has school all of this every regulated part of our life from what comes in our mouth and goes out of our mouths and what we see and what we do and we're go and how we behave and how we interact all of halacha the whole platform of Torah and mitzvot are Lamont askew Lamont is Bona nun so that we can have contemplative lives the halacha says when you wake up in the morning don't mindlessly put on your shoes you put the left one then you put the right one then the left when you tie the left one then the right one why so there's cabbalistic reason to me this identity this Iraq I'm in the preference for the left the preference of the right it's all important I'm not older wise enough to be able to tell you why but I'll tell you what I get out of it when I get out of it is that instead of randomly putting on your shoes begin your day with an intentional act from the tone of telling us how to wash our hands the modani that comes off of our lips even before and how do we what would be it like do you put on first how do you get dressed it's included in shows on our Hawaii to say nothing about your life should be random or mindless or thoughtless be present with everything that we do Kosh was designed to make his thoughtful of what goes in our mouth time-bound mitzvahs make us conscious of time the rules of lush and Aramaic is cognizant of what we say modesty makes us think before we get dressed business as an ethics demand that we examine every decision that we make to see whether it conforms with our moral ideals and values LeMond tasky lue Lamont Astley ho Lamont is Bonin on the formula is simple you want a successful life you want a productive and meaningful a healthy physical and emotional and spiritual life Lamont is Bonin then stop being a zombie mindlessly drifting through life and become a thoughtful and mindful and present person it's more complicated and challenging than it seems it's very complicated technology brings enormous blessing I embrace technology and try to harness all the good in it I'm not here to tell you the technology is by definition or inherently evil or bad I love it I use it but we have to use it with our eyes wide open we have to use it judiciously and mindfully and we have to understand that it is the biggest impediment to being fully present it causes us to be absent present and it's challenging us not to forfeit our lives but to be able to embrace and to extract the best of everything we're not the first to struggle with this one of my favorite insights it's quoted in many different people's names is that when a sham invites motion on top of the mountain to give him the Torah and he says la illaha heart of the Haitian climbed the mountain the Haitian and be there a she's bothered by the redundancy as are others if al a Alya ara if you're climbing the mountain why does Hashem have to say there shall be there if you're on top of the mountain obviously you're on top of the mountain where else would you be isn't it redundant to say the haitian so many have the suggestion the insight what God was telling Moshe is very simple Moshe says I know how busy you are I know that there's two to three million people at the base of the mountain I know how many text messages are waiting and I know Facebook message and direct messages on Twitter and Instagram I know how many phone calls you have to return and FaceTime I understand how many people want a piece of your time I understand how much you have to do but when you climb on top of this mountain when you're supposed to be with me la la ahora climb on top of the mountain and hey yay Chum when you're supposed to be with me be there be present those two to three million people they'll be waiting for you when you climb down from the mountain when we're done with our interaction and our rendezvous in our time you'll be able to turn to all of their needs but while you're with me hey yay Chum and that is the epidemic that is the plague that is the challenge of our generation of the yay Chum to be there to be present in all and everything we're doing I spoke about this yesterday and I dashed over in the shul and I won't repeat it now but Yaakov Aveeno has his major breakthrough wrestling with the angel why because of ieveis a lack of how live adel friday night i spoke about the hiss Cooney's interpretation that we don't need from the get on our show to commemorate he was livid oh he was abandoned and neglected by his eleven sons and by everyone else he went back to get the pocket katana by himself Sakuni was bothered Rachid responder and man they all understand why don't we to get on our show because we're commemorating Yaakov wrestled any triumph but the cocoon is bothered and so should you be that's not the Jewish everyone knows the old Jewish definition of a holiday they tried to kill us we won let's so with the get on Asha he tried to kill us we won let's not eat so this is Guney it makes no sense so rather we don't eat from the ghetto Russian not to commemorate Yaakov one he says to commemorate the Yakka was abandoned he was left alone he was neglected and a Jew never does that to a fellow Jew and that's why we don't even get a Russia to remember our responsibility to be there for one another in the Zohar they get on Russia every organ and limb of the body corresponds with a different day on the calendar and get a national corresponds with Tish above not for now that was Friday night but Ravis morning I spoke about in the positive Yaakov is a breakthrough he wrestles with his alter ego he struggles with that voice of self-sabotage and he has a breakthrough and what is the circumstance that enables and allows and promotes him to be able to have that breakthrough he is livid oh he didn't only leave his children behind he left his cell phone behind he left his smartphone behind and only when he was by himself livid Oh only when he was present experiencing time we spoke about being comfortable in our own skin the ability to be alone the incredible study that showed that people prefer 67% of men 26% of women in a room by themselves where the only thing to do is to give yourself a shock an electric shock chose to shock themselves rather than be alone and lost in their own thoughts that's how painful it is for us to be alone and if you doubt it at a red light look over and see everyone grab their phone and in an elevator watch everyone grab their phone because the notion of spending one moment by ourselves lost in her own thoughts is on Bera bleep painful and yet it's where real contemplation and thoughtfulness it's where creativity it's where breakthrough occur live vada our ability to be alone and I shared ensure when I shared again with you this morning today I think is day 42 or 43 I have a habit tracker on my phone where I'm trying to follow it that I made a commitment and I realized the eye and I confess to you a room full of strangers but I live on the east coast so it's okay I will see you again so soon that I struggle from this plague and that I couldn't even make it through a dominating without feeling I got a check what's going on in my phone I'd feel a buzz an alert a vibration buzz a beep and say well who someone must need me maybe someone died maybe it's a Schuyler from the mikvah maybe my wife that what some emergency I can't disconnect even for the period of time of Dominic so I made a commitment and I made it to others we have a whatsapp group and check in to reinforce one another that I'd put my phone on airplane mode before every Fila if not leave it in my office or in the car to not walk into a conversation with God and fail to variation to be there that was my promise and pledge to Hashem on Monday I think 42 and hopefully it will only continue and I challenge and encourage you to join to turn your phone you know many people don't know this you're allowed to put your phone on airplane mode even while you're on the ground I don't know if you knew that it works you're allowed to silence not enough because you feel it vibrate or buzz because you still in the back in the recesses your mind are curious and you want to check but if you turn it off or put it on airplane mode or leave it behind then you know nothing new is coming in there's no temptation to even look vanyusha now the truth is it's a promise and pledge I'm trying to fulfill to Hashem but it's a promise implants I should make to my wife and to my have rusev and to every person when I begin every meeting we should begin every meeting by the ritual of showing one another I'm putting my phone on airplane mode there yeah um I'm with you there are no distractions I'm not fragmented I'm not diverted I'm not distracted I am here and only here I am to regain that capacity to mindfully be present with whatever we're doing to walk into the park with a child and grandchild the phones on airplane mode walk into minyan walk into dinner with a spouse for date night walk into a meeting or conversation the hey um we're climbing the mountain la ilaha hara were climbing the mountains but we're failing the relationships because we're not fully there we are wherever our mind is and when our mind is stuck in the past either nostalgic for what was or with regret for what could have been or our mind is lost in the future filled with anxiety and worry of what will be then we are forfeiting the only dimension we actually live in and the only dimension we live in is the here and now is the present that's the only one we can control as I said I'm happy to share with you many many many modern McComas on the subject with Mona Rosh Hashanah in the name of Rebbe Itzhak is an outstanding one the Gemara says aimed on other novelty massive shallow so sure do you know that on Rosh Hashanah Yom Kippur ah Sarah seemed a true for the period of judgement and really it's true every single day of the entire the entire year we are not ever judged for our past it's so counterintuitive and we've never thought of it in this way but we are not judged for the past what do you mean I'm not judge for the past what else is there if not what I did in the past the Gemara says judgment only comes not about the past because it can't change the past and you're not judged for the future because it hasn't yet arrived the only dimension we live in the only dimension we can control and therefore the only dimension for which we are accountable is the present in done all other Malathi massive shallow shows oh so sure now the past is significant the way the past informs my present if I say all remember when we used to do that and that was amazing and I used to be like that and if I still hold honest algin to my mistakes of the past then they are compromising me in my present but it is only my present that I'm responsible for I can't change the past and I'm not yet up to the future all we have is the present it's a good morning condition and off mem Testament days the camera makes him an outstanding statement a man stands under a hop-on he turns to and he says her Atma kadesha Slee a Menasha and it's either Gummer he says behold i'm married to you on condition that hi I'm at Sadiq Gummer I am the most righteous person in the world and the masado condition sees the cousin on his way to the hope of coming out of McDonald's and not like needed a diet coke or the bathroom munch and chowing down on a cheeseburger Masada condition picked up the Husson from jail where he was convicted of several crimes on his way to the Copa and the hustling says I am the Kadesh Isley behold were married I'm a machinist I'm bigger I'm not Sadiq is the conditional phallus at a good wedding is the condition fulfilled mara says yes absolutely how could that be from our session here Herbert Hoover because somebody just got out of jail or so what he was finishing the cheeseburger it was still stuck in his beard as he stood under the chuppah scheme' hierba true ver that past is irrelevant it's insignificant it's inconsequential if in the moment of in the present he has determined be someone else the present is what we care about the present is what matters the present is all that there is the past matters in the way that it informs our present and the future matters in how it informs our present but the only dimension we live in is the present and so many of us are so busy forfeiting it we're losing out on it older people are lost in the past and younger people are lost in their future and it's as if nobody is living in the present nobody is there in the only place that matters the Rambam in the second patrick of turkey of uh submission of your gimballed says rohit esta no load the attribute the quality the trait of being raw ASI NOLA which we usually translate as the capacity the Roisin oullette is to understand the consequence and the ramification of my deed the Rambam writes there no Lord si s Rojas I know that it doesn't say Roya s ha acid see the future the Rama minutes commentary points out it says Roya s ha no loud what is the word no Lud why does it say ro s and no loud not ro s also draws it means look to the future understand that what you're about to do now it's gonna have ramifications and consequences but it's not what the Mishnah means for the round or what it means is ro s ha no Lud look at what you're doing right now in the present to see what will be no Lud what will be born from it for the Rambam Roisin ola is not being distracted from the present to look to the future it is living the present in high definition it's living the present on steroids it's living the present where every decision choice behavior thought conversation of the present is with an eye on what is going to be no louder what will be born from it the impact it will make we all know the great poem yesterday's history tomorrow's a mystery today is a gift from above and that's why it's called the present it's the only dimension we have dr. Jon kabat-zinn is the modern guru of mindfulness and he has a quote now is always the right time because it's the only time now is always the right time because in fact it's the only time and you have to understand that the consequence of abandoning the present a forfeiting the here and now of not being variation but being absent present can be catastrophic catastrophic to the relationships that we have and that we supposedly cherish but if we don't give the time and attention and we're not really there can easily dissolve catastrophic to the judgment and the decisions that we have to make throughout the day I mean like not noticing if you're not present while you're walking and you're looking down at your phone and the potential danger that you're having when we hear is this an earthquake that's just a labor the group next door okay I've never had an earthquake I'm kind of curious not that I'm looking for one but I want to be present to fully present and sharing these thoughts with you and that would be a distraction but we think of the name Christopher Reeve we always think of Superman superhuman we picture a strong and handsome man incredibly brave who performed his own stunts and yet Christopher Reeve died disabled severely limited impaired a quadriplegic and he once described the accident that left him that way he was riding a horse in an equestrian race and the horse fell on top of him effectively changing his life forever he said that before that particular race he knew that there was one hurdle which was very very difficult one hurdle which was hard to clear hard to jump but the accident that changed his life forever didn't happen on that hurdle it happened on the hurdle just before that one and Christopher Reeve described he explained that he was so fixated so concerned so lost thinking about the hurdle that would be difficult that he took his mind off the one before and he pled with us he said Superman was brought down he lost the use of his body because he was thinking about the future and he abandoned the present not living in the present can cost us the use of our body and the same kryptonite that brought down Superman to compromise and to deplete our lives of the meaning and joy that we deserve and that we are capable of the gimmick like Iguodala tells us Yahoo ye shall Adam ala Mala Mala Mala Mala Mala hor for persons walls on four things what is above what is below what is before and what is after it would have been better that they weren't born a person whose only concern is what was and what will be loses what is and if you're not living in the present and you're not focused on what is then you might as well not be here at all so how do we grow in our sense of mindfulness well part of it is technology as we said it is intentionally and mindfully and consciously choosing to disconnect it used to be the default was you were not connected unless you made the choice to connect today the choice the default is that you're connected unless you choose to actively and proactively and consciously disconnect and that's the first practical take away a piece of advice like I shared with you the challenge that I gave myself and some friends I offer to you is the most important moments of your day and of your life that you claim you want to be fully present that you want to laiá laiá Hara you want to climb that mountain to be with your children your spouse to be with the rabona Shalom and Fela to be with that learning of the sacred text that's open in front of you to be variation to have a ritual where you disconnect from that which is around you so that you can connect to that which is in front of you let me see Lucia Sharma has an entire Parekh Missy larom is a really a twelve-step the original 12-step program to schliemann's to perfection from a pure husband Yair and the step of z heroes that precedes Cerises this rhesus is a step of alacrity and zeal and enthusiasm the rhesus is how to wake up like a lion and greet your day how to have goals and make resolutions and chart plans to achieve them personally professionally religiously spiritually but before you can embark on a life of xeresa says the RAM cow you have to first grow in your zoo heroes what is the heroes the hero says that I'm pal is to actually be present in everything you do to me thoughtful again this is such a foreign idea for us could you imagine thinking about everything you say before you say it how much damage could be avoided how much hurt if we actually thought before we said not afterwards oh boy that probably wasn't the right thing to say how many deals could be done how much success could be met how many relationships would still exist or would be thriving the hiris is to be thoughtful before I speak to be thoughtful where I go to be thoughtful in the choice I make its thoughtfulness its intention long before modern mindfulness there I'm cow and repent cause vineyard were telling us master Zhi hero's caution care because if you unleash unbridled Cerises if you simply with a reckless abandon live a life of enthusiasm and alacrity you will trample all kinds of people and things along the way and so before you can unleash that torrent of Jesus a person has to grow into the heroes how can I improve on thinking before I speak how can I improve I'm thinking before I do and choices I make and understand their background their context the ramification their consequence to live with the romm mom says to be Rowan not as acid the ear OS ha Nolan reversal you saw her that's the author of Navarre Duke has a quote says the power of the eighth Sahara the power of the tsaatan lies in rushing a person to carry out an action right away before he or she stops to consider and wonder what he's doing the deed is done and there he stands deliberating after the fact how much our lives are filled with regret immediately after the fact the empty bag of potato chips that we mentioned earlier again this is just autobiographical thank you for allowing me to share my biggest challenges you were gonna start with one chip and there you are the bottom of an empty bag you were going to connect I was going to be the tree little changed your life and there you are closing the sitter you don't remember saying one word you're finishing the time that you allowed it in your limited schedule with people you love and you never got to the conversations you meant you never filth you never felt that intimacy that affectionate connection after the fact the entire methodology and the alternative erotic has taken this also from how and the scenes asurim develops the idea that the methodology of the eight Sahara is exactly what the Harvard researchers found it's working the eight Sahara is gratified and satisfied that 50% of the time of our lives we are thinking about something other than what we're doing that is an enormous victory for the eighth Sahara and the way to combat it is to return and to be fully present not to zone out or tune out but the zone in and TuneIn variation to make a conscious decision to be fully present where and what we're doing now we get 24 hours a week where we get to practice this we are one of the last vestiges on earth we will soon be studied by sociologists I really believe in our lifetime we Orthodox Jews shomer Shabbos Jews will be studied in the world because we will be among the rarity in the world of people who are able to disconnect not for 10 minutes or an hour but for an entire day think about the world we're living in how more rare and rare and unique that will become a more and more rare that will become why do we have Shabbos Shabbos is the rabona schlimm saying la ilaha Hara variation be with me and be with the people around you sit at a Shabbos table and there's nothing buzzing or beeping or vibrating or nothing that's distracting you are calling you to have to go elsewhere or that's going to now change your mindset because you've learned of something new the ability to rest physically to achieve a spiritual quiet and arrest to really be present in what we're doing to be a shomer Shabbos in the truest sense of the world word of crying Friedlander the mushki acompaña vich and thus if sahayam has a volume enormous part of one of the volumes of sahayam is on Manuka sign nephesh Manuka senna fish which essentially essentially is mindfulness it's being present in what we're doing and he quotes there Gemara that says Tommy the ha ha amar but between the Shabbos the whole week long the righteous are living with Shabbos the whole week long what does it mean the righteous are living with Shabbos the whole week long it means that the serenity and tranquility the sense of consciousness and presence that we achieve we try to achieve we're lucky to achieve in Shabbos the righteous are able to turn to the whole week long if you really have an audience ever with a righteous person a holy man or woman one of the things that you notice in that interaction is they were fully there with you they may have much more on their plate than you'll ever have they have more things to do and more people that rely on them and yet they have the ability when they're with you you are all that is all that exists in the entire world tami Takahama and the righteous arbequina Shabbos the entire week long and we too have that ability I only noticed these words this past Friday night we refer to in look how though the Shabbos has Makaha Braja it is the source of blessing in our lives to take the model in the experience of Shabbos to re-energize and charge our batteries to remember what it's like to disconnect and connect and to take that experience with us into the rest of the week another area that we fail in our mindfulness that's having terrible health consequences is our failure to breathe is the shallow breathing in our lives the word neshama for soul is the same word as mishima for breath and that's not a coincidence because how did we first get our breath how do we first get on a shaman rather via Pacquiao pop knishmas hi I'm the rabona shel olam breathed his a piece of himself he breathed life into us everything else in creation in the world came about B asaram Amaro's Navarra olam God spoke and it created there's only one thing that he didn't speak to create but he created with his own breath he created by inhaling kaviraja within himself and breathing into us the nephrons of heinrich heine Lesnar describes it the muscle and Cibola of a glassblower my family and I traveled this past summer and we saw a glassblower and I thought of that that nefesh ah hi I'm how the glassblower doesn't take a superficial breath from the larynx of the voice box but has to inhale deep from within the diaphragm and inserts that in order to make the glass expand and the rebuttal and that's how kabbalah wants us to understand he took a deep breath within himself he breathed it into us you know the difference is enormous if you've ever tried to blow up a balloon for your kid's birthday party you probably needed to take a nap after two balloons it's exhausting when you take the deep breath when you inhale from deep within your side yourself when you take that breath that's a part of who you are it comes from the deepest place of yourself the rebuttal and breathe his self everything else I saw Basha I'm a viola everything else he created by speaking the only thing created by breathing was us we are telling Milo Kim we walk around with a piece of the rabona Shalom in us you know we forget about it because we're so busy by the goof our body distracts us from the neshamah this competition this conflict the yak of Anissa were fighting about the nefesh bhajami and the halacha lokam imam Amish the animal instinct and animal impulse in us that says eat and drink and pursue pleasure accumulating amass material things and the neshamah that says you're capable of so much more be disciplined and be regulated and reach and strive for much much higher that eternal battle that we all go through every moment of every day how do we win the eighth Sahara wins by trying to cause us to forget that we have in the Shama and to think that we are a goof you see this colloquially people will use the expression you know I'm I have a body I am a body but I also have a neshama well it's exactly the opposite you are a neshama and you have a body or neshama is wearing the body of not gonna breslav described that the body is like the suit I have to wear a suit professionally my kids know when I go on vacation when the tie comes off and at the end of the summer the first time they see me put a tie back on they say is Ike isn't Amma it was nice knowing you will see you next summer I wear a suit a suit is like wearing a straitjacket the entire day I'm so envious of my doctor friends and colleagues who wear scrubs all day but they complain the problem with wearing scrubs is when you go home there's nothing more comfortable to change into so if you wear a suit all day it's like wearing a straightjacket you can't wait to take it off and to just dress down and relax Rebbe Nachman said his soul can't wait for the next world will it be able to disrobe the body that's holding him back and to be comfortable it's not that we are a body and we have a soul we are a soul and we have a body but our body were so lost in our body in our definition with our body and indulging our body and pursuing the pleasures of the body that we sometimes neglect and forget that we have a soul we're mindless the eighth Sahara is working 50% at a time even when we're doing the activities that nourish our soul the bigger home that we learned about this morning so beautifully the Tila Talmud Torah even when we're doing the activities that nourish our soul we forget because we're so indulging the body how do we remember we have a soul the answer is the etymology of the word itself the way to make contact with the neshamah is through Nasima it's by doing deep breathing our breathing is so shallow our respiratory systems are not functioning the way they're supposed to we're not nearly getting in the oxygen we are meant to get and one of the reasons is today because we're always looking down at a device and so we're not able to open up our airways to breathe the way we're meant to and when we're not breathing when we don't have an Ashima then we're not in contact with our neshama disconnect and connect with your neshama be mindful and present in everything that we are doing take time every day to regulate your breathing to do deep breathing to be fully present in what we do you know life can be either a thermometer or a thermostat what's the difference between a thermometer and a thermostat a thermometer tells you the temperature but a thermostat controls it so most of us live our lives like we're a thermometer I could tell you when I'm impatient or what I'm anger when I'm frantic when I'm willing to overwhelmed when I'm anxious when I'm worried when I'm running we can we forfeit our lives and we think we're just a thermometer who can measure the temperature but we are a thermostat we can regulate it and we can control it and we do it through our Nasima we do it through the breathing that we do that is what our lives are meant to be this is not a new problem technology as exacerbated compounded it but it's not new the Hovis all of us all right remain Ibaka a pimp a CUDA writes in asked of us all of us at Fela special he writes in Sharabi Tejon a special prayer against what he calls peace or her nephesh the fragmentation of the soul being diverted in so many different directions simultaneously in the failure to the challenge the ability to concentrate we're starting Chanukah soon nilachal the Gemara says in Chaves Kavala that one can light the Chanukah candles I'll just leave you with a dryer on Hanukkah is that your tickler a gum and I shook you have until people are no longer walking out in the street at your tickler a gum in a shock you have until people are no longer walking outside in the street so the simple understanding is that defines the halacha the whole goal of Chanukah candles pursue mania to publicize the miracle if nobody's outside to see your candles you haven't publicized anything so that is the end time of when you collide candles and there's literature and a lot of literature today has that end time changed with artificial lighting and the fact that people are out on the street much longer but thus far Sam is so beautifully quotes his grandfather is a to the kedusha Aaron who offers a homological interpretation that this is not the shear the measurement of the last time you collect Hanukkah candles but rather it's giving us a different insight into the essence of the holiday of Hanukkah says the halacha fiduciary Marchetta clergyman a shirk means a CH a tickler hair Gil Meena shook it doesn't mean until the leg stop walking in the public thoroughfare it means that we light the candles to illuminate what's right before our eyes to break out of the hair Gail the habits that we formed in our lives the habit that 50% of the time we're thinking about something other than what we're doing for eight days we light candles and we illuminate to see what's right under our nose and what's right before our eyes to recognize the brothel that we are neglecting because we're mindlessly ignoring it ethically not regular a tickler hair Gelman Ashok eight days of trying to purge habit eight days of breaking routine eight days of mindfulness intention consciousness eight days of being present in all that we're doing I'm at a time I'm getting the hook from her by kolinsky but I'll end by telling you that if we had more time I'm tempted to ignore him cuz it's my last presentation but I'm not going to but I know there's more I know there's more presentations to come so I'm really ending feel free to work out but I'm really I really am ending if I had more time I would share with you and again if you want the source sheets I'm happy to send them to you that every area of halacha I can show you Torah sources that explain the reason behind those helices is to instill mindfulness consciousness presence and all that we do whether it's the mayor breakfast before Yom whether the fact that we're supposed to make 100 brushes a day said a hundred times a day were mindful with what we're doing and checked me and what with were doing Laura hi mu says the hate of other Mauritian when he ate from a sad-ass it was mindless eating and it set us off on the wrong way to begin with to have mindless eating mindfulness and Mitzvahs mindfulness in every single area my friend dr. Benji Epstein wrote a beautiful beautiful book that came out this year on mindfulness and Judaism also replete with inspiration and magnificent and magnificent sources the noted French naturalist John Henry Farber studied caterpillars and he said the following are becoming ski I'm really ending with this he noticed that they have a special instinct to follow and lockstep the caterpillar directly in front of them so he tested his observation with the following experiment he took a flower pot and he placed the number of caterpillars in single-file around the circumference of the rim of the flower pot and each caterpillars head touched the Calla pillar in front of it and then he placed the caterpillars favorite food in the middle of the circle in the middle of the pot and what he found was that every caterpillar followed the one ahead of it thinking it was heading home to get food and they kept moving in circles first for hours and they moved in circles literally for dates and after a few days of mindless motion don't tell this to PETA but the caterpillar started to drop dead from exhaustion and starvation the food was right in front of him the food was in the middle of the flower pot but they were mindlessly in motion just following the one in front of them and therefore one by they drop dead of exhaustion and starvation and he noted that all they had to do to avoid certain death was to stop moving was to disconnect from the motion that was carrying them the momentum that was carrying them and the food was right there the processionary caterpillars just kept moving mindlessly and brought about their own demise unlike caterpillars we have the ability to change direction to pursue what we need but like caterpillars we often confuse motion and movement with meaning and activity and we continue mindlessly neglecting what's right in front of us and so my message to you this morning is to slow down and save her life save her a magnificent sunset we on the East Coast in Florida and Boca we have a magnificent sunrise so many years ago we realized that we said you know we got to take advantage of that we now have every Friday at Arab Shabbos move or come we have a Sun rising minyan at the beach there's a gazebo or look in the ocean and we meet and we remind ourselves once a month that with an AIT's a hammer there it is the Sun rises is exactly what it's supposed to it's magnificent you can organize once a month am in communion mire of minyan to watch the sunset to save her to save her those moments save her the time with your family members save her a car I'd save her a book save her a cup of coffee save her a walk save her life by disconnecting not like processionary caterpillar is bringing about our own demise but rather Lamont askew Lamont adds lethal amount to this bone in him to be present in all that we do and by being present to be able to find the success that we all crave thank you very much [Applause]